"Thistle and Rose" (continued 3)

The church clock struck nine as she entered the High Street in Dornton, and the same sound fell faintly on Anna’s ears on her way back from Alderbury. The picnic had been over long ago, but, shortly after the party started to return, one of the horses lost a shoe; the carriage in which Anna was had to proceed at a slow walk for the rest of the distance, and it would be very late before she could reach Waverley.

No accident, however, could damp her spirits, or those of her companions. It was all turned into amusement and fun. The whole day had been more delightful than any Anna had known. It was over now, that delightful day, and she gave a little sigh of regret to think that she was at the end of it instead of at the beginning. The one shadow which had fallen across the brightness of it, had been cast by the substantial figure of Mrs Winn, whom she had seen in the distance now and then. Once she had noticed her in earnest conversation with Mrs Palmer, and thought that they had both looked in her direction, but it had been easy to avoid contact with her amongst so many people. It had not spoiled her enjoyment then; but now, her excitement a little cooled down, unpleasant thoughts began to make themselves heard.

Here was the Rectory at last! Anna burst into the drawing-room, her fair hair falling in confusion over her shoulders, a large bundle of foxgloves in her arms, her cheeks bright with the cool night breeze.

“Oh, aunt!” she exclaimed, “we’ve had such a lovely, lovely day. Why didn’t you come?”

“You’re very late, my dear Anna,” said Mrs Forrest, gravely. “I expected you more than an hour ago.”

Anna explained the reason of her delay.

“Alderbury is the most perfect place,” she repeated. “Why didn’t you come?”

“It’s very unlucky that you should be late,” said Mrs Forrest. “Delia has been over asking for you.”

Anna’s face fell. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “My grandfather! Is he worse?”

“I don’t think so. And from what I learned from Dr Hunt, he is not at all seriously ill. But he was restless, Delia said, and wanted to see you to-night.”

“To see me,” said Anna. She let her flowers fall in a heap on the ground. “Oh, Aunt Sarah, I wish I had not gone to the picnic!”

“Now, my dear Anna, that is foolish. You shall go to Dornton early to-morrow, and no doubt you will find Mr Goodwin better. Remember that there is no cause for anxiety, and though the accident of your being late was very unfortunate, it could not be avoided.”

Aunt Sarah’s composed words were reassuring. Probably her grandfather was not very ill, Anna thought; but oh, why had she gone to the picnic, and what would Delia say?

These last words were in her mind again next morning, as she arrived at Number 4 Back Row, and stood waiting to be let in. The little house looked very sad and silent, as though it knew its master was ill. Presently the door opened a very little way, and the long, mournful face of Mrs Cooper appeared. When she saw who it was she put her finger on her lip, and then said in a loud, hoarse whisper, “I’ll call Miss Delia.”

Anna was left outside. She felt frightened. Why did Mrs Cooper look so grave? Perhaps grandfather was very ill after all!

It seemed ages before the door opened again, and when it did, it was Delia who stood there. She did not look at all angry, but her face was very sad.

“He has had a very bad night,” she whispered, “but now he is sleeping. He must not be disturbed. You had better come later.”

That was all. The door was gently shut again, and Anna stood outside. As she turned away, her eyes filled with tears. Yesterday her grandfather had wanted her, and she had not gone—to-day the door was shut. He must be very ill, she felt sure, whatever Aunt Sarah might say. His kind, gentle face came before her, as she made her way along—always kind, never with any reproach in it. How could she have gone to the picnic, and left him to ask for her in vain?

As she reached the place where the pony-cart waited for her, Isabel Palmer came out of a shop. She looked at her with a sort of cold surprise.

“Oh, Anna,” she said, “how is Mr Goodwin? We only heard yesterday he was ill. I was going to his house to ask after him.”

“Dr Hunt says there is no cause for anxiety,” said Anna, repeating the sentence she had so often heard from Aunt Sarah.

“It was Mrs Winn who told mother he was ill,” continued Isabel, observing Anna’s downcast face curiously, “and—she said another thing which surprised us all very much. Why didn’t you tell us long ago that Mr Goodwin is your grandfather?”

Anna was silent.

“We can’t understand it at all,” continued Isabel. “Mother says it might have caused great unpleasantness. She’s quite vexed.”

She waited a moment with her eyes fixed on Anna, and then said, with a little toss of her head:

“Well—good-bye. I suppose we shan’t meet again before we go to Scotland. Mother has written to tell Mrs Forrest that we’re not going on with lessons.”

They parted with a careless shake of the hands, and Anna was driven away in the pony-cart. Her friendship with Isabel, her pleasant visits to Pynes, were over now. She was humbled and disgraced before every one, and Delia would know it too. It would have been a wounding thought once, but now there was no room in her heart for any feeling but dread of what might happen to Mr Goodwin.

“Oh, Aunt Sarah,” she cried, when she reached Waverley, and found her aunt in the garden, “I’m sure my grandfather is worse—I’m sure he’s very ill. I did not see him.”

Mrs Forrest was tying up a rebellious creeper, which wished to climb in its own way instead of hers. She finished binding down one of the unruly tendrils before she turned to look at her niece. Anna was flushed. Her eyelids were red and swollen.

“Why didn’t you see him?” she asked. “Does Dr Hunt think him worse?”

“I don’t know,” said Anna. “I only saw Delia for a minute. He was asleep. I am to go again. Oh, Aunt Sarah,” with a burst of sobs, “I do wish I had not gone to the picnic. I wish I had behaved better to my grandfather. I wish—”

Mrs Forrest laid her hand kindly on Anna’s shoulder.

“My dear,” she said, “you distress yourself without reason. We can rely on Dr Hunt’s opinion that your grandfather only needs rest. Sleep is the very best thing for him. When you go this evening, you will see how foolish you have been. Meanwhile, try to exercise some self-control; occupy yourself, and the time will soon pass.”

She turned to her gardening again, and Anna wandered off alone. Aunt Sarah’s calm words had no comfort in them. Delia’s severest rebuke, even Mrs Winn’s plain speech, would have been better. She went restlessly up to her bedroom, seeking she hardly knew what. Her eye fell on the little brown case, long unopened, which held her mother’s portrait. Words, long unthought of, came back to her as she looked at it.

“If you are half as good and beautiful,” her father had said; and on the same day what had been Miss Milverton’s last warning? “Try to value the best things.”

“Oh,” cried Anna to herself as she looked at the pure, truthful eyes of the picture, “if I only could begin again! But now it’s all got so wrong, it can never, never be put right!”

After a while, she went into the garden again, and avoiding Mrs Forrest, crossed the little foot-bridge leading into the field, and sat down on the gate. The chimneys of Leas Farm in the distance made her think of Daisy, and the old days when they had first met, and she had been so full of good resolves. Daisy, and the good resolves, and Delia too, seemed all to have vanished together. She had no friends now. Every one had deserted her, and she had deserved it!

She was sitting during those reflections with her face buried in her hands, and presently was startled by the sound of a little voice behind her.

“What’s the matter?” it said.

It was Daisy Oswald, who had come through the garden, and now stood on the bridge close to her, a basket of eggs in her hand, and her childish, freckled face full of wonder and sympathy.

Generally, Anna would have been ashamed to be seen in distress, and would have tried to hide it, but now she was too miserable to mind anything. She hid her face in her hands again, without answering Daisy’s question.

“Has some one been cross?” inquired Daisy at last.

Anna shook her head. Her heart ached for sympathy even from Daisy, though she could not speak to her, and she hoped she would not go away just yet.

“Have you hurt yourself?” proceeded Daisy.

Again the same sign.

“Have you done something naughty? I did something very naughty once.”

Seeing that Anna did not shake her head this time, she added, in her condescending little tone:

“If you like, I’ll come and sit beside you, and tell you all about it.”

She put her basket of eggs very carefully on the ground, and placed herself comfortably by Anna’s side.

“It was a very naughty thing I did,” she began, in a voice of some enjoyment, “worse than yours, I expect. It was a year ago, and one of our geese was sitting, and mother said she wasn’t to be meddled with nohow. And the white Cochin-china hen was sitting too, and”—Daisy paused to give full weight to the importance of the crime, and opened her eyes very wide, “and—I changed ’em! I carried the goose and put her on the hen’s nest, and she forsook it, and the hen forsook hers, and the eggs were all addled! Mother was angry! She said it wasn’t the eggs she minded so much as the disobedience. Was yours worse than that?”

“Much, much worse,” murmured Anna.

Daisy made a click with her tongue to express how shocked she felt at this idea.

“Have you said you’re sorry, and you won’t do it any more?” she asked. “When you’re sorry, people are kind.”

“I don’t deserve that they should be kind,” said Anna, looking up mournfully at her little adviser.

“Father and mother were kind afterwards,” said Daisy. “I had to be punished though. I didn’t have eggs for breakfast for a whole month after I changed the goose. I like eggs for breakfast,” she added, thoughtfully. Then glancing at her basket, as she got down from the gate, “Mother sent those to Mrs Forrest. I came through the garden to find you, but I’m going back over the field. You haven’t been to see Star for ever so long. She’s growing a real beauty.”

Long after Daisy was out of sight her simple words lingered in Anna’s mind. They had made her feel less miserable, though nothing was altered. “When you’re sorry, people are kind,” she repeated. If her grandfather knew the very worst, if he knew that she had actually been ashamed of him, would he possibly forgive her? would he ever look kindly at her again? Anna sat up and dried her tears. She lifted her head with a sudden resolve. “I will tell him,” she said to herself, “every bit about it, from the very beginning, and then I must bear whatever he says, and whatever Delia says.”

It was easy to make this brave resolve, with no one to hear it but the quiet cows feeding in the field, but when the evening came, and she stood for the second time at Number 4 Back Row, her heart beat quickly with fear. When she thought of her grandfather’s kind face her courage rose a little, but when she thought of what she had to tell him, it fell so low that she was almost inclined to run away. The door opened, but this time Mrs Cooper did not leave her outside. She flung open the door of the sitting-room with her other hand, and said in a loud voice, “Miss Forrest, sir.”

Anna entered, half afraid as to what she should see, for she had made up her mind that her grandfather was really very ill. To her relief, the Professor and his shabby little room looked unaltered. He was sitting in his arm-chair by the window, tired and worn, as she had often found him before, after one of his long walks, and held out his kind hand to welcome her as usual.

“Oh my dear Anna,” he said, “you’ve come to see me. That’s right. Come and sit here.”

There was a chair close to him, and as she took it, Anna noticed a piece of half-finished knitting on the table, which she knew belonged to Delia. “If Delia comes in,” she thought to herself, “I can’t do it.”

“Are you better, grandfather?” she managed to ask, in a very subdued voice.

“Oh, I’m getting on splendidly!” he answered, “with such a good nurse, and so much care and attention, I shall soon be better than ever I was before.”

There was no mistaking the expression in his face as he turned it towards her. Not only welcome and kindness, but love, shone from it brightly. In the midst of her confusion Anna wondered how it was that she had never felt so sure of her grandfather’s affection before. And now, perhaps, she was to lose it.

“You can’t think how wonderfully kind every one is,” he continued. “I really might almost think myself an important person in Dornton. They send messages and presents, and are ready to do anything to help me. Mr Hurst came in just now to tell me that he has arranged to fill my place as organist for a whole month, so that I may have a rest. They’re very nice, good people in Dornton. That kind Mrs Winn offered to come and read to me, and then Delia is like another grand-daughter, you know.”

Anna’s heart was full as he chatted on. Must she tell him? Might she not put it off a little?

“And so you went to a picnic yesterday?” he went on, as she sat silently by him. “Was it very pleasant? Let me see, did the sun shine? You must tell me all about it. I am to be an idle man now, you know, and shall want every one to amuse me with gossip.”

“Grandfather,” cried Anna, with a sudden burst of courage, “I want to tell you—I’ve done something very wrong.”

The Professor turned his gentle glance upon her.

“We all have to say that, my dear,” he answered, “very often. But I’m sure you’re sorry for it, whatever it is.”

“It’s something very bad,” murmured Anna, “Delia knows. She won’t forgive me, I know, but I thought perhaps you would.”

“Is it to Delia you have done wrong?” asked Mr Goodwin.

“No. To you,” replied Anna, gaining courage as she went on, “I—”

The Professor stroked her fair hair gently. It was just the same colour as Prissy’s, he thought.

“Then I don’t want to hear any more, my dear,” he said, “for I know all about it already.”

The relief was so great, after the effort of speaking, that Anna burst into tears, but they were tears full of comfort, and had no bitterness in them.

“Oh, grandfather,” she sobbed, “you are good. Better than any one. I will never, never—”

“Hush, my dear, hush,” said the Professor, patting her hand gently, and trying to console her by all the means in his power.

“I wonder where Delia is!” he said at last, finding that his efforts were useless.

Anna sat up straight in her chair at the name, and dried her tears. She dreaded seeing Delia, but it must be faced.

“She was here the moment before you came in,” he continued. “Call her, my dear.”

It was not possible to be very far off in Mr Goodwin’s house, and Delia’s voice answered from the kitchen, when Anna opened the door and called her. A few minutes afterwards she came into the room carrying a tray full of tea-things; her quick glance rested first on Anna’s tear-stained face, and then on the Professor.

“Anna and I have had a nice talk, my dear Delia,” he said, with an appealing look, “and now we should all like some tea.”

Delia understood the look. She put down her tray, went promptly up to Anna, and kissed her:

“Come and help me to get the tea ready,” she said; “it’s quite time the Professor had something to eat.”

So Anna was forgiven, and it was in this way that, during her visit to Waverley, she began dimly to see what the best things are, and to see it through sorrow and failure. It was a lesson she had to go on learning, like the rest of us, all through her life—not an easy lesson, or one to be quickly known. Sometimes we put it from us impatiently, and choose something which looks more enticing, and not so dull, and for a time we go on our way gaily—and then, a sorrow, or perhaps a sin, brings home to us that everything is worthless compared to Love, Truth, and Faithfulness to Duty, and that if we have been false to them, there is no comfort anywhere until we return to serve them with tears of repentance.

The End.

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