Chapter XI: Going Home

THE evening came which was to have been our last in the old home, for the very next day we were to have left it—just one week before Christmas Day.

It was bitterly cold weather, and grannie seemed to shrink under the cold, as she had not been used to do. The other house was all furnished and ready, except just the room for grannie and me, and that was to have its furniture taken from the cottage on the morrow. Everything left behind would be sold.

I didn't think the cottage had ever seemed more snug and home-like than on that day. Snow lay thick on the roof and in the little garden, but all inside was so cosy. I could not believe we were really going.

Grannie seemed to have upon her a strange dread of the new home, a strange shrinking from it, as if she were leaving a warm nest, and going out into the cold and damp. I could not talk her out of the feeling. She said it was silly, she knew, and she could not account for it, but she had the dread. And many times that day she said sorrowfully—"It won't be home, Phœbe. I've no home now on earth. I didn't think I should ever have to leave the old place." And then she would add—"But it is God's will, and I mustn't grumble. What does it matter? There's a better Home above."

She was very tired in the evening, with a sort of pinched blue look in her face, which I hadn't ever seen there before. Father noticed it, and he said she had done too much, and he made her sit in the arm-chair, and was quite nice and kind to her. I think she found that a comfort. Mother was rushing about everywhere, making believe to be busy, though really not doing much, for there was not much to be done. Grannie had put everything into beautiful order for the move.

"Miles," grannie said, all of a sudden—"I'm wondering if you'll do something to please your old mother."

"To be sure I will," said he, for he was in great good humour that day. "What is it? Something new you want? Sue buys lots of things, and you don't spend a penny on yourself."

"I've enough and to spare," she said. "I'll wait till the pennies come before I spend 'em, my dear. No need for more borrowing and buying than goes on already. I hope it isn't all a mistake, Miles."

"Mistake!—no," says he. "There's no mistake about the five thousand pounds. That's sure enough."

"So you may think—so you and me may think," said she, in a dreamy sort of way. "But who knows? Riches take wings and fly away."

"Mine shan't," father said. "I'll take right good care to hold my own fast. Money don't fly away if it isn't thrown away, I take it. But what did you want me to get for you?"

"It wasn't anything I wanted you to get," she said.

"Because I don't mind what it is," said he. "I can afford it, you know. Only I'd have you use what I get, not lay it by like that black dress, you know."

"Ah—that dress," says she softly. "I'm glad it's black. Yes, it'll do—for Sue."

Father stared, and she gave him a little smile.

"I was only a-thinking," she said. "But the thing I want you to do isn't buying, Miles. You haven't been often to Church of late, and it's getting seldomer and seldomer. Will you promise me to go regular when we get into the new home?"

"Why—I am regular," says he. "I don't stay away without there's good reason."

"Reason maybe, but not good reason," says she. "Pleasuring's no good reason for leaving the worship of God. You said you'd do what I was going to ask you, Miles."

"O well—yes—we'll see," said he. "I didn't know what it was."

"But now you do know," she said, "you're not going to say 'No' to me?"

"We'll see," was all he would answer.

"I'm going to bed early," she said. "I feel out of sorts somehow, and I've a queer sort of weakness on me. But it's our last night in the old home. I should like to finish off the life here with Bible-reading and prayer. It's an old woman's fancy you'll say, Miles, but I should."

"What for?" asked mother, who had come in and was listening.

"It's fitting," grannie said. "God's blessing has been on us here, and He has cared for us; and we'd ought to thank Him, and ask for the same in the new home too."

"Well, I'm busy just now," mother said, and she went off quick and didn't come back.

But father got up, and brought the big Bible to grannie. "I'm not religious like you, mother," he said; "but you shall have your will—if it's a pleasure. Only it's you that must do it, not I."

She didn't press him for more. She just turned over the leaves, and found the 103rd Psalm, and read it aloud. And I couldn't help noticing how her dear face grew bright, with a sort of inward glow, as if God Himself was speaking to her heart.

"It's full of mercy and loving-kindness—full—full," she said at the end. "Miles, I'd give anything—"

"What for, mother?" said he, and his voice was husky.

"If you'd be willing to have God for such a Friend as He's been to me," said she.

And then she made us kneel down—father and Asaph and me, and she prayed. How she did pray, thanking God, and asking Him to keep us from dangers, and speaking the Name of Jesus so lovingly, and seeming just as if she had Someone just close beside her, listening! And hadn't she?

But all at once she stopped, and then went on, and stopped again, and seemed confused. And then she said "Phœbe." And the next moment she fell down heavily, all in a heap, with no life in her, as it were.

Father carried her upstairs, and put her on her bed; and mother cried and was frightened. And all we could do, she would not come to herself. At first we only thought she was knocked up and faint, but presently we began to see that things were worse, and father went off for the doctor.

When the doctor came, he said grannie was very ill indeed, and could not possibly be moved next day. He said it must have been coming on for some days, and he told us pretty plainly that he did not believe she would get over it. "She's an old woman, you know," he said.

I did not half know what he meant. It seemed too dreadful to think of grannie dying. I never knew till then how much I loved her.

I had a busy enough life the next week, what with nursing and work. I couldn't bear to leave grannie, yet mother expected me to do all that I commonly did and attend to grannie too. Our move had to be put off, of course, and mother was vexed. She did not believe that grannie was so bad as the doctor said. Father was very anxious, and he stayed a great deal at home, and often sat with grannie. But she did not know him or any of us.

Things went on so up to Christmas Eve. And then there was just a little glimmer of sense. She seemed to look at me, and I heard her say, "Home! going Home!"

"Perhaps not just yet, grannie," I said. But she smiled again, in a sort of eager way. She had pretty nearly lost the power of speech, yet she managed to say again, "Going Home—Home, Phœbe."

And that was all. She looked peaceful, and we thought her better. Mr. Scott came to see her a little later, but she had dropped into a sleep, and from that sleep she never woke. Nobody could tell the moment when she died, she went so quietly.

It was a sad Christmas for us all, and saddest of all, I think, for me; for I had been more her child than mother's, and she had taught me everything, and I seemed to feel as if I didn't know how to live without her.

Father was miserable, for he had loved her dearly. It was only of late that he had ever said a sharp word to her, and I suppose those sharp words came back now and troubled him. And he had no real comfort like me; so after all he was the worst off. For I could think of grannie in her happy Home, with the Lord Jesus and the bright angels, singing songs to God; but father could only think about his own loss. He did not care to think about Heaven, and he only felt very wretched. And the day after grannie's death, he did what he had never never done before—stayed ever so long at the public-house drinking, and came back the worse for what he had taken.