Chapter XX: Trouble

"THERE's something wrong with Mr. Wilmot!" Other people, besides Mrs. Mason, were saying this as the summer went on.

Annie was slower to perceive the alteration in him than were many. For one thing, he did his best to keep up in her presence, fearing to awake his darling's anxiety. For another, she was young still, and had seen little of illness. Moreover, she was extremely busy in the Parish, and was by no means given to conjuring up troubles.

Conjuring was, however, in this matter no longer needed, for a very real trouble lay already to hand.

The change in Mr. Wilmot had become patent to all who knew him. A laboured and languid gait replaced the old brisk walk; a fixed perpetual pallor replaced the old healthy sunburn. If he had to ascend a little slope, he stood still often to pant for breath. The exertion of preaching would bring visible drops of moisture to his brow; and not seldom the once clear and ringing tones were inaudible to half his congregation.

Yet with this appearance of weakness, there existed an unusual brightness, and this it was chiefly which helped to blind Annie's eyes.

For a while, in the earlier part of the summer, she and many others had thought him unwontedly grave and depressed. The gravity and depression were gone now, utterly. Never had his eyes shone with so calm a light, never had his smile been so full of sunshine. There were some who noted in his look and bearing a strange unearthliness—noted it with mingled awe and fear. Yet they could not have told wherein it consisted; for even while they noted it, and thought him worn and altered, his laugh would break out in all its old gaiety, as he paused to speak to some little child. And how the children loved him!

Annie's eyes remained long strangely shut. She thought him tired unusually often, but the hot summer seemed to account for this. By-and-by, he would take his autumn holiday, and that would set all right.

But there came a day of awakening—sudden and unexpected.

She had had her Bible class as usual one Sunday afternoon, with the half-dozen girls who regularly came to the Rectory for that purpose. It was a very interesting hour commonly to them all; not least so to Nancy Dunn, who by this time loved Miss Wilmot dearly. This day's lesson proved certainly not less interesting than usual.

Annie had chosen the subject of trouble, and of how to bear trouble. She had talked it over with her father beforehand, and she had much to say about the bright side of trouble, the often good effects of it, and the spirit in which it should be borne.

"I dare say some of you remember that sermon of my father's about being always ready," Annie said, in the course of the class.

Nancy smiled a response.

"Perhaps we haven't any of us just now any great troubles to bear—only just little every-day ones. But the great troubles may come at any time; and when they do, we ought to be ready. I suppose there is only one way of being really ready, and that is,—" Annie went on reverently—"that is, living always very close to Jesus. For if we are fighting close to His side, and under His banner, then whatever He orders we shall be ready to do—or whatever He gives us we shall be ready to take.

"I don't mean," she added, after a pause, "that one wouldn't feel trouble. My father says that is a mistake. When God sends trouble, He means it to be trouble. And He means it to bring us near to Him, that He may comfort us. I don't suppose He can comfort us till we are 'ready' to have whatever He sends. Some don't learn to be ready till after the trouble comes. But I should like to learn beforehand—shouldn't you? I should like to be able, when it comes, to look straight up, and say, 'Thy will, not mine, be done.' That's what the Lord Jesus could do, even in the midst of His great terrible struggle in Gethsemane. He could say, 'Not My will, but Thine.' For all the while He was ready—truly ready. He could always say from His heart, 'Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God!' And that is what we have to learn to say."

It seemed strange afterwards to Annie herself, as well as to those who listened, that she should have spoken just on that particular day in this particular manner.

The class ended, Annie put away her Bible, set the chairs straight, and went out into the garden, singing softly. She believed her father to be at the school, where he usually went every Sunday afternoon. A favourite Homer rose bush near the garden-gate drew Annie's attention. She thought she would gather a few buds, and put them on father's study table, to refresh his eyes when he returned. He had not seemed at all well that morning; and Annie had almost made up her mind to ask Mr. Rawdon privately some day soon whether Mr. Wilmot ought not to take a tonic.

Six pretty pinkish half-open blossoms were in hand, when a movement near made her look up. "Good afternoon," she said, smiling at the sight of Archie Stuart. Mrs. Stuart's cottage was in Annie's district, and Annie knew the mother and son well.

"How is Mrs. Stuart?" she asked, as Archie seemed to hesitate outside the gate.

Archie's mother was "pretty well," he said.

"Her foot quite recovered?" Annie asked, plucking another rose bud. "Do you think she would like two or three of these? Come in, and I'll give them to you."

Archie was much pleased. He stepped inside, letting the gate swing to.

"There!" Annie said, handing him a small bunch. "Tell Mrs. Stuart I am coming very soon to see her again." Then, with another smile, Annie inquired, "Has she begun to like Nancy Dunn yet?"

Archie's face fell. "No, Miss," he said. "Not as anybody could help liking Nancy—"

"No, indeed!" put in Annie.

"But she won't hear one word of me and Nancy having things settled between us," pursued Archie.

"Then you have to be patient a little longer," said Annie. Between confidences from Archie, from Mrs. Stuart, and from Nancy, she knew pretty well all about the matter. "Nobody is the worse for a little waiting, and I think you are pretty sure about Nancy—are you not?"

"Well, I did speak to her, Miss Wilmot, and to Mrs. Dunn too," admitted Archie. "For I didn't seem as if I was able to keep in any longer. And my mother she was in a great taking. But Mrs. Dunn said, and Nancy said too, that it wasn't to be anything settled until mother was willing. And it does seem as if she never was going to be willing."

"You have waited a very short time yet, and you and Nancy are both young," said Annie. "I think you must have patience still; and your mother has been a good mother, hasn't she? I always notice how very fond she is of you. I am sure you must want to be a very good son to her."

"Well, yes—that I do, Miss," assented Archie, though perhaps not so heartily as Annie wished, for his head was full of Nancy. Then he inquired: "Is Mr. Wilmot better, please? Mother said I was to be sure and ask. She does set store by Mr. Wilmot, and no mistake, and it's worried her to see him so ill lately."

"My father! Why, he has not been ill," said Annie in surprise. "He seemed tired this morning."

Archie looked at Annie somewhat strangely. He had heard many remarks lately on the Rectors altered look.

"I am expecting him home from Sunday school directly," pursued Annie. "So I must go indoors now and be ready for him. Good-bye. I do hope your mother will soon give way about Nancy. But you have to be patient, haven't you, till then?"

Annie went back into the house, wondering uneasily what could have made Archie speak so of her father. She would certainly got hold of Mr. Rawdon as soon as possible, and beg him to see after Mr. Wilmot.

The study door was shut; but Annie, believing her father to be out, went straight in, meaning to put the rose buds on his study table. Her light and quick approach was unheralded. The door gave no warning creak; and Annie had a noiseless manner of turning handles.

The room proved to be tenanted. Mr. Wilmot lay on the sofa, and beside him sat Mr. Rawdon, bending somewhat forward, and speaking in distinct tones—

"As for your fear of hydrophobia—"

These words struck upon Annie's ears; and no trumpet-clang could have rung out with more startling clearness.

In a moment, the two were aware of her presence, and Mr. Rawdon stopped short.