Part 28 (1/2)
”Married!” gasped Eileen incredulously.
”Yes, dear, he was married to a great friend of the hospital nurse who had nursed him--a rich heiress.”
”Oh! auntie, what did you do? How terrible for you, how terrible!”
”I was very ill for some time, there at the hotel in Cairo, and my G.o.dmother and Jane nursed me night and day. Afterward, as soon as I could be moved, they got me away to Switzerland, and there I gradually grew well again. I thought it was hard at the time, Eileen, for I wanted so to die, but I have lived to understand how poor and weak that was.” She stroked the girl's hand tenderly.
”It is cowardly to want to turn and run away directly the path gets hard and stony. I was a coward. I see it clearly now, and I have lived to feel ashamed. I am thankful that G.o.d did not hear my pa.s.sionate pleas, for it has comforted me often to feel I am trying to make up for the weakness of that terrible year. But it was so hard at the time; oh! my dear, I know so well, when the future looks all black and hopeless. But it is never really so. What G.o.d takes away from us with one hand, He repays with the other. I was quite certain no joy was left in all the world for me--nothing but a long, lonely single life. And instead, it has all been so blessed and so sweet. What I have lost in husband and child, I seem to have found again a thousand times in you and Paddy and Jack, and all the young folks and children around that I love so well.
It has been the same with Jane, I think. For twenty-five years--that is since Jack was born--we have been intensely happy in this dear, quiet spot. It is hard to lose him now, and you and Paddy also, and most of our happiness will go with you, but we shall still have each other, and it is not right to repine when one is drawing near old age and the portals of the great New Day. I only pray I may live to see you all happy, for yours is not the only aching heart, Eileen--My poor boy!” she added softly.
”I wonder you don't feel angry with me,” Eileen whispered.
”My dear, how should I?--though it hurts us to know that Jack is unhappy, we have lived long enough to see that sorrow is a great teacher and a great helper, and we believe that by and by he will be glad again, and bless the Hand that let the sorrow come.”
”How good you are!” Eileen breathed. ”It helps me only to hear you talk.”
”I want very much to help you,” the little lady said sadly. ”You are going away to a hard change, my child, and carrying more than one heavy cross with you. I wish I could bear something for you. But you must try not to brood, lest it injure your health and add to your mother's sorrow; and you must try to be bright to help poor Paddy. London will be terrible to her, poor child I fancy I see her now straining her eyes to the horizon, dreaming of her dear mountains and loch.”
There was a short silence, and she said in a changed voice:
”But I have not finished my story yet. I have not told you what happened to Jane and Patrick. It was not until we came back to England, a year later, that I knew, and then it was a shock to me. I am afraid I was very selfish all through that year, or I should have drawn it from Jane sooner. It seems that Allan's conduct made her very angry with the whole family, and while in Cairo nursing me she learnt a great deal about the world generally that she had never known before. Among other things she heard how wild Patrick and his brother had been, and she made up her mind she would have no more to do with anyone of the name of Quinn, for my sake. By a strange chance, Patrick's regiment came to Cairo, and he sought her out at once and asked her to marry him. A very stormy scene followed, in which Jane vented her wrath against Allan upon poor Patrick and denounced the whole family. Then she accused him of drinking and betting, told him she believed no one of his name could keep faith, and sent him away.
”Poor Patrick; poor Jane--looking back now, I believe theirs was, after all, the saddest case. You see she loved him all the time, though she did not know how much until she had sent him away. And he loved her, too. For her sake he would have changed, and there was much good in him; only when she sent him away like that he just gave in and sank deeper, and not very long afterward he died of sunstroke in India. For a long time Jane never breathed a word concerning him, and then one day I found her accidentally with her head down on his photograph, and I made her tell me all.
”It was a strange mystery how one man's perfidy should be permitted to spoil three lives, but it is good to think that what looks so mysterious to our dim eyes is perfectly clear to Him, and in the end we shall understand and be satisfied.
”That is all, dear! Now you know why sister and I have never married, yet are rich because we have known the deep wonder of Love. It is worth some sorrow to have that knowledge, and there is no life so barren, whatever else it holds, as the life that has not known a deep and true Love.”
She got up, and in the firelight it seemed to Eileen that some inner radiance lit up her sweet, lined face, reflecting a faint aureole round her silver hair.
”I hear them coming upstairs. G.o.d bless you, dear,” and she stooped to kiss Eileen's forehead before the others stepped softly into the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
GOOD-BYE.
It was the early January twilight the day before they left that Jack and Paddy went round to take their last farewells. They slipped out quietly and went alone on purpose, as neither felt particularly sure of themselves, and they were determined not to upset the others. This very fact made Paddy remark resolutely, as they walked down to the quay:
”Now, we're not going to be sentimental, Jack, and we're not going to act as if saying good-by was awful. We've just got to pretend we like it, do you see!”
”I'm with you,” he answered at once, ”only you'll have to show me the way.”
”Let's take hands and pretend we're children again to begin with,” was the prompt reply, and then, hand in hand, they stood and looked across the water to Warrenpoint.
”We've had some fun there, haven't we!” said Paddy. ”Do you remember the first time we crossed alone, when you were about ten and I was six, and what a row we got into afterward!--and three weeks later we decided it was worth it and went again? Jack! what a scoundrel you were!” and she laughed up into his face.
”I, a scoundrel indeed! I like that! Why, you put me up to nearly everything, and called me a coward if I held back.”
”Did I?” innocently. ”How wrong of me! Good-by, my dear loch, we're only going away for a little while, and well soon be back. Mind you don't forget.” And she turned briskly away, pulling Jack after her.
All through the grounds of The Ghan House and the Parsonage, path by path, they trampled, laughing at a recollection here, an escapade there, each pretending not to notice how near to tears they both felt. Last of all they came to the churchyard, and the hand in Jack's tightened involuntarily.