Chapter 16

DARK DAYS

'Rest thou in God, amid all changes; Be pleased with all He may ordain; Wait patient till what He arranges, For thy best welfare shall be plain; God who has chosen us as His, Knows best what our true welfare is.'--_Neumark._

The wedding passed off successfully. I think I was the only one who felt out of harmony with the brightness and gaiety all around. Though the Forsyths felt the loss of their eldest daughter, there was much to soften their regret at parting with her. She was not going very far away from them; she and her husband seemed exactly suited to each other in many ways, and she was going to a comfortable, luxurious home.

I think too that Nelly occupied a warmer place in their hearts than Constance. The latter seemed to live so entirely for herself, and her nature was so cold and unsympathetic that her presence did not always make home the happier for it. Nelly was the sunshine of the house, and it was she who up to the last kept up an atmosphere of sparkling brightness which none could withstand.

We felt rather 'flat,' as Kenneth expressed it, when all was over and the guests had departed. My thoughts were with Philip, and when, two days after his departure, the post brought me a letter in his handwriting, I opened it with trembling fingers. It was very short.

'MY DARLING,--

'I am off to America on this business that I spoke to you about. Will send you my address later on, but my movements are quite uncertain. So sorry that your visit to Cobham Hall must be postponed. God bless you!

'Yours 'PHILIP.'

I had expected something of this sort, and was hardly surprised, though I did wish he had written more fully. When I told the others, I had to bear a great deal of comment and commiseration.

'I cannot bear mysteries,' said General Forsyth; 'why can't the fellow tell his business instead of being so vague about it?'

'He is so exceedingly reticent about his affairs,' said Mrs. Forsyth, 'that one seems to know very little more about him now than one did at first. Are you in his confidence, Hugh?'

'If I were, I would be hardly likely to betray what he sees best to withhold.'

Hugh's tone was haughty. I looked across the breakfast table at him with a smile, feeling I had one on my side to do battle for the absent one.

'It's awfully disappointing,' grumbled Nelly. 'I was looking forward to our visit at his place, and have refused several invitations that I might have had instead of it. When people go off to America they generally stay there for years, and are never heard of any more.'

'That is cheerful for me,' I said, forcing a laugh; 'but America is not very far off, Nelly, the passage takes next to no time, it is only a question of a few weeks.'

'It is well to keep up your spirits, Goody, but it looks bad--very bad!' and Kenneth shook his head with mock solemnity as he spoke. 'We all noticed his gloom and uneasiness the last evening he was here. I am afraid he has a "dark past," and his conscience is troubling him. Be prepared for the worst. It may be a case of another woman, Goody. In the style of the penny dreadfuls, a wife that he thought dead may have turned up again, and then where would you be? He may have been married two or three times before, for all we know!'

'That will do,' General Forsyth said sternly; 'such jokes are extremely out of place, and we will have no more of them.'

And Kenneth subsided, to my great relief. I felt I could bear very little more, and was glad to get away alone and bear my disappointment as best I could.

But the next few weeks were very trying ones. Not for an instant did I doubt Philip, but others did, and the remarks and conjectures on his sudden departure were hard for me to sit and listen to.

I did not hear from him again, except a post-card to announce his arrival in New York. I wrote to him there, but received no answer, and the time of waiting and suspense seemed interminable.

If I had not learnt the secret of 'dwelling deep' in dark times, I sometimes think I should not have been able to live through that time. The Forsyths were kind, and felt for me, I knew; but my guardian was angry by the suddenness of it all, and persisted in looking upon me as being ill-treated in the matter. Nelly took the very blackest view, and declared I would never hear of or see him again, whilst Kenneth spent his time in concocting the most elaborate stories and bringing them out for my benefit, of different people who mysteriously disappeared, and the causes of their doing so. Hugh was the only one who with me felt it must be right, and he often cheered me by assurances of his speedy return.

'It is most likely money matters,' he said one day to me; 'I know a good deal of his income is in some funds in New York. He has some cousin in business there, who manages things for him.'

And this was the most likely solution I could obtain. But why did he not write? As time went on I grew more and more anxious. I said very little to any one, and tried to be cheerful, and go on with my daily life as before, but it was a hard matter.

I could not bring myself to touch my violin. That last evening rose up before me, and the dim foreboding of evil that had so overshadowed me. I felt a strange shrinking from the very thing that used to be such a comfort and delight to me.

One afternoon I was startled by a message being brought to me by Miss Rayner's old coachman, saying she was ill and wanted to see me. Mrs. Forsyth had gone up to London for a fortnight, so I went at once to my guardian.

'Helen ill!' he exclaimed. 'I should not think she has had a day's illness in her life. What is the matter with her?'

'John says she fell into the river trying to ford it riding, and did not change her wet things. He says she got a violent chill last week, and has had a great deal of fever. This is her note to me.'

I gave him a little slip of paper, on which was scrawled, in letters very unlike Miss Rayner's usually firm hand:--

'DEAR HILDA,--

'I am ill. Will you come and help Susan to nurse me?

'Yours affectionately, 'HELEN RAYNER.'

General Forsyth gave his consent to my going, and I returned that afternoon with John, who was full of garrulous accounts of Miss Rayner's illness. He wound up with saying,--

'And h'it's just my doing that hi'm taking you back. I said to Susan this morning,--I won't be a party to hiding h'it h'any longer. I'll go straight over to the general's and get some one to come h'and see to her while she's yet h'alive, and you may tell the mistress that hi'm doing it. So Susan she sees hi'm not to be trifled with, h'and she tells Miss Helen, h'and she sends this note for you. You will find her very h'ill, miss. She's been at death's door, h'and she's not turned the corner yet!'

The house was very still when we entered it. Even the dogs seemed to know something was the matter, for there was no bounding forward and barking when I appeared; they only crept up to me, and looked with mute, wistful appeal into my face, as if to ask for their absent mistress. As I went quietly up the stairs I met the doctor coming down. He looked grave, and, in answer to my inquiries, said,--

'I hope she will pull through; the worst has passed, but she is very weak. If you are going to be with her, do not let her talk too much. She must not be excited; and see that she has nourishment at the times I have ordered. I shall be in early to-morrow morning.'

A minute after and I stood by her bedside, but I was shocked to see how her illness had pulled her down. She lay motionless, but not asleep, and when I laid my hand softly upon hers she looked up.

'Do you know me?' she asked, with a faint smile. 'I feel a wreck, and as helpless as a baby!'

'I wish we had known about it before,' I said, 'I would have come over at once.'

'I was too ill to care,' she responded. 'I hate people fussing round. I thought I should like to see you, and so sent John over.'

She closed her eyes, and I, quietly removing my hat and jacket, came and took up my position at the bedside.

Susan and I had some anxious days after this, and, beyond saying a verse or two from the Bible to her, I could do nothing but pray for her. She seemed too weak to be able to hear or understand. But at length she really began to mend, and then her recovery was rapid.

One afternoon, the first time I felt I could with safety let her talk a little to me, she turned to me and said abruptly,--

'Hilda, I can't face death. I am not prepared for it.'

I did not answer for a minute, then I said,--

'God has been very good in saving you from that, hasn't He?'

'But I have been on the brink of it, child, and I can't forget it. It has made me see things so differently--my wasted life, and my self-will and self-pleasing, my rejection of so much Bible truth that was distasteful to me. I have thought and thought over these things till I wonder I did not go crazy. It was that that made me send for you. I felt you were the only one that could help me.'

'I am afraid I have not been able to do much,' I responded. 'You have been too ill to talk to, but I have been praying for you.'

'You said one verse to me soon after you came that has been ringing in my head ever since. Wasn't it something like this, "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins"?'

'Yes,' I replied; 'but those are bits of verses you have put together. I repeated both of them to you.'

I took my Bible and read them to her again, then she said,--

'Now then, take those verses as your text, and give me a little discourse on them, just as you do to your little Sunday scholars.'

I hesitated. Never had I been asked to do anything that seemed as difficult as this. Yet I dared not refuse such an opportunity, and, with an earnest prayer for the Holy Spirit's guidance, I began, falteringly enough at first, to talk about it. I do not remember now what I said; I was only conscious at the time of Miss Rayner's earnest gaze, and of a longing desire that she might obtain both pardon and peace.

She listened in silence, then said,--

'Now I want to hear you pray. Don't look so frightened. You pray with the old villagers you go to see, and I have a soul as much as they have. Kneel down and pray for me.'

I knelt, and when I rose she had tears in her eyes.

'You are a dear little thing!' she said in a softened tone; 'one would think my welfare was as precious to you as your own, to hear you! Now, that is enough for to-day. Suppose you leave me, and go out into the garden for a breath of fresh air. You can send Susan to me.'

I stooped and kissed her before I left, saying softly,--

'Dear Miss Rayner, I know you will find Him if you seek Him. He is very near you now.'

We had several talks together after that. I could not help thanking God again and again for having given me this bit of work in the midst of my own trouble. And it was touching to see how, with all her power of intellect and will, Miss Rayner's illness had humbled her like a little child. She seemed to realize deeply her sin in rejecting the truth for so long.

It was when she was beginning to sit up a little that one day she turned to me and said, 'I have not asked after Mr. Stanton once yet. When are you going to Cobham Hall?'

She evidently knew nothing of what had taken place, and was greatly surprised when I told her all.

'Do you mean to say you have never heard from him since he left?' she exclaimed.

'Yes, once--from New York. That is nearly two months ago.'

'I wish you hadn't been so quick about it, child. I felt from the commencement that it was a risky thing, your knowing so very little about him!'

'I know him well enough to be able to trust him,' I said quietly.

She looked at me and smiled. 'Then you are not anxious, at all events?'

'Yes, I am anxious,' I replied, 'for I do not understand his silence. He must be ill, or something must have happened to him; but other people do not think so, and their insinuations and remarks about it are almost more than I can bear.'

Miss Rayner was silent. I added impulsively, 'I had more than once thought of writing to you, and asking you to have me for a little. I felt it would be such a relief to get away from all the talk. This was before I knew you were ill, of course.'

'And why did you not?'

'I thought it would be rather selfish of me. Now Constance is married, Nelly seems to cling more to me, and there is my work in the village. It is rather cowardly to run away from one's duties if the way is not smooth, don't you think so?'

Miss Rayner did not answer, only said with a sigh a moment after, 'I hope he will not disappoint you.'