“Agnes is taking the opportunity of your absence to organise a second spring cleaning. It seems only the other day since we were upset before. I dined at the club last night. It is difficult to know what to do with oneself on these long light evenings.—I would run away over Sunday, if I could think of any place I cared to go to... Town seems very empty.”
“Poor dear darling!” murmured Margot sympathetically, at which the Chieftain lifted his eyes to flash upon her a glance of twinkling amusement. He made no spoken comment, however, but returned to the perusal of his own correspondence, while Margot broke open the envelope of Agnes’s letter.
Two sheets of handwriting, with immense spaces between both words and lines—“My dear Margot,” as a beginning—“Your affectionate sister, Agnes Mary Vane,” as a conclusion. Thrilling information to the effect that the charwoman was coming on Friday. Complaints of the late arrival of the sweep. Information requested concerning a missing mat which was required to complete a set. Mild disapproval of the Nag’s Head Inn. “I cannot understand what you find to rave about in such quarters.” A sigh of impatience and resignation was the tribute paid to this letter, and then Margot settled herself more comfortably on the stone, and prepared to enjoy a treat—a real heart-to-heart talk with her beloved eldest sister.
Edith had the gift of sympathy. Just as Agnes never understood, Edith always seemed able to put herself in another’s place, and enter into that person’s joys and griefs. She herself might be sad and downcast, but in her darkest hour she could always rejoice in another’s good fortune, and forget her own woes in eager interest and sympathy. Now, sitting alone in the dreary lodging-house sitting-room in Oxford Terrace, she was able mentally to project herself into the far-off Highland glen, and to feel an ungrudging joy in the pleasure of others. Never a hint of “How I envy you! How I wish I were there!” Not a mention of “I” in obtruding, shadow-like fashion from first to last, but instead, tender little anecdotes about the boys; motherly solicitude for their benefit, and humble asking of advice from one younger and less experienced than herself; an outpouring of tenderness for her husband, and of a beautiful and unbroken trust and belief, which failure was powerless to shake.
“Jack is working like a slave trying to build up the ruins of the old business. It is difficult, discouraging work, and so far the results are practically nil, but they will come. Something will come! More and more I feel the conviction in my heart that all this trouble and upheaval have been because God has some better thing in store for us both. We have only to wait and be patient, and the way will open.—I don’t want to be rich, only just to have enough money to live simply and quietly. We are so rich in each other’s companionship that we can afford to do without luxuries. Last night we had a dinner of herbs—literally herbs—a vegetarian feast costing about sixpence halfpenny, but with such lots of love to sweeten it, and afterwards we went out for a stroll into the Park, and I wore the hat you trimmed, and Jack made love to me. We were happy! I saw people looking at us with envious eyes. They thought we were a pair of lovers building castles in the air, instead of an old married couple with two bouncing boys, having the workhouse in much nearer proximity than any castle—but they were right to envy us all the same. We have the best thing!”
The letter dropped on to Margot’s knee, and she sat silent, gazing before her with shining eyes, her face softened into a beautiful tenderness of expression. For some time she was unconscious that her companion had returned his own letters to his coat pocket, and was lying along the ground, his head resting upon his hand, watching her with a very intent scrutiny; but when at last her eyes were unconsciously drawn towards him, she spoke at once, as if answering an unspoken question.
“What a wonderful thing love is!”
The Chieftain’s light eyebrows were elevated in interrogation.
“In connection with the ‘dear darling’ previously mentioned, if one may ask?”
“That was my father. I love him dearly, but just now I was thinking of the other sort of love. This letter is from my eldest sister. She was a beautiful girl, and could have married half a dozen rich men if she had wished, but she chose the poorest of them all, a dear, good, splendid man, who has been persistently unsuccessful all the way through. Everything—financially speaking, I mean,—has been against him. They have had continual anxiety and curtailment, until at last they have had to let their pretty house and go into dingy lodgings. My father is very down on Jack. He is a successful man himself, and don’t you think it needs a very fine nature to keep up faith in a person who seems persistently to fail? But my sister never doubts. She loves her husband more, and idealises him more, than on the day they were married.”