CHAPTER II

RECONCILIATION

"ANSTICE, will you come out for a ride with me?" Justin put his head in at the nursery door one afternoon with this request.

Anstice and Brenda were both busy cutting and shaping some frocks for the little girls out of some white serge on the nursery table. Ruffie was lying on his couch by the window, very busy with pencil and paper. He hailed his father's appearance with joy.

"Come and see what I am drawing. And wouldn't you like me to come on my pony with you?"

His father came over to the couch.

"No, my boy. I want Steppie by herself. When you are with us, she is too busy talking to you to talk to me."

"I will come in ten minutes," Anstice said, looking up from her cutting-out.

"Then I'll order the horses. Ruffie, my boy, what awful tragedy are you depicting?"

"It's a car turned nearly topsy-turvy on Scawfell, and there's the lady crying, and Steppie and I coming to rescue her. It's all true, and she said she knew you as a little boy. Wasn't that funny?"

"Lots of people knew me as a boy," said his father.

He was looking at his son's picture with a mixture of admiration and amusement. Ruffie's figures were wonderfully clever, and looked alive, though technically there were many mistakes.

"She had eyes like yours, Dad."

Then the observant child looked straight into his father's face.

"But your eyes smile now, they never used to; and they seem to melt when you look at Steppie. You won't take her for a very long ride, will you, and forget all about tea, and us afterwards?"

"I'll try not to," his father assured him, and then he left the room, and twenty minutes later he and Anstice were starting for a ride amongst the Fells. He was talking to her about Ruffie's talent for drawing, and they were arranging that he should have lessons from an artist whom Anstice had heard about and who lived in Penrith, when she suddenly said:

"Do you know the name of the lady whom we met on the Fells?"

"No; one of our neighbours, I suppose."

"It was your sister."

Justin did not speak for a moment, then he said, "Did she make herself known to you?"

"No, I saw she did not wish to do so, but she seemed to be much impressed with Ruffie. Justin, cannot we be friends?"

"What would you have me do?"

"I know you have made overtures to her. You have told me so before; but won't you make another effort? Just one more. It seems so sad to me that the children should not know the only relative they have."

"She is an unforgiving woman."

Justin's voice was hard.

"A North-country woman," said Anstice with a smile; "but North-country people are as deep in their loves as in their dislikes. What can we do? How can we win her?"

"Why should you trouble yourself about her?"

"Well, ever since Miss Maybrick's death, I have been wanting you to make it up with her. That seemed such a tragedy; and now, too late, the one sister left, mourns for the one she quarrelled with. Life here isn't very long; and your sister is getting old, much older than you, isn't she?"

"Not so very much older. People say she has aged quickly. I would do anything to please you, Anstice dearest; but I really don't know what I can do in this matter. I think you are dispelling all the bitterness in my nature, for I can think of Grace now with pity. I was really more to blame than she was. I'll write to her if you like. I can but have another try."

With this promise, Anstice was content. She was so happy herself, that she longed for others to be so too. She could not forget Miss Holme's unhappy face. When they returned home, Justin shut himself into his smoking-room. And later on, when the children were safely in bed, he showed her his letter. It was very brief.

"MY DEAR GRACE,—

"From what I hear, you happened upon my wife and boy the other day in the Fells. Will you come over one day next week to lunch and renew your acquaintance? Let bygones be bygones. I was to blame, and ask you to forgive and forget the past.

"We lunch at one.

"Your affec. brother,

"JUSTIN."

Anstice smiled up at her husband, then placed her hand on his shoulder caressingly.

"You'll carry a light heart now, and I believe she will respond."

The letter went its way, and two days later the answer came.

"DEAR JUSTIN,—

"I was impressed with your small son, and I confess should like to see more of him. We will consider the past as a sealed page. Expect me on Tuesday.

"Your affec. sister,

"GRACE."

"Ruffie wins everybody's heart," said Anstice.

"And what about you?"

"Oh, I'm a negligible quantity," said Anstice, laughing. "Now, Justin, you must explain your sister's existence to your children. You can do that better than I can."

"I will try," he said, and he went straight away and did it.

The little girls were much interested.

"Have we really an aunt? Where has she been all this time? Why has she never been to see us?"

"She doesn't live very near us," said Justin rather awkwardly.

"And she's the lady who said she knew you as a little boy," said Ruffie; "how very funny that she did not know she must be my aunt! She didn't speak nice of you, Dad; she said you only loved one person, and that was yourself, and I told her you loved me!"

"You were right to stand up for your old Dad," said Justin. "Perhaps I had better tell you straight out that, long ago, your aunt and I disagreed about something, and we thought it was best for us to live away from each other. But we're going to be friends again, and I hope you'll all be very pally and nice to her when you see her."

"Oh, Steppie will be nice to her," said Georgie. "We'll see what she's like first, before we get pally with her."

So on the following Tuesday, Miss Holme came over to lunch, and her brother greeted her in a very quiet, matter-of-fact way.

"Glad to see you, Grace. I want you to know my wife."

"We do know each other a little, don't we?" said Anstice, with her bright smile. "I have so often wondered how you fared after that motor misadventure of yours."

Miss Holme was graciousness itself to Anstice, and if she were rather stiff at first towards her brother, it soon wore off. By the time that lunch was over, she seemed thoroughly at home; and when the children appeared, she devoted herself to them.

Josie and Georgie condescended to approve of her, and frankly told her so.

"We only knew a few days ago," said Josie, "that you were an aunt of ours. Ruffie seemed to like you when he met you in the Fells, but we weren't there. Some aunts in books are horrid."

"But I'm not in a book, thank goodness," laughed her aunt.

She invited them over to spend the day with her before she left, and Justin said he would send them over in the car. Then she took hold of Anstice's arm and led her off down the garden. When they were quite alone, she said:

"What have you done to Justin? You have tamed him entirely. I never saw a man so altered. I heard about you from Myra Wykeham. You certainly have done wonders. Most awful accounts were given me of the house and children, but they now seem most desirable to me! I was tempted more than once to come over in Justin's absence; but pride forbade me. I suppose we owe our reconciliation to you. Family quarrels are a mistake. But I was treated very badly. Justin was a spoilt boy, and grew up a masterful, domineering man. He met his match in his first wife, she was an outrageous flirt, and I can tell you this house was no home after she set her foot inside it. But I could not feel sorry for him. He chose her himself, and when he tried to dominate her, she rebelled, flouted him, openly scorned him, and filled the house with her old admirers. It was a shocking state of affairs. He rued his marriage bitterly. You were a brave woman to come and tackle her children. They do you credit."

She did most of the talking. Anstice listened, she liked her; but saw that both she and Justin were too self-centred to get on amicably together. Still her visit was a complete success, though Justin heaved a sigh of relief when she had gone.

"Now," he said, turning to Anstice with a spark of humour in his eye, "I'm at peace with the whole world. The family skeleton has been taken out, and is no more!"

It was very soon after this, that Justin came to Anstice with a request.

"I don't want to insist upon it, if you're not agreeable, but I want you to discontinue playing the organ in church on Sundays."

"Why?" asked Anstice. "It would be very difficult to get anyone to supply my place."

"Oh, I'll manage that. I'll stand the salary. There must be numbers of men or women who would like a small job of that sort. I want you in my seat with me as my wife. Don't laugh! You've made me into a regular church-goer, but I like to have my family with me, and the fidgets of the small girls is more than I can stand. Ruffie suggests that he might come to church. How can I manage the lot of them? You can go to the choir practices, and play the organ as often as you like on weekdays, but I do need you on Sundays. Are you very much set upon being organist?"

"No, not at all. When you are away, it is awkward. I have only done it to help Mr. Bolland. If we can get someone, and you're able to defray the expense of it, I will willingly give it up."

Then she added: "I shall love sitting by you. We shall be able to enjoy the services together."

"I haven't got to the enjoyable stage yet," was her husband's rejoinder. "I'm interested in Bolland's sermons, he seems to make an extraordinary lot out of quite a commonplace text, and he's original and interesting; but to be frank, the service itself bores me!"

"It won't always bore you."

He shook his head sceptically, and changed the subject, but he managed to get his way. An organist was found, and Anstice enjoyed her Sundays more when she was no longer responsible for the church music. She did not entirely give up the organ. Sometimes in the week, when she passed that way, she would go into the church and have a quiet time by herself. She could always get an organ-blower from the sexton's cottage next the church, for there were boys there of different ages.

Ruffie got his wish, and was taken to church in his chair, but in the sermon, he always found his way into his father's arms. The Rector had found favour in his sight, and he expressed his opinion very quaintly after his first experience in church.

"The organ and singing are lovely, specially when I know the words and the tunes, but I get tired of the reading and muttering. I like Mr. Bolland's part most."

"What do you mean by muttering?" his father asked.

"Oh, when the people put their heads down and mutter into the floor under their seats. I s'pose it's their prayers. I used to mutter prayers into my hands. Brenda taught me to, but now Steppie says I can talk to God just as I like, and so I always have the window open and speak up into the sky."

"And you like the sermon best? So do I. Your mother would tell you worship ought to come first."

"I like it when Mr. Bolland smiles at us; he always smiles when he says something 'ticularly nice, like God and Jesus loving us."

"Don't make Ruffie too good," said Justin to Anstice a day or two later. "I don't want him to sprout wings and fly away from us. It's unnatural for a small boy to be religious. I never was, as a boy."

"You led a more active life than Ruffie. He has time and opportunity to think out things. But I don't think it's unnatural for children to be religious. They take to it like ducklings take to water. It is their natural atmosphere. 'Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.'"

"I don't want him to soar above me," persisted Justin. "He has always thought the world of his Dad. I am afraid of him learning to criticize my ideals, to find them empty and rotten, and then have a profound pity and contempt for me."

"Oh, Justin, nice children are never critics. Ruffie will never be a prig. I remember, as a child, I always thought every grown-up person was naturally good, with the exception perhaps of thieves, drunkards and murderers. Don't you think it would be possible to raise your ideals above Ruffie's head and keep them there?"

Justin looked at her with a smile. They were sitting together on the terrace, as they generally did after dinner, he smoking, she with a bit of work between her busy fingers.

"What are my ideals?" he said slowly. "I am changing them, you know, since I have known you. A year or two ago, they were to be free of all worry and responsibility, to laze in the sun in foreign climes, to be beyond the reach of civilization's claims. I think to-day my ideal is to make myself worthy of my wife. I want her to respect me, as well as love me. If I reach her standard, I shall be content."

"Oh, Justin!" Anstice's voice was almost pained, then she smiled. "And if we love, it makes all things easy. If we love the One who loves us, we shall try to reach His Standard, and do what He would have us do. We must try together to reach God's Standard."

Justin shrugged his shoulders.

"I shall never be as religious as you are," he said, "but I wouldn't have you otherwise; for you're just perfect in my eyes!"

He would seldom be drawn into religious argument; and yet there was nothing he liked better than being an unseen listener to Anstice's Sunday stories, and talks with the children.

She did not worry him with overmuch talk, but she prayed for him earnestly and continuously.

One day, she had a letter from Louise telling her of the death of her uncle. She at once went over to her, and stayed with her till after the funeral.

For the next few weeks Louise was a good deal at Butterdale. She was going to be married almost at once, and Anstice insisted that she must be married from the Manor. Justin was willing; he took a liking to the girl. Her brightness and naturalness pleased him; and he promised, if she had no nearer friend or relative, to give her away.

"I have no one," she said simply; "there are not many with so few relations as I." And then she talked to Anstice about her future prospects. "I am going to live in the farm with George and Minna. She is very ill, I'm afraid, but I shall be able to nurse her."

"My dear child, what a sad beginning to your married life!"

"Oh, no, we love each other, and George is devoted to her. I'm so glad to think we shall be all together for a little while still. I shan't have very much of our Fells and lake; for if Minna dies, George will go back to a busy doctor's life in some big town. I don't want him to stay where he is wasted. I shall go gladly with him, but I know now from experience how I shall miss our wild country when I have it no more!"

She was very busy settling a sale at the Vicarage, then on one beautiful summer day, she was married in Butterdale Church by Mr. Bolland, and took her leave of Anstice with a tearful, radiant face. She and the young doctor took no honeymoon, for poor Minna was in the last stages of decline, and, just three weeks after the wedding, passed away.

It was not very long after that, that George Ogilvy heard of an opening in Liverpool. The old doctor with whom he had worked before asked him to come back to him, as he would soon be retiring, and a younger man was wanted to take over the practice. So once again, Anstice had to part with her young friend. But she felt happy about her now. And Louise, up to the last, persisted in saying that all her happiness had come to her through Anstice.

Justin, in hearing the story, said to his wife, "Another subject in your kingdom! You reach out your hands to every one. What a benefit I conferred upon the neighbourhood when I brought you here, and how little I thought what a power my wife would become! The opinion all over the Fells is that the 'Maaster ha' gotten a wife a power too good for him,' which is of course a fact that no one can gainsay!"

"Oh, Justin, don't be ridiculous!" Anstice laughed as she spoke, then she tucked her hand inside her husband's arm.

"The opinion of the Fells about the Squire or Maaster is very simple. 'He be good at heart, and sound as a bell, a raal great-minded mon!' That has been said to me over and over again, and it is music in my ears."

"Ah," said Justin with a short-breathed sigh, "they know how to get on the right side of you, but you and I know better." Then he bent and kissed her. "Sweetheart, believe in me a little. I pray I may give you no cause for doubt."

And Anstice returned his kiss and murmured:

"I feel that you will never fail me."