On the evening of her thirty-eighth birthday Vanna Strangeways said
adieu to her last patient, and slowly traversed the streets leading
towards Jean Gloucester's home. It was a dull and dreary evening, but
her thoughts were not sad. The years which had passed by since the
receipt of Piers Rendall's farewell letter, and the subsequent news of
his engagement and marriage, had marked the various stages which attend
all great griefs. First the storm, with the roar of the wind, which
threatens to destroy the very foundations of life; then the desert;
loneliness; an outlook of flat, colourless sand; finally, slowly and
surely, the inflowing calm. Hopeless, long-cherished grief is
impossible to a soul who has tasted of love for God and its fellow-men.
However severely a tree has been pruned, its leaves shoot forth bravely
at the call of the spring, and in a few years' time strength is gathered
for another blossoming.
Vanna had put much good hard work into these last years. In the great
metropolis of the world, a woman who is willing to work for others, and
to work without pay, need never know a moment's idleness, and Dr
Greatman had always a list of patients who were in dire need of help--
patients belonging to that section of humanity to whom in especial
Vanna's sympathies went out. Every day of her life she was brought into
contact with women compared with whom her own lot was unspeakably calm
and happy--poor waifs on life's ocean, perishing not only for lack of
physical help, but also for the want of love, and sympathy, and
brightness; and Vanna, as a free agent, blessed with health and means,
had it in her power to minister to mind as well as body. She was that
rare thing, a voluntary worker on whom one might depend for regular,
systematic service; and in her work she found her best and sweetest
comfort.
Jean's old epithet, "Consolation Female," was truly descriptive of Vanna
in these first years of her sorrow; but as time passed by, and the
inevitable healing began to make itself felt, there came moments of
restlessness and rebellion--moments when a life of philanthropy no
longer satisfied, when the inner Ego awoke, and clamoured for
recognition. A duller woman might have looked upon these outbursts as
backslidings, and have taken herself severely to task for faltering in
the path, but Vanna, more clear-sighted, recognised in them a natural
and healthy revival of her old spirit. She made no attempt to stifle
the growth of this unrest, but rather welcomed it as a sign of recovered
strength, and took a keen natural joy in ministering to herself, even as
she had done to others. The first longing for a pretty new dress, the
first time that a social gathering became a pleasure instead of a bore,
the first interested planning for the future on her own behalf--she
congratulated herself on each impulse as it came, and so far as might
be, gratified it to the full.
"You are the sanest woman I ever met." Piers's words were echoed by
more than one person who knew Vanna at this period of her life--by Dr
Greatman himself, between a frown and a sigh. "Absolutely sane; no
extremes--a perfectly balanced woman, sweet and capable, and humorous--
one in ten thousand! It seems as though she had inherited the extra
share of ballast which her relations have lacked; and yet it is there,
the danger, the shadow. I was right. If I were consulted again I
should say the same. Even in the last year another cousin has developed
symptoms. Such a family ought to be stamped out. But I'd give five
years of my life to see that woman happy."
This evening as she paced the muddy streets, Vanna's thoughts were
engaged with half a dozen details of her busy life. From ten o'clock in
the morning she had been hurrying from house to house, yet had not been
able to finish the list with which she had started the day. More people
had been waiting for her, longing for her coming, than she had been able
to visit; the memory of grateful words sounded in her ears. She was
returning home to rest and ease, or, if she pleased, to go forth in
search of amusement and distraction of mind. For the hundredth time she
told herself that she was one of the fortunates of earth; and for the
hundredth time "_But I am alone_" answered the woman's heart, and could
find no solace to fill that void. Vanna threw back her head with the
quick, defiant gesture which had grown habitual in years of struggle.
This was the direction in which thought could not be allowed to turn,
the direction of earthquake and upheaval; the death of peace. Even as
the pain cramped her heart she had decided on her medicine. "I will go
to see my baby! There is still half an hour before her bedtime."
Little Vanna, Jean's youngest daughter, had been brought up by her
parents to consider herself as equally the child of themselves and
"Mother Wanna" and had shown herself delightfully eager to avail herself
of the privilege.
"You've gotten only one mummie; I'se two!" was one of the earliest
boasts by which she endeavoured to demonstrate her superiority over her
sisters. She was a delightful little person, pretty, as were all Jean's
children, with her mother's dark, cloud-like hair, and her father's
hazel eyes; affectionate, strong-willed, and already, at five years old,
amusingly conscious of the powers of a dimpled cheek and a beguiling
lisp, to gain for her the ambition of the minute. Jean had faithfully
kept her promise of allowing her friend to adopt the small Vanna
financially as well as mentally; and if it was a delightful task to
purchase her small garments, it was still more thrilling to plan for
years ahead. Little Vanna must have an education to fit her for her
place in life. Her talents from the beginning should receive the most
skilful training; she should be taken abroad to learn languages in the
only way in which they can be truly mastered; if her attainments
justified she should go on to College; if she preferred a social life,
she should enjoy it to the full. Privately Vanna cherished the hope
that her fledgling might develop not into a grave student but into a
natural, light-hearted girl, whose happiness might atone to her in some
wise for her own blighted youth. All that love, and money, and the most
careful forethought could do, should be done to secure for the second
Vanna an unclouded girlhood. In imagination she pictured her in the
various stages of growth; the schoolgirl coming home from school, to be
taken for holiday trips abroad; the gayest, least responsible of
companions, running short of pocket-money, mislaying her effects, full
of wild, impractical plans; later on the debutante, a tall, dim maiden,
reviving memories of her lovely mother at the same age, attiring herself
in a filmy white gown, peeping with sparkling eyes inside a jeweller's
case, showering sweet kisses as thanks. Later on, the coming of Prince
Charming--a Prince Charming who could be welcomed without a pang, for,
thank God, there were no dark pages in the history of this second Vanna.
Finally a marriage, with its happy bustle of preparation, trousseau
buying, and furnishings, the interests of the young home; children of
the third generation. The future could not be blank with such an
interest as this in prospect!
The church clock at the corner of the street had just struck five as
Vanna knocked at the door of Robert Gloucester's house. It was the
children's hour, when Jean was sure to be found in the den striving to
amuse her three little daughters, while each vied with each other in the
effort to attract the largest share of attention.
They crowded into the hall at the sound of Vanna's patent knock, and
drew her into the room in a clamour of welcome. Each one of the four
had a budget of news to unfold, and was eager, for the privilege of
first innings. Jean made several futile efforts to send the children
back to their several games, but soon abandoned the effort and lay back
comfortably in her chair, content to bide her time. As usual, she was
beautifully dressed, though more simply than of old. In the shaded
lamplight it was impossible to believe that her fortieth birthday was
well in sight. Her soft dark hair was as abundant as ever, and the
thinness of her face seemed but to show more plainly the exquisite
moulding of her features. Vanna glanced at her with the old,
never-dying admiration, as she held her godchild on her knee, and
listened to the eager confidences of her sisters, and Jean smiled back
with affectionate languor. Behind her in a recess of the wall stood a
medley of photographs, large and small: Mr Goring, white-haired and
spectacled, proudly holding his eldest grandchild on his knee; the two
tall, handsome brothers; Robert, with uplifted head and happy, smiling
eyes; baby faces nestled closely together. At her feet in front of the
old brass fender lay Robert's dippers waiting his return, but Jean had
no thought of any of these things. She had an air of snatching the
moment's leisure, as something precious which should not be wasted, and
her eyes showed a dreamy indifference to the children's sallies--an
abstraction which, with juvenile sharpness, they were quick to note.
Vanna was a newcomer, and could always be counted on as an interested
audience; but no normal child can be satisfied for long if there remains
one person in the room who is not paying the due meed of attention.
Before ten minutes were passed the trio were once more swarming over
their mother's chair, tugging at her gown to attract attention.
"Jean!" asked Vanna suddenly, "are you happy?"
Jean stared at her with stolid surprise.
"Of course I am happy," she said flatly. "What do you mean?"
"But are you blissfully, ecstatically, unspeakably happy--almost too
happy to live?"
Jean's stare took on a tinge of affront.
"No! Of course not. Why should I be?"
"Why should you not? If such a thing is possible to any one on earth,
it ought to be to you. You have everything that is worth having--
everything! Robert--his wonderful love; these children, interest in
life, hope, expectation. You are so _rich_!"
Jean's face softened. She looked at the white-robed figures at her
feet, and for a moment her eyes shone; for a moment, and then once more
the shadow fell.
"Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, I know! I _am_ well off, but one can't live
on the heights; and, oh, dear! oh, dear, there are such worries! Morton
has given me notice. It's so difficult to find a decent cook for small
wages. I shall have to begin the weary old hunt once more. And Lorna
keeps complaining of her eyes. Robert says she must see an oculist, but
I do so dread it. If _she_ has to wear spectacles it will break my
heart. And you remember those dining-room curtains that I sent to be
dyed? They came back to-day the wrong shade--simply shrieking at the
walls. Ruined! Isn't it maddening--I feel so depressed--"
She looked across the room with a transparent appeal for sympathy, but
with a quick, glad laugh Vanna leapt to her feet and swept towards the
door.
"Good-bye. I'm going. Thank you so much!"
"_Going_!" Jean rushed after her in dismay.
"Vanna, you've just come. Thank me for _what_? You mad creature, what
do you mean?"
"My lesson! Don't stop me, Jean, I'll come again--I must go."
She fled into the street, and the sound of her laughter floated back to
Jean as she stood by the open door.
"_The dining-room curtains don't match_!" Jean, the beloved, had said
these astounding words; had advanced them in all seriousness as a reason
for unhappiness! In the midst of plenty, this infinitesimal crumb could
mar her joy. And Jean was but a type of her class. All over London
while their lonely sisters were eating their hearts with envy, the women
rich in home, husband, and children, were allowing pigmy trials to
obstruct the sun, squandering their joy, wasting the precious days. And
at the other end of the world that young girl who was Piers Rendall's
wife, the mother of his child, she too, perchance, was vexing herself
over many things, bemoaning her trials, so dulled by custom that she no
longer appreciated her joys.
The great, the supreme secret of life, came home to Vanna with
overwhelming force as she walked through the quiet streets. Not
without, but within, must man look for happiness; in himself, the divine
soul of him, or nowhere lies his joy. All outer possessions are as
naught--the baubles, the playthings of a child, which, once gathered,
grow tame and lose their gilt.
Vanna had known great grief, and had travelled on bleeding feet through
the desert of loneliness, but from the rough journey she had reaped her
spoil. Her eyes were opened; she saw the riches of this world at their
true worth; her heart was filled with an immense, encompassing love. It
was impossible that she should ever again be lonely. She thanked God,
and took courage.