Chapter XII: Inez's Vow

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The children were feeling rather tired: were all under the shade of the big tree on the lawn. They had had their paper-chase, and now Inez was proposing a bonfire at the end of the garden.

"Old Foster won't like it," said Chris.

"Well, we'll have a fire of some sort. I know! We'll have one in the middle of the grass, and be gipsies. We'll roast potatoes and boil the kettle for tea."

Inez sprang to her feet as the inspiration seized her.

"I don't believe Mrs. Tubbs will let us," said Diana. "She wouldn't let us have our dinner out here as we wanted to."

"We won't tell her, and she won't see us till we've done it. Let's pick up all the sticks we can!"

This appealed to them all; even Chris did not see any harm in it, but there was a terrible outcry from Noel when Inez attempted to break some little branches from his Christmas tree.

He thumped her in the back and yelled.

Inez only laughed.

"His under branches ought to be cut off," she said, "it would do him good. He's got too many of them."

"Cut your hair off!" cried Noel. "I'll cut some of it, you've got too much of it, and it will burn beautiful."

He picked up the garden shears and pursued her round the garden. Inez enjoyed the chase. They were all laughing, when suddenly a visitor appeared in their midst. She had walked out of one of the French windows in the drawing-room and come down the garden to them. It was Miss Constance Trent.

Noel dropped his shears and rushed at her.

"My Cherub!" she exclaimed as she embraced him. "I was feeling so dull his afternoon that I suddenly thought I would come and see you all and your mother. I have just been told that she's away."

In a moment she had sat down amongst them and made herself at home.

"I think I must stay and play with you. Captain Melton has gone back to London, and I've nobody who wants me."

The children were delighted to have her. She was told about Granny's illness, and about Chris's invitation.

And then she looked at Chris very thoughtfully for a moment.

"My dear boy," she said in her quick impetuous fashion, "there's no reason why you should not go and see your school friend and stay the night. Is Nurse away? I'll take her place: it will be great fun. My little aunt is always telling me I never do anything useful, and I can be a stern martinet when I choose. I'm sure your mother would like you to go. I'll stay till tea-time, and then I'll come over the first thing to-morrow morning. You can sleep the night, as you were asked, and come back to-morrow afternoon. And my car is at the gate with my chauffeur: he'll run you out in no time."

Chris wavered. Then he shook his head and said firmly:

"Thank you very much, but Mums made me her—her deputy, and it would be mean to get someone else to do my job. I'd rather stay, thank you."

Miss Constance tried to persuade him, but she soon saw it would be useless.

And so she stayed and played with them; and they gave up the idea of having a fire upon the lawn, because she told them it would burn the grass and leave a bare place. She told them she was going to marry Captain Melton very soon.

"And when I'm married I mean to have the cherub as my page. Aren't you very glad, Cherub, that I'm going to marry one of 'God's men'?"

Noel looked at her gravely.

"I don't want him to take you away."

"I don't mean to go back to London, Cherub. We are going to live in the country, not so very far from here. So I shall come flying along to see you when I'm unhappy."

"Oh!" said Diana, clasping her hands. "You'll never be unhappy if you are married. They always marry and live happy ever after!"

"So they do—I forgot that—I hope I shall be no exception to the rule."

Miss Constance left them when tea came.

Cassy brought it out into the garden and Diana, with pleased importance, poured out a cup of tea for Miss Constance and persuaded her to drink it before she went.

"When I grow up," Inez informed them, after they had waved a farewell to their grown-up visitor and heard her car tear along the road towards her home—"when I grow up, I shall marry and make my husband take me to the top of the Himalayas. I shan't stay in England, it's too pokey."

"P'r'aps you won't get a husband," said Chris, looking at her critically. "I shouldn't like to be him."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because you're always wanting your way, and I should like my wife to want mine."

"I wouldn't have you as a husband for a hundred pounds," said Inez scornfully.

"When I grow up," Diana said softly, "I shall love my husband so much that I'll always do what he wants, and he'll love me so much that he'll always do what I want."

"And when I grow up," burst out Noel, "I shan't marry nobody, but I shall be a padre and build the biggest church in the world: that's what I'm going to do, and I'll live in it!"

"Clergymen don't live in churches," said Diana.

"I shall. Samuel in the Bible did, and Eli, and God and me will live there together."

"There you are again!" demonstrated Chris. "That's not the way to speak of God."

"Oh, I like to hear him!" said Inez. "He tells me a lot of things I never heard before."

And after they had had tea, and Chris and Diana began watering their garden, Inez and Noel wandered off into the churchyard together. It was Noel's favourite haunt.

"I like things that specially belong to God, don't you?" said Noel confidentially. "Old Mr. Sharpe, the man who keeps the big garden and who gave me my Chris'mas tree, he said that God had always liked gardens from the very beginning, and this is one of His special little gardens where people grow."

"But they're dead. They're buried, like my poor little puppy that Julia drowned. I buried him myself, and made him a little grave just like these."

Noel nodded.

"Yes, I know, but Mr. Wargrave telled me they're like the flowers in the winter time. They'll come out of the ground one day beautiful!"

Inez looked at him thoughtfully, then she said:

"I've made up my mind to belong to God. I talk a little like you do when I say my prayers. Your mother told me a lot. Let's come into the church, and I'll tell you what I mean to do."

So as the church door was always left unlocked they found their way in.

"You must whisper," Noel told her; "everybody whispers, except when they're here on Sunday."

They walked up the aisle, and sat down in one of the choir seats in the chancel. The sun was shining through the coloured window which represented our Lord as the Good Shepherd amongst his flock. It touched their heads with bars of gold. The church was quiet and cool and restful. Inez was impressed by the atmosphere.

"Are you positively certain that God is here to-day?" whispered Inez.

"Quite positive certain," said Noel in a shrill, eager whisper. "It's His Own House, you know. Mr. Wargrave says he leaves the door open for anyone who wants to speak to God."

Then screwing up his eyelids very tightly, Noel added:

"I can almost see Him, Inez."

Inez looked startled.

"Well, listen!" she whispered. "I've been reading about a traveller who stood up in the desert when he had nearly died, and when a deer crept out from somewhere and showed him a well. The traveller knew that God had sent the deer to him, and he took off his hat and knelt on the ground and he held up his hand and he vowed a vow."

"What's that?"

"It's a very solemn, on-your-honour promise. He told God that he would take service with Him for ever and ever and do what He told him. And he became a very great missionary after that."

"We had missionaries in India," said Noel. "What else?"

"Oh, that's all I need tell you, but I thought I'd rather like to give myself right away to God, and vow a solemn vow like that."

"Do it now," whispered Noel; "let me see you."

Inez hesitated: "Your mother said it was the Saviour who wanted me."

She pointed to the window.

"There He is! Do you think He'd like me to be one of His sheep?"

"Kneel down and hold up your hand!" urged Noel in an eager whisper.

So Inez knelt down and took off her hat and held up her hand very solemnly.

"Here I vow, O Jesus Christ, to be Your servant and do what You tell me for ever and ever. Amen."

There was silence in the church. Noel was kneeling by her side. He felt as if something tremendous was taking place.

And he was not far from wrong, for Inez was in dead earnest, and in after-days when she became quite an old woman with grandchildren of her own around her, she would tell them of the first stepping-stone towards the Better Land on which she placed her feet, in that quiet little country church, on a summer's evening in August. And then after silence, Inez spoke to her Saviour again:

"I'm sorry I've been such a wicked girl, but Mrs. Inglefield told me You had died for wicked people to forgive them, so please forgive me. And make me never want to kick or scratch or bite Julia again."

Then she got up on her feet and looked at Noel in a solemn, satisfied kind of way.

"There, that's done, and I can never go back! I've been wanting to do it ever since the picnic, but I didn't seem to know how. And when Dad and Mother come home they'll find their daughter an angel-child, who almost smiles when she's ill-treated, and is almost too good to live! And I shall end my days by being a missionaryess, out in the heathen countries where lions take you off to their dens."

Noel looked at her admiringly.

"And," went on Inez, as she took his hand and came out of the church into the sunshiny churchyard, "now you'll never be able to say that the Devil lives in my house any more."

But Noel shook his head doubtfully:

"He comes for visits sometimes—at least, he does to me."

"Well, they'll be very short visits," said Inez with much self-assurance.

And then they ran back to the others, and joined in more games, till it was time for Inez to go. Julia came for her. Neither she nor Noel told the others about their talk in church, but when Julia said to her on their way home:

"I hope you've been a good girl. Why you can't always behave like a little lady I can't think!"

Inez quickly rejoined:

"I always behave well with other people who behave well."

Then she added reflectively:

"And now I'm going to be quite a different sort of person. And I'm not going to do what anybody tells me except God. And I'm going to obey Him all my life long, so you needn't bother about me any more, Julia."

Julia stared at her in astonishment: then she said sharply:

"The skies will fall when you turn religious!"

Inez would not deign to reply to this, and their walk home was a silent one.

Chris and Diana were delighted the next morning to get a letter from their mother, saying that their Granny was much better, and that she hoped to be home at the end of the week.

This seemed to them too good to be true.

"Saturday is her birthday," said Diana. "Oh, I do hope she'll come Friday night, so that we'll have every minute of her birthday with her."

"I must get on with my present for her," said Chris.

"What are you going to give her, Dinah?"

"A hanky with beautiful fine crochet round it. Miss Morgan taught me a long while ago, and I finished it the other day."

Noel looked rather sorrowful.

"I've fluffing for her birfday, nulling, and I've only sixpence! What can I get her?"

"Go and buy something in the village," said Chris.

"But what shall I buy?"

Chris and Diana turned impatiently from him.

"We've chosen our presents, and you must choose yours," said Diana.

Noel began to cry in a miserable kind of way. He felt very small and helpless sometimes, and thought the others most unkind.

Cassy found him sitting on the stairs with tears rolling down his cheeks, and took pity on him.

"I'll get aunt to let me come to the village shop with you, and we'll choose together. We're sure to see something nice."

Noel cheered up. Mrs. Tubbs was willing to spare Cassy, so they started for the shop.

When they got there it seemed most confusing to Noel, for there were so many things and they were so mixed up together that it was very difficult to choose at all.

Cassy suggested a piece of scented soap, a china vase, a box of hairpins, and a needlebook, but Noel shook his head at all four.

At last he saw a very brightly coloured plate, with two dancing figures painted upon it. He got this for sixpence and carried it home triumphantly.

"Mums will be able to eat her tea on it. I know she'll like it."

When he got home he found Chris and Diana talking over decorations, which they meant to put up in honour of their mother's birthday. They spent all that afternoon in the nursery painting great letters in red paint, which they pasted on some brown paper. Chris composed the sentence and was very proud of it:

"Happy health, boundless wealth, and a very long life
to our Mother!"

Then Diana ran out into the garden and let Noel help her pick some green leaves, which she sewed round the paper as a frame.

After this they got the long steps, and nailed it up at the top of the front porch, so that it should meet their mother's eyes as soon as she came in.

"But," said Diana as she read it aloud to Noel, "we haven't mentioned her birthday, Chris."

"No, of course not. We can't do that before her birthday comes. This is just for her coming home."

The days seemed to pass slowly. But another letter arrived saying that Mrs. Inglefield would be home on Friday evening, and Nurse arrived on Friday afternoon. Chris heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her. He felt his charge was over, and except for the boudoir carpet no harm had been done. On the whole, things had gone on quietly.

Mrs. Inglefield did not get to the station till six o'clock in the evening. She had ordered the car, and all three children were in it waiting for her.

When she made her appearance they all flew at her. Chris was not ashamed to hug her before the porters, and there seemed so much to tell her on the way home that the drive was far too short.

"I seem to have heard all about you from Diana's clever letters," Mrs. Inglefield said, smiling; "but I find that there is a lot to be told me."

She was delighted with the words over the porch.

"Dear me!" she said. "I am a very proud mother this evening; it's not only the skill that is shown, but the love behind it that delights me!"

The children spent their happy hour a little later than usual that night. The stains on the carpet told their tale, but Mrs. Inglefield did not appear to notice them.

When she was visiting Noel in bed, he poured out the whole account to her.

"I've tried hard to be good, Mums. I reely have, and God has tried hard to make me good. But when you're away I've nobody to love me, and then I feel mis'able—I haven't had one little tiny kiss from anyone in the world since you went away. Oh, yes, I have. Miss Constance kissed me, but she only came once."

"My baby!"

Mrs. Inglefield only breathed the words, but she gathered her little son into her arms as only a mother can, and Noel was deeply content as he lay there.

Then Chris was visited. Mrs. Inglefield had heard about his school friend's invitation, and she spoke very tenderly to him about it.

"You must go and see him, dear, now, if he is still there. If it is only ten miles, you could cycle over, could you not? But I like to feel that my boy did not fail me. I shall always rely on you now, Chris. You are like your father. His word is his bond. He never fails, never disappoints! You might have let Miss Constance relieve you, as she offered to do so, but I am glad you did not. If anything had happened, you would not have forgiven yourself. I am pleased with my eldest son, and very proud of him!"

Chris flushed all over. When his mother spoke like that, he felt he could die for her!

Diana clasped her mother round the neck when she came to her.

"Oh, Mums, how I love you!" she whispered. "The house is dreadful without you."

"I think I have missed you, darling, as much as you have missed me. But I wish that my daughter would show some of her love towards poor little Noel. I think he's the unhappy one of the trio when I am away."

Diana looked surprised.

"Is he, Mums? He always seems busy and fussing in and out. He's what we call 'all to himself' always, you know. He doesn't care about being with me."

"Why not, darling? Couldn't you mother him a little? He needs it. He is only a little boy, and has a very deep, affectionate heart."

"He—he's so huffy!" Diana said in a hesitating way. "Perhaps Chris and I do leave him alone too much. But he's so silly over that old Christmas tree of his. He talks as if it was alive."

"I do believe it is," said Mrs. Inglefield, laughing.

"Oh, well, Mums—I mean, he treats it as if it could think and hear and see, and then he gets so cross if we laugh at him."

"Don't laugh at him, and then he won't be cross. Try to sympathize with his ideas. I want my trio to be a united one—I want you all to love one another."

Diana looked very sober, then she took her mother's hand and laid it under her cheek.

"I'll try and be nice to him," she said earnestly; "but I couldn't mother him. I couldn't be like you, Mums, if I tried hard all my life. There's nobody like you in the world!"

With which emphatic utterance Mrs. Inglefield could not deal. She kissed her little daughter, and departed.