CHAPTER IX

Through a Dark Cloud

To meet, to know, to love—and then to part, Is the sad tale of many a human heart. COLERIDGE.

BETTY'S spirits were always variable, but never quite so much as they were in these days. One day she would puzzle and distract Molly by her sparkling mirth; the next she would be plunged into the deepest moodiness and melancholy. She spent a great deal of time at her organ, and would come away from it wistful and sad. Molly always knew that she would be unusually sweet and obliging for some hours following.

Betty went over several times to the old almswomen, and felt herself the better for the interest they gave her. One afternoon she went to the Hall with a message to Mr. Russell from her mother. She was told by the butler that he was in the garden, and being on familiar ground, she went in search of him. She was sauntering through a covered archway of roses, when voices the other side of it brought her to a standstill. It was an old-fashioned garden, and a high box-hedge hid her from view.

"If you are bidding some friends good-bye, I think it would be polite to include Mrs. Stuart."

"I feel I cannot risk it, unless you could guarantee to have 'her' here while I do it."

"Who? My little Betty? My dear fellow, you are bound to come across her. Pluck up your courage. It is the very way to make her suspect your frame of mind."

Betty's heart almost stood still. She realised that she was a listener, yet her tongue seemed to cleave to her mouth, her feet seemed rooted to the ground. She heard Gerald sigh.

"I am a fool, for I expect she considers me old enough to be her father. But, Russell, the older you get, the deeper you feel! I shall be thankful to be away, to have only memories left!"

Betty made a frantic rustle and rush along the path, then, in trying to escape them and make her way back to the house unperceived, she took the wrong turn and came out in front of them.

Mr. Russell turned to her at once.

"I—I have brought you a message from mother, and I told Sims that I would come out and find you; but if you are engaged I can wait."

"We are two idle men," said Gerald, with remarkable self-possession, as he shook hands with her. "We are enjoying a chat and a smoke."

"Come along to the lawn, and we shall have some tea sent out to us," said Mr. Russell.

But Betty refused.

"I will not stop to-day, thank you. Here is mother's note. It is about a book you said you would lend her."

"Oh yes, I remember. I will go and get it; but I insist upon your having a cup of tea. Bring her along, Gerald."

He hastened to the house. Betty felt instinctively that a crucial moment in her life had arrived. Her heart was beating rapidly; her whole soul was in a tumult, from the words that she had heard. And then she felt a longing that this short walk towards the house would last for ever and for ever. It seemed as if it was an eternity before Gerald opened his lips, and then his calm, well-chosen words did much to restore her self-possession and common sense.

"I am glad to have the opportunity of saying good-bye to you, Miss Betty. I am off to-morrow on a trip to Norway, and before I return I expect you will have gone back to London."

Betty plucked some roses that grew along the path nervously.

"I expect we shall," she said, with a slight quiver in her voice. "I—I hope you will enjoy your trip, Mr. Arundel."

"Thank you. I hope I shall."

A pause. Then he said,—

"I must thank you for the pleasure you have given my old women. We shall most likely never meet again, so may I offer you a bit of advice, which I have gained by experience? It you get moody, discontented, or restless with your circumstances, set to work to help or benefit others. It is the surest way to bring happiness to yourself."

Betty struggled to speak, and as they drew near the house she came to a standstill, and looked up at him bravely and sweetly. She did not know that tears were glittering on her eyelashes, but Gerald's quick eyes noted it, and took in, as if for the last time, every bit of the sweet earnest little face raised towards his.

"Thank you, Mr. Arundel. It has done me good knowing you, for it shows me how real trouble can be borne. And I hope that the verse you gave me for Mat will come true to you. 'I will restore comforts to him.' Good-bye; I see Mr. Russell coming, and I can't stay to tea."

She held out her hand. Gerald took it, and kept it for an instant in his. For one moment their eyes met, and their tale was told. Betty caught her breath, and resolutely turned away. Gerald's voice was hoarse with emotion as he said,—

"May God bless and keep you till we meet above!"

And then Betty sped away, and seized the book out of Mr. Russell's hand with the incoherent words,—

"I can't stay. Mother is waiting. I must get home, and I can't stop to say good-bye."

She was off and away before Mr. Russell could understand her haste.

And Gerald was still standing in the same spot where she had left him, and in his hand was one of the white roses she had gathered, and dropped in her confusion.

He put it into his breast-pocket as Mr. Russell came in sight, and he murmured to himself a few lines he had added to Betty's little song of the white rose,—

"'The summer sun had faded The flowers had drooped and died. The clouds above were heavy, And care was by my side, I longed to shield the rose-bud From storm and wind around, But I dared not lift my hand To drag it to the ground.

"'So through the gath'ring darkness It hung and smiled on me; Its fragrance seemed the sweeter, When its form I could not see. And I thought, as I gazed upwards, And scanned the wintry sky, "The future holds the summer; There'll be roses by-and-bye.

"'"If my rose is now beyond me, If my hopes seem all in vain, There is a bright time coming, I shall see the bud again; It may be I shall reach it, In its nest above so high; It may be I shall gather That rose-bud by-and-bye."'"

Mr. Russell joined him with a grave face.

"I am afraid that child must have overheard us."

"I don't think so," Gerald replied quietly; "she would not understand if she did. Can you let me have a 'Baedeker'? I want to look out our first stopping-place."

Mr. Russell wisely fell in with his mood, and though his thoughts were much with Betty, he did not mention her name again.

Betty, meanwhile, had hurried home as if her life depended on it. She tried not to let herself think. She took the book into her mother's room, and Mrs. Stuart expressed her surprise at her quick return.

"I did not stay, mother; Mr. Arundel was there, and he and Mr. Russell were busy talking. Mr. Arundel is going away to-morrow."

"I am glad to hear it. I think he would have shown better taste if he had gone before."

"Why, mother?" asked Molly, looking up from a piece of fancy-work she was doing. "He is going to stay in the neighbourhood; why ought he to go away?"

"I am astonished to hear he is going to live near his old home. I don't think he can realise the difference this will make in his position. He will make it very awkward for all his former friends."

"I don't see why it should," Molly said wonderingly.

"Oh, my dear child, surely you have lived long enough in the world to know that a young man in a penniless state, who is going to turn working farmer, cannot be welcomed into society in the way that he has been before his misfortunes! Mothers would not care to introduce him to their daughters—"

"Mercenary mothers would not," said Betty, from the window where she stood looking out. "People who value a man by his money of course will cut him dead—no one else will."

"It ought to make his friends rally round him," said Molly hotly.

"That is the way all romantic young girls talk. Now, listen both of you, while I tell you of an old schoolfriend of mine. A young fellow to whom she was virtually engaged lost all his money, and honourably, of course, wished to release her. She would not hear of it. Her mother tried to reason with her; but she would not listen, and as her family were all of her mother's mind, she actually persuaded him to marry her secretly. Of course, when it came out, her parents did all they could to help them, though it was more than they deserved. After some years of miserable penury, in which two children came upon the scene to add to their cares, the young wife became a hopeless invalid. The husband took to drink, and the last I heard of her was that she was an inmate of her county infirmary, and the two children in the workhouse."

"Oh, mother," said Molly, half-laughing; "you need not think we are in want of such an awful warning! But if a penniless young man marries a rich wife it is all right, and I have plans about Mr. Arundel."

"My dear child, Mr. Arundel has passed out of our lives; so do not let us discuss him any further."

"He hasn't passed out of mine," thought Betty, as she slipped out of the room.

Upstairs in her own little bedroom, she laid her head down on the low window-sill, and cried as if her heart would break.

Oh, why was life so perplexing and so sad? In turning over the events that had happened since she had come to the old vicarage, Betty almost wished she had not left London. And yet she would not for all the present pain have foregone the experience that had come to her. She knew the secret of her heart now; she knew what had caused her uneasy restlessness, her ceaseless surmises of what each day would bring her. She was not ignorant of the meaning of the few words she had overheard, and she wondered why she had been brought into contact with one who would influence her so powerfully, to be separated from him, and to know that the happiness that might have been hers was only just missed through misfortune. Her cheeks grew hot as she dwelt again upon his farewell look and words. She cried out passionately to herself,—

"I would scrub the farmhouse floors, I would go without servants, and do what a poor farmer's wife does every day of my life, if I could only be with him! And it is only the false ideas people have of money and position that prevents my doing it!"

Life looked very empty and forlorn to her. And then she turned to the One to whom she had always gone in trouble, even when she was quite a little child.

"O God," she murmured, "it must be Thy will, but it seems so hard. Do have pity upon me; I am so lonely; I have nothing to live for, and I feel as if I always shall be alone now for the rest of my life. Do comfort me; do help me! Do make me happy serving Thee. It is all that is left to me."

Betty stopped here; the selfish spirit of her prayer struck her. And a still, small voice that reached to her heart's depths seemed to say,—

"Am not I sufficient for Thee? Seek ye 'first' the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Betty bowed her head again in true contrition of soul. She knew lately that thoughts of her own happiness had been absorbing her to the exclusion of all higher things.

"God means to show me," she thought, "that His service must come first, not last. And if He didn't put me into this world to have earthly love and happiness, He must have put me here for something. He has work for me to do, I know, and I will find it and do it; and perhaps He will make me happy doing it."

Then very silently at her bedside, Betty definitely offered herself to be taken body and soul for service for her King; and when she rose a little later, she had the sweet realisation that her service had been accepted.

When Betty came into the drawing-room that evening, Molly wondered what made her look so strangely calm and restful. And when Mrs. Stuart asked one of them to read her the articles in the "Times," Betty offered at once to do it, though usually she would fidget through the whole time of Molly's reading, and declare that the "Times" was a dry old-fashioned paper, with no spark of life or humour in it.

For the next few days Betty's new-found peace brought great restfulness into her life; then when she thought she was quite secure from all moody feelings, they came back in an overwhelming rush, and the struggle began.

Mr. Russell met her walking along the country lanes with a wistful eagerness that went to his heart.

"Oh, I am so glad to see you!" she cried. "Talk to me, and make me feel good and happy again. I am so disappointed in myself."

"That little self of yours must just be pushed into the background," said Mr. Russell playfully. "I have told you before that I think you suffer from want of occupation. Have you been to see your old almswomen?"

"Yes, last week. Mother won't let me go more than once a week. I enjoy seeing them so much; but, Mr. Russell, I want a real serious talk with you!"

"I am ready."

"And you won't laugh at me?"

With those grey eyes raised so trustingly to his, and the slight quiver in the brave young voice, Mr. Russell could confidently assure her that he would be serious.

"I have been thinking lately, and I know you will agree with me, from what you have just said, that I ought to be doing something with my life. I am idle now; there is so little to do here except amuse myself; and I want you to come round and talk to mother; I want to leave home. I think I should like to be a missionary best, if mother would let me go. Because I want to do some work for God, and I know missionaries are wanted, and no one wants me at home; and if I'm not to be a missionary, I think there are other things in towns that I might do. I'm rather afraid of being a hospital nurse, to tell you the truth, because I'm such a coward about pain. I can't help crying when I see any one suffering; but perhaps I would be able to get over that. What do you think?"

Mr. Russell did not answer for a few minutes, then he said,—

"This is rather a sudden resolution on your part, Betty. I do honestly think you want more occupation; but leaving home is a serious step, and I do not think for one moment that your mother would consent. You are too young."

"Oh, don't say that!"

Betty's eyes filled with tears. She slipped her hand into his arm confidingly, and went on in a hushed tone,—

"I do believe that God wants me to do something for Him, Mr. Russell. And I have been so happy since I have believed it. You will help me, will you not? I have never found my corner yet; I have always been the 'odd one' at home, and I am sure a corner is waiting for me somewhere."

Her pathetic voice touched Mr. Russell's heart; he guessed the reason of this desire to work, and admired her courage in thus facing her future.

"I won't be the one to put hindrances in your path, child; but we must think matters over, and must not act in a hurry. I do not think myself that you are fitted to be a missionary. You are too nervously strung. You would be invalided home as soon as you got out abroad. I quite approve of your desire for work, and I will do my best to help you."

"Thank you; and you'll come round and talk to mother to-night. I must tell her. I can't keep it to myself any longer."

"Little Impatience! You must wait till to-morrow. I have an engagement to-night."

Betty sighed.

"I think mother ought to be glad; she is always wanting me to do something. I want to fill my life so full, Mr. Russell, that I shan't ever have time to think!"

Poor little Betty! Her laugh as she spoke had a trembling note in it—a note that was very near tears.

When she had left him, Mr. Russell repeated her words to himself,—

"I want to fill my life so full that I shan't ever have time to think!"

It had come to that, then. Memories must not be allowed full sway, and quiet thought was too full of pain to be borne.

"My poor little Betty! No one can help her; but it has been done by the One who loves her best, and I can leave her to Him."