Chapter IX: In a Home

It is human character or developed humanity ... that conducts us to our notion of the Character Divine... In proportion as the mysteries of man's goodness unfold themselves to us, in that proportion do we obtain an insight into God's.

_Essay on Blanco White_. J. D. MOZLEY.

But the love slid into my soul like light.
_Olrig Grange_. WALTER C. SMITH.

Donovan looked up with a smile of welcome as Mrs. Tremain came into the room. He had been in too much pain to notice her much when she had visited him earlier in the morning, but now he was comparatively at ease, and was lying in listless quiet with Waif on the bed beside him licking his hand.

Mrs. Tremain was not fond of dogs; she was even a little afraid of them, and she had a very natural feminine dislike to seeing a fox terrier lying on a clean counterpane. Donovan divined this at once.

"He oughtn't to be up here, I know," he began, deprecatingly, "but I can't keep him down, poor fellow! he's always miserable when I'm ill, and the worst of it is he won't obey orders, but thinks it his turn to be master."

"Poor dog!" said Mrs. Tremain, softening towards the offender and venturing to pat him. "He does seem very unhappy about you; it's really wonderful the amount of expression which a dog can put into his face."

"Yes, Waif and I can talk together quite easily; I don't know what I should have done without him, specially when I was laid up; he was often the only nurse I had."

Then a question of Mrs. Tremain's led to an account of his wretched winter, to a discussion of illness in general, to an amusing, though to Mrs. Tremain a somewhat sad description of his various nurses, including poor old Mrs. Doery, both in her character of guardian of the sick and instructor of youth.

"I have not been used to your kind of nursing," he added, after a pause; "you must remember that, and not let me take up your time; I am afraid this dependence will unfit me for the tussle with the world which I must go back to as soon as my ankle is all right."

"You can hardly help being dependent when you can't move," said Mrs. Tremain, smiling.

"No, but it's a training in patience to be helpless and to submit to being muddled, whereas to lie still and be spoilt, humoured, waited on, and amused must surely be demoralising, too pleasant and unusual to fit one for another plunge into the prickles of life."

"Only that life, however hard, can't be all prickles," said Mrs. Tremain. "Don't you think a little spoiling, as you call it, is everyone's due at one time or another? From your own account you have had to 'rough it' a good deal, and this perhaps is your time for trying dependence without all the discomforts you now associate with it. Besides, I daresay you have had your share of waiting on other people, and know that it is the pleasantest work in the world."

Donovan's face changed, and for some minutes he did not speak. Mrs. Tremain saw that her words must have called up some painful remembrance, and Waif too understood perfectly, for he sprang up with his peculiar low whine and began to lick his master's face. What could it be? What painful chord had she unknowingly touched?

A violent start from Donovan caused Waif to jump down from the pillow, and Mrs. Tremain to return from her musing.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I fancied I heard a little child's voice," he said, rather faintly.

"I expect it is Nesta; she is playing in the garden," said Mrs. Tremain.

He did not answer for some minutes, but lay with closed eyes and a strangely rigid face, the only movement being in the hand Waif was licking, which was clenched and unclenched convulsively. At last, shifting his position a little, he looked up again and said, hurriedly,

"Will you let me see her? I am very fond of children."

His voice more than anything told of the severe struggle he had passed through, but, though Mrs. Tremain doubted whether he were fit for it, she did not like to refuse his request. She went to the French window and called the little girl from the lawn.

Four-year-old Nesta came trotting in gleefully, her little rosy face shaded by a white sun hat, her pinafore full of daisies.

"This is your youngest nurse," said Mrs. Tremain, leading her up to the bed.

Nesta looked half timidly at the invalid visitor whom she had heard of; but the moment she caught sight of Waif, all her shyness vanished, and she fairly clapped her hands.

"Oh! mother, mother, what a dear little dog! Is he doin' to stay?"

"Yes, he has come for a long visit," said Mrs. Tremain, lifting her up to the pillow beside Donovan at his special request. Waif allowed himself to be patted and caressed, and played at "trust and paid for" obediently, but he was too low-spirited about his master to show himself off well, and soon crept away from the little girl to the other side of the bed, where he lay with his sad brown eyes fixed on the invalid.

Then Nesta turned her attention to the new visitor, her shyness speedily passing off.

"How drave you look!" she exclaimed, after scrutinizing his face for a minute or two.

Mrs. Tremain and Donovan both laughed, and then the daisies tumbled out of the pinafore, and Nesta, being reminded by the sight of them of daisy-chains which were to have been made, set to work busily, chattering in her quaint unrestrained way meanwhile.

Donovan had won her heart--as he invariably did win the hearts of little children--and the daisy-chain which was to have been for the favourite doll was now destined for him.

"It will look very pretty, you know, on your white night-down," she said, with her irresistible baby laugh.

Presently, with a puzzled face, came one of her abrupt questions.

"What's 'ou name?"

But Donovan did not hear, for he was looking abstractedly at her bright eyes, trying to see in them some likeness to Dot. And they were a little like, for, although grey, they were in a transition state, and there was a peculiar shade of brown in the iris which somehow made them like Dot's clear hazel. Moreover, they had in them the same innocence, and even in a slight degree the same look of heaven-taught love.

She repeated her question imperatively.

"What's 'ou name?"

He came back to the present with an effort, and answered, gravely, but gently,

"You must call me Dono."

Nesta softly repeated the unusual name, lingering over it half doubtfully.

"Don--o, Mr. Dono."

It was the first time he had heard his childname since little Dot's death. He caught Nesta in his arms and kissed her passionately.

"Oh! oh! oh!" shrieked Nesta, thinking it the beginning of a game. "The drate bear's dot me; he's doin' to eat me."

"Not too noisy, my little girl," said Mrs. Tremain, lifting her away. Then, noticing the deathly paleness of Donovan's face, she hastened to add, "I think Mr. Dono has had enough of you to-day. Mother will take you into the garden."

"Dood-bye, Mr. Dono, dood-bye," said Nesta, as she was carried off: but he did not answer.

Mrs. Tremain was a few minutes out of the room; when she came back she found Waif in great distress, for what had come to his master he did not know. Donovan had buried his face in the pillow, and, almost for the first time in his life, was crying like a child.

Four years ago Mrs. Tremain had had all her sympathy called out for the reserved undemonstrative stranger whom she had visited in his bereavement; love and tact had given her power then, they gave her power now. She listened as only a mother could have listened to the story of little Dot, gently drawing Donovan on by her perfect sympathy, until there was little that she did not know of those past times. How it all began, how it was possible for her to win him to speak the name that for months had not passed his lips, cannot be written or explained here. But those who have known a real mother will understand at once, and those who deem it impossible must be "Donovans" themselves, to whom sooner or later like sympathy will be given if it is needed.

And yet, in spite of Mrs. Tremain's present feelings, she had at first not been without a certain shrinking from Donovan--from close knowledge of a professed atheist. Away from him this shrinking had increased. It was not until she was brought face to face with his individuality, till he was essentially Donovan to her, not merely a strange visitor, that it was possible for love to take its right place. But her husband's prophecy was true, and before the day was over she had quite taken the invalid guest into her mother's heart, and only loved him better for his poverty of soul and body.

Class judgment, sweeping condemnation, are for the world,--its ways of dealing with its outcasts; and though the ways are neither good for condemners nor condemned, they will probably last through this age. But there are a few people who are bold enough to defy the world's opinion, and to set at naught the world's ways, because they have the way of Christ ever before them, because they love the ignorant and sinning first, and by reason of that love hate only the ignorance and sin that have led them astray.

Even gentle and loving Mrs. Tremain had hitherto gone with the world in thinking of atheists as a class to be shunned and avoided, rather than as so many members of the great human brotherhood who had fallen into a grievous mistake, and to whom all possible justice, and love, and brotherliness must be shown. Mrs. Causton, good as she was, still failed to see the need of this.

"If a man voluntarily cuts himself off from religion, how is it possible to treat him as a brother?" she argued.

Mrs. Tremain, being but newly persuaded herself of the possibility, did not answer, but looked to her husband.

And the doctor answered in his quiet way:

"I never could see the difficulty of that; for the Fatherhood of God seems to me to answer it all. Universal fatherhood causes universal brotherhood, and the one is as really unalterable as the other. That we do not see it to be so is surely our own fault. As a rule, though, it is only those who believe that God ever 'gives up' souls, who treat men as outcasts. They are quite logical in doing so. But, once believe that 'lost' means 'not found yet,' that the Good Shepherd seeks the sheep 'until He finds it,' that the Fatherhood is for ever and ever--and then the fact that your brother is mistaken will only make you love him, and try to show your love to him the more."

Mrs. Causton was silent, for Dr. Tremain had touched on a subject upon which they had long ago agreed to differ. She knew she was one of the "logical" people, and yet, in her heart, she half inclined to the doctor's loving breadth. She also began to revolve in her mind schemes for "converting" the stranger.

Meanwhile, apart from all discussions, and shielded from Mrs. Causton's well-meaning but somewhat mistaken schemes by his continued imprisonment, Donovan spent the most peaceful week of his life. There was something indescribably restful in the atmosphere of Trenant, a refinement about the daily small-talk, an entire absence of that perpetual sitting in judgment on neighbours and acquaintances, which goes far to make the conversation in many families, a peculiar quickness and readiness to perceive humour, and a perfect understanding of that delicious family teazing which is certainly the salt of home life. Though prevented by his invalidism from coming into the very centre of all this, Donovan yet felt much of it in his sick-room. Of Gladys he saw little, but Mrs. Tremain was constantly with him. Jackie and Nesta were always ready to enliven him when he grew dull, and the doctor gave him all his spare time, bringing his microscope, or his fossils for arranging and sorting, or any of his hundred and one naturalist hobbies, and turning the sick-room into something between a museum and an untidy workshop.

Donovan's love deepened day by day, he could have lain in contented silence for hours, just watching the doctor at his work, and though they generally had plenty of animated talk together, it was no necessity to him. The delight of knowing any man whom he could absolutely and unreservedly trust was in itself absorbing, and there was much besides. Mrs. Tremain, whom he admired and loved scarcely less, and to whom he talked more, influenced him in a way quite as much as her husband. Having once spoken to her of Dot, he now continually returned to the subject, for he felt there was not the danger in thinking of the past that there had once been, and daring to let it all come back to him, he was able to realise that memory is indeed a priceless possession. Then, too, in this week there came to him, almost for the first time, a flickering shadow of doubt in one of his most positive convictions. He had looked on Christianity as a creed which could not be connected with any practical kindliness of life; it had seemed to him merely a sort of _sauve qui peut_. Now at Trenant there was none of the conventional religion to which he was only too well accustomed, but he found himself constantly reminded, in the small concerns of daily life, of that historical Christ for whose character he had conceived the greatest admiration. Little or nothing was _said_, but Donovan felt that he was in a perfectly new atmosphere. Whether these Tremains were living under a delusion, of course he could not say; he did not wish even to think just now.

Strange, dreamy, delicious days! often afterwards in the heat and struggle of life he looked back to them, and always associated with them in his mind were snatches of "In Memoriam," which, in spite of his assurances of an utterly unpoetical temperament, Mrs. Tremain read to him. He had spoken quite truly, there were very few poems which could touch him, but the "living poem" of childhood, and this one great song of immortality, took possession of his very being. The thin green volume was always near his bed--he soon knew most of it by heart.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tremain, seeing that his patient grew stronger in body and evidently happier in mind, began to dread more and more the broaching of that distasteful subject which was constantly in his thoughts. He was of course, however, too wise and too true a friend to put it off long; and at the end of the week, when his patient was well enough to be moved to a sofa and be wheeled into the breakfast-room, he made an opportunity for the private talk which must reveal to Donovan all his step-father's treachery.

The sofa had been placed by the open window, and Donovan was enjoying, as only an invalid can enjoy, the delights of a thorough change; his face was particularly bright and contented when Dr. Tremain came in from his afternoon visits in Porthkerran, with his mind made up to his disagreeable task; it was therefore all the harder to speak, but the doctor knew he had no right to delay any longer, and sitting down near his guest he began with but little preamble.

"Are you up to a business talk this afternoon? If so, I want to speak to you about a matter which has been troubling me very much for the last week--since the night you came, in fact."

"A talk about your business, I suppose," said Donovan, "for I, as I told you, am simply penniless, so my affairs don't admit of much discussion."

"You are mistaken," said the doctor. "You ought not to be penniless, and it is solely with regard to your affairs that I have been so troubled. I should have spoken to you before, but I waited till you were stronger."

Donovan looked perplexed; the doctor continued:

"You told me the other day that your father's will left everything, unconditionally, to your mother, did you not?"

"Certainly, or else I could not be in my present straits."

"And you ought not to be," said the doctor, unable to speak as quietly as he wished. "Donovan, before Colonel Farrant's death he made and I witnessed another will, by which the property was left to you, your mother of course being----"

His sentence was never finished, for Donovan started up, his face white and set, but with a sort of fierce light about it.

"What?" he gasped, "that villain destroyed it, then! Tell me more--quickly--who witnessed it? when was it made?--I recollect nothing. Are you sure--_sure_?"

"That it was legally correct, I am certain," said the doctor; "but do try to quiet yourself or I shall never be able to explain it to you."

"I am quiet," said Donovan, lying back again with a marble face. "Go on, please; only let me hear all--and I'll not interrupt."

"The afternoon your father died," resumed the doctor, "I came, as you know, about three o'clock to visit him. He was very much worried, for Mr. Turner the lawyer, whom he specially wished to see, was away, and he told me that knowing his danger, that he might really die at any minute, he was anxious to make his will at once, so that all might be left straight for you. He explained to me that his former will had been made just after his marriage, and that he thought it wiser to make a fresh one. Of course worry was the very worst thing for him, and, in order that he might be at rest about it, I suggested that he should make his own will temporarily, till a lawyer was at hand, and that seemed to relieve him at once. Do you remember that I came to the head of the stairs and called you?"

"Perfectly," replied Donovan, speaking with difficulty. "You asked for a sheet of writing-paper. I brought it to you."

"Yes, and on that paper, at Colonel Farrant's direction, I wrote words to the effect that he desired to bequeath all his property to you. That an ample allowance--I cannot recall the exact amount--was to be made to Mrs. Farrant, and that Mr. Ellis Farrant was to be the sole executor. I remember he hesitated some time about that, and tried to think of some one else who could also be executor; he said that the second named in his former will had lately died. Thinking it, however, only a temporary thing, he left Mr. Ellis Farrant's name alone."

"The witnesses?" asked Donovan.

"Myself and a servant, Mary Pengelly, who is dead."

"Dead!" he exclaimed, a dark shade passing over his face. "Then it's all up with me; the will can't be proved."

"I half fear not," said the doctor, "though it seems not so impossible as I at first thought. Directly I learnt your name and saw what must have happened I wrote to a solicitor I know in town, and gave him all the circumstances--of course, without names. He allowed that a case might be made for you--such a thing has been done before now. Your recollection of having fetched the sheet of paper might go for something, but the cost of a lawsuit would be enormous, and the result, of course, doubtful. I blame myself very much now for not having taken steps to see that the will was proved. A year or two afterwards, when we were in town, I did half think of it when I happened to pass Somerset House; but some chance meeting prevented me. If I had only had more insight! But I never dreamt of suspecting treachery in Mr. Farrant."

"No, he is too bland, too clever, too consummate a hypocrite!" replied Donovan, bitterly. "No one suspects him. He took the will from you, I suppose, and showed all proper feeling, and none of his blackguardism."

"I gave him the will directly after your father's funeral. He took it quite unconcernedly; I noticed nothing the least remarkable in his manner. If only some one else had been present! If only I'd had the sense to be more cautious!"

"Don't blame yourself," said Donovan, his face softening at once. "That would be just the one thing I couldn't bear. It was no manner of fault of yours; if it had been, it would be easy to put up with--I could endure anything from you. But that traitor, that villain, who all the time is looking as smug and proper as can be, who gives my money to chanties, who makes merry in my house, who goes to church and calls himself a "miserable sinner," and asks for mercy that he may go on comfortably! How can you expect me to think religion anything but a miserable sham, the veriest farce?"

There was a minute's silence when he paused, and, before the doctor had ventured any answer to this very natural outburst, the door opened, and Gladys came in, her hands full of blush-roses and seringa.

"I have brought you some flowers," she said, crossing the room to the sofa. "You must not be cheated of your daily nosegay because you are getting better."

Nothing could have quieted Donovan so effectually as this interruption; he watched in silence while Gladys arranged the flowers. Very pure and fresh and flower-like she looked herself; she fascinated him utterly.

When she left the room again he was the first to speak.

"Forgive me for what I said just now," he began, looking at the doctor with the light of indignation in his eyes softened down to sadness. "I was very wrong to mock at the religion you believe in. This last week you have almost made me think there may, after all, be such a thing as Christianity, I believe for you, at any rate, there is such a thing. But the thought of Ellis Farrant made me mad! You must remember it is only that kind of religion I have met with till now--that Injustice and loathing and discourtesy are, with scarcely an exception, all that I've received from religious people."

"God forgive them!" exclaimed the doctor. Then, after a pause, "But what I can't understand is the systematic way in which Mr. Farrant must have managed everything. A sudden act of passion I can understand, but deliberately to plan and calculate another's ruin----"

Donovan's face suddenly crimsoned.

"Stop!" he cried. "Don't say you can't have pity on such meanness. Remember what I used to be!"

"Your circumstances go far to excuse you," were the words which trembled on the doctor's lips, but he wisely kept them back, and did not break in upon the perfectly natural and right shame by any speech. Instead he just put his strong, firm hand on Donovan's.

After a long silence Donovan looked up once more. He seemed to have mastered the situation now, all indignation and agitation of manner had left him, and Dr. Tremain was struck by the sense and coolness with which he spoke.

"The next thing to be thought of is, what can we do? A lawsuit seems out of the question, but I don't think that for that reason I need sit still and do nothing to right myself. Shall I send a letter to Ellis Farrant, and just tell him that I have learnt all from you?"

"I think, if you don't object," said the doctor, "it would be much better for me to go to Oakdene Manor and see Mr. Farrant. A letter can be simply ignored, but if I can once see him I shall at least get some definite answer from him. Will you consent to that?"

"It would of course be the best chance for me," said Donovan. "Only I can't endure that you should have the trouble and annoyance."

"You think it is all like a game of 'neighbour, I'm come to torment you,'" replied the doctor, laughing. "You having come to me, and I being on my way to Mr. Ellis Farrant!"

"Well, I've given you nothing but trouble yet," said Donovan. "And this horrid business will hinder you and take you away from home."

"My dear Donovan," said the doctor, still laughing, "you are so exceedingly unlikely ever to be a busybody that I'll venture to give you this maxim, 'Thy business is mine, and mine thine, if there's the ghost of a chance that we can either of us help the other.' Besides, have I not told you that we don't allow units in Cornwall? We're a joint-stock company, and as long as you are here you must put up with all the seeming eccentricities of the 'one and all' system."

The doctor being pretty free that week, it was arranged that he should go to Greyshot the following day, in the hope of getting an interview with Ellis Farrant. As soon as all was settled he left the room to speak to his wife, and to make arrangements for his absence, while Donovan lay in what seemed almost strange calmness.

He had learnt that the Manor was his by right, that there was but a small chance of his getting it; he had also learnt that his step-father's injustice had been far greater than he had hitherto imagined; but then the repentance for his own past was growing more real and strong each day, and his belief in goodness and purity and love was struggling into life--his patience was perhaps, after all, not so strange!

In the midst of this home, with its love, and peace, and breadth of sympathy, his frozen heart was expanding. That very afternoon he had taken the first step towards forgiveness, he had placed himself on a level with his step-father, had not shrunk from admitting that he too had offended in much the same way. And strong in his possession of love--this new strange family love--he waited for what the future should bring, while in the present all went on quietly, the very sounds of life seeming full of peace. The gardener mowing the lawn, the birds singing in the shrubbery, the children laughing at their play, and from the next room Gladys' voice singing as she worked; he did not know her song, but the refrain reached him through the open window.

"And truth thee shall deliver,
It is no drede!"