THE STARS AND THE DARKNESS
Miss GREGSON'S heart yearned over Meg.
After Sheila had left her room she sat a long time by the open window,
thinking of the girl whose happiness as far as this world and its
comforts were concerned, hung on such a slender thread.
Much as she cared for Sheila her thoughts were entirely now filled with
Meg. Was she to be thrown on the world again? Was it to be her lot to
fight and struggle and perhaps to fail after all?
The night was very warm and the garden still. Suddenly as she looked
into its comparative darkness she caught sight of a shadowy figure
crossing the lawn underneath her window.
For a moment her heart beat, but looking more steadily she recognized
Meg's walk. She knew the girl's love of the stars, and that she often
stayed out at night until the house was locked up, but consulting her
watch she saw it was past twelve o'clock and Meg ought to be in bed.
Miss Gregson was a nervous woman, but where duty was concerned her
nerves were allowed no place, anyhow they seldom got the better of her
on such occasions. To-night it was her evident duty to follow Meg and
persuade her to go to bed. Throwing a shawl over her shoulders she made
her way down the dark staircase, candle in hand.
She found the garden door unbolted, so setting the candle on a table by
its side she stepped on to the terrace.
Standing on the top of the steps she looked around her, but she could
catch no sight of Meg. This was not to be wondered at, as there were
many green walks branching out from the middle path that ran as far as
the gate into the wood.
It was not really a dark night, and she was able to see for some
distance dimly, but the garden struck her as very still and lonely as
she stood hesitating on the terrace. Nevertheless she must face those
long lonely grass paths.
It was sometime before she caught sight of Meg sitting upon a garden
seat, her arms flung round the back and her face hidden in them. She
looked the picture of depression. She was still wearing her white
evening dress and had no wrap of any kind over her.
Miss Gregson, afraid of startling the girl, called her name from a
distance. To hear her own voice in that still garden sent a shiver into
her heart.
Meg looked up at the sound, then let her head drop again on to her arms.
"My dear, you will catch cold," said Miss Gregson drawing near. "Do you
know that it is past twelve?"
"I don't care if it is," answered the girl passionately, "let me be, I
say. It ain't no business of yours that I can see." Meg had raised her
head and sat looking defiantly at her companion.
Miss Gregson could hardly believe her ears. This was being natural with
a vengeance! She had never heard the girl speak in so common a tone of
voice before. She might have been talking to one of her acquaintances
of old. But though it gave the good woman a shock, she knew that the
fact of Meg taking no pains whatever either with her manner, tone of
voice, or grammar, meant that she was in the deepest dejection, so deep
that she did not care what anyone thought of her. Miss Gregson sat down
by her side.
Then Meg whose head had sunk again after her words of passion, looked
up.
"I don't advise you to come near me. I ain't fit for the company and
friends of Sheila," she said, glaring fiercely at her companion. "I
tell you I don't want to be fit either. I'm tired of it all. I'm going
back to Jem and the rest of them."
"My dear child we can't spare you," said Miss Gregson laying her hand
on Meg's arm.
The soft voice and kind words melted the girl's anger. She began to sob
violently.
"What are you unhappy about?" asked Miss Gregson.
Meg sat up, wiping her eyes with her lace pocket handkerchief which
seemed somehow so incongruous with the speaker.
She stuffed it into her mouth to prevent her sobs being heard, a habit
of hers which was very distasteful to Sheila who had reproved her for
it more than once.
Then dropping her handkerchief she started up, throwing her arms over
her head in a wild way that nevertheless, Miss Gregson could not help
noticing, became her. She stood up before her, tall, and strong, but
the picture of despair.
"If I only knew where to go to I'd go right away," she said.
"Has anything happened to make you so sad?" asked Miss Gregson.
"Yes, it has been happening for days and days. Sheila don't love me as
she used to do. I can never please her or do anything right, and try
and try as I may, it ain't no good. I worry about it till it makes me
nearly mad. I couldn't stop in to-night. I wanted the stars and the
darkness, and I wanted to feel once more what it would be like to be
without somewhere to go to at night. I just had to come."
The girl sat down again by Miss Gregson's side and covered her face
with her hands.
"Is there anything else troubling you?"
"That's enough ain't it?" said Meg, forgetting her manners again in her
distress. "I can't stop here if Sheila don't want me to, and I just
can't go back to my old life. I can't, I can't."
"Whatever happens, God will take care of you," said Miss Gregson. "Wait
patiently for Him. You need not worry, dear child."
"Mr. Fortescue believes all that. I wish I was sure of it," sighed the
girl.
"We seem quite alone in this quiet still garden, Meg, but if we had
eyes to see we should find that the place is peopled with angels, and
we know that God is here."
Meg was silent, only an occasional sob making her quiver.
"There lived only a few years ago," continued her companion, "a good
man of the name of George Macdonald, who used to think a great deal
about life and its mysteries. Listen now while I repeat some words of
his that always strike me as being specially beautiful—"
"So lies my journey—on into the dark,
Without my will I find myself alive,
And must go forward. Is it God that draws
Magnetic all the souls unto their home,
Travelling, they know not how, but unto God?
It matters little what may come to me
Of outward circumstance, and hunger, thirst,
Social condition, yea, or love or hate;
But what shall I be, fifty summers hence?
My life, my being, all that meaneth me,
Goes darkling forward into something—what?
O God Thou knowest. It is not my care.
If Thou wert less than truth, or less than love,
It were a fearful thing to be and grow
We know not what. My God, take care of me.
Pardon and swathe me in an infinite love
Pervading and inspiring me, Thy child."
"Unfolding the ideal man in me!
Which being greater far than I have grown.
I cannot comprehend. I am Thine, not mine
One day completed unto Thine intent,
I shall be able to discourse with Thee;
For thy idea, gifted with a self,
Must be of one with the mind where it sprang,
And fit to talk with Thee about Thy thoughts.
Lead me, O Father, holding by Thy hand;
I ask not whither, for it must be on.
This road will lead me to the hills I think;
And there I am in safety and at home."
Miss Gregson repeated the words in a soft voice as if afraid of waking
the birds and flowers with which they were surrounded. As she ended a
rustle in the bushes made her start. But Meg, accustomed to all night
sounds, did not stir. Though the thoughts expressed were somewhat
beyond her, the words, "My God take care of me," impressed themselves
on her mind. She was glad to have heard them and they comforted her.
Miss Gregson shivered as a night hawk cried out in the darkness and a
slight breeze swept past them.
"You will come in now, my dear child," she said, as she rose.
As they parted outside her bedroom door, Meg threw her arms around her
friend, then ran hastily into her room.