Chapter XIII: A Fateful Telegram

"YOU cannot walk so far."

"Indeed I can. It is only four miles there. I shall rest when I get there, and have my lunch and walk back. It is nothing for a strong and hearty female like myself."

"I hope Toby is not really ill?"

"No; it's only a slight swelling on his hock. He is being bandaged, and only wants a few days' rest. Don't worry, dear. I must see this woman. I have promised her husband I will, and if I cannot drive, I must walk. It's a lovely afternoon. I shall enjoy it."

Joan and her father were talking together at lunch. She was taking advantage of a birthday holiday given to her small pupils to go to see one of the parishioners who had been taken to the infirmary in the neighbouring market town; and owing to the indisposition of the pony she could not use the little jingle.

"You could hire a trap from the inn," her father suggested.

Joan shook her head.

"That would be reckless expense. Have your tea, for I shall be late, as I have a good deal of shopping to get through; but I am perfectly equal to the walk."

She started in good spirits, taking Bob, her little terrier, with her. Spring was in the air; there was blue sky and bright sun shining overhead. She crossed the heath, and the fresh, pungent scent of the pines and peat refreshed and delighted her. Joan often said she could walk her worries away, and to-day was no exception to the rule. She did not feel tired when she arrived in Coppleton. She saw the sick woman, did her shopping, and had her lunch at a small confectioner's.

Then, at three o'clock, she started homewards. The blue sky was gone now, and heavy black clouds were rolling up. Joan began to wish she had brought an umbrella. Before she had gone a mile from the town, rain descended in torrents. It was a lonely road, and there was no shelter of any sort near. She buttoned her coat up to her chin and pressed steadily on; but wind and rain beat her back, and she began to feel quite exhausted. Suddenly she heard quick-trotting hoofs behind her, and a high dog-cart overtook her. She glanced up and saw it was Major Armitage. He did not seem to see her; his face was stern and set, and he was about to pass her, when in desperation she called to him. He pulled up at once.

"Oh! It's you, Miss Adair, what are you doing out in this storm so far from home? I can offer you a seat, but not an umbrella, I'm afraid."

"Thank you. I shall be delighted to get a lift."

She climbed in and told him where she had been. She had not seen him since Sophia had told her what had happened, and as she glanced up at him she saw a great change in his face. The dreamy wistfulness had departed; his profile might have been carved in granite, so stern and immovable it was.

He was very silent, and so was she, for a few minutes. Then she said:

"You promised to play at our evening service last Sunday, but as you did not turn up, I suppose something prevented your doing so?"

He looked down at her quickly.

"I did not know I had. My promise must have been made in another life. I seem in a new era now. I'm sorry if I inconvenienced you; but the fact is I cancelled all my engagements. I—I have been through a—a good deal since I saw you last."

"I am so sorry. I am afraid you have been in trouble."

There was another silence. Then he gave a short laugh.

"My house has asserted itself. I was a fool to think I could break the long chain of ill-luck. I am thinking of shutting it up and going over to Ireland."

"So soon? We shall be sorry to lose you."

"It isn't that I run away from it," he went on slowly; "but it will never fulfil its purpose to me now, and so it is useless to me."

"But your tenants will miss you."

"Oh, no, they will not; my bailiff will look after them."

Joan hardly knew what to say.

"I have been living at the gate of paradise," he continued, "expecting and glorying in the hope that it would soon be opened to me. I have been shown that it will always remain bolted and barred to me. I have been wasting my life, my time and thoughts, Miss Adair, over an illusion. Yet some words you uttered once have continually come to my mind: 'He performeth the thing that is appointed for me.' Do you believe it?"

"In my own experience I try to do so," said Joan thoughtfully.

Major Armitage said no more for some time. The rain and wind beat in their faces and made conversation difficult. But when they came into Old Bellerton village, Joan spoke:

"I am very grateful to you for driving me home, and, if I may say so, still more for what you have told me. I am sure none of us ought to believe in ill-luck, and you are strong enough to rise above it."

"No, I am not," said Major Armitage; "but I suppose I can live doggedly on. Do you know Dr. Sewell's couplet?

"'When all the blandishments of life are gone,
The coward sneaks to death; the brave live on.'"

Joan's eyes brightened.

"I like that. And life is a wonderful thing, is it not? Our own lives are so small compared with many others; it is the lives of those around us that really matter, and what we can be to them."

"You think we ought to be entirely detached from ourselves? That would make us mere mechanical machines."

She was silent. Then, as he reached the rectory gate, he pulled up his horse and held out his hand to her.

"Good-night, Miss Adair. You have done me good, and I promise to play for you next Sunday evening. I shan't be leaving just yet. But I tell you in confidence that my house now is an utter despair to me!"

She looked up at him when she was turning in at the gate. Her eyes were shining.

"'He performeth the thing that is appointed for me,'" she repeated with emphasis.

And then the Major drove off and she went in to change her wet clothes, and to think much of the blow that had befallen her friend.

Before the following Sunday came round, she had a great many other matters that demanded all her time and attention. Wilmot Gascoigne had cajoled her into co-operating with him over his book, and she found it extremely difficult to give up the necessary time to it. She finally arranged that upon every day on which he could come over, they should work together between tea and dinner. Very often he asked if he might stay to dinner, so as to continue the work immediately afterwards, and not "break the thread" of their thoughts.

Joan was so carried away with his enthusiasm, with his flow of ideas, with his many problems needing deep discussion, that for some days she was merely a listener, offering a few feeble and inadequate suggestions; but as time went on she began to criticise, protest, and utterly disagree with Wilmot's plot and principles. To her, his moral instincts seemed warped; his conceptions of right and wrong confusing and shadowy. But he had the gift of eloquent persuasion, and often stopped her objections with a torrent of clever talk. Then he would listen to her alternative course of reasoning, sometimes apparently falling in with her views, but never eventually swerving from his point.

She, on her part, gave him fresh ideas and thoughts, which he seized with approval. But after a very few days of talking and working with him, Joan had to acknowledge to herself that it was most fatiguing and unsatisfactory. In addition to this, her father's affairs seemed more and more involved. Letters came from his wife and daughter with demands for money, which was simply not forthcoming. Every penny that could be scraped together was sent out to them; but it was not sufficient, and Mrs. Adair could not, or would not, understand her husband's difficulties. Joan and her father grew to dread the sight of a foreign letter lying on the breakfast-table.

Joan at last quietly went into Coppleton and parted with an old necklace of amethysts which had been given to her some years before by Lady Alicia. But the task of cheering her father, teaching her small pupils, working in the parish, helping in household duties, and trying to keep her head and brains clear and bright for Wilmot's hours, proved almost too much for her, and she found it quite impossible to continue her own writing. She had neither the time nor the ideas. She told Wilmot once that she had been forced to stop writing. He did not seem much impressed.

"Those short articles don't pay well, do they? And I want you to do better work. You will. This book of ours is going to be a success. I feel it is. We have got the right atmosphere, but it needs all our concentration and purpose. We will put our best and strongest into it. We must."

So Joan braced herself afresh, but she felt strangely exhausted at night; and could not feel assured that her help was as much as Wilmot seemed to require and demand.

On Sunday evening Major Armitage played the organ, and came into supper at the rectory afterwards. Joan thought him looking worn and ill, and there were grim fixed lines about his face that used not to be there. He seemed very distrait, as if conversation were an effort. Only once he roused himself, and that was when he asked Joan to sing some of her sacred songs. Mr. Adair remarked when he left that he must be in some kind of trouble.

"Of course, they say in the village he has lost someone dear to him. Do you know anything about it, Joan? He has not gone into mourning."

"Men don't," said Joan briefly.

"They usually wear a black tie, not a coloured one."

"We won't trouble about the village gossip, Father dear. If he had wanted us to know, he would have told us."

But the very next day, Joan wrote to Lady Alicia asking her if she could tell her whether Irene Denbury was dead.

Lady Alicia wrote promptly back.

"MY DEAREST JOAN,—So you have not heard the news! Frank Denbury turned up after all these years perfectly safe and sound. It is like a book. I hear he is much improved; but he was wounded and ill, and tied by the leg in some out-of-the-way place, and his letters never reached home. You must forget the story I told you. Bury it deep. But how wise and right Irene was to wait! What disaster she would have brought upon herself if she had not. She goes out with him to America the end of this month. She seems as if she wants to get away from England, and I think it will be best for her. I am so interested in hearing about your writing, dear, but don't forget that it is a trust and talent given to you to develop and to use for eternity. I have heard from your mother. She seems very happy and well. Much love,—

"Yours lovingly,

"ALICIA.

"P.S.—Frank Denbury has quietly been adding to his fortune. I fancy his wife might have been in the way; and, of course, he had no idea that she thought him dead. But I consider him much to blame for his long silence. It was not fair to any girl."

Joan pondered long and deeply over this letter. She felt unreasonably angry with Irene for having inspired Major Armitage with such love and hope.

"If she really loves him, how can she go off with her husband so easily and happily? I couldn't have done it. And yet I suppose religion and convention would say it was her duty to do so. She will most likely settle down very comfortably with her husband, and forget the man who is suffering tortures at present, and will never get over the blow."

She pictured him in his music-room playing the "Dead March" and burying deep for ever in the grave of his heart his first and only love.

"A man of that age and temperament will never get over it," she said to herself. "I wonder if he has enough religion to keep him sweet and tender! His music is still his solace. I'm glad to think it is, for no musician can get bitter and hard."

Lady Alicia's letter gave her food for thought, and doubts again assailed her as to whether Wilmot's book was a suitable one for her to help to produce. When next he and she were working together he propounded a certain situation from which her soul shrank.

"No, that is blasphemous," she said hastily. "I will not be a party to it."

"My dear girl, don't be a prude. What is blasphemy? We must move with the times, and we are not invoking the Deity in any way, or infringing upon His prerogative."

Joan looked at him with grave, sweet eyes.

"Mr. Gascoigne, you and I can never work together. I see this more and more. It was a mistake our making the attempt."

"I have frightened you. We will leave this situation. I will work it in so that it cannot possibly offend your principles. My dear partner, we have gone along too far to dissolve our partnership. Now take these sheets, and make a statement of our heroine's thoughts on this fatal night. Put your soul into it, and let your words scorch and burn. Be strong. Put yourself in her place, and write your thoughts as they would have been in her circumstances."

Joan gave a little sigh, but set to work; and the interest of her theme took hold of and engrossed her. Afterwards, when Wilmot was taking his leave, she strove to speak again.

"I don't agree with so much that you write. We shall never see things from the same standpoint. Don't you think you would get on quite as well without me?"

"No, I am not going to release you. Do you think I would take the trouble to come out all weathers and spend the best part of my day down here if I did not mean business? And think of the chance you would miss. Fame is in this book—I feel it—and money, and you and I will be partners in it."

It was always the way. He would not take her objections seriously, and Joan's conscience was uneasy and troubled in consequence.

Banty could not understand the situation. She remonstrated with Joan one afternoon when she called.

"I warned you of Motty. He has got hold of you, and will suck your blood to nourish himself. Don't look shocked! I mean it. He has done it with other women, and he thinks you very promising material."

Joan would not listen to her; but in her heart she sometimes longed that she had never given him her promise to help him.

And then one day it was all stopped—for the time.

"A letter from Cecil," said Joan in the morning, as she poured out a cup of tea for her father at the breakfast-table. "I have not read it yet. I hope it is not for more money. She wrote to me only a few days ago."

"It is to tell us when they are coming home, perhaps," said Mr. Adair cheerfully. "I am setting my hopes on having your mother here for Easter, Joan."

"But, Father dear, it wants only a fortnight to Easter, and they have not talked of a move yet."

"Read her letter and see."

So Joan in a leisurely way opened the envelope, and the next minute looked up with startled eyes.

"Father dear, Mother is not at all well. She has caught a bad chill and has an attack of pneumonia. Cecil is quite anxious and has called in a nurse."

Mr. Adair started to his feet.

"Let me see what she says. Cecilia ill? I must go to her."

Joan put the letter into his hand, and gazed out of the window with troubled eyes. Riviera doctors and nurses meant heavy additional expenses. How were they to be met, she wondered? And then she took herself to task for grudging her mother anything. Was she really seriously ill? Cecil seemed to think so, and Mrs. Adair was not one to succumb easily. She had always had good health, and made light of ordinary ailments. But this letter was three days old, surely if she had been worse, Cecil would have wired?

As if in answer to her conjecture, she saw a village lad come up the drive, and recognising him as the postmistress's son, Joan dashed out into the garden.

When he produced a yellow envelope, her heart sank. She tore it open.

"Mother died last night. Come at once.—CECIL."

She could not believe it. She dismissed the boy and took the telegram with trembling fingers to her father. She hardly knew how she told him, but from her face he guessed the worst. And sinking down upon a chair, he buried his face in his hands. Joan stood by his side white and immovable. The awful shock of it had stunned her. Presently heartbroken sobs came from her father. To Joan, who had never in her life seen her father shed a tear, it was an awful experience. She touched him on the shoulder.

"Dad, dear, we must do something. There is no time to lose."

"Time!" sobbed the rector. "What does time matter now? Everything is at an end for me."

The intense pathos of his tone brought the tears with a rush to Joan's eyes. She let herself weep unrestrainedly for some moments, and Sophia found them both unable to regain their composure. She herself was terribly shocked, but said in her practical way:

"There's Miss Cecil to be thought of."

Joan dried her tears at once. Her self-control was restored to her.

"Dad dear, what must be done?"

The rector lifted his head.

"I must go to them."

Even now he could not separate Cecil from her mother.

"Can I catch the morning train to town?"

He stood up. Like his daughter, he put his grief aside for the time.

"I must go at once," he repeated dully.

"You can catch the twelve-twenty. But what about money?"

Mr. Adair looked at her rather helplessly.

"How much shall I want?"

"You can cash a cheque at the bank before you start. We have twenty pounds in our current account. Take it all. I suppose I cannot come with you? I know I can't."

Joan was now perfectly composed. She packed his things, looked up his route in the foreign Bradshaw, listened to his directions for supplying his place on the following Sunday, then went out and ordered the jingle to be brought round. She drove him to the station, and it was not till he was actually in the railway carriage that father and daughter had courage to look into each other's eyes.

Mr. Adair's composure almost went again. "My darling wife," he murmured; "oh, Joan, pray that resignation to God will may be given to me."

Joan nodded.

"I can't yet take it in," she said brokenly; "I feel almost stunned, but I know that God will be with you and comfort you, Father dear."

The train went out, and Joan drove slowly home, trying to bring her practical common sense to the surface, but all her heart crying out for her brilliant, beautiful mother. Perhaps it was fortunate that she had so much to do and think about.

For the next day or two she had not a moment for quiet thought until she went to bed. She had many anxious fears about her father, who had never in his life been abroad, and who was apt to be rather absentminded in travelling. But a wire announcing his safe arrival, on the second morning after his departure, eased her mind. She had many notes of condolence and of sympathy, but saw only one of her friends, and that was Major Armitage. He called one morning and told Sophia he was going away that day. Joan came down into her father's study to see him.

"I felt I must wish you good-bye," he said, "and tell you that you have my deep sympathy in your loss. I am going over to Ireland to be with my sister, and have shut up the house for the present, but I shall not easily forget the warm welcome I have received in this house."

"Oh," said Joan, looking up at him with misty eyes, "my father and I will miss you! We have learnt to count upon you as a friend. Will you never come back to this part again?"

"I was going to say I hope not," he said gravely; "but I will add, not to the ill-fated house I inherited. Every room is a torture to me now. I never told you, Miss Adair, but I expect you guessed. I came down here to wait patiently for a woman to come to me, and now that is over. She will never come. And I have been wasting my time in useless dreams. Now, as you said the other day, my life is going to revolve round others. It has no centre in itself. And I think my sister needs me most. Perhaps we may come to England one day, but till then, good-bye."

He held out his hand. Joan took it, and felt tongue-tied for a moment or two, then she said softly:

"Thank you for giving me your confidence. I knew you had been going through deep waters, but when you say your life has no centre, you do not mean to leave out the One who is our centre? The One in Whom 'we move, and have our being.'"

He looked at her with sombre eyes.

"I have believed all my life in the Hand behind," he said; "I suppose I still believe in it."

He shook hands and went. Joan watched him disappear down the road from the study window.

"And so he goes away out of my life," she murmured to herself. "The only one I have really liked in this part of the world."

She gave a heavy sigh. Life was inexpressibly sad, and it seemed to her to get more and more difficult as time slipped by.