Chapter XIII: The Stars and the Darkness

Miss GREGSON'S heart yearned over Meg.

After Sheila had left her room she sat a long time by the open window, thinking of the girl whose happiness as far as this world and its comforts were concerned, hung on such a slender thread.

Much as she cared for Sheila her thoughts were entirely now filled with Meg. Was she to be thrown on the world again? Was it to be her lot to fight and struggle and perhaps to fail after all?

The night was very warm and the garden still. Suddenly as she looked into its comparative darkness she caught sight of a shadowy figure crossing the lawn underneath her window.

For a moment her heart beat, but looking more steadily she recognized Meg's walk. She knew the girl's love of the stars, and that she often stayed out at night until the house was locked up, but consulting her watch she saw it was past twelve o'clock and Meg ought to be in bed.

Miss Gregson was a nervous woman, but where duty was concerned her nerves were allowed no place, anyhow they seldom got the better of her on such occasions. To-night it was her evident duty to follow Meg and persuade her to go to bed. Throwing a shawl over her shoulders she made her way down the dark staircase, candle in hand.

She found the garden door unbolted, so setting the candle on a table by its side she stepped on to the terrace.

Standing on the top of the steps she looked around her, but she could catch no sight of Meg. This was not to be wondered at, as there were many green walks branching out from the middle path that ran as far as the gate into the wood.

It was not really a dark night, and she was able to see for some distance dimly, but the garden struck her as very still and lonely as she stood hesitating on the terrace. Nevertheless she must face those long lonely grass paths.

It was sometime before she caught sight of Meg sitting upon a garden seat, her arms flung round the back and her face hidden in them. She looked the picture of depression. She was still wearing her white evening dress and had no wrap of any kind over her.

Miss Gregson, afraid of startling the girl, called her name from a distance. To hear her own voice in that still garden sent a shiver into her heart.

Meg looked up at the sound, then let her head drop again on to her arms.

"My dear, you will catch cold," said Miss Gregson drawing near. "Do you know that it is past twelve?"

"I don't care if it is," answered the girl passionately, "let me be, I say. It ain't no business of yours that I can see." Meg had raised her head and sat looking defiantly at her companion.

Miss Gregson could hardly believe her ears. This was being natural with a vengeance! She had never heard the girl speak in so common a tone of voice before. She might have been talking to one of her acquaintances of old. But though it gave the good woman a shock, she knew that the fact of Meg taking no pains whatever either with her manner, tone of voice, or grammar, meant that she was in the deepest dejection, so deep that she did not care what anyone thought of her. Miss Gregson sat down by her side.

Then Meg whose head had sunk again after her words of passion, looked up.

"I don't advise you to come near me. I ain't fit for the company and friends of Sheila," she said, glaring fiercely at her companion. "I tell you I don't want to be fit either. I'm tired of it all. I'm going back to Jem and the rest of them."

"My dear child we can't spare you," said Miss Gregson laying her hand on Meg's arm.

The soft voice and kind words melted the girl's anger. She began to sob violently.

"What are you unhappy about?" asked Miss Gregson.

Meg sat up, wiping her eyes with her lace pocket handkerchief which seemed somehow so incongruous with the speaker.

She stuffed it into her mouth to prevent her sobs being heard, a habit of hers which was very distasteful to Sheila who had reproved her for it more than once.

Then dropping her handkerchief she started up, throwing her arms over her head in a wild way that nevertheless, Miss Gregson could not help noticing, became her. She stood up before her, tall, and strong, but the picture of despair.

"If I only knew where to go to I'd go right away," she said.

"Has anything happened to make you so sad?" asked Miss Gregson.

"Yes, it has been happening for days and days. Sheila don't love me as she used to do. I can never please her or do anything right, and try and try as I may, it ain't no good. I worry about it till it makes me nearly mad. I couldn't stop in to-night. I wanted the stars and the darkness, and I wanted to feel once more what it would be like to be without somewhere to go to at night. I just had to come."

The girl sat down again by Miss Gregson's side and covered her face with her hands.

"Is there anything else troubling you?"

"That's enough ain't it?" said Meg, forgetting her manners again in her distress. "I can't stop here if Sheila don't want me to, and I just can't go back to my old life. I can't, I can't."

"Whatever happens, God will take care of you," said Miss Gregson. "Wait patiently for Him. You need not worry, dear child."

"Mr. Fortescue believes all that. I wish I was sure of it," sighed the girl.

"We seem quite alone in this quiet still garden, Meg, but if we had eyes to see we should find that the place is peopled with angels, and we know that God is here."

Meg was silent, only an occasional sob making her quiver.

"There lived only a few years ago," continued her companion, "a good man of the name of George Macdonald, who used to think a great deal about life and its mysteries. Listen now while I repeat some words of his that always strike me as being specially beautiful—"

"So lies my journey—on into the dark,
Without my will I find myself alive,
And must go forward. Is it God that draws
Magnetic all the souls unto their home,
Travelling, they know not how, but unto God?
It matters little what may come to me
Of outward circumstance, and hunger, thirst,
Social condition, yea, or love or hate;
But what shall I be, fifty summers hence?
My life, my being, all that meaneth me,
Goes darkling forward into something—what?
O God Thou knowest. It is not my care.
If Thou wert less than truth, or less than love,
It were a fearful thing to be and grow
We know not what. My God, take care of me.
Pardon and swathe me in an infinite love
Pervading and inspiring me, Thy child."

"Unfolding the ideal man in me!
Which being greater far than I have grown.
I cannot comprehend. I am Thine, not mine
One day completed unto Thine intent,
I shall be able to discourse with Thee;
For thy idea, gifted with a self,
Must be of one with the mind where it sprang,
And fit to talk with Thee about Thy thoughts.
Lead me, O Father, holding by Thy hand;
I ask not whither, for it must be on.
This road will lead me to the hills I think;
And there I am in safety and at home."

Miss Gregson repeated the words in a soft voice as if afraid of waking the birds and flowers with which they were surrounded. As she ended a rustle in the bushes made her start. But Meg, accustomed to all night sounds, did not stir. Though the thoughts expressed were somewhat beyond her, the words, "My God take care of me," impressed themselves on her mind. She was glad to have heard them and they comforted her.

Miss Gregson shivered as a night hawk cried out in the darkness and a slight breeze swept past them.

"You will come in now, my dear child," she said, as she rose.

As they parted outside her bedroom door, Meg threw her arms around her friend, then ran hastily into her room.