LEFT BEHIND!
"If I could but wake and find it a dream!
But I can't—oh, what shall I do?
It's only the good things that change and seem,
The bad ones are always true.
And miracles never happen now,
And the fairies all are fled;
And mother's away, and the world somehow
Is dark—and Flopsy's dead!"
M. A. Woods.
The group on the lawn had been silent for a long time—far too long, thought Darby, who liked to use his tongue freely as well as his sturdy little legs.
At length Joan raised her head from its resting-place on her father's shoulder, and flinging her arms round his neck, she burst into a storm of sobs.
"Daddy, daddy!" she cried, "we can't do wifout you. Don't go away and leave me and Darby all alone!"
"I must go, my pet," replied Captain Dene gravely. "I am a soldier, dear, and soldiers must obey orders. Besides, I am not leaving you alone. You shall have the aunts to take care of you. They will know better how to look after a wee girlie than a great blundering fellow like father."
"You isn't a great blun'rin' fellow; you's my own dearest, sweetest daddy!" declared Joan warmly. "And I doesn't want no aunties. Auntie Alice is nice, but we doesn't love Aunt Catharine one teeny-weeny bit.—Sure we doesn't, Darby?"
"Joan!" exclaimed Darby in a shocked tone, although he smiled as he peeped in the direction of the front door, for already he had learned that Aunt Catharine had a trick of pouncing upon him when he least expected. It was embarrassing, to say the least of it, and Darby disliked it greatly.
Captain Dene pulled at his moustache as though puzzled how to act. He quite understood how little there was about his aunt's grim presence to attract a soft little creature like Joan—for a while at least. After a time he knew things would be on a freer footing between them; therefore he thought it better to take no notice of his small daughter's frankly-spoken sentiments, and after a pause he said,—
"You are forgetting Eric, surely. He will soon be old enough to play with you, and you must be very gentle with him, you know."
"Baby!" cried Joan in fine scorn. "Why, how could we play wif him? he doesn't know no games."
"I think you needn't count much on Eric, father," put in Darby wisely; "he's nearly always sleeping or crying, and nurse hardly ever lets us touch him. It's because he's delikid, she says. So when you're away there'll just be Joan and me," added the little lad sorrowfully.
Suddenly Joan spoke again, asking a question that awoke afresh the pain at her father's heart—a pain so sharp, so deep-seated as to be at times almost unbearable.
"When you have to go away in the big ship wif the solgers, why did mamsie not stay and take care of us? Other chil'ens has nice lovely muvers. Why have we none, daddy?"
Why, ah, why?
"Does she not love us any more, father?" whispered Darby, in broken, quivering tones—Darby, who remembered his fair young mother as one remembers a pleasing dream.
"Will she never come back no more? Shall we not see her again—never, never?" asked Joan shrilly.
"Listen to me, my darlings," said Captain Dene, in a solemn, earnest voice, after a pause, during which he wondered how he should answer his children's questions. "Mother has gone to live with God in heaven. Her body was tired and worn out, and in a way it had grown too small for the spirit within. And just as you leave off wearing your garments when they grow shabby or small, and father provides you with new things, so mother has left her weary, frail body behind and gone to God, the great and loving Father of all, where she shall be clothed anew."
"But wasn't she put in the ground, father?" asked Darby the doubting. "I 'member quite well seeing a big, long box with brass handles and flowers and wreaths and things, and nurse and Hughes said it was mother."
"You silly!" struck in Joan sharply. "That wasn't weally muver; it was only the bit of her that used to be tired and sick and have headiks. But the thinkin' place and the part of her that used to say 'Joan, darlin',' and 'Darby, my son,' in such a cuddlin' kind of voice, and—and—why, just all the lovin' bit of mamsie is up in heaven!—Isn't I correc', daddy?" she demanded confidently.
"Quite correct, dear," replied the father, fondly kissing the flower-like face upturned to his.
"And will we ever see her again?" asked Darby, who was feeling somewhat snubbed. "You are not telling us that, father, and that's what I want most partikler to know," he added, with a pathetic sigh, behind which there lay a whole world of longing.
"Yes, my boy," answered Captain Dene promptly; "but not here! You shall never see her again in the house or about the garden, at prayer-time or for good-night. Yet she has merely gone out of our sight; she is often with us, I believe, although we cannot see her. And by-and-by, I do not know when or how soon," he added, thinking of the cruel warfare in which he was about to take his share, "if you try to be brave and true, and kind and loving to every one, you also shall go to dwell with God in that happy, beautiful home where mother waits to clasp her dear ones again in an embrace from which they shall never be separated."
Darby's eyes were raised to the sky with an expression so rapt, so exalted, so pure, as if he were already beholding the glories of the heavenly land. But Joan had still some more questions to ask.
"Will God—or wouldn't it be politer to say Mr. God? No?" as her father shook his head. "Well, will He send an angel to fetch us to heaven when He wants us?"
"Yes, dear; and when His messenger comes for us we must make no delay," replied Captain Dene softly.
"And will He let me take Miss Carolina, my dolly, wif me, and the pussies?" queried Joan eagerly.
"Well, no, I hardly think so," said her father, with a sympathetic smile, for he understood perfectly how hard it is this leaving behind of friends and possessions. Did not the Master Himself foresee the trial when He enjoined His followers, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth"?
"But Jesus will give you something far better than toys or kittens, my darling," continued Captain Dene—"more beautiful than I can either imagine or describe. There will be pleasures of which you shall never weary."
Joan thought hard for a minute, with a pucker in her white brow. Then she slid from her father's knee and snatched up a shabby, battered doll that was lying on the grass beside the bench, and clasping it tightly to her breast, she delivered her decision,—
"I doesn't want no new fings. I wants my sweet Miss Carolina and the pussies. So please tell dear Lord Jesus that He needn't trouble to get anyfing ready, 'cause Joan isn't comin'."
The father gently stroked his little daughter's hair, but he said nothing. What if God's last message to him were to come through the muzzle of a Mauser rifle? Should it find him any more willing to leave his motherless babes behind than was Joan to forsake her favourites?
"Now, chicks," he resumed, trying hard to speak cheerfully, "there is Aunt Catharine at the door. It is your tea-time, I expect, and children's bedtime comes early at Firgrove, as I know," he added, smiling into Darby's wistful wee face. "But before you go in I want you to sing me something that I shall think of when I am far away."
And in their clear, piping treble, with now and again a deeper note from their father to carry them on, the little ones sang a favourite hymn, the key-note of which, so to speak, dwelt with Captain Dene during many a weary day and sleepless night,—
"Ever journeying onward,
Guided by a star."
Early next morning Darby had a queer dream. He dreamt that his father came to his bedside, bent down, and kissed him repeatedly.
Was it a dream? Darby wondered, as he slowly awoke, sat up in bed, and rubbed his eyes. Then suddenly he remembered that this was the day the dear daddy was to leave them; or what if he were already gone!
Daylight had not yet come, but from a table in the far corner of the nursery the night-lamp still glimmered faintly. Darby sprang to the floor, calling loudly on Joan to come quick—quick. Together they trotted downstairs. The breakfast-room was empty. From the drawing-room, whither she had gone to have a good cry, came Auntie Alice, with tears running down her cheeks, while close behind her sailed Aunt Catharine. She was wrapped in a big, soft white shawl, and there was a curious redness round her eyes, as if she had a cold in her head. But father was not to be seen!
"You poor dears!" murmured Auntie Alice, throwing tender arms around their little white-gowned forms.
"Who allowed you to come downstairs at this time in the morning?" demanded Aunt Catharine, eyeing the pair severely over the rims of her spectacles; "and in your night-clothes, too! 'Pon my word!"
Then Darby knew that his dream had been no dream, but a sad reality, and father was, in very truth, gone! So drawing Joan along with him up-stairs, they both cuddled into Darby's bed, where, clasped in each other's arms, they sobbed themselves to sleep again.
Firgrove was a charming old place. It had belonged to the Turners for generations; but as Aunt Catharine and Auntie Alice were the last of the family, after them it would come to Captain Dene. The house had originally been a square eight-roomed cottage, built of plain gray stone; but one Turner after another had, either for convenience or display, added a wing here, a story there, until it had been turned into a handsome, roomy residence. From the outside it looked rather picturesque, with windows framed in ivy, clematis and wistaria peeping out of the most unexpected places, chimney-stalks shooting up from the least likely corners. Inside, the same surprises awaited one. No two rooms were similar in size, scarcely any exactly the same in shape. There were passages here, recesses there; steps leading down to this apartment, up to that; with curtained doors and draperies in such abundance that the children found within their shelter the most delightful hiding-places imaginable. And many a romp and game they had, in which once in a while Auntie Alice joined, when Aunt Catharine was not anywhere about to be disturbed by the noise or shocked at her sister's levity.
Out of doors there were other delights which Darby and Joan at first felt they could never exhaust. In the stable Billy, the fat pony, munched and snoozed every day and all day long, except when occasionally he was harnessed into the basket-carriage to take the aunties for a drive, or ambled into the meadow, where Strawberry and Daisy, the meek-eyed Alderney cows, browsed at will over the sweet, juicy after-grass. There were big, soft-breasted Aylesbury ducks on the pond, fowls in the yard, pigeons in the dovecot so tame that they would perch on Auntie Alice's shoulder and peck the grains of corn from between her lips; and up in the loft above the stable there lived a cat, called Impy, who was the proud and watchful mother of three dear little kittens, as black, as soft, as sleek as herself.
Behind the house was the garden, a peaceful old-world spot, with its prim gravelled paths, boxwood borders, holly hedges, and wealth of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. There Green, the deaf old gardener, reigned supreme, not always paying heed to Aunt Catharine herself. And there also, in a sheltered corner, stood Auntie Alice's beehives, around which the small, busy brown bees buzzed and droned from dawn till dark, laying up their stores of rich golden honey that was to supply the little ones with many a toothsome morsel. Then there was the lawn with its velvety sward, spreading shrubs, and stately cedar; and at the back of the buildings, beyond the garden to the right, sloped the fields of Copsley Farm; while to the left, lying in a gentle hollow, there uprose the dark massed pines of Copsley Wood.
Darby and Joan were not allowed to go beyond the boundaries of Firgrove alone or without special permission, but within their limits they wandered about free as air. It was their father's express wish that they should not be molly-coddled in any way, and, indeed, nurse had little leisure to look after them. Her time was chiefly occupied with baby Eric, who, although improving, was still delicate and fretful, and seemed to find the difficulty of cutting his teeth, and life in general, almost too much for him. Aunt Catharine's notion of the needs of children began and ended with giving them plenty of plain, wholesome food, seeing that they went early to bed, were properly clothed, and knew their Catechism thoroughly. She instructed Darby and Joan for an hour each morning in the mysteries of reading, writing, and counting. She drilled them most conscientiously in the commandments, and always with the "forbiddens" attached. She hedged them about with "don'ts", and believed she was teaching them obedience. And when the tasks were done, and the books put away for the day, it would have been hard to say whether the teacher or the taught uttered the heartier thanksgiving. Then, believing that she had done everything that duty demanded of her, Aunt Catharine felt herself free to attend to her prize poultry, her poor women, and parish meetings.
Auntie Alice loved the little ones dearly. She enjoyed their chatter and a romp with them now and again. But she had not been used to children; she was actually shy of them! She fancied they might be happier without her, so she kept mostly to the company of her piano, her books, and her bees, and the little people were left very much to their own devices.
As long as the weather was fine enough they almost lived out of doors, and were perfectly happy; but when it "broke," as country folks say—when the heavy autumn rain beat against the nursery window, and the wind shook and swayed the cedar tree on the lawn until it sighed and moaned as if in sorrow for the death of summer—then they longed for the dear, loving daddy with a longing that was almost pain! They had letters from him as often as was possible. Darby wrote in reply, and Joan covered a piece of paper with pot-hangers, with a whole string of odd-looking blots at the end, which she said were kisses and her message for daddy. Letter-writing, however, especially if one does not write easily, is but a poor substitute for speech. It did not seem to bring their father close to them as he came in conversation.
And so it happened, exactly as Darby had foreseen, that now since he was gone there were just the two of them left—Darby and Joan!