CHAPTER XX.

Joanna.

There is many a cruel thorn, Many a roaring lion, Many a stone by footsteps worn, On the road that leads to Zion.

Early in October Isabel came back to town, and again took up her abode at her uncle's house in Prince's Gate. Lady Farley had been naturally much disappointed at the breaking off of her niece's engagement with Lord Wrexham, but she was too just not to see that, after all, Isabel was old enough to please herself, and that a woman on the threshold of the thirties was too old to be scolded. She was perfectly conscious that, from a social point of view, Isabel was fast writing herself down a failure; and therefore, for the first time in her life, Lady Farley did not disguise from her niece her high opinion of that niece's attractions.

Like Horace Walpole, Lady Farley knew her world; and she had learned that it is when we fail, that a little flattery is beneficial to us; also, that we do not thank the friend who admires our excellencies, but for the stranger who openly exalts the strength of our weak places we reserve our undying devotion. So her ladyship was very complimentary to Isabel just then.

The first Sunday afternoon after Isabel's return, Edgar Ford called at the Farleys'; and, after a few customary banalities, Miss Carnaby inquired how the Seatons were getting on.

"Not at all well, I am sorry to say," replied Edgar; "Joanna is very ill, and Mrs. Seaton seems to be breaking up."

"Oh! I am so sorry; do tell me all about them," begged Isabel.

"Poor Joanna has been ailing all the summer; and now the doctors say that the only thing that could save her life would be a winter at Davos, and that she will run the greatest risk if she attempts to remain in England."

Isabel's eyes filled with tears; somehow lately all the gilt and the sunshine on things had vanished, and she kept seeing the underlying sadness of life whichever way she turned.

"Of course the Seatons are not at all well off," continued Edgar, "and a winter abroad is always a costly business for any one; but Paul, I believe, is ready to defray all Joanna's expenses, so that no burden shall fall upon his father. The difficulty, however, is that there is no one to go with her, and she is far too delicate to go alone."

"That is a serious difficulty," said Lady Farley.

"They cannot find any one who happens to be going and who would take charge of her: besides, it would be hard for the poor girl to go out, perhaps to die, with strangers; and the journey would kill Mr. or Mrs. Seaton right out, even if they could afford it."

"Couldn't her brother take her?" Lady Farley suggested.

Edgar shook his head. "He could not possibly spare the time. He is such an unselfish fellow that he would gladly go with Joanna if it could be managed, and take every care of her; but he could not leave London for several months without resigning his appointment as editor of _The Pendulum_; and if he did that, he could not afford to pay even Joanna's expenses, much less his own."

Then Lady Farley--being tired of the Seatons as a subject of conversation--began to talk about other things, while Isabel dispensed the tea which had just been brought in.

"I am afraid I must be off," Edgar said at last, "for I am going to the service at St. James's Hall to-night, and it is impossible to get a seat unless one is there half an hour before the time."

"I have never been," said Isabel, "I should like to go and see what it is like." She felt great leanings towards anything connected with Methodism just then; not from any special sympathy with the teachings of John Wesley, but simply because Methodism--like yellow roses--reminded her of Paul.

"Then come with me now! I will take great care of her, Lady Farley, and bring her back safe and sound."

"Yes; go, my dear," said her ladyship kindly, "if you think it will interest you." Lady Farley regarded religious services as she regarded love affairs, namely, as seemly diversions _pour passer le temps_.

So Isabel ran upstairs to put on what women call "her things," and then she and Edgar repaired to St. James's Hall.

When they arrived there the hall was practically full, though it was a good half-hour before the beginning of the service; but the congregation kept streaming in, and by seven o'clock every corner was densely packed, and people were standing in the doorways and the passages.

"This crowded audience looks more like a political meeting than a religious service," whispered Isabel to Edgar, with that surprise which we all feel when God, for the time being, occupies public attention to the exclusion of Man, and heaven instead of earth becomes the topic of the hour.

"It is a wonderful sight!" Edgar whispered back; "there is nothing like it in London."

The whole scene stirred Isabel strangely. Not only was the crowd very large, but it consisted chiefly of men; a great number of them were soldiers in their scarlet uniforms, and almost all of them were counted among those poor to whom it has been promised that the Gospel shall be preached. These were none of the well-to-do people who go to church or to chapel, as they go to court, because it is the correct thing to pay homage to the heavenly as to the earthly Sovereign; but working men, whose hearts as well as whose hands had been scarred and hardened by the ceaseless grind of poverty and toil. On the platform behind the minister's desk sat a row of sweet-faced Sisters of the Poor, in their plain black gowns and long grey veils; while again behind them came the band, and a crowd of "workers," filling the enormous platform of St. James's Hall up to the roof.

A less emotional woman than Isabel Carnaby would have been thrilled at the sound of a hymn sung by so vast a concourse of people, and at the sight of so large a number gathered together with one accord in one place; and when the time for the sermon came, and the preacher showed forth some of the sorrows of the world, and echoed its great cry for help, she felt that there was no resisting that appeal. Until now she had been one of the careless daughters--one of the women that are at ease; and she had been deaf to the weeping and the wailing inside the prison walls of poverty. But at last her ears had been opened, and she had heard the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners appointed to die; and she felt she must be up and doing, and must take her part in stemming the torrent of the world's great flood of tears.

She and Edgar said little on their way home; and each understood that the heart of the other was too full for speech.

The next day Isabel wrote the following letter:--

"MY DEAR MRS. SEATON,

"I am so dreadfully sorry to hear from Mr. Ford that Joanna is ill; I cannot tell you how unhappy it has made me, but I think you will understand without being told.

"I am full of hope that a winter at Davos will set her right again, as I have known it work such wonderful cures. But I hear your difficulty is that she can find nobody to accompany her; and therefore I am writing to ask if I may offer my services. I would promise to take every care of her; and my maid--who is an experienced nurse as well as a most faithful old servant--would look after us both.

"I could be ready to start in a fortnight from now; and could arrange to stay as far into the spring as the doctors thought desirable on Joanna's account.

"Yours lovingly, "ISABEL CARNABY."

This letter brought great joy to the little home at Chayford. Mrs. Seaton's first impulse was to close with Isabel's offer at once, and so ensure a chance of recovery for Joanna; but she felt that anything connected with Isabel was Paul's business, and that therefore she could settle nothing without first consulting him. So she wrote a loving letter to Isabel, telling the latter how grateful both Joanna and her parents were for this great kindness, but that Paul was undertaking the entire management of his sister's journey, so the final arrangements must rest with him.

Then Mrs. Seaton forwarded Isabel's letter to Paul, bidding him deal with it as he thought best. "I am not doing this in order to bring Paul and Isabel together again," she said to herself, "but entirely on Joanna's account; I should have done just the same had Miss Dallicot made the offer instead of Isabel, for it is clearly Paul's duty to make all the arrangements he can for his sister's comfort. It is purely a matter of business." Then a smile stole round the corners of her mouth as she added: "It will all come right again as soon as they see each other, and my boy will be as happy as he deserves to be".

For Paul's mother had heard of the breaking off of the Wrexham engagement, and had drawn her own conclusions.

A day or two after this, Isabel received a letter from Paul:--

"MY DEAR MISS CARNABY,

"My mother has forwarded to me your most kind and generous offer of help to us in our present difficulty, as it is I who am taking all the responsibility of Joanna's illness. I feel that we cannot refuse the offer without due consideration, because the plan that you propose would prove such an inestimable benefit to my sister; nor can we, on the other hand, accept it without due consideration, because it would be a most serious undertaking for you. Therefore, if you will allow me, I will call upon you to-morrow afternoon to discuss the matter more fully than we can do by letter.

"Yours gratefully, "PAUL SEATON."

As Paul wrote the above, he laughed at his own folly. "What a fool I am!" he said to himself, "of course I could manage it perfectly by writing, if I wanted to do so; but I am as excited as a boy of twenty at the mere idea of seeing her face and hearing her voice again. I wonder if Lord Wrexham minded being thrown over by her as much as I did; if so, I pity him with all my heart."

So Paul Seaton and Isabel Carnaby saw each other face to face once more. Because they were well-bred people--and, moreover, a man and woman of the world--they met apparently with perfect ease and without any disquieting emotion; although Paul's heart beat like a regimental drum all the time, and Isabel felt as if a little bird were fluttering in the middle of her throat. A casual observer would have thought that they were ordinary acquaintances, who had seen each other the day before; and the only difference that the most experienced eye could have detected was that they were neither quite as clever as usual. They did not seem to look at one another with any special attention; and yet in the first ten seconds that they were together, Paul knew that Isabel was thinner than of old, and that there had come a tired look into the blue eyes; and Isabel perceived that there were many grey hairs round Paul's temples, and that she and Time together had managed to plough some deep furrows across his forehead.

"How do you do?" began Isabel, talking a shade faster than her wont, "it is very good of such a busy man to spare the time to come and see me."

"It is very good of you to let me come," replied Paul, "but it is so much easier to talk over plans than to write about them."

"Then let us get to business at once," suggested Isabel hurriedly, "as I daresay you have not much time to spare."

She really meant that she had not much courage to spare; but we so rarely say what we actually mean. And why should we? The understanding people know without our saying, and it doesn't matter whether the stupid ones know or not.

"Certainly," agreed Paul, who happened to be one of the understanding people, "I know it is very bad manners to be in a hurry, but unfortunately I nearly always am. I believe my health will be permanently impaired by the scalding state in which I always have to swallow cups of tea during afternoon calls. Long and bitter experience has taught me that unless you can fly before you hear the distant rattle of the tea-cups, you are lost; if once tea is within ear-shot, escape becomes impossible till the cup is drained to the dregs. If you leave in the interval between the sound of tea and its outpouring, you somehow cast a slur upon the quickness of your hostess's servant."

Paul knew perfectly well about that little bird fluttering in Isabel's throat, and he talked on at random in order to give her time to recover herself.

She laughed. "Well, I am glad that the tea is here now, so that you can have a cup at once and drink it at your leisure."

"Thank you. And now, about Joanna. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for your most kind suggestion; but before we go into that, I want you to consider what it will mean to you. At present I think you have no idea of the sacrifice which it will involve on your part."

"I don't mind that; the greater the sacrifice the better it will be for me. You see, I have done nothing but help myself for thirty years, and now I think it is time I began to help other people."

"But this is such a big beginning," persisted Paul; "it means shutting yourself up for six months in an atmosphere of sickness, and possibly of death; and this is a tremendous undertaking for any woman, especially for one who has hitherto had all the wheels of life oiled for her."

"But think of Joanna."

"I am trying not to think of her, till I have done thinking of you. Of course my first impulse was to thank you on my knees for thus coming to our help; but you must be considered as well as Joanna; and I am not sure that I should be justified in letting you make so great a sacrifice for any one who has after all no claim upon you." And Paul got up from his seat and looked out of the window, so that Isabel might not see his face.

Isabel's eyes grew wistful. "Please don't stop me now that at last I am trying to be good."

"Heaven forbid! But the path of duty is not easy walking, and I would carry you over the rough places if I could; for the way is thorny and your feet are very tender," replied Paul gently.

"Nevertheless I am going."

"And I cannot help you, much as I should wish it. If Joanna became much worse I should come out to her once; but I could not afford the time to stay with her long, as the unavoidable expenses of her illness will make me specially busy all this winter."

"Nevertheless I am going," repeated Isabel.

"You have definitely made up your mind?"

"Yes."

"What does Lady Farley say about it?" asked Paul.

"She says I am old enough and wise enough to please myself, and to know my own business best."

"Then, if your decision is now made and my words are powerless to affect you one way or another, I may tell you what this act of yours means to me and to my people. It will probably be the saving of Joanna's life--at any rate it is giving her the one chance she has of recovery; and without you this one chance would have been denied her. After I have told you this, all expressions of gratitude would be superfluous, I think."

"Yes; please don't thank me; I don't want to be thanked," said Isabel breathlessly, "let us make all the necessary arrangements; for Joanna and I ought to be starting soon, if this foggy weather continues."

So Paul and Isabel set to work to plan poor Joanna's exodus out of England before the winter actually set in; and three weeks after this interview Isabel and Joanna went out to Davos Platz together, with the former's faithful old nurse to take care of and look after them.

The new life was very interesting to Isabel. She had hitherto lived in a world where sickness and death were put out of sight and forgotten as far as possible; but now she was suddenly plunged into the midst of a society of people who were all either ill or anxious. But these bore it bravely, and put on a cheerful courage; and if she had not known that all was not well with them, she would have found them pretty much the same as happier folks.

Joanna specially interested Isabel, and the two women were drawn very close together. Neither had ever had a sister; and a woman who has never had a sister has missed something which can never be made up to her in this world. Women who have no sisters share their confidences with their friends or their sisters-in-law, just as men who have no legs walk about on cork or wooden ones; but perfect satisfaction is not found in makeshifts. However anything is better than nothing; so Isabel and Joanna found much pleasure in each other's society.

Joanna did not talk much about herself; but when she did, it was with perfect ease and cheerfulness. She had been brought up in a circle where the things which are seen and temporal are not more familiar or real than the things which are unseen and eternal; and this familiarity and sense of nearness is of good comfort to such souls as feel forebodings of the chill and the darkness of the great Shadow.

"I minded dreadfully being ill at first," she said one day to Isabel, after they had been some weeks together, and their friendship was established, "I had meant to do so much work for God--in my own little world I really was doing it--and it seemed rather hard to be suddenly put by on the shelf as of no further use. I was actually getting so conceited that I thought none of the classes or meetings in Chayford would get on properly without me; and yet mother says in her last letter that my Bible-class has increased in numbers since Miss Dallicot became the leader in my place, while the Dorcas-meeting is doing more work than ever. As for my district, Alice Martin took it; and the people simply adore her, she is so sweet and pretty and can speak to them so beautifully. So the Lord can carry on His work without my help, though at one time I doubted it." And Joanna laughed.

"I did not know that Alice was good at work of that kind."

"She is; she is simply splendid. In the first place she is very pretty, and that has a tremendous influence. It would take me twenty visits to the poor to win as much love as she gains in one."

"But I did not know she was so religious."

"She was always good and amiable," replied Joanna, "even when she was quite a child. But lately she has been a great deal under Edgar Ford's influence, and has learnt from him the importance of our responsibility to the poor. She will do more good in my district than I have ever done."

"I suppose the world could do without any of us," said Isabel sadly, "none of us are indispensable to anything or anybody."

Joanna shook her head. "The world might, but God couldn't."

"But you said that He could."

"Oh! no, I didn't. I said that He could carry on His work without us, which is quite a different thing."

Isabel looked puzzled. "What is the difference?"

"Don't you see? it is like this. When I was a little girl, father always allowed me to open all his letters with a small paper-knife. I used to love doing it, I felt so important, and I imagined that if it hadn't been for me, father's letters would have permanently remained unopened. I used to say nearly every day, 'You couldn't do without me, could you, father?' and he always answered, 'No'. Of course father could have opened all his letters well enough without my help, but he couldn't have done without me all the same."

"How good you are, dear Joanna!"

"Indeed I am not--I only wish I were; but I am ill, and when one is ill one has plenty of time to think. And I have come to the conclusion that God knows His own business best, and that He must often smile at us tenderly when He sees us so ready to help Him with our advice. He knows everything, and He says that a certain thing will be best for us; we know next to nothing, and yet, like Beatrice, we are 'at Him upon our knees every morning and evening,' to prove to Him that He is mistaken and that we know better. It really is rather humorous."

"Then you have learnt to leave everything to Him, and not to worry?"

"I hope I have," replied Joanna. "I don't deny that it has been a difficult lesson. At one time, like everybody else, I thought that I knew better than God, and I tried my utmost to teach Him what was the right thing for me and for Methodism and for Christianity at large; and I confess that I was grieved, not to say reproachful, when He did not follow my advice. But now I just sit still, and let Him take all the responsibility."

"It must be very restful," sighed Isabel.

"It is. If you went on a long voyage, it would be very tiring to spend all your time in trying to steer the ship by beating against the bulwarks with your hands, and very ineffectual and foolish. Then why behave thus absurdly on the voyage of life? For our Pilot never makes mistakes."

It was not till the two friends became very intimate that they began to talk about Paul, though they both spent much time in thinking about him. But at last even that barrier of reserve gave way, as most barriers do, if only a _tête-à-tête_ be long enough, and Paul's sister soon discovered that Isabel still loved Paul.

"My dear, why don't you ask him to come back to you?" asked Joanna abruptly.

"Oh! I couldn't--I should be ashamed, after the way I have treated him."

"Then do you mean to let your pride spoil both your life and his?"

Isabel did not answer, and Joanna continued: "When people come to where I am now, they look at life so differently from how they used to look when the end of the road was not in sight; and they see that the things which once seemed important are trivial, and the things which once seemed trivial are the only things that matter. When you stand where I am standing, you won't care a scrap whether your pride and your self-respect received their due; but you will care infinitely whether you and Paul are together, or whether you will have to go down into the dark valley all alone."

Isabel began to cry quietly.

"Don't cry, Isabel; I am so sorry that I have upset you, and I hate to talk in this horrid, depressing way. But I felt I must tell you just once that, when the end comes, you will find that nothing really matters except the love of God and our love for each other; and I want you to realize this before it is too late."

Isabel came and knelt down by Joanna's sofa. "Do you think that Paul could forgive me?" she asked.

"I should think so; there is nothing that real love cannot forgive, and I am sure that Paul really loved you."

"How do you know so much about love, Joanna?"

"I can't tell; I suppose every woman knows all about it, whether she has tasted it or not. That is one of the things that I used to think I could teach the Lord; I imagined that it was best for me--and for every other woman--to live the ordinary woman's happy life. But God knew better, and so love passed me by."

"Poor Joanna!"

Joanna rested her cheek against Isabel's. "You need not pity me now, dear; I have long ceased to mind, though I did dreadfully at one time. But when God withholds a thing from us, He always gives us something better in its place. It is hard, I admit, to stand alone on Pisgah, and to see the others going on without us into the Promised Land; but Pisgah and its disappointment are forgotten, after we have stood for a moment upon the Mount of Transfiguration, and have caught glimpses of the glory which shall be revealed."

After a moment's silence Isabel said softly: "I don't believe there ever was anybody so good as you and Paul."

"Paul is a good man; no one but father and mother and I quite knows how good, I think."

"I do," whispered Isabel.

"Of course he gets angry sometimes," continued Joanna, "and is stern and self-willed and masterful; but he is very gentle and tender underneath, and very unselfish. There is only one thing he has ever done which has really grieved me, and which seemed to me to be inconsistent with the rest of his character; but I suppose when men are very unhappy and bitter they do things for which they are hardly accountable. Still I wish Paul had not written _Shams and Shadows_."

"He never did write it," cried Isabel, looking up through her tears; "he was far too good and true and noble to write such a nasty, sneering book as that. He could not have done it if he had tried!"

"Then if Paul didn't write it, who did?"

"_I_ did," replied Isabel with a sob, "I was angry with myself and therefore with everything else, and I wrote that horrid book in a fit of temper. And when I saw how people hated it, I was ashamed, and felt I could not bear the disgrace of being known as its author. And then Paul saved me from the consequences of my own folly, and bore the punishment instead of me."