Mr Prothero took her place. He was alone with his wife, and the rough, loud man became gentle as one of his own lambs, as he bent over her and thanked God that she was better. A big tear fell from his eyes on her face, and he made an inward vow, that if her life were spared, he would never again say a cross word to her as long as he lived.
She felt the tear, heard the kind words, and seemed to understand the vow, for she looked at him tenderly, and said in her low, weak voice, 'God bless you, David!'
From that moment he went out to his work with a lightened heart; the labourers read the good news that their mistress was better in his face, and heard it in his voice. Even Netta's disobedience was forgotten, if not forgiven, in the joy of feeling that the partner of more than half his life was likely to recover. And by degrees she did recover. That is to say, before Rowland was obliged again to leave her, she was able to go down into the parlour and sit at her work, 'quite like a lady,' as she expressed it. And even out of the evil of such an illness good had sprung. It had aroused all the sympathy and kind feeling of relatives, friends, and neighbours; but especially had it been beneficial in bringing out the womanly kindness that lay hid under the stiffness of pride in Mrs Jonathan Prothero, and in opening the hearts of the sisters-in-law towards each other. Mrs Jonathan forgot her cousin, Sir Philip Payne Perry, and helped to nurse, and learned to love her humbler connection, whilst the ever-ready tenderness of the simple farmer's wife, sprung up to respond to it like a stream leaping in the sunlight. Gladys, too, reaped the reward of her devotion, in the increased kindness of Mr Prothero, who began to forget the Irish beggar in the gentle girl whose care, under God, had saved his wife's life; and so, as is usually the case, affliction had not come from the ground, but had fallen like a softening dew upon the irritated feelings of the afflicted, and bound heart still nearer to heart.
Perhaps in the younger and more impetuous natures it had done almost too much. Thoughtless of consequences, they had all worked to save a life, valuable to so many. Rowland, Owen, Miss Gwynne, Miss Hall, Gladys, had been thrown together at a time when the formalities of the world and the distinctions of rank are forgotten, and the tear of sympathy, the word of friendly comfort, or the pressure of the hand of kindly feeling are given and taken, without a thought of giver or receiver. But they are remembered, and dwelt upon in after years as passages in life's history never to be obliterated—never to be forgotten.
CHAPTER XX.
THE HEIRESS.
Glanyravon Park lay, as we have said, in the parish of which Mr Jonathan Prothero was vicar, but as the parish and park were large, the house was three or four miles from the church; and it was on account of this distance of Glanyravon and its dependencies from church and school, that Miss Gwynne had induced her father to build the school-house, of which mention has been already made, since there was a large school in the village for such children as were within its reach. She would have had him build a small church also, and endow it, to remove all excuse, as she said, from the chapel-goers; but this was an undertaking too mighty for him. However, the school flourished wonderfully, both on week days and Sundays, and Miss Gwynne always filled every corner of an omnibus in which the servants went to church with such of the children as could not walk so far. Miss Hall was an admirable assistant to the school-mistress during the week; and Gladys, with Mrs Prothero's permission, undertook the Sunday duty for the mistress, in order that she might have a holiday on that day. Miss Gwynne also attended, but she was too impatient and imperious to be a good teacher, much as she wished to be one.
Miss Gwynne had great ideas of doing good; grand schemes that she tried to carry out, but in which she often failed. Nevertheless, she did a great deal of good in her own peculiar way.
She had been reading of the 'harvest homes' that they were endeavouring to revive in England, and had induced her father to have one in the park. Happily, the day fixed for this general rejoicing was during Mrs Prothero's convalescence, and before Rowland's return to London, so that most of the members of the Prothero family could be present. They also yielded to Miss Gwynne's ready assistance in such preparations as she made, and were the instruments in surprising her and her father by some tasteful decorations in their honour, unknown to them. Owen and Gladys worked very hard at floral and evergreen mottoes for the tent, whilst Rowland gave his advice as he sat with his mother, and tried to amuse her during the tedium of her recovery.