Janet's Love and Service Part 29

The odour of the lilacs, by the gate, and of the pine trees on the hill came with that mysterious power to awaken old a.s.sociations, bringing back to Graeme the memory of the time when they first came to the house on the hill, when they were all at home together, and Menie was a happy child. All these things renewed their sorrow, but not sharply or bitterly. It was the sorrow of chastened and resigned hearts, coming back with hopeful patience to tread the old paths of their daily life, missing the lost one, and always with a sense of waiting for the time when they shall meet again, but quite content.

And Mrs Snow, watching both the minister and Graeme, "couldna be thankful enough" for what she saw. But as the weeks pa.s.sed on there mingled with her thankfulness an anxiety which she herself was inclined to resent. "As though the Lord wasna bringing them through their troubles in a way that was just wonderful," she said to herself, many a time. At last, when the days pa.s.sed into weeks, bringing no colour to the cheeks, and no elasticity to the step of Graeme, she could not help letting her uneasiness be seen.

"It's her black dress that makes her look so pale, ain't it?" said Mr Snow, but his face was grave, too.

"I dare say that makes a difference, and she is tired to-day, too. She wearied herself taking the flowers and things over yonder," said Mrs Snow, glancing towards the spot where the white grave-stones gleamed out from the pale, green foliage of spring-time. "And no wonder. Even Emily was over tired, and hasna looked like herself since. I dare say I'm troubling myself when there is no need."

"The children, Will, and Rosie, don't worry her with their lessons, do they?"

"I dinna ken. Sometimes I think they do. But she would weary far more without them. We must have patience. It would never do to vex the minister with fears for her."

"No, it won't do to alarm him," said Mr Snow, with emphasis; and he looked very grave. In a little he opened his lips as if to say more, but seemed to change his mind.

"It ain't worth while to worry her with it. I don't more than half believe it myself. Doctors don't know everything. It seems as though it couldn't be so--and if it is so, it's best to keep still about it-- for a spell, anyhow."

And Mr Snow vaguely wished that Doctor Chittenden had not overtaken him that afternoon, or that they had not talked so long and so gravely beneath the great elms.

"And the doctor ain't given to talking when he had ought to keep still.

Can't nothing be done for him? I'll have a talk with the squire, anyhow."

That night Mr and Mrs Snow were startled by a message from Graeme.

Her father had been once or twice before sharply and suddenly seized with illness. The doctor looked very grave this time, but seeing Graeme's pale, anxious face, he could not find it in his heart to tell her that this was something more than the indigestion which it had been called--severe but not dangerous. The worst was over for this time, and Graeme would be better able to bear a shock by and by.

The minister was better, but his recovery was very slow--so slow, that for the first time during a ministry of thirty years he was two Sabbaths in succession unable to appear in his accustomed place in the pulpit.

It was this which depressed him and made him grow so grave and silent, Graeme thought, as they sat together in the study as it began to grow dark. She roused herself to speak cheerfully, so as to win him from the indulgence of his sad thoughts.

"Shall I read to you, papa? You have hardly looked at the book that Mr Snow brought. I am sure you will like it. Shall I read awhile."

"Yes, if you like; by and by, when the lamp is lighted. There is no haste. I have been thinking as I sat here, Graeme--and I shall find no better time than this to speak of it to you--that--"

But what he had been thinking Graeme was not to hear that night, for a hand was laid on the study-door, and in answer to Graeme's invitation, Mr and Mrs Snow came in, "just to see how the folks were getting along," said Mr Snow, as Graeme stirred the fire into a blaze. But there was another and a better reason for the visit, as he announced rather abruptly after a little.

"They've been talking things over, down there to the village, and they've come to the conclusion that they'd better send you off--for a spell--most anywhere--so that you come back rugged again. Some say to the seaside, and some say to the mountains, but _I_ say to Canada. It's all fixed. There's no trouble about ways and means. It's in gold, to save the discount," added he, rising, and laying on the table something that jingled. "For they do say they are pretty considerable careful in looking at our bills, up there in Canada, and it is all the same to our folks, gold or paper," and he sat down again, as though there was enough said, and then he rose as if to go. Graeme was startled, and so was her father.

"Sit down, deacon, and tell me more. No, I'm not going to thank you-- you need not run away. Tell me how it happened."

"They don't think papa so very ill?" said Graeme, alarmed.

"Well--he ain't so rugged as he might be--now is he?" said Mr Snow, seating himself. "But he ain't so sick but that he can go away a spell, with you to take care of him--I don't suppose he'd care about going by himself. And Mis' Snow, and me--we'll take care of the children--"

"And what about this, deacon?" asked Mr Elliott, laying his hand on the purse that Sampson had placed on the table.

But Mr Snow had little to say about it. If he knew where the idea of the minister's holidays originated, he certainly did not succeed in making it clear to the minister and Graeme.

"But that matters little, as long as it is to be," said Mrs Snow, coming to the deacon's relief. "And it has all been done in a good spirit, and in a proper and kindly manner, and from the best of motives," added she, looking anxiously from Graeme to her father.

"You need not be afraid, my kind friends," said Mr Elliott, answering her look, while his voice trembled. "The gift shall be accepted in the spirit in which it is offered. It gives me great pleasure."

"And, Miss Graeme, my dear," continued Mrs Snow, earnestly, "you needna look so grave about it. It is only what is right and just to your father--and no favour--though it has been a great pleasure to all concerned. And surely, if I'm satisfied, you may be."

Sampson gave a short laugh.

"She's changed her mind about us Merleville folks lately--"

"Whist, man! I did that long ago. And, Miss Graeme, my dear, think of seeing your brothers, and their friends, and yon fine country, and the grand river that Harry tells us of! It will be almost like seeing Scotland again, to be in the Queen's dominions. My dear, you'll be quite glad when you get time to think about it."

"Yes--but do they really think papa is so ill?"

She had risen to get a light, and Mrs Snow had followed her from the room.

"Ill? my dear, if the doctor thought him ill would he send him from home? But he needs a rest, and a change--and, my dear, you do that yourself, and I think it's just providential. Not but that you could have gone without their help, but this was done in love, and I would fain have you take pleasure in it, as I do."

And Graeme did take pleasure in it, and said so, heartily, and "though it wasna just the thing for the Sabbath night," as Janet said, they lingered a little, speaking of the things that were to be done, or to be left undone, in view of the preparations for the journey. They returned to the study with the light just as Mr Elliott was saying,--

"And so, I thought, having the prospect of but few Sabbaths, I would like to spend them all at home."

Janet's first impulse was to turn and see whether Graeme had heard her father's words. She evidently had not, for she came in smiling, and set the lamp on the table. There was nothing rea.s.suring in the gravity of her husband's face, Mrs Snow thought, but his words were cheerful.

"Well, yes, I vote for Canada. We ain't going to believe all the boys say about it, but it will be a cool kind of place to go to in summer, and it will be a change, to say nothing of the boys."

Graeme laughed softly. The boys would not have been the last on her list of good reasons, for preferring Canada as the scene of their summer wanderings. She did not join in the cheerful conversation that followed, however, but sat thinking a little sadly, that the meeting with the boys, in their distant home, would be sorrowful as well as joyful.

If Mrs Snow had heard anything from her husband, with regard to the true state of the minister's health, she said nothing of it to Graeme, and she went about the preparations for their journey cheerfully though very quietly. Indeed, if her preparations had been on a scale of much greater magnificence, she needed not have troubled herself about them.

Ten pairs of hands were immediately placed at her disposal, where half the number would have served. Her affairs were made a personal matter by all her friends. Each vied with the others in efforts to help her and save her trouble; and if the reputation of Merleville, for all future time, had depended on the perfect fit of Graeme's one black silk, or on the fas.h.i.+on of her grey travelling-dress, there could not, as Mrs Snow rather sharply remarked, "have been more fuss made about it." And she had a chance to know, for the deacon's house was the scene of their labours of love. For Mrs Snow declared "she wouldna have the minister and Miss Graeme fashed with nonsense, more than all their proposed jaunt would do them good, and so what couldna be redone there needna be done at all."

But Mrs Snow's interest and delight in all the preparations were too real and manifest, to permit any of the willing helpers to be offended at her sharpness. In her heart Mrs Snow was greatly pleased, and owned as much in private, but in public, "saw no good in making a work about it," and, on behalf of the minister and his daughter, accepted the kindness of the people as their proper right and due. When Mrs Page identified herself with their affairs, and made a journey to Rixford for the purpose of procuring the latest Boston fas.h.i.+on for sleeves, before Graeme's dress should be made, she preserved the distant civility of manner, with which that lady's advances were always met; and listened rather coldly to Graeme's embarra.s.sed thanks, when the same lady presented her with some pretty lawn handkerchiefs; but she was warm enough in her thanks to Becky Pettimore--I beg her pardon, Mrs Eli Stone--for the soft lamb's wool socks, spun and knitted for the minister by her own hands, and her regrets that her baby's teeth would not permit her to join the sewing parties, were far more graciously received than were Mrs Page's profuse offers of a.s.sistance.

On the whole, it was manifest that Mrs Snow appreciated the kindness of the people, though she was not quite impartial in her bestowment of thanks; and, on the whole, the people were satisfied with the "deacon's wife," and her appreciation of them and their favours. Nothing could be more easily seen, than that the deacon's wife had greatly changed her mind about many things, since the minister's Janet used "to speak her mind to the Merleville folk," before they were so well known to her.

As for Graeme, her share in the business of preparation was by no means arduous. She was mostly at home with the bairns, or sharing the visits of her father to the people whom he wished to see before he went away.

It was some time before Will and Rosie could be persuaded that it was right for Graeme to leave them, and that it would be altogether delightful to live all the time at Mr Snow's, and go to school in the village--to the fine new high-school, which was one of the evidences of the increasing prosperity of Merleville. But they were entirely persuaded of it at last, and promised to become so learned, that Graeme should afterward have nothing to teach them. About the little ones, the elder sister's heart was quite at rest. It was not the leaving them alone, for they were to be in the keeping of the kind friend, who had cared for them all their lives.

Graeme never ceased to remember those happy drives with her father, on his gentle ministrations to the sick and sorrowful of his flock, in those days. She never thought of the cottage at the foot of the hill, but she seemed to see the suffering face of the widow Lovejoy, and her father's voice repeating,--

"G.o.d is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Long afterwards, when the laughter of little children rose where the widow's groans had risen, Graeme could shut her eyes and see again the suffering face--the dooryard flowers, the gleaming of the sunlight on the pond-- the very shadows of the maples on the gra.s.s. Then it was her sorrowful delight to recall those happy hours of quiet converse, the half sad, half joyful memories which her father loved to dwell upon--the firm and entire trust for the future, of which his words a.s.sured her.

Afterwards it came to her, that through all this pleasant time, her father was looking at a possibility to which her eyes were shut. He had spoke of her mother as he had seldom spoken even to Graeme, of the early days of their married-life--of all she had been to him, of all she had helped him to be and to do. And more than once he said,--

"You are like your mother, Graeme, in some things, but you have not her hopeful nature. You must be more hopeful and courageous, my child."

He spoke of Marian, Graeme remembered afterward. Not as one speaks of the dead, of those who are hidden from the sight, but as of one near at hand, whom he was sure to meet again. Of the lads far-away, he always spoke as "your brothers, Graeme." He spoke hopefully, but a little anxiously, too.

"For many a gallant bark goes down when its voyage is well nigh over; and there is but one safe place of anchorage, and I know not whether they have all found it yet. Not that I am afraid of them. I believe it will be well with them at last. But in all the changes that may be before you, you will have need of patience. You must be patient with your brothers, Graeme; and be faithful to them, love, and never let them wander unchecked from what is right, for your mother's sake and mine."

He spoke of their leaving home, and very thankfully of the blessings that had followed them since then; of the kindness of the people, and his love to them; and of the health and happiness of all the bairns, "of whom one has got home before me, safely and soon."

"We might have come here, love, had your mother lived. And yet, I do not know. The ties of home and country are strong, and there was much to keep us there. Her departure made all the rest easy for me, and I am quite convinced our coming was for the best. There is only one thing that I have wished, and I know it is a vain thing." He paused a moment.

"Of late I have sometimes thought--I mean the thought has sometimes come to me unbidden--that I would like to rest beside her at last. But it is only a fancy. I know it will make no difference in the end."