Gildas is essentially a healthy girl in body and mind. There is in her no gloomy clinging to grief, no persistent watering of the grave within the heart by sentimental tears, and through prayerfulness and cheery companionship -- above all, through thinking of others and striving to help them -- that grave of memory becomes after a while garlanded with flowers.
She is energetic as ever in her Rehoboth work, on fire as of old for the service of Nonconformity and the simpler aspects of religion to which she adheres. But Jasper detects that she is quieter, more womanly now than in the past, and it is clear to the children and poor people, and all with whom she comes in contact, that her manner is softer, more tender, more patient, because she has learnt to love, even though without hope.
One day Gildas has been to see the Demseys on the moor, and she is coming quietly back in the twilight when she hears wheels behind her, and a pony carriage stops at her side. Young Gilbert Haines is standing up in the conveyance, waving his hat to her and begging her to get in. Gilbert's aunt, Miss Rowena Bertram, is driving, and seconds his desire.
Gildas is tired, and somehow there is something in Miss Rowena's face which no longer repels Gildas by distant dignity, but seems rather to attract her nearer. She is soon in the pony carriage, seated beside Miss Bertram, while Gilbert, with a glowing, admiring face, takes the opposite seat.
"I ought to have acknowledged your kind letter," Gildas tells Miss Rowena, "and to have thanked you for your kind efforts for Mrs. Meadows. She is the very picture of comfort now in her snug room at the Almshouse. She told me you had given her some curtains, too. I have been meaning to write and thank you, but I am glad to do so personally."
"I think it is I who have been remiss," says Miss Rowena. "The reason I wrote my thanks for your prompt and capable help with Gilbert was only that in his continued weakness I could scarcely get out at all. Now, I am glad to say, each week makes him stronger, and after this term we hope he'll be able to go away to school. If I could have left him that first week of his illness I would certainly have called, but I believe you went away soon after?"
"Yes," says Gildas, "we've been to Beachlands. Time goes so quickly. It is quite a long while now since Gilbert's accident. I think the fright must have weakened him, for it was only a very slight burn." She turns to Gilbert. "And is your leg quite well again now?" she asks.
"Oh, yes. Why, I play leapfrog and football now, and I ran in the sack race the Grammar School boys got up. Mr. Ruthven let me compete, and I came second. I never thanked you properly, Miss Haven," he says politely, "for bandaging me that day. I remember how soon the pain got better when you treated me, and put the cotton wool round. I have often wanted to see you and thank you."
Despite this formal expression of thanks, Gilbert is at heart a devoted admirer of Gildas Haven, and even as he speaks he resolves within himself to make her Mrs. Gilbert Haines when he becomes a man. Meanwhile, he offers her a portion of cocoanut ice from a cherished bag on his lap, and Gildas partakes of it to his great delight. It is evident their tastes will well agree, and he reflects she is sure to enjoy the Indian climate, with the curries and mangoes and custard apples and nice guava jelly that are part of his loved home memories.
Miss Rowena asks after Mr. Haven, and remarks she thinks Gildas is not looking quite as well as she used. Has she not become somewhat thinner, and did she not have a little more colour?
Gildas protests she never was so well in her life, and she has never needed a doctor since she was eight years old. Her health is perfect, she says. She explains she has just had a good deal of walking, and it may have made her look tired.
"Prince is tired, too," says Gilbert, noticing that the pony is inclined to pause reflectively at intervals and view the landscape o'er. "Wherever do you think we've been, Miss Haven? Miles and miles -- almost to Dilchester -- and Prince has gone splendidly, hasn't he, auntie?"
"You have had a long drive," says Gildas, in surprise. "Prince will be glad to find himself home again, I'm sure."
"Oh, he had a nice long rest," says the boy. "We've been to Mr. Pendrill's place, you know. And we had dinner there -- cod and pheasant, and blackcap pudding and jellies -- and, oh, he's got such funny sisters -- old ladies with curls like corkscrews, and you never know which is which, they're so alike. They're his stepsisters, and they're quite different to him. They've got faces like mother's dear old dog in India -- so sharp and----"
"My dear Gilbert!" says his aunt, reprovingly, "Miss Haven will be shocked to hear a little boy criticise ladies like this. The Misses Pendrill are most energetic, worthy gentlewomen, and will be invaluable in the parish, I am sure."
"Did you know that Mr. Pendrill is Vicar of Rosebrake?" Gilbert asks Gildas, and she is conscious that Miss Rowena is looking at her. Her breath is a little quicker perhaps, for the mention of his name has taken her by surprise, and her heart is hungry for news of him. But she answers composedly, "No, I thought I heard of his working in London after leaving Meadthorpe."
"He stayed there some little time," says Miss Rowena, "and then he was offered his present position, which seems a very happy one, and affording every scope for helpful work. He is the Vicar of Rosebrake now. The village is close to Dilchester -- about four miles beyond Mr. Buisson's. He has the advantage of living near a cathedral city, and yet among beautiful scenery. He is delighted with Rosebrake, and it is very nice for him to be able to have his sisters as his housekeepers."
"Yes," says Gildas -- and what she meant to say next she forgets.
The pause is broken by Gilbert, who informs her they wanted Mr. Pendrill to come over and preach the Harvest Thanksgiving sermon at Saint Simeon's, but he is "full of things he has promised to do at Rosebrake and Dilchester and all around, and he says it's awkward to get to Meadthorpe unless one drives, because the trains from Dilchester don't fit in."
"My father will be disappointed," says Miss Rowena. "But we hope to see him sooner or later. He is evidently in much request and very happy in his work."
"Well, but, auntie," says Gilbert, "the oldest Miss Pendrill, with the tortoiseshell comb, said he's lost his appetite, you know, and she thinks he ought to see a doctor. He only had a little bit of cod and none of that nice pheasant at all. And I had two helps of blackcap pudding, but he scarcely got through one."
"My nephew is very observant, as you see, Miss Haven," says Miss Rowena, quietly. "I am thankful your appetite keeps good at any rate, Gilbert. You paid an afternoon visit to the village baker's too, I see."
"Oh, yes. Mr. Pendrill took me after we'd been over the church. I had cocoanut ice, and a treacle tart, and some apple turnovers, and I've got a packet of toffee in my pocket that I am to ask Mr. Ruthven to take home to the children, with Mr. Pendrill's love. Will you have a piece of turnover, Miss Haven? It is not a bit sour."
But Gildas declines, and as they are now within sight of the Manse she alights, thanking Miss Rowena for the lift on the road.
"I am coming to see you, my dear child," says the Rector's daughter, whose heart has forgotten its own secret aching, in pity for the girl who so bravely hides her suffering. What can she do to cheer and comfort Gildas in the inevitable hopelessness of the dream those two may, for a brief, fleeting hour, have envisioned?
To some, to many, the clashing of doctrinal opinions would make no difference at all in friendship, but to Miss Rowena and Gildas their widely diverging creeds enter deeply into their lives, and the Rector's daughter holds she and Gildas are right not to be close friends. She has learnt by experience that duty and helpfulness are the lonely soul's best comforters next to the Great Healer Himself.
However, when she comes to the Manse, she asks Gildas to undertake the work she has attended to herself since the departure of Mr. Pendrill, who made it his own -- namely, once a week to read and give a simple Gospel talk in the hospital wards.
"If we could divide the work," she suggests, "you taking half the wards and I the rest, I think it would be better for the patients. My voice so so
on loses its strength, and I have very little confidence in speaking."
Gildas often pays visits to patients in Meadthorpe Infirmary on her own account, but this is not the same thing as systematic weekly cheer and help. Her hands are very full, but this was the work he loved, and Miss Rowena offers to share it with her. So the two carry on the work together, wondering that ever they were strangers, and drawing nearer to their Lord and to one another as they tend the sick, dry the tears of the discouraged, and cheer the sufferers with flowers and fruit and heavenly messages of peace.
* * *
For some weeks Gildas has been to and fro on these merciful errands, when one day she is struck by the look of a woman who can neither hear nor speak, Betty Groves. Betty is a servant now out of employment, and ill with pleurisy. Someone has brought a child patient a bunch of grapes, and Betty's eyes look as though she longed for the luscious, juicy fruit with unutterable craving. She is very poor, and has no friends, and that look of weary longing haunts Gildas, who at once mentally foregoes a desired purchase of her own, and tries to secure some grapes for Betty, but all the shops are now shut.
Next day she is visiting in her tract district until late in the afternoon, when she suddenly remembers Betty's craving. Tired as she is, and ready for her tea, she hurries into the High Street, procures a dark, tempting bunch of grapes, and hastens to lay the basket on Betty's bed.
Betty Groves touches the purple bloom of the grapes with eager, yet lingering caress. The colour comes and goes in her face, and there are tears of joy in her eyes, weary of illness and pain.
"Why, how came you to think of those, Miss Haven?" asks a nurse, passing by the sick woman's bed. "Betty has been pining and wearying for grapes ever since the child over there had some brought to her yesterday, but she wouldn't take even one grape from the little thing, who would have given away all if the people would have accepted them. I meant to try if I could get Betty a few myself when I go out by-and-by. She can fancy nothing, and those will be food and drink to her. Why, Betty, those might have come from a royal garden -- they are splendid."
"They did come from the King," says Betty on her fingers. "He knew how I have craved for them. The Lord thinks about poor Betty. He giveth to His people their heart's desire, and that is more than just their need."
Her happy, grateful eyes are turned on Gildas who bends down over her suffering sister and touches the pale, parched lips with her own. At that moment a sudden cry rings through the ward -- a cry of such agony and urgency that Gildas answers directly, "Yes, here I am;" and she trembles from head to foot, for she knows the voice that called.
"What's the matter, my dear?" asks the matron, who is a Rehoboth member and has known Gildas for many a year.
"Didn't you hear, Miss Goring? Somebody called my name. There's something the matter. Did nobody hear that cry?"
"My dear child, you're dreaming. It has been perfectly quiet here. A girl is selling flowers in the street. You fancied you heard her calling your name."
Gildas says no more. She is spelling to Betty with her hands a few verses from the Bible that Betty keeps close to her pillow, and that voice calls her name twice more, even while she is bringing Betty the verse of comfort from Isaiah chapter 42:
"I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not. I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."
Gildas knows within her heart that Bernard Pendrill has called her; that his need of her is so sore and urgent that the spirit-power has triumphed over matter and reached her own knowledge and consciousness. She has heard of such cases, and disbelieved them. All she realizes now is that she must reach the one who called her, for he is dead or dying. She must find him, she must respond to that appeal, clearer to her soul than any voice around.
How she leaves the hospital she knows not. She goes out as in a dream. To whom can she turn for help? Her thoughts fly to Jasper. He will know the way to Rosebrake. He will believe in what she tells him, and even as she resolves to seek him she sees him awaiting her within the hospital porch, standing in the sunset light with a face yet paler than her own. She goes up to him, and steadies herself by clinging to his arm.
"Cousin Gildas," he says gently, "Meadthorpe is hearing bad news this afternoon"
"I know. He called me. Is he dead?"
"The doctor thinks he will live a few days, Gildas, perhaps a week; but it may be only a few hours. He's dying. They've given up all hope of recovery now."
"I must go to him," she says, not thinking anything at all of the strangeness of such words to Jasper, who knows nothing of the spirit link between them.
And he answers simply, "I am here to take you, cousin Gildas."
They go down the streets, where the gas lamps are now glimmering out, calmly and quietly, as though the girl's heart were not breaking. Gildas expects he will start away at once to Rosebrake Vicarage. She has lost count of time, and seems to know nothing except that she must reach Bernard Pendrill before he dies. She thinks he will not die until he knows his cry has reached her, until Death, with tenderest pity, gives back to his heart the one from whom in life his conscience parted him.
But Jasper takes her first of all to the Manse, and puts his gentle hand on her shoulder as Emery admits them, crying out in alarm at sight of their faces. "Good gracious, Miss Gildas and Mr. Jasper, what's happened? If you don't make my heart fairly leap into my mouth seeing the two of you look so strange, almost like ghosts -- if it wasn't superstitious to believe in ghosts and goblins! Is it Jemmie that have fallen in the water butt? I never did see such a child to frighten people out of their senses. Or is it Chidgey took sudden with a fit?"
But for once wondering Emery receives no answer.
"Go and tell your father, Gildas?" says Jasper quietly, and the two go side by side into old Mr. Haven's study.
The minister is arranging back numbers of the news sheet of the Friends of the Jews Society for loan to a neighbouring pastor. The task is a congenial one, and he marks especially noteworthy reports, lingering ever and again to peruse for the fiftieth time some remarkable case of awakening in a son of Abraham. Jones, who is given to the secret conveyance of literature to his kennel, is stealthily departing with The Prophetical Review in his mouth, and drops it guiltily as he perceives the entrance of his mistress.
"Why, my dear lad -- why, Gildas!" says Mr. Haven, removing his spectacles and laying down his pencil. "You have both just come in good time to hear that a remarkable tract, written by a Polish Jew in the Hebrew language----"
"Father," says Gildas, sinking on her knees beside him, "I cannot stay now. I have a journey to take. Bernard is ill. He has called me, and Jasper will take me to him this evening. I'll come back to you very soon when -- when God has taken him; but while he lives he needs me. Give me your blessing, dearest, dearest Father. How can I keep away from him?"
"Bernard?" says the old man, questioningly. He looks startled and bewildered, but his hand trembles to the girl's earnest face.
"Bernard Pendrill -- who was curate here," says Jasper, gently. "I will come back and tell you all I know, Mr. Haven; and Mr. Weston, who has been nursing him, will come in and make things clear to you. He promised me he would. Bernard Pendrill is dying, and his one cry is for Gildas. You will let her go? They love one another, and now Death brings them together a little while."
Mr. Haven is silent. A bitter tide of pain and disappointment surges within him. The sudden knowledge that his child has given her love to one of the Church of England is a greater shock and grief to the old minister than either of the two beside him will ever know. If he has thought of a husband for his bright, clever, capable daughter at all, he has sometimes fondly envisioned a shining light of his denomination, whose intellectual distinction his darling child is so well fitted to share, and a portion of whose laurels will suitably become her fair young brow. But to think there has been an ungue
ssed secret hero in Meadthorpe, and that her love is already given -- that her longing and prayer is to go to the comfort of that young priest whom she has denounced as ritualistic and superstitious!
"Father, he's dying," she pleads. "I can't stay. Kiss me and bless me, for my mother's sake."
He sees her mother's look in the loving eyes she lifts to him so wistfully. With a kiss most tender he speeds her to that presence where she would be, saying brokenly, "The Lord bless thee and keep thee, my heart. The Lord preserve thy soul, and be thine All in All for ever."
Chapter 17
"Will You Stay Until the Last?"
JASPER has already ordered a conveyance from the livery stables, feeling sure that Gildas would go to Rosebrake, after finding the change of trains at Dilchester would cause a long delay.
The carriage is now at the door of the Manse. Two horses have been provided, because the country roads are hilly and trying, and already the carriage lamps are glowing, as it will be completely dark long before they arrive.
Gildas is quivering with anxiety to start, but Jasper will not go until Emery has brought her a cup of tea and some wraps for the journey, and packed her travelling bag -- for hasn't the doctor said Pendrill might linger a week? It may be many a long day before Gildas can return to her father's house. Her place is at his side while he remains on earth. She too feels the time of her coming back is uncertain, for she hurriedly begs Emery to take care of her father, and to send a letter should his cough return or any sign of weakness appear.
"And, Emery," she falters, "please go and see Miss Bell when Father is out for his Wednesday drive with Mr. Mundey. Tell Miss Bell, with my love, about poor Betty Groves at the hospital. Miss Bell can speak by signs, I know. Do ask her to go and see poor Betty for me."
"Oh, I'll ask her, Miss Gildas," says Emery, who is rather offended and scandalized by these summary proceedings; "but what Mr. Jasper means by telling me you're going to that there Mr. Pendrill I can't conceive, miss. Supposing as he is so ill, as Mr. Jasper says, I don't see what a Rehoboth member can have in common with that man"