Chapter V: His Story Finished

IT was not long before Rufus called upon Mrs. Warren, who was a gentle, fragile old lady, and reminded him much of Greta's mother. She assured him he would always be welcome at her house, and he was soon a constant visitor there.

"Greta is a capital nurse," Mrs. Warren said to him one day. "She makes me more comfortable than any one else, and I fear I am selfish in keeping her from London gaiety, but I do not think it will be for very long."

"You will be better soon," the young man said, cheerfully.

But Mrs. Warren shook her head.

And Greta hastened to say, "Aunt Catherine, you know I love to be with you, so don't talk of keeping me from gaiety."

"How is it," Rufus said one day, as they walked across the moor together, "that duty and right is such a strong principle with you? Do you put it all down to your early training? I don't believe your own wants or wishes are ever consulted. I am longing to hear you say, 'I like, I want, I shall have,' but I listen in vain for the words."

"I don't think I ever do want anything different to what I have," Greta replied, laughing. "You see I am so happily circumstanced!"

"Is there nothing that you wish for? Are you perfectly content to live your life exactly as it is at present?" demanded Rufus, a little eagerly.

"Yes, as it is," was the quiet reply. "I know, of course, that changes will come—they must; but I have given over my life into another's keeping, and He is managing it for me."

"You are too good for this world," responded Rufus, gloomily.

But Greta's clear laugh reassured him. "Does that speech sound priggish? I do not mean I am beyond all earthly desires. I have one very strong one, and I am hoping it may be granted one day."

"May I hear what it is?"

Rufus's face was turned toward her expectantly; and for a moment, Greta's soft eyes met his steadily, then she looked away, and her words fell upon his ear with slow emphasis.

"It is that you should be reconciled to your mother."

There was silence for some minutes between them.

At last he said, slowly:

"Do you care so much?"

"It saddens me," she responded. "Family quarrels seem such a terrible thing, and coldness between a mother and son so unnatural. Why should you refuse to be reconciled when the first overture comes from her?"

"One can't forget," he said; "the past is always before me."

"Yes, but that fact should make us careful of the present, should it not? You will not like in years to come to remember that you refused to see your mother. Don't laugh if I give you a remark of Rebecca's. 'People must have sad memories through life, but they need not have remorseful ones!'"

Rufus smiled. "What has become of Rebecca, is she still living?" he asked, trying to turn the conversation.

"Yes, she lives with a brother in London, and when I feel in want of advice I always turn to her. I have written to tell her of our meeting each other again."

"And how has she taken it?"

A pretty blush came to Greta's cheeks, and she replied with her light laugh:

"You know she always considered our acquaintance rather an improper one. She accused me of picking up a strange young man on the road, and I never shall forget the feeling of shame that came over me when she added that only a very bold and forward child could have done it."

"But I think it was quite the other way. I think it was I who picked you up, wasn't it?"

And then they both laughed at the remembrance of that stormy morning in March.

Only a few weeks later to this Mrs. Warren was suddenly taken worse, and after a week's prolonged suffering passed quietly away; Greta being with her to the last. Lady Chatterton came down from town, and after the funeral took Greta back with her, so for a time Rufus and the latter drifted apart. He heard that she had gone abroad with her aunt; then that she was visiting in Scotland; but when he gathered that the family were again in town, he left Derbyshire, and anxiously and expectantly made his appearance again in London society.

And it was at another social gathering that he next saw her.

She looked tired and sad, though her face brightened at the sight of him.

"I cannot stand town life," she confided to him with something of her old childish manner. "I thought I should like it so much at one time, but I have been so disappointed. I feel I want to breathe physically and mentally, and if I were a free agent I would run away from it all."

"And why don't you?"

"My aunt needs me. She is getting old, and says I make the house brighter. She has had a lonely life, for my uncle is so busy with politics that he is hardly ever with her; so it would be cruel to leave her. You see I have learned to grumble; but your face brought back that sweet Derbyshire moor. Have you left it for long?"

"I don't know," was the blunt reply.

"I am so glad to see you in town," Greta went on a little eagerly. "I have wished so much to meet you. Can you come to tea with us to-morrow afternoon? My aunt is having a few friends, and she will be delighted to see you."

"I will come with the greatest pleasure."

And Rufus went away feeling this eager welcome was more than he expected.

The next afternoon found him at Lady Chatterton's. Greta greeted him brightly, but seemed nervous and ill at ease. There were a good many guests, and her time was naturally absorbed in entertaining them. Rufus could hardly get a word with her, and was about to depart rather gloomily when she came up to him.

"Mr. Tracy," she said, softly laying her hand on his arm, "I want you to come with me into the other room and be introduced to a great friend of mine—a very great friend of mine she is—and—and I want you to promise to be your true self with her."

Greta's light touch thrilled through him; and though he wondered at her words, he followed her obediently into the smaller drawing-room.

A grey-haired woman seated by the window turned round at their approach; and Rufus found himself face to face with his mother.

Greta stole away; she knew from the softening lines about the young man's face as he looked at the one who had been his boyhood's ideal of all that was good and beautiful, that his pride was now being placed in the background, and a deep content crept into her heart.

Later on Mrs. Tracy came forward, leaning on the arm of her son.

"Greta, my dear, I am going home. Will you bid adieu to Lady Chatterton for me? I am a little upset, as you can imagine, but Rufus is going with me."

Mrs. Tracy's eyes were tearful, and Greta watched mother and son depart with wistful eyes.

She did not see Rufus for several days, and then he called, finding her alone in the drawing-room.

"I can never thank you enough," he said, with feeling, "for what you have done. I look back now and see that it was my headstrong will, my obstinate pride and bitter words, that were the cause of our estrangement, and that led to my leaving home. I have harbored wrong thoughts, and suppressed all right feeling for years, and I do not deserve to have all this put straight now."

"And is your mother going to Derbyshire with you?"

"Very shortly."

"How happy you will be together."

The words escaped her involuntarily.

Rufus drew a step nearer her.

"Greta, don't you know that I shall never be happy without you there?"

Greta was silent; but a pink flush stole over her cheeks. He went on in a nervous, hurried tone—

"Do you remember our story long ago; how the little sprite made peace between mother and son? Do you remember the end of the story?"

Greta looked out of the window as she answered—

"She went back to the buttercups, did she not?"

"That was your ending, not mine."

"I think it was a very nice ending."

"But not the fact."

Silence again, broken by such earnest pleading that Rufus gained the day, and with a simple, childlike grace, Greta looked up and placed her hand in his.

"And now take me to your mother."