Sweet Content

Chapter Twelve.

True Hearts

We all waited, without speaking. Poor Major Whyte indeed seemed exhausted by his cough. There was a feeling in the air, I think, as if something strange were going to happen.

And in a very few moments there came the sound of footsteps up the stairs, and then crossing the two big drawing-rooms. And then – the door opened. Freeland murmured something, and I saw coming through the doorway the familiar figure of Captain Whyte, and close behind him the sweet fair face of dear Mary.

Major Whyte started up. He wrung his cousin’s hand without speaking. But I – what do you think I did? I seized Mary and dragged her forward. Fancy me, naughty me, being the one to introduce Mary to her own aunt!

“Here she is,” I cried; “now you can see us together. This is Mary, your own niece, Mrs Fetherston; you can see if what I said wasn’t true.”

Mary did look sweet, though she was shabbily dressed and very frightened. In that grand house the old tweed jacket looked even shabbier than at Elmwood. She clung to me, till I almost pushed her into the old lady’s arms.

“Kiss her, Mary. She’s your own aunt. Oh, do” I whispered; “you don’t know what good it might do. Oh, do kiss her.”

Perhaps the last three words were spoken more loudly in my excitement; perhaps the old lady’s ears were as sharp as her eyes! However it was, she heard, and she smiled.

“Yes, do,” she repeated, and she half held out her arms to Mary. “You are not my special child, I suppose,” she said. “Yvonne is my godchild; but, oh, you are very like what Frank was. Frank,” she added tremulously, “my boy, Frank – are you not going to speak to me, too?”

He came to her at once; I turned away, and somehow or other I found myself with Major Whyte in the outer room.

“Do you – do you really think it is going to be all right?” I could not help saying to him.

He nodded; for a moment or two it seemed as if he could not speak, and I think there were tears in his eyes. His voice was husky when he did speak, but that might have been from his cough.

“Yes,” he said, “I do – I do really hope so. Thank God.”

And as I glanced up at his kind, worn face, there seemed to me to be a light about it – a light such as one never sees save in the face of those who have suffered much, and have learnt to thank God for both sorrow and joy. I knew then that poor Major Whyte was not – as our simple country-folk say – was not “long for this world.” I never saw him again, and I had never seen him before, but I have never forgotten him.

He took me downstairs to where mamma was anxiously waiting. He had ordered tea for her and me; he knew we would be the better for it, he said, before setting off on our cold journey back. He was so gentle and considerate to mamma, telling her all that had happened upstairs as frankly as if she had been an old friend – I always notice that people who are quite, quite well-bred, are so much franker than commoner people, who make mysteries about nothing, and treat you as if your one object in life was to get their secrets out of them – and he was quite right, for she did indeed feel like one. And when we went away he took both my hands in his so nicely and thanked me– me, the naughty horrid little mischief-maker. Was it not more than good of him? When we were by ourselves in the cab I leant my head against mamma’s shoulder and burst into tears. I could not help it.

“All’s well that ends well, my Connie – my little Sweet Content,” she said. But I could not help going on crying when I thought of poor Major Hugo’s thin face and his terrible cough, and of how much I had added to his troubles and anxieties by my naughtiness on Evey’s birthday.

Papa came home the next day. We were longing to see him and to tell him everything. I fancy mamma was just a little afraid of his thinking we had been imprudent, though she did not say so to me, for fear of making me anxious. I was anxious all the same. We had heard nothing of the Whytes, and mamma thought it better not to go to see them or send to the Yew Trees till papa came home. We did not know what time to expect him; his letter only said “to-morrow, as early in the afternoon as I can manage it.” I spent that afternoon principally at the dining-room window, watching for him, which was very silly I know, and certainly did not make the time pass quicker. But I really could not settle down to anything. Just fancy: I had not seen papa since he turned away from me in silent, cold contempt in Lady Honor’s drawing-room, though it was a comfort to know that he had come up to my room that same night and looked at me as I lay asleep.

When at last he did come, I was, of course, not at my post: that is always the way. I was in the drawing-room at afternoon tea with mamma. I did not even hear his latchkey in the lock, as I often did. He was standing at the drawing-room door, looking at us, before we knew he was there!

All my plans of what I would say, how I would ask him to forgive me, flew out of my head. I just rushed up to him and threw my arms round him and burst into tears.

“Oh, papa, papa!” I said.

He did not repulse me; he did not speak for a moment, but I felt his kind, firm clasp. Then he said:

“My poor little girl,” and he stooped and kissed me. The kiss said everything.

Mamma came forward.

“Tom, dear,” she began, a little nervously, “we have a great deal to tell you.”

Poor little mamma – what a shame it was that she should be nervous, when if she had done anything imprudent it had only been for my sake!

But papa’s first words took away all our fears.

“No, darling,” he said. I liked to hear him call mamma “darling”; he did not often do so, for he is not at all what is called “demonstrative.”

“No, you haven’t; I know all you have to tell me, and a good deal more. Indeed, I rather think I have a good deal to tell you. But first, give me a cup of nice hot tea. It is cold this afternoon;” and still with his arm thrown round my neck, he came close up to the fireplace and stood there, watching mamma as she poured out his tea in the nice neat way she does everything.

“This is comfortable,” said papa; “it’s worth having a cold journey to come home like this, especially when – when one has good news, too, to bring back.”

I started at this.

“Oh, papa,” I said, “is it about the Whytes? – is it all right?”

“I think so. I quite believe so,” he replied. “I had a most cheerful note from Captain Whyte this morning written from his aunt’s house. We were together in London yesterday. He came to my hotel with Mary, on his way to Mrs Fetherston’s, little thinking of your stealing a march on us! Indeed, it was a good deal my idea – the taking Mary to show that she was herself, and not – ”

“Not me,” I interrupted. “Oh, papa, I have been so sorry, so ashamed.”

“I know you have,” said papa, gravely. “I would have spared it you if I could; but yet, Connie – ”

“I deserved it,” I said, “and I wouldn’t have minded its being twice as bad as it was yesterday, if it was to put things right. And the old lady was really kind, papa, at the end.”

“Captain Whyte told me all,” he said. “I don’t think any of them dared to hope in the least that things would turn out so well. They are all going up to town to-morrow – all, that is to say, except the three little fellows. Mrs Fetherston is not one to do things by halves, I fancy. The saddest part of the whole is poor Hugo Whyte’s precarious state.”

“Have you seen him?” mamma asked.

“Yes,” papa replied. “I called on him the day I went up to speak about Captain Whyte’s idea of bringing Mary. He is very, very ill. I don’t think they quite realise how ill he is. Perhaps, however, it is just as well. He may have a little breathing-time now he is happier and cheered by having them all about him; he may live a few months in comparative comfort. That is the best I can hope for.”

“It is a comfort to think that his last days will be cheered and happy,” said mamma, softly.

But I could not help crying again just a little, at night when I was alone, when I thought of Major Whyte’s face, and that I could never hope to see him well and strong and bright like papa and Captain Whyte.

Things turned out pretty much as papa had predicted. Two days after the evening I have been telling you about – the evening of papa’s return – all the Yew Trees people came home again. We knew they had come home by hearing accidentally that the fly from the Stag’s Head had been ordered to meet them at the station at three o’clock. So I posted myself at the dining-room window, and had the tantalising gratification of seeing both it and Lady Honor’s brougham pass our door on their way to the Yew Trees. I could distinguish Mrs Whyte in the brougham, and a bag or two, and the back of a hat which I was sure was Yvonne’s. And the fly was well filled too. But none of them looked out our way, nor nodded to me, though they might have seen me. I felt rather unhappy again.

“Mamma,” I said, when I got back to the drawing-room, “I have seen them all pass, but they didn’t look this way. Mamma, you and papa have forgiven me, but perhaps – even if they forgive me, they’re perhaps not going to be the same ever again,” and I could scarcely choke down a sob.

“Connie, dearest,” said mamma, “how can you fancy such things? You will see, dear, it will be all right.”

But I was very unhappy all that evening.

“They have never passed before without looking out,” I kept saying to myself, and mamma could not manage to cheer me. But just as I was going to bed, the “odd man” from the Yew Trees made his appearance with a note for “Miss Percy,” from Evey! I knew the handwriting, and tore it open.

“Dearest Connie,” it said, “we were so disappointed not to find you here, at the Yew Trees, when we arrived. I wrote yesterday from London, to ask you to be here to spend the evening, so that we could tell you everything. I gave the note to Lancey, and he has just found it in his pocket! So please ask dear Mrs Percy to let you come to-morrow. You must have a whole holiday for once, and stay all day. Oh, we are so happy.

“Your loving

“Evey.”

“Now, Connie,” said mamma, triumphantly, “surely you will never mistrust your friends again.”

I thought I never could, and I thought so still more when I came home the next evening, after one of the very happiest days I ever spent. But I have not quite kept to it, as I will tell before I come to the end of my story.

I must go straight on – was it not sweet of them to make me so happy? – they would not let me keep the least sore feeling about what I had done; they would have it I had been so “brave and unselfish” – fancy me unselfish! – in going to see Mrs Fetherston on my own account, as I had done. Everything was coming right, Mrs Fetherston had fallen in love with their mother, and what wonder! They were all to spend the next summer holidays at Southerwold – that was the old home of the Whytes, which none of the Yew Trees children had ever seen; “Uncle Hugo,” as they called him, was to get quite well immediately, and though I felt more inclined to cry than to smile when they said this, knowing what papa thought about Major Whyte, I took care not to cloud their bright hopes. It was so like the Whytes. They could not see anything other than hopefully – some people think that a bad way to face life and its troubles, but I really can’t say. All I know is that when troubles do come, these dear friends of ours meet them bravely.

“Isn’t Uncle Hugo a darling?” said Yvonne. “Of course we’ve known hint all our lives, though we never saw Aunt Fetherston before. But it’s nearly five years since Uncle Hugo went to India, so of course we had all to learn each other over again, as he says. He’s taken such a fancy to you, Connie. He’s coming down here to stay with us as soon as ever the milder weather really sets in; just now he’s best in London. There’s no pleasure in being in the country if one can’t go out.”

“No, of course not,” I agreed. Evey’s confident tone almost made me feel as if, perhaps, papa was wrong, and that Major Whyte would get well again after all.

But, alas! it was not so. He did seem to get better for a little, and even papa, who was up in London again, a month or so later, and went to see him, allowed when he came home, that he could not have believed Major Whyte could have rallied so much. And as the spring set in early, and the good symptoms continued, all was arranged for his coming down to the Yew Trees; the very day and train were fixed, and we three were nearly as pleased at the idea of seeing him again as the Whytes themselves, when the blow fell. Something, no one could say certainly what – it might have been a slight chill, or over-fatigue, or, perhaps merely the pleasant excitement of the visit in prospect – something – he was so far gone that a mere nothing was enough, papa said – brought on his cough again fearfully. He broke a blood-vessel, I think, and there was only time to telegraph for Captain and Mrs Whyte, and the elder children to go to bid him good-bye before he passed away, very peacefully and very happily, Evey and Mary told me, when they were able to tell me about it. For it was a real and sad grief to them all, and it was the first trouble of that kind they had ever known.

“He sent his love and good-bye to you,” Yvonne said; ”‘little Connie Percy’ he called you. And I heard him say, ‘but for her, things might not have been as they are.’ Yes, he was quite happy. Do you know,” she went on in a very low voice, “years and years ago Uncle Hugo was going to be married to somebody very nice and sweet, and she died. Mother told us – I think it was that that made him so gentle and kind, though he was very brave too.”

The children gave no thought to the difference Major Whyte’s death would make to them all in the end. I think Captain Whyte told papa all, but I never heard or thought about it till the change actually came. That was two years after Major Whyte’s death, when poor old Mrs Fetherston died too. She felt the shock of his death very much, for though he had not been originally her favourite nephew, no one could have lived with him without learning to love him. She had grown dependent on him, too, for helping her to manage things. Altogether it was a great blow, though now, fortunately, as things were, she had Captain Whyte instead, and for the rest of her life she did indeed cling to him and his wife, and to them all. But she never came down to Elmwood again. She stayed on at Southerwold, where she went immediately after Major Whyte’s death, and one or the other, or more of the Yew Trees family were always with her. So I never saw her again, though now and then there was a talk of her coming to the Yew Trees.

These two years were very happy. The Whytes, though they still lived very simply, were free from anxiety about the future, and instead of this making them selfish, it only made them the kinder. All children, I suppose, live a good deal in the present. I don’t think I understood this till the great change came, which made such a difference to me. I had thought, I suppose, that things would always go on much the same.

But one day – it was only six months ago – Captain and Mrs Whyte, who had both been at Southerwold for nearly a week, telegraphed to papa, that old Mrs Fetherston had died; it was rather sudden at the last; and in the telegram they asked him to go to the Yew Trees to tell the children. I had seen them only the evening before, when there was no expectation of such a thing.

“Give them my love, papa,” I said, as he was starting, “and tell them I am very sorry.”

“They will be sorry, I suppose,” I added to mamma, when we were sitting alone; “but not very, do you think? She was rather a frightening old lady, though I don’t mean to be unkind.”

“She was very much softened of late,” said mamma, but she spoke rather absently.

“Still, mamma, it can’t make them very miserable – not like if one of themselves had died,” I said. “I may go to see them soon, mayn’t I, and everything be the same?”

Mamma looked at me very tenderly.

“Connie, dear,” she said, “don’t you understand that it must make a great difference? Captain Whyte will be the owner of Southerwold, and one or two other smaller places as well, I believe. He will be a very, very rich man, and they will be very important people. I don’t say it will change their hearts; indeed, I am very, very sure it will not; but they will have many new ties, and responsibilities, and duties, and – they will have to leave us.”

I stared at her. It was very silly of me not to have thought of it before, but I just hadn’t. Then I burst into tears, and hid my face on mamma’s shoulder.

“You must try not to be selfish, darling,” she whispered. “Try to be my own Sweet Content, and trust.”

I did try – I have tried, and I daresay mamma thinks I have succeeded. But in my heart I know I have not, quite. It all happened as mamma had said; as it had to, indeed. But it came so soon: I had not realised that. They were all as kind and dear as they could be to the end. Only they were very busy, and, of course, a little excited by the change. What wonder! Who could have helped it? In their place, I am sure, I should have been just horridly selfish. And before we knew where we were they were gone; the Yew Trees empty and shut up again. I went through it once, just once – but never again, for when I came to Evey and Mary’s room, with the climbing roses paper on the walls, I felt as if my heart would burst. That was six months ago. I have seen none of them since. They write me nice letters, but lately I have not had one – and, after all, letters are only letters. Some of them have been abroad for part of the winter; poor Addie was ill again, and no doubt they have new friends, and lots and lots to do. Perhaps it will be wisest for me to remember this, and not expect ever hardly to see them again; but – there is mamma calling me – what can it be? I must run and see.

It was a letter from Yvonne – a letter and an invitation. I am to go to Southerwold for the Easter holidays! Oh, I can hardly believe it. I don’t know if I am glad or not. I am so afraid they will have grown so grand, and that I shall feel strange and shy. Oh, my dear Evey and Mary – if I could but have you again like last year – with your dear old shabby tweed jackets, and the loving hearts inside them!

Southerwold, April 16th, 188-.

I am here, at Southerwold, and oh, so happy! It is the most beautiful, the grandest place you can imagine. They have everything! But it is not the place nor the grandeur that makes me happy. It is themselves. They are just quite, exactly the same. I will never, never, never have horrid, distrustful fancies about them again. They met me at the station – Evey and Mary – in their own beautiful pony-carriage, and in one moment I felt it was all right. And just fancy – they had on the old tweed jackets!

“It has got so suddenly hot,” said Yvonne, in her funny, practical way, “that we couldn’t stand our winter things; so we routed these out. They do very well, don’t they? I suppose we shall get new ones this year. There isn’t any difficulty now about such things, you see, Connie,” she added smiling.

“How pretty your jacket is, Connie,” said Mary, admiringly. “Do let us ask mother to get us ones something like it, Evey.”

Dear Mary – they were all dear. They are going to show me all the things they do – the poor people, and the schools, and everything, so that when I come here I shall know their ways and be able to help them. For I am to come very often they say. And the week after next, dear little mamma and papa are coming to fetch me. I shan’t mind going home, for I know now we shall never be separated for very long, and never at all in our hearts.