’Twas thought that the winters at home were somewhat too severe for mine health, and ’twas settled that for the winter then coming, I should tarry with Aunt Joyce. It was easy to compass the matter, for at that time was Wat of a journey to London on his occasions, and he brought me, early in October, as far as Minster Lovel. As for getting back, that was left to see to when time should be convenient. Father gave me his blessing, and three nobles spending money, and bade me bring back home a pair of rosier cheeks, saying he should not grudge to pay the bill: and Mother shed some tears o’er me, and packed up for me much good gear of her own spinning and knitting, and all bade me farewell right lovingly. I o’erheard Cousin Bess say to Mother that the sun should scant seem to shine till I came back: the which dear Mother did heartily echo, saying she wist not at all what had come o’er me, but it was her good hope that a southward winter should make me as an other maid.
Well! I could have told her what she wist not, for I was then but new come out of the discovering that what women commonly reckon the flower of a woman’s life was not for me, and that I must be content to crown mine head with the common herb of the field. But I held my peace, and none wist it but Aunt Joyce: for in her presence had I not been a day when I found that her eyes had read me through. As we sat by the fire at even, our two selves, quoth she all suddenly, without an other word afore it—
“There be alway some dark valleys in a woman’s life, Edith.”
“I reckon so, Aunt,” said I, essaying to speak lightly.
“Ay, and each one is apt to think she hath no company. But there be always footsteps on the road afore us, child. Nearest of all be His footsteps that knelt that dark night in Gethsemane, with no human comforting in His agony. There hath never been any sorrow like to His sorrow, though each one of us is given to suppose there is none like her own. Poor little Edith! didst reckon thy face should be any riddle to me—me, that have been on the road afore thee these forty years?”
I could not help it. That gentle touch unlocked the sealed fountain, and I knelt down by Aunt Joyce, and threw mine arms around her, and poured out mine heart like water, with mine head upon her knees. She held me to her with one arm, but not a word said she till my tears were stayed, and I could lift mine head again.
“That will do thee good, child,” saith she. “’Tis what thy body and mind alike were needing. (And truly, mine heart, as methought, hath never felt quite so sore and bound from that day.) I know all about it, Edith. I saw it these two years gone, when I was with you at Selwick. And I began to fear, even then, that there was a dark valley on the road afore thee, though not so dark as mine. Ah, dear heart, it is sore matter to find thy shrine deserted of the idol: yet not half so sore as to see the idol lie broken at thy feet, and to know thenceforward that it was nought but a lump of common clay. No god—only a lump of clay, that thy foolish heart had thought to be one! Well! all that lieth behind, and the sooner thou canst turn away and go on thy journey, the better. But for what lieth afore, Edith, look onward and look upward. Heaven will be the brighter because earth was darker than thou hadst looked for. Christ will be the dearer Friend, because the dearest human friend hath failed thine hope. It is not the traveller that hath been borne through flowers and sunshine on the soft cushions of a litter, that is the gladdest to see the lights of home.”
“It is nobody’s fault,” I could not help whispering.
“I know, dear heart!” she saith. “Thine idol is not broken. Thank God for it. Thou mayest think of him yet as a true man, able to hold up his head in the sunlight, with no cause to be ’shamed of the love which stole into thine heart ere thou hadst wist it. Alas for them to whom the fairest thought which even hope can compass, is the thought of the prodigal in the far country, weary at long last of the husks which the swine do eat, and turning with yearning in his eyes toward the hills which lie betwixt him and the Father. O Edith, thank God that He hath spared thee such a sorrow as that!”
It was about six weeks after that even, when one wet morrow, as I was aiding Aunt Joyce to turn the apples in her store-chamber, and gather into a basket such as lacked use, that Barbara, the cook-maid, come in with her hands o’er flour, to say—