CHAPTER XXIV
MUSINGS ON AUTUMN AND THE ARRIVAL OF JANE
One of those September days is with us in which the world, like Rip Van Winkle, is very fast asleep. A great stillness broods o'er our little garden. No blade of grass or leaf of tree moves or rustles to disturb the silence. Jumbles lies curled upon the warm front doorstep; Dimbie lies asleep in a low hammock chair. The birds and insects, and even the ants, have joined in the general siesta; and I, generally having more time than the others in which to indulge in flights to the land of Nod, am keeping awake to take care of all my friends of the garden. I have to keep removing a fly from Dimbie's nose; to see that Jumbles doesn't wake up suddenly and pounce upon a drowsy, unwary bird in the neighbourhood of the broom bush; and to turn an eye upon a butterfly which appears to have fallen asleep in the heart of a single dahlia.
Over all broods a haze, gossamer and fairy-light, but still a haze which ever follows in the footsteps of sweet September—September so quiet, so peaceful, so mellow and rounded. September is to May as mature and still beautiful womanhood is to the freshness of girlhood, not so radiant, but so complete, so satisfyingly lovely. Spring somehow, I know not why, gives me an ache at the heart, creates within me a yearning for something. Autumn does not affect me thus. There may be a regret, a glance of retrospection at the months which are gone—the beautiful, bountiful summer months—but the ache has vanished, the yearning has departed.
Is it that September, herself the most peaceful of all the months, bears in her arms a gift for Nature's truly loving and understanding children—the gift of peace, a peace which passeth all understanding? Lately it has come to me, this peace, and I smile happily, hugging it to my heart. All the anguish of the last weeks—the bitter tears, the pining for movement, the unutterable yearning to be out in the wind, by the sea, on the mountains—has left me. I am content to lie in my little garden, to be still, to commune with myself, and to know that Dimbie is there.
And—I am reading a Book, one that I read as a child, as a girl, and now as a woman. I am a woman now, for I know the meaning of the word suffering. In the old days I read this Book as one reads a lesson—dull, uninteresting, I thought it. I chafed at the chapter which Miss Fairbrother obliged me to read each day. Some parts struck me as being duller than others. There was the tiresome description of the building of the temple, and the bells and pomegranates—pomygranates I used to call them—and the fourscore cubit this and the fourscore cubit that. Miss Fairbrother would endeavour to make it interesting, but I was unmistakably bored. But now—-it seems curious that I should have ever thought it dull. I read it with deep intensity. I know as I turn the pages what is coming, but yet it is all new to me, a new meaning falls upon my understanding. And there are three words from this Book which of late have continually danced before my eyes. I have seen them written on the sky, on the grass, on the pages of my book. I have heard the wind whisper them, the flowers repeat them, the leaves pass on the refrain to the waving corn, and yet I alone have been unable to say or believe them. The words have stuck in my throat, my dry lips have refused to form them. And then a night came when I saw them written on Dimbie's face. He had been depressed, and had taken his sorrow to the pine woods, and when he returned a gladness irradiated his countenance, and on his forehead, as it seemed to me, were the words, written in letters of gold, "God is Love! God is Love!" I repeated them mechanically to myself over and over again; and suddenly the mists cleared away, the fog dispersed, and I too cried, with a great sincerity and gladness, "God is Love!"
/tb
Jane came softly down the walk and with finger to lip bade me be silent.
"I want to love and kiss you, little old pupil, without any jealous eye to mar my happiness. And I also want to have a good look at your husband."
Dimbie lay with head thrown back, giving to the garden a music that was not of the sweetest.