Lady Grace Summit busies herself in planning Pansy's magnificent wedding; Marlow Holme has literary business in America that will shortly call him away; and the marriage is not to take place at once, there being many important arrangements to make. But it is settled that they will live at Silverbeach Manor, and already certain rooms are in process of improvement and embellishment, and Pansy is devising wonderful schemes for the purpose of lovelier effects in gardens and grounds. She often now sees in her mind Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Langdale. She feels thankful that instead of belonging to her first fancy, concerning whom she has long been disenchanted, the future holds a true soul-union with one whom she knows to be good, and great, and noble.
Pansy's satisfaction as to the cheque sent to Polesheaton is short-lived. Instead of the pleasing acknowledgment she expects from one of the Sothams, Martha writes on behalf of her father as follows: "We had already been looking after your aunt a bit, but you know she is proud, and one cannot help her too openly. Deb gave us a long account of all they have been through together -- she is as devoted to your aunt as if she belonged to her -- and they have both had times of sore need, that is plain. We took over a few things from the farm, and when your letter came Father spoke to her about getting nice lodgings somewhere, and mother spoke about a new gown, and your aunt seemed so sensible all of a sudden, and cried out, 'It's Pansy's money -- she's sending me money. Tell her I'll not touch one farthing of it. It was the child's love I wanted!' Father says I am to send you back the cheque. We Polesheaton folk will not let your Aunt Temperance starve."
Pansy tears up the letter and tries to forget its contents, but she cannot succeed in doing so. She pictures the heart-soreness that prompted the old lady's cry; the wistful startled face that half recognized her at Firlands, the love that has yearned for her in vain.
***
It is the evening of evenings at Masden Mission School -- the anniversary, when tea and bread-and-butter and cake are to commence the festivities, prizes are to be distributed, and the children of Sunday and Ragged schools are to recite and sing. The tea is at five, and children gather at the gate about half past two, finding much excitement in the arrival of the baker's cart, and visions of trays of buns. Every boy and girl has managed to secure some adornment out of the ordinary, such as a bright necktie, a posy, a medal; and Pansy has sent over from Silverbeach a collection of plants and flowers that makes the plain schoolroom lovely as a garden.
A live Lord is to preside at the meeting, and this in itself makes a great sensation at Masden. Marlow Holme, now back in England, looks as happy as anyone deserves to be who makes young folks happy, and he is seen in twenty places at once, with children pulling at his coat, hanging on his arm, doing their best to get injured with the knife wherewith he attacks the cake. All the time the young man's heart is listening for the footstep he loves the best, and at last Pansy's carriage is announced by an excited cheer from the youngsters, and his beautiful fiancée is at his side, in a quiet, perfect costume of dark grey cashmere, yet with the indescribable shadow still upon her face that he anxiously attributes to weak health.
Miss Ashburne is here also, for the noble chairman is an acquaintance with whom she likes to keep in touch. She disapproves of the boys and girls and their common parents, and goes and sits in state on the platform among the palms, where tea is handed up to her deferentially. Pansy likes the change of scene after her everyday grandeur. She has grown very fond of her scholars, and she is proud of their progress. Mobs, a blue-eyed, bright-looking little fellow is quite the hero of the evening. He is a remarkably clever lad, and has done so well in the examination that quite a pile of prizes is to come his way. The boy is so elated as to seem suspended on wires. Everyone has a smile and a word for him, and he eyes the tempting-looking books on the platform with a proud sense of personal interest.
"Who is that?" whispers Pansy to Marlow, when the after-meeting opens amid lingering fragrance of tea and cake. She is looking in the direction of a shabby, broken-down looking man in a torn coat, with very short hair, who has shambled to a seat with eyes bent on the ground. Many of the parents, extra well-dressed for the occasion, whisper and nudge each other as he approaches, and there is quite a stir among the children who all gaze in his direction, and appear to be talking about him.
Marlow answers in a low tone, "Poor fellow. That is Mobs's father. He used to be a clerk and fairly respectable, but he fell through drink, and committed forgery. He is out of prison on a ticket-of-leave. I am seeing if the mission can help him and his poor struggling wife; Mobs ought to be the making of the family by and by. What a shame to stare at the poor man so. He has never entered our hall before."
Mobs has only just perceived his father and the whispering and nudging that is going on. The boy is in an honoured place towards the front, but no sooner does he realize what is taking place than he jumps up and edges his way down to his father, sits beside him, and slips his arm through his.
"That's splendid," says Marlow, a little huskily. "The poor chap has got a look of manliness already. Mobs is his one sunbeam. Thank God, he is a good, brave, dutiful child."
Pansy has tears in her eyes as she watches her little scholar go up again and again to take his prizes, followed by the proud gaze of his father, and eagerly returning to show the beautiful books and pictures. The man's looks are softened and calmed as he listens to the singing of the children, and hears his boy's clear voice take a solo in a message of Heavenly love. Can his life be despised, condemned, forsaken of God indeed, when this child remains to him, honouring him, claiming him tenderly as his father in sight of all the assembly? People are not staring inquisitively at him now. They begin to congratulate him concerning his boy, and to show a disposition of friendliness.
"Mobs," says Pansy to her scholar, when she has summoned him aside to help carry in the buns, "I am very glad you went and sat by your father tonight. What made you do it, dear?"
Mobs colours, and mutters something about, "The Bible, and everybody looking down on Father," and finally says, rather brokenly, "It's that text card you gave me, Miss Adair -- it was the very day Father come home."
"I remember once giving you a text card. I bought a packet in London," says Pansy. "Well, Mobs, what was the text I gave you?"
"Don't you remember, teacher? I thought you might have known about Father, and have given it to me a' purpose. I was almost ashamed of owning him, coming out of there, but I felt different after I got reading that card, and now I love Father with all my heart, and I'm going to stick by him and Mother, and do for them just all I can. This here's the text card, teacher," and he fishes it out of his knickerbockers. "'Honour thy father and mother... that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.'"
Mobs runs off with the buns, and Pansy is left there alone, the text flashing into her heart like Heavenly light. Is this child to do God's will, and is she to show no love and honour to her who has taken a mother's place? "Lord, help me -- forgive -- teach me -- oh, teach me to do Thy will!" she falters, and in that hour the heart-struggle ceases. She will give up her rich inheritance. She will openly honour the love that loved her helplessness.
As Marlow Holme takes Pansy to her carriage, he says, "This will be a glorious evening for some, my darling. Our chairman is delighted with Mobs, and wants to undertake his training. I have told him the family history, and my belief that the poor convict is sincerely penitent, though almost hopeless. Our chairman has told Mobs's father to call on him tomorrow, and bring the boy. Once he looks after them, I believe humanly speaking their troubles are past, for he is sure to find just the place of work the poor fellow can fill and regain his self-respect. How good, how gracious the Lord is, Pansy. How His love, His compassion, can bring light out of darkness."
Pansy silently clings to his arm. She feels this starlit hour as though she could scarcely say "goodbye." She means to tell him all, to hide herself away from his contempt, to break the engagement herself that in his heart he would s
urely wish cancelled. She has been thankless, selfish, deceitful. It will be fitting that the one she loves most should forsake her, just as she forsook the love that had nurtured her.
"God be with you, love," he whispers. "I shall see you tomorrow." He does not know he will never see Pansy Adair again.
Chapter 13
For Old Sake's Sake
PANSY'S feelings have reached a crisis. Duty and tenderness are drawing her to the life that cared for her orphan state. Her wealth has gradually been becoming to her almost intolerable in the thought of Aunt Temperance sewing for her living, and dependent on the care of Deb's hard-working hands. Little Mobs, faithful to the bidding on his text card, has made up her mind.
All that night she lies wakeful, trying to form some plans for the future, trying to compose a letter of explanation to Marlow Holme. She rises early, and begins more than one letter to him, wet with her tears, but in the end she addresses to his apartments in town a few brief lines only. They read abrupt and cold, for the tension of her feelings is such that she dare not trust herself to say more to him:
This letter is to bid you farewell. It is better our engagement should end. I have deceived you. Forget our past engagement; this is to set you free. I enclose the ring you gave me. Pansy.
She calls Lizzie Russell, who is still a housemaid at the Manor, and to whom she has become attached.
"See this packet is registered and posted, Lizzie," she says. "Do it yourself. I trust you to get it off by the early post."
"Certainly, miss," says Lizzie; "but you do look so poorly, miss. Let me bring up your breakfast."
Pansy makes no reply, lest she should betray her tears. The girl brings her a tempting tray, longing to cheer and comfort her, for she imagines there has been some little disagreement between her young mistress and her fiancé.
"Is it raining, Lizzie?" asks Pansy, who is looking for a waterproof cloak.
"Yes, miss, it does look gloomy this morning, but 'rain before seven, clear by eleven' you know. It won't keep dull, miss, I'm sure. The skies are certain to clear by and by."
Pansy's own maid is away on a holiday, and she is relieved that such is the case. She puts on her plainest hat, dons her waterproof, locks her jewel case, and encloses the key in a letter to the solicitor. She takes only such trinkets as Mrs. Adair gave her before she died -- none inherited by the will. Marlow's letters and a few special treasures she puts into a hand portmanteau, and then she writes to the lawyer, telling him she renounces her claim to her conditional inheritance, for the stipulation is beyond her carrying out, and she is now going to cast in her lot with the relation whose acquaintance the will forbids.
"If the one who inherits Silverbeach raises no objection," she says, "I should like all the servants to be paid to the end of the quarter and a month beyond, also Miss Ashburne the same. Please arrange all this for me, as I am now leaving Silverbeach Manor, never more to return."
Miss Ashburne is breakfasting at her ease when she is startled by the apparition of her employer, attired for out-of-doors, though it is raining hard.
"My dear Miss Adair, you are not surely thinking of going out. You will be drenched. You are not looking well. I fear you have had a sleepless night. Let me send the groom for the doctor."
"Oh, no, Miss Ashburne, I am not ill. I have something to tell you -- something that I fear will startle you. I am not Miss Adair any longer. My name is Piper."
"It used to be, I know," says Miss Ashburne, soothingly, for of late she has managed to glean a pretty correct idea of the state of affairs; "but Mrs. Adair adopted you, made you her heiress, and called you by her name. Your nerves are excited by sleeplessness, I am sure. You are quite entitled to consider yourself Miss Adair, of Silverbeach Manor. Now do take a little hot chocolate and give up all thought of going out today."
"No, Miss Ashburne; my mind is made up. I have come to say goodbye. I am sure Mrs. Adair's legal adviser will deal honourably with you, as I have requested. Please wait here and preside here till he arrives. With me he has nothing more to do, and I do not suppose he will make any search for me. Mine is only a conditional inheritance, and the condition I cannot keep. I hold Silverbeach while I disown the aunt who brought me up. I have decided now to give up my property and go back to my poor old aunt."
"But, my dear child," says Miss Ashburne, quite agitatedly, "this is impracticable, absolutely irreligious. Would you actually fling into a stranger's hands a splendid estate like this simply for the sake of an old person who cannot have long to live? Providence has provided for you an ample fortune. Think well before you turn your back on it."
"I have thought well," is the quiet reply, "and in the night I prayed about the matter, too. I know my aunt cannot have long to live, so I have all the less time to prove to her I am not the miserably selfish creature she must think me in her heart."
With no more ado, Pansy leaves Silverbeach Manor behind, the beautiful, restful home which is to pass to a stranger. She wonders vaguely if he will take care of the birds, the dogs, her own pet riding horse, the ponies she has driven in the chaise. All these belong to the past. Of the future she knows nothing, save that she is going back to a heart that is breaking for her.
She dreads being recognized at Silverbeach station, but few of her acquaintances are travelling so early, and soon she will be whirled away to her new life. Her idea is to seek out David Rumsay, the gardener, whose address at Lower Road Cottages in Firlands she obtained at the hotel before she left. If Miss Piper has been placed in some institute now, or if she has resolutely gone to the workhouse, Pansy will follow her even there, and take her to some lodging where her musical powers may earn money for them both.
Waiting for the Firlands train is a trying experience. Pansy has just missed one, and sits tired, hungry, yet too sad to eat, in the third-class waiting room where she has time and leisure to reflect on all that has gone out of her life by her decision to choose Aunt Temperance before Silverbeach Manor. Her headache is not improved by the screaming of a neighbouring babe and the quarrelling of a couple angry with each other for missing the train. To complete her discomfiture she sees some people she knows sailing down the platform. They are going by the express, which is only first-class, and Pansy notes their cushions, and wraps, and papers, and luncheon basket, and the attentions of guards and porters. Henceforth she must expect nothing of the sort.
She knows she has chosen to belong to the women who earn their living, and she hopes that her life will be a blessed, and happy, and contented one. Surely, nobody is really poorer for doing what they believe to be right. Even now, she thinks that perhaps Marlow may refuse to accept his freedom, seek her out, demand her reasons, and tell her he can trust her and care for her, even though she hid from him that secret of her early life.
But when once the train has started for Firlands, and she is really on her way to the scenes of old, she forgets even her losses, thinking of the joy she is bearing to her aunt. Oh, that she be yet alive, that God in Heaven may permit the meeting, and allow the future to atone for the past, since her heart surely repents of her thanklessness.
It is evening before Firlands is reached. Last time, Marlow was on the platform -- now, nobody comes forward to help. She feels a little desolate, and asks a porter to direct her to Lower Road Cottages. The man is busy and does not answer. Already Pansy feels a difference between travelling third-class and first. Her second request, made to a lad cleaning lamps, is more successful.
"It's the third turning to the right across the railway bridge, miss, bearing round to the left by the public house. That's where I live. Were you wanting my mother, Mrs. Pillings?"
"No, I want a gardener of the name of Rumsay.'
"Ah, he lodges in the house with the flowers in the window. You bear round by the public house, miss, and you'll be all right."
After one or two mistakes, Pansy's wearied steps reach the tavern in question, and the barman, taking an airing on the steps, shows her which is Rumsay's dwelling.
The gardener himself opens the door in answer to her knock, and salutes her respectfully.
"Good evening, Mr. Rumsay," says Pansy, rather brokenly. "You spoke to me once about an old lady you wanted to get into Thanksgiving Cottages."
"Begging your ladyship's pardon," says Rumsay, "I did not recognise you. Will you please to walk in? I've had an extra job or two of late, ma'am, and the poor old lady hasn't been fretting quite so much about being burdensome, so we've thought no more just now of her finding another home. Mind the step, please, my lady. Let me get the lamp -- 'tis a very dark entry. Deb, where are you, wife? Here's the lady as sent Miss Piper that money from the Wilberforce."
A comely, bright-faced young wife comes forward with a welcome, and places a chair. Deb does not recognize Pansy at first. The years have brought changes to both. But there is someone in the corner by the fire whose eyes are fixed on Pansy. The old lady's lips are parted, and the colour is coming and going in her withered face. Deb sees Pansy looking towards her.
"Her head is better than it used to be, ma'am," she says softly, "but I don't know that she could converse with you, for she's nervous of strangers. All day long she's had such a strange fancy that one she lost years ago is coming back to her, and the idea has made her quite lively today. See how straight she's sitting up this evening. I don't know, ma'am, as how we could ever spare her, even to the almshouses."
"Don't you know me, Deb?" asks Pansy.
The gardener opens his eyes and mouth very widely, Deb stares and gives a little cry of rapture, but Pansy has flown to her aunt's side and covered the aged face with kisses.
"You knew me, didn't you, auntie?" sobs Pansy. "I have come to ask you to forgive me, and take me back for your own again. I am not rich now, auntie darling. I am poor, but my heart is more at rest than when I was away from you. I will never leave you again, God willing, as long as I live. Let our home be together, dear, dear Aunt Temperance."