“Oh, no, Miggles, that’s not true. It may seem so from the standpoint of eternity; but we are human creatures, and from our standpoint it’s terribly, terribly long. Fourscore years, and how slow those years are in the passing! When I think I may have fifty more!... Besides, even eternity doesn’t right things. How can it? If we are all going to be happy in heaven, Jean will be as happy as I. There will be no difference between us, but she will have had the earth-joy which I have missed, the dear, sweet, simple, domestic joys for which I was made, for which my body was fashioned, for which I crave. They are gone—gone for ever! Eternity itself can’t make them up. There seems no compensation.”
The old woman pressed her hand on the girl’s dark head, but for some minutes she did not speak. Into her placid, gentle nature, such upheavals had never come; she had been content to walk along the narrow way, taking each day as it came, without bitterness or repining, but the natural shrewdness which relieved her character from insipidity would not allow her to take the credit of this attribute to herself. “It’s because I was given that disposition,” she told herself humbly. “Vanna is clever and ambitious. It’s more difficult for her.” She shut her eyes, and prayed that the right words might be sent to her feeble lips.
“But, dearie, I’m not so sure that we shall all be equally happy in heaven, any more than on earth. I never could believe that just because your body died you were going to wake up a perfected saint. We’ve got to learn our lessons, and perhaps happiness isn’t the quickest way. I can’t argue—never could; the dear boys found that out, and used to lay traps for me, asking me to explain; but life is only a little voyage—a trial trip, as the papers say. You may have fine weather, or you may have storms; the only thing that matters is to get safe to the haven. Sometimes when we’ve been down here for the summer it has rained persistently; 1861 was one year—the time Pat broke his leg! We’ve been cross and disappointed, and at the time it has seemed hard, but looking back after a few years it has faded into nothing. ‘Wasn’t it wet?’ we say, and laugh. It was only for a month—such a little time! Who would think of looking back and grizzling over a little disappointment twelve years old! And perhaps, dear, just because we couldn’t go out in the sunshine to pick the dear flowers, because we had to stay indoors and be quiet and patient, we learnt something, found out something, that helped us along, and made us fitter for the haven. I’m very stupid—I can’t explain—”
“Dear Miggles, you are very wise! I am fortunate to have you. Be patient with me, and love me a little bit in spite of my naughty words.”
“A little bit! Indeed, my dear, I have grown to love you with all my heart. After Jean, I really believe you are my dearest on earth.”
After Jean! That stung. Jean had so much. She might surely have spared the first place in one old woman’s heart; and what a sweetness it would have been to come first to just one person in the world! Vanna’s sense of justice pointed out that it was not reasonable to expect a few months’ devotion to eclipse the association of a lifetime; but though reason may convince the brain, it leaves the heart untouched.
Jean had Robert; Miggles had a whole family of adopted children; Mrs Rendall had her son; Piers had—a sharp stab of pain penetrated through the dull misery of her mood, a stab which had pierced her at every recollection of Jean’s light words—“Always at the Van Dusens’—such a pretty daughter—I believe he is in love.”
Was it true? and if so, how did it affect herself? Vanna went out into the garden and seated herself in her favourite seat, at the edge of the cliff, whence the winding steps cut out in the face of the chalk descended steeply to the shore. The tide was out, and a few village children scrambled barefoot over the slippery boulders, searching for treasures in the pools between; the sound of their happy voices floated up to her ears.
What was it to her if Piers Rendall loved and wedded another woman? He was her friend; during the last few months he had given a hundred signs of his care for her, his anxiety to help and cheer her life. She in return must be equally generous. She must rejoice over his happiness, and pray for its coming. Why not? It was no loss to her. She herself might never marry. Piers Rendall could be nothing to her. Vanna threw back her head and burst into a peal of high, unnatural laughter. The children playing on the rocks glanced up in amaze, and stood staring at the strange spectacle of “The Cottage Lady” laughing all to herself, and Vanna laughed on and on, with ever harder, higher notes. Piers could be nothing to her. No, nothing! nothing but life, and sun, and air, and food, and raiment, and hope, and comfort. Nothing but that. Everything in the world, and nothing more. Unutterable joy, unfathomable loss. She knew now. The scales had fallen from her eyes. In a blinding flash of light she saw her own heart, and knew that it held but one thought, one image, one hope.
How long had she loved him? She recalled their first meeting, when he had frowned at the sight of her, and she had watched him walk along the shore by Jean’s side with resentment in her heart. Their acquaintance had begun with prejudice and dislike, yet almost at once her sympathy had gone out towards him; almost from the first it had distressed her to see his depression; that nervous twitch of the features had been a positive pain, she had turned away her head to avoid the sight. Later on, when Jean was engaged, he had drawn nearer, and looking back on the day of the wedding, she knew that it had been for his sake that she had taken an interest in her costume, from a desire to appear fair in his eyes. At the moment of entering the church it had been his face which had stood out from all the rest. She had been so thankful to see his smile. All that afternoon and evening he had been quietly, unostentatiously attentive, as if divining her sense of loss, and striving, in so far as might be, to fill the gap. Twice again she had seen him before leaving town, and then had come the morning when he had appeared at the Manor House window, and she had seen her own transfigured face in the glass. That was the day when the last barrier had broken down, and friendship had finally made place for love.