_THE BAY WINDOW._
"WELL?" asked Dr. Brown, as the carriage rolled swiftly homewards,
Dobbin as well as the coachman knowing that they had done for the day.
"Well?"
Ruth knew that question would come, and she was not prepared to answer
it at the moment.
"Is she all you expected?" he asked, as she did not volunteer any
answer. He had anticipated a stream of enthusiastic delight, and was
surprised and almost dismayed.
"She is far more than I expected," said Ruth slowly, as if making up
her mind as she went along. "Quite different—and nicer in every way
than I expected—"
"Then you are not disappointed?"
"No, I am not disappointed," said Ruth, "but do you know, father, I can
hardly tell you yet what I feel. With Mrs. Arundel, you come down to
the heart of things; you do not just skim the surface."
They relapsed into silence; Dr. Brown because he was so surprised at
all Ruth said, and Ruth because her mind was full, and she could not
forget the look of that earnest face, which had seemed like a glimpse
into a new world.
After dinner, Ruth told her father that Mrs. Arundel had asked her
to come and show them the old house, and that she had promised to go
directly after her violin lesson in the morning.
Her father was interested in this, and reminded her of different
excellencies to be pointed out.
"I wish he would take it," he said, "for numbers of people feel as if
the practice clung round that house, and if any strange doctor set up
there, we should lose half the patients, I believe."
"I hope he will," said Ruth, "but these rainy days will not show it
off."
However, the morrow turned out sunny, to Ruth's great joy.
And when she called for Mrs. Arundel, she found her with her hat on
ready, and Dr. Arundel came in almost directly, and proposed to set out
at once.
"Have you been over the house in this road?" asked Ruth, a little
timidly, as they shut the gate behind them.
"Yes, we have already been this morning. It is on the same plan as our
lodgings," said Mrs. Arundel, "so we could judge pretty well. But we do
not like that flight of steps up to the door."
"No," answered Ruth, "and Morris says they do take up a servant's time,
and a doctor has to have them so clean!"
She laughed and blushed. "Please excuse me if I give advice! My father
says I know everything! He is laughing at me, of course. But indeed I
do not mean to be interfering!"
"I am quite sure of that," said Dr. Arundel heartily, "and we shall
be most grateful for any hints. We are young at it, besides being
strangers here."
They had already turned their steps to the old house, and in a few
minutes were standing at the familiar door, and Ruth produced her
father's latchkey.
"Father has kept on this house till he had a partner," she remarked, as
they stepped into a square hall, which opened flat from the street.
"This is the dining-room," said Ruth, turning to a pleasant room on the
right. "It is very cheerful at breakfast, because it faces east, and
people cannot see in much with wide thin curtains. We used to have a
plant in each window which made a nice shield."
Then she opened a door at the back of the room, and Mary gave an
exclamation of delight, for the whole of the end of the room they
entered was filled up with a low bay window opening with French doors
out to the lawn, which sloped gently away from the house, down and
down, till it was lost in graceful shrubs and foliage, between which
could be seen a green meadow and the glittering water of the river.
"How lovely!" Mary exclaimed, turning to her husband. "Oh, Arthur!"
"Does it suit you better than the Worcester Road, Mary? Because, as far
as we have seen, it suits me."
"Then there is the surgery on that side," pursued Ruth, "and the
kitchens behind it. I will wait here while you look at the rest of
it, for you will like to be able to take it all in quietly. My father
hardly liked my coming, for fear I should be too enthusiastic—"
Dr. Arundel smiled. "I do not mind a little enthusiasm in this workaday
world. Come, Mary, as Miss Brown wishes it, we will go up 'and take it
all in' as she suggests."
Ruth sat down on the window seat, and looked out over the
well-remembered prospect. She had never entered the old home since her
mother's death, and every corner of the rooms was associated with her
presence, not as the invalid which she had been at The Firs, but as the
mother who had been the centre and joy of her father's life, and of
hers.
And then her mind flew to those brief weeks in which sudden illness had
come on, and though they had moved to high ground, how all had been
unavailing. But it was not that which Ruth dwelt on now; somehow the
sloping garden and the gleaming river had brought back one memorable
day.
It was about a week before they moved, and Ruth remembered afterwards
that her mother had latterly got used to sitting in the garden a great
deal, and even had a couch lifted out there to rest on. It had also
become the practice for Morris to bring her work out to keep her mother
company. But Ruth had never guessed what it meant. She was busy with
her lessons, and went in and out to the High School only full of the
absorbing interest of her education.
But one Friday afternoon, when she came through the house to find her
mother in the garden and ran to her with the exclamation, "There! I'm
'off duty till Monday,' as the nurses say," she noticed that her mother
looked up at her more earnestly than usual, and that Morris got up with
her needle in her hand, and began to move towards the house.
"Don't go, Morris!" she had said.
But Morris murmured something about "Your mother's tea."
And Ruth threw her bag of books down on the grass, and bent and kissed
her mother in her usual careless, loving little way.
Ah, the last time that kiss was ever careless!
"Sit down, dear," said her mother gently, and something in the tone
struck Ruth as unusual. "I wanted—I wanted to see you—"
"Why, little mother, you see me often enough, don't you?" Ruth had
answered. "Have I been too full of my girls and my music?" she added,
with compunction. "I did not mean it."
"No, dearest—oh, no. But, Ruth—I do not know how to tell you—but I
must—I have not been very strong lately."
"No; but the new house is to make you well, you know! We shall soon be
up there, and father thinks—"
"He 'hopes,' Ruth—he does not think. But in case I do not get well, in
case I get more weak, I wanted to tell you something—"
Ruth heard as if in a dream. There was a sound of rushing in her ears,
and she felt cold chills creeping over her.
"Ruth, dear!" The thin hand was put out and took hers. She had
never noticed how thin it was till that moment. "Ruth, dear, there
is something I want to say to you very much. Lately I have been
thinking—thinking about preparing to meet God! At first, when I began
to be ill, it was a very dreadful thought. I remembered so many things
that I wished had been different. I was overwhelmed at first to
remember that I had lived without thinking much about God at all, or
trying to please Him; I had never given it a thought. Oh, Ruth! What I
felt when I had to confess I had never given God a thought!
"And then Morris tried to comfort me. She read me a verse out of her
little textbook:
"'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'
"And she told me how she had found Jesus Christ 'faithful to forgive,'
and how glad and happy she had been ever since.
"And, Ruth, I was so miserable and so hopeless, that I just did as dear
old Morris read from that text. I confessed everything to my Saviour,
Who had died for me, and I found Him faithful to forgive—"
And then Ruth remembered how she had burst away from the detaining
hand, and had rushed indoors and up to her own room. She remembered
flinging herself down by her window, and looking at that prospect!
She remembered how green the trees were, how the river had sparkled in
the sunshine, and how she had cried out in her bitterness that God was
hard and cruel, for did not her mother mean that she was surely going
to die?
From that day, Ruth was an altered girl. Her school life, her interest
in the town doings, everything seemed swept away by the thought that
God was cruel, and if it was necessary to love Him, she never would
have that eternal life which her mother spoke of with such growing joy.
She shut her heart up, and nothing that her mother or Morris could say
seemed to make the least impression.
"I did without it before, and I must do without it now," she once said
to Morris, in a hard tone, "so let me alone, Morris!"
So as Ruth gazed at the prospect, all that scene swept over her. If
ever it had come across her, she dismissed the unwelcome thought as
quickly as she could, rushing at her German or music with all the
energy of her young, strong nature, and striving to forget that she had
ever had a mother who had looked at her out of wistful eyes, and who
had whispered that last day:
"'We love Him, because He first loved us!'"
But her reverie was interrupted, and she was brought back to the
present by voices on the stairs. With a sudden start, she thought—
"And now, when at last I have got a friend, she thinks the same
as—'that!'"