Chapter XXIV: Their Future

"Come, my beloved! we will haste and go
To those pale faces of our fellow-men!
Our loving hearts, burning with summer fire,
Will cast a glow upon their pallidness;
Our hands will help them, far as servants may;
Hands are apostles still to saviour hearts,
So we may share their blessedness with them."—MacDonald.

IT was a bright, frosty day, the latter end of February, when Dr. Fergusson and Jean paid their first visit together to Sunnie and her mother.

As Jean entered the familiar hall, and her eyes wandered to the family pictures and the race of Margarets, she gave a little start as she recognised Sunnie's picture amongst them.

"A framed sunbeam," said Dr. Fergusson, following her looks. "You will never paint a more successful picture, Jean."

Then they went up the stairs to the old nursery. Jean wondered if she were dreaming; everything seemed exactly the same. She almost expected when the door was opened to see the little golden-haired figure on the couch in the firelight, but instead, she saw Mrs. Gordon in a low chair by the fire and Sunnie sitting on the rug with her head resting against her mother's knee.

The child was on her feet in an instant, and with a joyous cry, started forward and precipitated herself into Jean's arms.

"My painter has come at last!"

Mrs. Gordon welcomed Jean affectionately.

"Sunnie has done nothing but talk of you ever since we heard the news. We hoped you might come over this afternoon, but were not sure."

"Now," announced Sunnie, "we will all sit round the fire and have a talk like we used to do; but may I place the chairs, mother?"

Assent was given. It seemed strange to Jean to watch the child's active movements. She looked White and fragile still, and seemed taller than when she had lain on her couch, but her cloud of soft hair floated over her shoulders in the old bewitching way, and her little expressive face had lost none of its fascinating sweetness and joyousness.

"The big cushioned chair for my painter, for then she can take me on her knee, and mother will be in her own chair on one side of her to talk to her, and Cousin Leslie will have his own lounge seat on the other side of her, and we'll all be as close together as ever we can manage, for we all love each other so, don't we! And this is my party, for mother said it was."

"I think I am the favoured one," said Jean as, after settling every one to her satisfaction, Sunnie climbed into her lap. "I don't think I have ever held you in my arms before."

"She is not very heavy, is she?" said her mother, looking at her child rather wistfully as she spoke.

"Leslie, what do you think of her?"

"She is first rate," he replied cheerfully. "Perhaps she ought to be fattened up a bit, but you must expect her running about to take it out of her a little."

"I do run about, don't I, mother?" Sunnie put in, "but my days now are like the days in heaven."

Then she put her arms round Jean's neck and drew her face down to kiss.

"I'm going to call you Cousin Jean now. Do you remember I dreamt long ago, soon after you came to paint my picture, that you and Cousin Leslie, were holding hands and running away from me? You won't do that, will you? I'm so excited about it. When will you be married, and where will you live? Close to us, won't you? And then I can come and have tea with you sometimes. Cousin Leslie, do go to the piano and play all about it, and play the wedding-bells ringing? Please do!"

She was off Jean's lap and by Dr. Fergusson's side in a second. Jean's face got crimson, but Dr. Fergusson, with a little laugh, went over to the piano. He dashed into a merry chime of bells, and then drifted into the Wedding March, which delighted Sunnie and rather embarrassed Jean. Then he got up, and placed his hand lightly on Jean's shoulder.

"I hope that day will not be far off," he said.

She looked up at him with a smile, but could not speak, and then Mrs. Gordon carried her cousin off, leaving Sunnie with Jean alone.

"I know you will excuse us," Mrs. Gordon said, "but I do want to talk a little business with Leslie; I shall not keep him long."

They went, and Sunnie returned to Jean's lap.

"Now we'll be properly cosy. Isn't it a wonderful thing about my legs?"

She stretched her tiny tan-stockinged legs out admiringly.

"They hardly ache at all, nor more does my back, and I walk and run miles and miles every day. And, Cousin Jean, I've made a present of my legs to God. I tell Him to make them do just what He would want them to do, if they were in heaven! And then I think Jesus leads me about, and it is so lovely, and I've been to see three sick people in the village, a man who has a cough and a woman who has a bad leg, and a boy who is very ill and is going to heaven very soon. And mother lets me carry them things, soup and jelly, and puddings, and my legs do love it so!"

"And when I'm out of doors, and the sun shines, and the birds sing, and the flowers smell, I wonder if I'm in heaven after all. It is so like what I used to make up to myself about heaven. But do you know, Cousin Jean, I'm sorry for one poor thing! It's my old sofa. He looks so dull and lonely without me, I'm afraid his heart must be nearly broken. He always had me with him, and we used to go for such lovely rides together. He seems to look at me and say, 'You're forgetting your old friend'; and then sometimes I go and cuddle him, and tell him how lovely it is in the world outside the windows. And I ask nurse to leave him to me to dust every morning; he likes me to fuss over him, I'm sure he does!"

Jean looked across at the old sofa and smiled.

"But I expect you haven't quite done with him yet, Sunnie. Don't you sometimes lie down on him?"

"Oh yes, but I don't live on him, as I used to do," Sunnie replied.

She chatted on in her quaint sweet fashion, and Jean was almost sorry when Mrs. Gordon and Dr. Fergusson returned.

When they were saying goodbye, Sunnie looked up into Dr. Fergusson's face rather wistfully.

"I should like to give both of you my blessing, but I'm not on my sofa now—"

Jean smiled.

"Can't you give it off the sofa, Sunnie? I should dearly like to have it."

Sunnie climbed into a high chair.

"Will you bend your heads prop'ly?"

Dr. Fergusson put his arm lightly round Jean, and both heads were bowed before the little maiden. She gravely put her hand on each head and shut her eyes devoutly.

"God bless my dear two cousins, and keep them good and happy, and marry them quick, and make their house like heaven. For Jesu's sake. Amen."

Jean had tears in her eyes as she clasped the child in her arms.

"Sunnie," she whispered, "I have to thank you for making me wish to be good. It was the first step to happiness with me."

And then they went away.

That same evening, Jean and Dr. Fergusson were having a tête-à-tête over the drawing-room fire. Mrs. Fergusson was confined to her room with a bad cold.

"Poor little Sunnie!" Jean said. "I can't bear to think she will grow up and be disillusioned."

"Why should she be?"

"Oh, she must. She thinks every one is sincere and good, and all the world as it should be. I hope her faith will stand the shocks it is bound to have."

"Sunnie is in the care of One who loves her, the One who has power enough to keep her from the evil in the world."

"Yes."

There was a pause; then Dr. Fergusson leant forward, and put his hand on Jean's arm.

"Jean, my child, I want to unburden myself to you. I want your help."

"I will give it," Jean replied simply, but the deep devotion in her eyes told more than her words.

Dr. Fergusson drew a long breath.

"Will you be willing to cast your lot in with mine wherever I may be led?"

"Yes; as long as I am with you, nothing else matters."

"Listen, Jean. For years, I have been longing for a fuller sphere of work. A doctor has some opportunities, but they are few and far between. A sick-bed and agonies of pain are not conducive to listening to the Master's message. I have longed to go out like the early apostles did, to preach and teach the gospel of the kingdom. For years, I have believed that God intends I shall do so, but I have not seen my way. Even that tiny Sunnie, when she was tied to her sofa, held me with an iron hand from attempting a change of work. How could I leave her, when I knew she depended on me for cheer and comfort and guidance? Now she and her mother are one, she has more interests in her life, and she can stand alone. She does not need me. I have been thinking deeply of the cry abroad for medical missionaries. We sit at home and say people ought to go; thousands are still unreached, unfed, unsatisfied. Will you come with me?"

He stopped abruptly. Jean was conscious of a distinct shock.

"Missionaries," she said doubtfully, "always seem to me rather uninteresting. Why do people look down upon them so? They do."

"Does our Master? Are His ambassadors nothing to Him? Have we to live as the world would have us, or as Christ would?"

The colour deepened in Jean's cheeks.

"I feel at the present moment that I would go anywhere with you, Leslie. You can be certain of me joining you in anything that you undertake, for I know you must be in the right."

"But you do not feel drawn to mission work abroad?"

Jean clasped her hands round her knees, and gazed thoughtfully into the fire.

"I'm such a beginner," she said at last, "that I hardly know. I'm trying to imagine myself being told to go without you, Leslie. I think if it was God's will for me, I should do it, of course. But I should require very definite assurance about it."

"If we love our Master, His last words ought to have weight with us."

"What were they?"

"I shall leave you to find out," Dr. Fergusson said, with one of his rare smiles. "But, Jean, if your desire is to do God's will, so is mine, and I am not afraid of the result. My mother will be against the plan, I am afraid, but if you and I are of one mind, we shall gain her consent before long."

When Jean went to bed that night, she turned over the leaves of her Bible and read the last chapter of each of the four Gospels and the first opening verses of the Acts. Then she sat over her fire, deep in thought. She began to see that her religion was a very selfish one, if she had no desire to communicate it to others, that she was a poor follower of the One who lived to influence and help those around Him.

And it was not strange with such thoughts, that she should have a dream, the vividness and reality of which woke her up in the early hours of the morning, and prevented all further sleep from visiting her.

When she came down to breakfast, her face attracted Dr. Fergusson's attention at once. They were alone together, as Mrs. Fergusson was breakfasting in her room.

"What is the matter, Jean? You look big with thought."

"So I am. I am longing to talk to you and tell you a dream I had."

Dr. Fergusson smiled.

"You are such a practical young person generally, that I am surprised you have any dreams."

Jean laughed lightly.

"Don't say I have no imagination. I am sure I have that."

"Would you like to drive out with me this morning? I have to go to a rather pretty village about eight miles out?"

"I should love it. My dream will keep. I will run up to Mrs. Fergusson, and tell her I am going."

A little later, when they were driving swiftly along in Dr. Fergusson's high dog-cart, Jean told her dream.

"I thought I was seeing a ship off. You were in it, and I was trying to get to you, but I couldn't, and some one behind me kept saying, 'Only willing and cheerful workers go abroad; you are neither, in your heart!' And then a great darkness fell over me, and everything—God Himself, and hopes of heaven, and forgiveness for my past sins—all melted away, and the same voice said, 'Your religion, your Christianity, has been taken away from you. You didn't make proper use of it.' I tell you, Leslie, it was awful! I felt almost as if I were in hell, there seemed no light, no hope, and I had lost God! That seemed the most awful thing of all. I felt that there was no future, and my soul was in abject despair. I couldn't pray; I tried to find my Bible, but I found it was gone; I rushed about trying to find good people, a church, a clergyman, any one or anything that would help me, but every one I met was like myself, and at last some one said to me, 'You are a heathen like ourselves. We don't know anything about God or heaven!' Then I woke up, the tears were streaming down my face, and oh, I can't tell you the blessing it was to find it was only a dream!"

Dr. Fergusson was silent, but he looked down upon her very tenderly. Jean went on rather impulsively: "My dream has finished what you began, Leslie. I feel I have experienced what it is to be a heathen! And oh, what they miss! I am longing, burning, to go and tell them of the love and goodness and mercy of God, to bring sunshine into that awful darkness of soul, to tell them the story of the Cross, and all that it brought to us, and Christ's keeping as well as saving power. I never knew what a glorious thing it is to be a Christian, till it seemed to be all swept away from me last night!"

"I read the passages that gave Christ's last words, and I was convinced in my head before I went to sleep that every Christian ought to be a messenger or a witness, but when I woke this morning, my heart was convinced as well as my head. Leslie, you need not be afraid that I will hang back now. I believe God has shown me Himself what He would have me do."

"I believe He has," Dr. Fergusson said, thoughtfully. "I am not one who says no one can witness at home, Jean. I would not forget the words, 'beginning at Jerusalem,' but there are always those who, from health or circumstances, are unfitted for the foreign field. It has been the dream of my life to go. My mother has hitherto held me back."

"And will she be willing now?"

"I think she will not miss me so much. I daresay you know Meta Worth and my brother are going to marry shortly. My mother wishes them to come and live here with her, and they seem to like the idea of it. I shall be quite easy in my own mind about leaving her, and if you are willing, I shall offer myself at once for foreign work."

Jean laid her hand caressingly on his arm.

"I think, Leslie, if you said you were going to sweep a crossing in London, I would buy a broom and shoulder it joyfully after you!"

Dr. Fergusson smiled down at her.

"I should not like to think that was your only motive for following me out to the mission field."

"No," said Jean, an earnest look succeeding the mirthful one in her eyes. "I shall gladly follow the Master's servant because I love him, but I also love the message he takes, and above all, I love the Master from whom it comes. And, Leslie, we will not be melancholy missionaries. It is a message of good tidings. We will think of the verse—

"'The desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be
found therein; thanksgiving and the voice of melody.'"