CHAPTER XXI

Odd made Even

Yes, it was love, if thoughts of tenderness, Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And yet—oh, more than all!—untired by time. BYRON.

MOLLY wrote Betty delighted congratulations when she heard the news.

"To think that you should be the one to comfort my hero! I can't forget how I tried with all my might to get up a match between him and Ella. Perhaps it is best as it is, for Ella is going to marry a naval cousin of hers whom she has always liked. Does it not seem strange, Betty, that you and I are both perhaps to settle eventually in the same neighbourhood? Do tell Mr. Arundel I am so delighted to welcome him as a brother. I used to think I was more interested in him than you were, for you were always so silent about him. I suppose you thought the more!"

Major Stuart came down in person to offer his congratulations. He drove up one afternoon unexpectedly, and found Betty in the garden picking some early primroses.

"Now, what do you mean by this?" he demanded, after the first greetings were over. "It is like springing a mine under my feet! When I advised you to follow Molly's example a short time ago, you told me you were never going to marry. I suppose you were laughing in your sleeve at me!"

"No, indeed I wasn't," said Betty earnestly; "I really thought it then."

"I'm sorry to hear it," and Major Stuart assumed a very grave air; "for it shows this is too sudden an affair to be a really genuine one."

"Oh, Uncle Harry, don't tease so!"

"I assure you I am in dead earnest. Why have I not been told of this gentleman? Why has he kept behind the scenes so? I do not remember to have heard his name."

"I am sure we must have told you about him," said Betty, with distressed eyes. "Oh, Uncle Harry, you make it so difficult for me to tell you. I cared too much for him to talk about him, and though we both knew each other, he felt he ought not to speak. You see, he lost all his money and property. The Red Manor belonged to him, and he had to sell it, and he has been farming since, and now he is succeeding with it; and then Mr. Russell left him a lot of money, so he thought he might speak. It was his foolish idea that I ought to have every luxury. I should have been content with a labourer's cottage. Do be nice, and say you are pleased, for I am so happy!"

Betty had wound her arms round his and lifted a very coaxing face up at him. Major Stuart looked at her, then stroked his long moustache grimly.

"This is a blow to me! You have forsaken your rôle of the 'odd one.' I suppose it is a case of odd being made even, and, like the rest, you must be made into a couple. I must see him first, before I pronounce any opinion. A farmer is not a fit match for one of my nieces, and a fellow who has come down in the world rarely makes it pay. He must be something very special, if—"

Then Betty flashed out at him,—

"You are a horrid, mercenary man, and I won't stay with you to hear Gerald abused! He is special, 'very' special; there isn't another man as good as he is in the whole world, and I am not fit to be his wife. If he were a butcher or a coal-heaver, if he swept a crossing in London, I would be proud to belong to him, and if you have come down here to be rude to him, you had better go back to London by the next train!"

Major Stuart looked at his niece's changing colour, quick-heaving breast, and sparkling eyes, with great amusement.

"Well done, Betty!" he said. "Whatever he is, he has managed to steal your heart. I am quite relieved to see you have a little of your old impetuous temper left. We will patch up a truce, and I will think your lover all that you describe him, until I set eyes on him myself and can form my own judgment. You see," he added, giving her a little friendly pat on her shoulder, "my anxiety about my nieces is due to perhaps my over-estimation of their charms. I don't like to think of your being wasted on a heavy country man, however worthy he may be!"

Then Betty laughed. She could not be angry for long with her uncle.

"You will see the heavy country man this evening. He is coming over to dine. And now here comes Mrs. St. Clair, and you must scold her for allowing us to meet!"

She ran away, and did not see her uncle again till just before dinner, when she came towards him with Gerald, looking very winsome and mischievous in her white lace dress, with a bunch of real neapolitans in her waistbelt.

"Uncle Harry, let me introduce Mr. Arundel to you. I have told him you have come down to inspect him."

The men shook hands, and measured glances courteously, then Major Stuart asked if he might have a private talk with Gerald after dinner.

"I can congratulate you very heartily on having won my niece's affection," he said; "for she is a very particular little lady, and, I fancied, had taken up the rôle of independence."

Betty had moved off, so did not hear this speech. Gerald responded quietly,—

"I am quite ready with my explanation. I am sure you are astonished at my presumption. But Betty's happiness will be dearer to you than her position in society."

Which remark gave food for thought to Major Stuart throughout dinner, but which made him mutter as he took Nesta into the dining-room,—

"He takes matters with too high a hand."

However, the result of their private conversation was satisfactory. Major Stuart came into the drawing-room with a placid countenance, and Betty flew to meet him.

"Now, Uncle Harry, congratulate me. I insist upon it, or I shall never speak to you again!"

"He is a good-looking fellow," he said, looking at her with a twinkle in his eye.

"Go on," said Betty sternly.

"He seems to have honourable principles."

"Go on."

"And I really think I must congratulate you upon having found some one who will keep you in better order than I can!"

Betty laughed, and was content. She knew now that Gerald and her uncle would be the best of friends.

When her health was quite restored, she went back to London; for she would not forsake her work until it was absolutely necessary for her to do so. Gerald had persuaded her to let him make a few alterations to his farm, and the wedding-day was fixed for June 18.

"That was the day I first saw you," he said to her. "I never shall forget it. Do you remember your little songs about the roses? I have had one of them in my heart ever since."

"I know," said Betty, nodding at him mischievously. She carolled out gaily,—

"'Where blooms, O my father, a thornless rose?' 'That can I not tell thee, my child, Not one on the bosom of earth ever grows, But wounds whom its charms have beguiled.'"

"That is not the one."

"Isn't it? Then it was the other, 'The little wild white rose.' Yes; I remember that evening well, but it was not my first sight of you. I had seen you before."

"Where?"

Betty coloured and hesitated; then looked up with a pretty shyness.

"I will tell you when—when we are married, not before."

She was greeted by her blind friends, when she returned to them, with great delight, and loud were their lamentations when they heard she was going to leave them.

"I feel quite guilty," she said to Miss Miller one day; "as if I have put my hand to the plough, and am drawing it back."

"No, dear," her friend replied; "you are changing your sphere of work, that is all. You will find opportunities of helping others wherever you go. Of course, we shall miss you, but we must be thankful that we have had you for so long."

"If—if Gerald had not gone through such deep trouble," said Betty, in a low, meditative voice; "if he hadn't been so lonely and homeless and friendless, I think I should not have thought it right to marry."

Miss Miller smiled.

"But pity is not the right foundation for a married life."

"No," said Betty hastily; "of course not. And I never really pitied him, except deep down in the bottom of my heart, for he was above pity. He was always so brave and cheerful, keeping his own feelings in the background. Oh, Miss Miller, you must come down to stay with us when you want a rest! I long for you to know him. I am not good enough for him. God has been so very good to me."

Occasionally she had visits from Gerald, but they were necessarily very short ones. She saw a good deal of Molly in town, and by-and-bye they began to busy themselves with her trousseau.

Nesta came up for a fortnight to help them. Molly was full of life and interest, but Betty used to have fits of dreaminess, and she seemed strangely indifferent to her shopping.

"It is such a fuss," she said. "Why should I spend so much on myself? I am going to be a farmer's wife. I shall dress in cotton frocks and sun-bonnets, and these fine things will lie by in drawers and boxes. I shall never wear them."

But Molly did not agree with her.

"You must dress for your husband now. He will like your clothes, if you don't. I've discovered that men pretend to be supremely indifferent to such matters, when in reality there are no more discerning and severe judges than they are. And you are not going to be a farmer's wife, Betty. You will have lots of nice neighbours calling upon you. Frank's people do not mean you to rusticate."

"Oh, Molly," said Betty wistfully. "Do you selfishly wish sometimes to be in a kind of garden of Eden—to be the only people in existence, just two?"

Molly laughed, and shook her head.

"I am shocked at you, who are so anxious to comfort and relieve your fellow-creatures! I don't think I have ever had such a desire."

"It is selfish," admitted Betty. "I think in London we crowd over each other so, that it makes me long to be alone."

"I like people," said Molly; "and I know I shall never be so happy at the Red Manor as I am now in our tiny town house."

The time slipped by, and then in the beginning of June Betty said good-bye to her friends in London, and went down to Holly Grange.

Upon the afternoon before her wedding-day, she slipped out of the house unperceived, and walked over to the little village of Tiverstoke. She made her way to the church, and saw herself, as a little hot, dusty child, push open the door for the first time and enter in. She passed up the same aisle that her little feet had trodden so long before, and once more she paused by Violet Russell's tomb, and let her gaze wander upwards to the stained window that had been the object of her childish admiration and awe.

And then she started, for by the side of the window was a brass inscription, and she read it with tearful eyes,—

TO THE MEMORY OF FRANK RUSSELL, SQUIRE OF THIS PARISH.

DIED AT ZERMATT, SEPTEMBER 20, 18—, Aged 58.

"These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

Such a flood of memories swept over her soul as she read this verse! It took her back to her earnest search in childhood, to all the mystery and joy and grief connected with it; to all her serious discussions with the old friend now gone; and she covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud. She was not surprised when a step that she knew well approached, and a hand was gently laid on her shoulder. She turned to him at once.

"Oh, Gerald, who put this here? Did you?"

"Yes."

"Did you know it was the verse I loved above all others as a child?"

"It was the verse he loved to his dying day."

They stood there in silence together. Then Gerald said in a low voice,—

"Betty, we shall stand here to-morrow in different circumstances. Shall we ask God's blessing on that coming ceremony now?"

Betty bowed her head. Then, hand in hand, they knelt under the stained window, and Gerald breathed out a few heart-felt words.

"Our Father, wilt Thou grant to us Thy blessing? We give ourselves to Thy service together for evermore. Teach us to follow in the steps of one who died to bring us together, and may we take our place one day in that blood-washed throng. For Christ our Saviour's sake. Amen."

Was it a strange coincidence that the sun should stream through that stained window, and crown those bowed heads with its golden rays?

In the hush that followed, Betty almost felt conscious that the spirits of the departed were hovering near them, rejoicing in their joy, and when she rose from her knees, her face was as if she had beheld a vision.

Walking home, as the evening shadows were beginning to fall, Gerald spoke of their friend again.

"He asked me to have that put on his tombstone, should anything happen to him. I think I told you he seemed to have a presentiment of his sudden death. And, Betty darling, he told me how you came to him as a little child, when his heart was cold and hard and bitter, and his troubles were alienating him from the only Comforter; how by your persistent allusion to that verse, your childish faith and earnestness, and your confidence in the love of God, you brought him, step by step, into the light and peace of God's forgiveness and comfort. He told me he owed to you more than he could ever repay."

"Oh," said Betty, awed and startled, "I never knew. I never guessed. He always seemed to me a sad and sorrowful man; but I have only remembrances of his goodness and kindness to me as a child. I remember him comforting me when no one else could, in my first real childish trouble. He was such a comfort and help to me all last year; and, Gerald—" her voice sank to a whisper—"his very last thought and act was to give you to me. What a friend he has been to us both!"