“I must say I fail to see much consolation in an injured spine,” I said hastily, and he looked across the room, opening his eyes with that quick, twinkling light which I loved to see.
“Ask Rachel,” he said, “ask Rachel! If she broke her back to-morrow she would have at least twenty good reasons for congratulation with which to edify me for the first time we met. Wouldn’t you, dear? I am quite sure you would accept it as a blessing in disguise.”
“If I broke my back I should die, Will. It is always fatal, I believe!” quoth Rachel the literal, blushing with pleasure at his praise, but talking as primly and properly as if she were addressing a class in a school. She is a queer girl to be engaged to!
I saw Will’s eyebrows give just one little twitch on their own account, as if he thought so himself, but the next moment he sat down beside her and said gently—
“But if you were in Miss Sackville’s place, how would you feel? How would you face the truth?”
She leant back in her chair and stared before her with big, rapt eyes, her fingers clasping and unclasping themselves on her knee.
“There is only one way—to look to God for help and courage. Pride and anger can never carry her through the long days and nights that will be so hard to bear. They must fail her in the end, and leave her more helpless than before. The consolations are there, if she will open her eyes to see them, and afterwards—afterwards she will have learnt her lesson!”
We sat quiet for quite a long time, and then came the inevitable summons, and Rachel went away and left us alone.
“I told you she was the best woman in the world!” Will said, smiling at me proudly. I didn’t feel inclined to smile at all, but the tears came suddenly to my eyes, and I began to sob like a baby.
“Oh, yes, yes, but I am not, and Vere is my sister, and she was so pretty and gay. I can’t be resigned for her! I can’t bear to see her lying flat on her back; I can’t bear to think of that awful chair. How can I talk to her of submission when I’m rebellious myself? I’m all hot, and sore, and miserable, and I want to know why, why, why? Why was our dear old home burnt when other houses are safe and sound? Why should we be crippled and made sad and gloomy just when we thought it was going to be so nice? All my school life I have looked forward to coming home, and now it’s all spoiled! I’m not made like Rachel. I can’t sit down and be quiet. It doesn’t come natural to me to be resigned; I want to argue and understand the meaning of things. I have to fight it through every inch of the way.”