Mrs. May’s visit rose out of her having seen the newspaper paragraph concerning the safety of the Slains Castle.
“I came away to see you just as soon as I could,” she narrated simply. “Thought I, poor dear, she’s got to go through for months the waiting and the watching that I had only for a few hours. All I can say to her is, that I know what those few hours were, and that none but God could have helped me through them, and none but God can help her through her longer trial. But that’s enough, for God is over everything, and under everything, and in everything; and if He upholds you, so does everything else.”
She joined with Mrs. Grant’s counsel, in whispering to Miss Latimer that nothing would be so good for Lucy as to proceed with her “regular work,” to keep her life on in a straight line from where her husband left her, and not to have to face any “beginning again.” She was actually glad to find that Lucy’s present absence from her classes arose from a sheer practical necessity, and not from any yielding to grief.
Then Mrs. May had a most unexpected proposal to make. It appeared that she had let her house furnished for a whole year to people who were to provide their own service. She had not quite relished doing this, as it deprived her of her “work,” but she had felt she ought not to refuse a good offer, since her last season had been as a whole but a poor one, while her strength had somewhat failed under a great rush of summer visitors for a few short weeks.
“So I thought I would go into rooms in Deal, and make myself as useful as I could among my neighbours,” she said. “I thought to myself it might even be a bit of training against old age. I do pray I may be of use to somebody till my dying day. But it’s in God’s hands, and when I’ve seen old folks kept alive so long and so helpless that others talk about ‘a happy release,’ it has come into my mind that, after all, maybe God is giving them their rest on this side of the grave instead of the other, and that they’ll be off and up and about their Master’s business, while some who have been working to the end here will be getting their bit of sleep in Paradise.”
When Mrs. May heard of Lucy’s household predicament, a fresh thought had come into her head; and so her suggestion was that she herself should take up her abode in the little house with the verandah, and by “keeping it going” lift a weight of care from its young mistress’s mind.
“I won’t take any wages,” she said. “No, please, I’d rather not. There’s a good income for me for this year at least from my furnished house. After that we might speak of the matter again, when we see how things go—but not before—no, I’ll not hear of it. For, you see, dear Mrs. Challoner, work may be a little harder in this London house than by the sunny sea-shore, and I may need a little help from the outside, and there will be that for you to pay for. I feel you may well look a little downcast at the thought of outside help, for I know the trouble it often gives even in a quiet town, to say nothing of London. But you see I shall be always to the fore, as you could not be yourself; and I am different from young servants, who are often corrupted by charwomen. When a body works with another, one soon finds out what that other is, and how far one’s confidence may go. And we won’t be in any hurry to engage anybody. Maybe we shall just come across the right person.”
As a matter of fact, “the right person” was actually preparing to cross London even while Mrs. May was speaking. Only a hour or two afterwards she presented herself at Mrs. Challoner’s door in the person of her old servant, Pollie!
Pollie did not look quite so blooming as in the days of her service. She had a little baby in her arms. She was candidly crying. She too had seen the sad news of the Slains Castle in the newspaper—her husband had read it to her at breakfast time, and with the rashness of youth and ignorance she had thought the very worst was inevitable. Miss Latimer called Mrs. May to talk to her for awhile before Lucy was told of her arrival. A little talk with the sailor’s widow restored Pollie to calmness and to some modified hope.
“I often wondered why I never heard from you,” said Lucy to her old servant. “If I had known you were again in London, I should have come to see you.”