CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE SANEST WOMAN.

During the remainder of the winter Piers Rendall paid frequent visits to Seacliff, appearing at unexpected moments, sometimes after but a week's interval, sometimes but once in the month. The feeling that he might arrive at any moment brought an element of excitement into Vanna's quiet life. It was delightful to awake in the morning and feel that there was something to which she could look forward--an object towards which to move. When he came there would be invigorating gallops across the downs, visits to the Happy Land, where each was bound to cast care to the winds; happy tea-parties in the dining-room; cosy chats round the fire, Miggles lying on her sofa, Vanna seated on the footstool by her side, Piers in his favourite position on the hearthrug, his long legs stretched out, his back resting against the wall. Sometimes he would recount the doings of the great city, and discuss politics up to date for the edification of the two women, who were keenly interested in the course of events. Sometimes he would read aloud from a book in which Miggles was interested; sometimes they would roast chestnuts, and laugh and jest and cap amusing anecdotes like a party of merry children. Looking at Piers's face illumined by the firelight on one of these occasions, a sudden vision flashed before Vanna's eyes of that face as she had seen it first. The tightly drawn skin, the down-turned lips, the hard brilliancy of the eyes, the nervous twitching of the features. This man smiling upon her looked strong, and happy, and glad. Whence had come the change?

At Whitsuntide Jean and Robert came down for a three days' visit--the first since their marriage, and the little cottage was filled with the atmosphere of spring and joy. Two people more utterly content, more beautiful in their happiness, it would be impossible to conceive. Jean was in her gayest, least responsible mood, full of histories of her own failures as housekeeper, her difficulty with bills, her hopeless exceeding of the weekly allowance--the which she recounted with triumphant amusement, while Robert sat looking on with an air of penitence and guilt. That he should dare to inflict petty economies upon this goddess among women!

Towards her old friend Jean's manner was composed of a mingling of tenderness and wonder.

"There's no question about this place suiting you, Vanna," she said the last evening, as the two girls enjoyed a short _tete-a-tete_ in the garden. "I have never seen you look so well; nor so pretty. Robert says so, too. Somehow--I don't know how it is, but you look different, I keep looking at you to see the cause. You have not changed your hair?"

"No; my hair is as you last saw it. It won't `go' any other way. There's no difference that I know of. It exists only in your imagination."

"No!" Jean was obstinate. "You look different. Dear old thing, it's a comfort to see you so sweet and blooming. I was afraid I should find you all gone to pieces. I _do_ admire you. When I think of your life, and mine! I should be such a beast. Miggles says you are an angel. So does Piers. Not in so many words, of course. Piers never says what he feels. He is such a silent, shut-up creature, but I could see that he was simply bursting with admiration of your life down here. Doesn't he look well? I have never seen him so bright. Robert says he goes a great deal to the Van Dusens'. They have such a pretty daughter. I've wondered so often if he could be in love at last. That would account for it all. I hope he is--Old Piers! I should like him to be happy."

"Very probably it is. He is certainly changed," said Vanna briefly.

The next day the Gloucesters took their departure, and left behind a sense of loss and blank. Miggles struggled under a weight of depression at the thought that this might be the last time that she would ever behold her beloved child and pupil; the maid covered up the furniture of the guest-room with dull regret; Vanna was racked by an access of bitterness and jealousy. All the dearly won composure of the past eight months seemed swept aside. She was back again in the slough of despond which had followed the memorable visit to the doctor. Every sight, every sound, every word that was uttered seemed to press against her nerves with unbearable jar; she felt a sense of enmity against Miggles, the village, the whole human race; above all, against Jean and her husband. She shut herself within the walls of a cold and sullen reserve, never speaking unless spoken to, answering with the curtest of monosyllables. For three long days she hardened herself against the pleading of Miggles's eyes and the tenderness in the feeble voice, but on the afternoon of the third day she brought her footstool to the side of the sofa, and laid her head against the old woman's knee.

"Comfort me, Miggles! My heart is so sore. I'm sad, and I'm bad, and I've made you miserable, and now I come to you for help. I'm so _tired_. Say something to help me along!"

"What is it, dearie? Grieving after Jean, and feeling lonely to be left without your friend? It was such a short visit. So good of them to spare the time, but from our point of view it was _rather_ aggravating. You want her back again, as I do, and grieve that she's so far away."

"No, I don't! I don't want to see her. I'm glad she's in town. I hope she won't come again. The contrast is too great. I can't stand it. She has everything, and I have nothing. It's not fair. She doesn't deserve it any more than I do. Why should she be beautiful, and strong, and happy, and adored, while I am lonely, and sad, and tainted by disease? I can't bear it. I wish she had never come."

Miggles's face showed a network of lines of distress and bewilderment.

"But--but I don't understand! You love Jean; she is your best friend. You are not _sorry_ that she is happy? You don't grudge her her good fortune? That wouldn't be possible. You are far too sweet."

Vanna gave a short, despairing laugh.

"No, I'm not sweet. I'm bitter, bitter to the core; and you might as well know the truth--at this minute I _do_ grudge her happiness. I grudge it so much that my very love seems changed to gall. You are an angel, Miggles, but you are old, and your life is over. I'm young, and it's all ahead. It's the most difficult lesson of all to stand aside and look at happiness through the eyes of others. It's easy enough to weep with those that weep. If we are whole ourselves we are thankful that we have escaped; if we are under the ban, there's a companionship in suffering. We understand each other, and help each other along; but to rejoice with those who rejoice demands a nobility of which at the moment I am simply incapable. This world is unfair and unjust. Things are too horribly uneven."

"Dear child, this world is not all. It's only the beginning, and so soon over."

"Oh, no, Miggles, that's not true. It may seem so from the standpoint of eternity; but we are human creatures, and from our standpoint it's terribly, terribly long. Fourscore years, and how slow those years are in the passing! When I think I may have fifty more!... Besides, even eternity doesn't right things. How can it? If we are all going to be happy in heaven, Jean will be as happy as I. There will be no difference between us, but she will have had the earth-joy which I have missed, the dear, sweet, simple, domestic joys for which I was made, for which my body was fashioned, for which I crave. They are gone--gone for ever! Eternity itself can't make them up. There seems no compensation."

The old woman pressed her hand on the girl's dark head, but for some minutes she did not speak. Into her placid, gentle nature, such upheavals had never come; she had been content to walk along the narrow way, taking each day as it came, without bitterness or repining, but the natural shrewdness which relieved her character from insipidity would not allow her to take the credit of this attribute to herself. "It's because I was given that disposition," she told herself humbly. "Vanna is clever and ambitious. It's more difficult for her." She shut her eyes, and prayed that the right words might be sent to her feeble lips.

"But, dearie, I'm not so sure that we _shall_ all be equally happy in heaven, any more than on earth. I never could believe that just because your body died you were going to wake up a perfected saint. We've got to learn our lessons, and perhaps happiness isn't the quickest way. I can't argue--never could; the dear boys found that out, and used to lay traps for me, asking me to explain; but life is only a little voyage--a trial trip, as the papers say. You may have fine weather, or you may have storms; the only thing that matters is to get safe to the haven. Sometimes when we've been down here for the summer it has rained persistently; 1861 was one year--the time Pat broke his leg! We've been cross and disappointed, and at the time it has seemed hard, but looking back after a few years it has faded into nothing. `Wasn't it wet?' we say, and laugh. It was only for a month--such a little time! Who would think of looking back and grizzling over a little disappointment twelve years old! And perhaps, dear, just because we couldn't go out in the sunshine to pick the dear flowers, because we had to stay indoors and be quiet and patient, we learnt something, found out something, that helped us along, and made us fitter for the haven. I'm very stupid--I can't explain--"

"Dear Miggles, you are very wise! I am fortunate to have you. Be patient with me, and love me a little bit in spite of my naughty words."

"A little bit! Indeed, my dear, I have grown to love you with all my heart. After Jean, I really believe you are my dearest on earth."

After Jean! That stung. Jean had so much. She might surely have spared the first place in one old woman's heart; and what a sweetness it would have been to come first to just one person in the world! Vanna's sense of justice pointed out that it was not reasonable to expect a few months' devotion to eclipse the association of a lifetime; but though reason may convince the brain, it leaves the heart untouched.

Jean had Robert; Miggles had a whole family of adopted children; Mrs Rendall had her son; Piers had--a sharp stab of pain penetrated through the dull misery of her mood, a stab which had pierced her at every recollection of Jean's light words--"Always at the Van Dusens'--such a pretty daughter--I believe he is in love."

Was it true? and if so, how did it affect herself? Vanna went out into the garden and seated herself in her favourite seat, at the edge of the cliff, whence the winding steps cut out in the face of the chalk descended steeply to the shore. The tide was out, and a few village children scrambled barefoot over the slippery boulders, searching for treasures in the pools between; the sound of their happy voices floated up to her ears.

What was it to her if Piers Rendall loved and wedded another woman? He was her friend; during the last few months he had given a hundred signs of his care for her, his anxiety to help and cheer her life. She in return must be equally generous. She must rejoice over his happiness, and pray for its coming. Why not? It was no loss to her. She herself might never marry. Piers Rendall could be nothing to her. Vanna threw back her head and burst into a peal of high, unnatural laughter. The children playing on the rocks glanced up in amaze, and stood staring at the strange spectacle of "The Cottage Lady" laughing all to herself, and Vanna laughed on and on, with ever harder, higher notes. Piers could be nothing to her. No, nothing! nothing but life, and sun, and air, and food, and raiment, and hope, and comfort. Nothing but that. Everything in the world, and nothing more. Unutterable joy, unfathomable loss. She knew now. The scales had fallen from her eyes. In a blinding flash of light she saw her own heart, and knew that it held but one thought, one image, one hope.

How long had she loved him? She recalled their first meeting, when he had frowned at the sight of her, and she had watched him walk along the shore by Jean's side with resentment in her heart. Their acquaintance had begun with prejudice and dislike, yet almost at once her sympathy had gone out towards him; almost from the first it had distressed her to see his depression; that nervous twitch of the features had been a positive pain, she had turned away her head to avoid the sight. Later on, when Jean was engaged, he had drawn nearer, and looking back on the day of the wedding, she knew that it had been for his sake that she had taken an interest in her costume, from a desire to appear fair in his eyes. At the moment of entering the church it had been his face which had stood out from all the rest. She had been so thankful to see his smile. All that afternoon and evening he had been quietly, unostentatiously attentive, as if divining her sense of loss, and striving, in so far as might be, to fill the gap. Twice again she had seen him before leaving town, and then had come the morning when he had appeared at the Manor House window, and she had seen her own transfigured face in the glass. That was the day when the last barrier had broken down, and friendship had finally made place for love.

Nature, which had decreed that she might never marry, had not at the same time been merciful enough to take away the power of loving; rather had it bestowed it upon her in a deeper, fuller fashion than is possessed by nine women out of ten. Every power of her being surged towards this man in a passion of love and longing. She stretched out her hands as if to grasp him, and sobbed to feel them empty. Laughter turned to tears--the slow, difficult tears of a breaking heart. For ever and ever these hands must remain empty. As if the present were not sufficiently painful, Vanna then projected herself into the future. In imagination she saw Piers engaged to this pretty, strange girl; listened to his mother's endless prattle concerning her beauty, his happiness, the coming wedding; saw him located at the Manor with his bride by his side, bringing her over to the Cottage, sitting beside her in the Happy Land. The future was desolated; and the past? The past also crumbled to nothingness before this shock of self-revelation. Where now was the peace and conquest on which she had congratulated herself during the last few months? Not only had they disappeared, but it appeared that they had never existed. That lightsome frame of mind, which she believed to have been gained as a reward for duty well done, had in reality been nothing more or less than the dawnings of love; the deep undercurrent of joy and hope which had lain beneath the surface of her life.

Vanna hid her face in her hands. At that moment the sight of the gay, smiling scene seemed but to mock her grief. She felt a wild longing for winter, for the stormy sky and sea, the frowning cliff, which would be a fit setting for her life. How could she go on tending Miggles, sitting quietly in the house, separated from Piers, seeing him with another?

The sound of footsteps startled her from her trance--ascending footsteps, scaling upwards from the beach. She straightened herself, thrust back her hair, and struggled to compose her features. It seemed part of the same dull trance that it should be Piers's face which rose into sight, his dark eyes which turned anxiously to her face. She had not known of his coming, but she was not surprised; a stupor of indifference had succeeded the passion of despair; she felt no surprise, no embarrassment, but sat watching him stonily, until he reached the last step and stood by her side.

"Was that _you_ laughing just now? I heard you as I came along the shore. It _was_ you?"

"Yes, it was I."

"And now you are crying!" His tone was quick and tense with anxiety. "What is the matter? You are not well. Something has been troubling you. It is not like you to be hysterical."

Vanna's lips curled, her eyes stared steadily into his. A sudden impulse seized her, and she gave herself no time to pause.

"And why not? On the contrary, it is just what you might expect. There is no counting on what I may do. My moods are very variable, but you must make excuses for me. There is madness in my family. My father died in an asylum, and my grandmother, and two aunts. I have been warned that I may have the same fate in store. You can hardly expect me to behave like a normal creature. It is no wonder if I wax hysterical at times. It's not exactly a pleasant prospect to look forward and picture _that_ fate in store. You must make allowances for occasional outbursts."

He stood above her, looking down with dark, intent eyes as though he would see into the very heart of her being.

"When were you warned? Lately? Since I was here last? Is that what is troubling you now?"

"I saw the doctor last summer. He warned me then, but I had known the facts for two years before that. They had been hidden from me, but I found them out, and went to the doctor for advice."

"A year ago! You have known all these months when you have been happy and gay? Then this has nothing to do with to-day. What is troubling you to-day?"

She looked at him blankly. On his face was a great sympathy, a great tenderness, but no sign of the horror and amazement which she had expected. The great tragedy of her family seemed to weigh as nothing as compared to her grief of to-day. The tears rose in her eyes, but they were tears of relief. Her voice faltered in pitiful, childlike fashion.

"I was lonely, and I remembered, and I was afraid--afraid to look forward..."

He bent down and took her hands in his with a firm but gentle pressure.

"Get up! You are not lonely any more. My horse is in the village. Go and get ready, and we will have a ride." He strengthened his grasp, looking deep into her eyes. "What does it matter to me if every soul belonging to you were mad? You are the sweetest, the _sanest_ woman I have ever met."