THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN
The day that Gavin's picture appeared in the Algonquin paper with an
account of the gallant deed in which he had given his life, Christina
received a letter in an unknown handwriting.
Mitty brought it up to her room on a sunny April afternoon, where she
was sitting, trying to interest herself in some sewing for baby Hugh.
She laid the letter aside while she finished her work, too indifferent
even to open it, but when the last button-hole was fashioned in the
dainty little muslin dress she remembered it.
She opened it slowly, noticing with some interest that it was from the
Front, and then she suddenly sat up very straight and read the written
pages greedily. The letter was signed, Harry Kent, and was from a
comrade of Gavin's in the Blue Bonnets, a boy whom he had often
mentioned in his letters to Christina.
And inside was a letter from Gavin himself sealed in a separate
envelope. The first was a formal note from a shy boy.
"Dear Miss Lindsay: I hope you won't mind if I take the liberty to
write to you, though I am a stranger. Gavin Grant and I were pals, and
when he went up to the Front for the last time he gave me the letter I
am enclosing, and he asked me to mail it to you. We knew his company
was going into a hot place, and he said he did not think he would get
back. So he wrote you this letter and when I heard he was killed I
said I would mail it to you. Gavin was the finest fellow I ever knew.
He was always singing and he taught the fellows a lot of songs. There
was one he was always singing, it was called a 'Warrior Bold,' and he
was singing it that morning just before the Boche came over. The
fellows in our Company would rather we had all gone West than Gavin, he
was worth them all put together...."
There was more about what Gavin had done in that last dread struggle.
But Christina could not take the time to read it. She opened Gavin's
letter reverently, with trembling hands. The blinding tears would
permit her to make out only a few sentences at a time.
"I wrote you a letter last night," it said, "and I hope you will not
think I am too bold to be writing you another to-night. But we are
going up into a rather bad place to-night and if I do not come back, I
want to send you a good-bye message. I have never been able to tell
you how much you have always been to me. I could not even write it in
a letter. I have always been afraid I would offend you. But I thought
you would not mind that I told you if I never came back. You have
always been so far above me, that I did not have the courage to try to
go with you. And then somebody else came, and I knew I had no chance
then. But you have always been my girl in spite of all that, ever
since the day you filled my pail with your berries to save me from a
thrashing. I was always singing about you when I sang that old song,
"'My love is young and fair,
My love has golden hair,
And eyes so blue and heart so true
That none with her compare.'
"It was partly because you were so much to me that I wanted to enlist.
I felt that I would be fighting for you. And if I do not come back
to-morrow I will be glad to feel that I will be helping to save you
from harm. You will not miss me, but the Aunties will, and I am going
to ask a great favour of you. Will you always go to see them, and
comfort them? And tell them they must not grieve for me. It is so
much better to come out here and die for a good cause than to live in
peace and safety at home. I am so glad, and they must be glad too, for
my sake. I will have your little ring----"
Christina could read no more just then. Her bright head went down on
the sunny window sill, she slipped to the floor in a very passion of
grief. She was realising with overwhelming remorse that a most
beautiful thing had happened to her and her eyes had been too blind to
see until the pageant had faded. Her True Knight--and what lady of
high degree had a knight more noble?--her True Knight had ridden out to
mortal combat, and she had not even waved him farewell from her window!
She left the work with Mitty the next day and went up over the hills to
see the Grant Girls. She did not take her letter, it was too sacred
for even their loving eyes, but she wanted to talk to them about Gavin
and, if she were alone with Auntie Elspie, she would whisper to her
that her heart had gone out into the storm and darkness after Gavin
that night he went to the war, and that it still followed him somewhere
in the shining regions where he moved.
She went slowly up over the dun fields, lying all quiet and restful,
waiting for the stirring of the Spring. Away down in the beaver meadow
a soft green flush told that the pussy willows were already out, a bold
robin was singing the opening song of the Spring concert, and the crows
cawed derisively over the memories of a vanquished Winter.
But Christina's sad heart could not respond to these little, gay
greetings of Spring. She lingered in the bare slash, remembering the
day of the berry-picking when Gavin had been in such deep trouble. She
stood in the place where he had stood when he pulled the bind-weed, and
when they had listened to the call of the opening drum beat of the war.
And she went over in memory every foot of the walk in the harvest
moonlight from Craig-Ellachie that night when she had been so happy
with him, but had walked beside him with blinded eyes.
The garden at Craig-Ellachie had already wakened to life, the crocuses
were out, rows and rows of them, and the garden hyacinths were holding
up their little green spears. But there was no happy gardener working
in the brown beds. Christina went slowly up the walk where the dry
leafless branches of the climbing roses hung over her head. Gavin's
dogs came tumbling down the steps to meet her in joyous welcome.
She looked up in wonder as the kitchen door was flung suddenly open.
Mrs. Johnnie Dunn flashed into the doorway and shouted something
incoherent, and as suddenly disappeared, and Hughie Reid's wife came to
the window and waved frantically. Christina ran forward, filled with
foreboding. She darted up the steps and stopped amazed in the doorway.
The kitchen was full of people, it seemed, all moving about and talking
wildly. Mr. Sinclair was there and Dr. McGarry and a half dozen women,
and the Aunties were running about laughing and crying, and it seemed
as if every one had suddenly gone quite mad.
And then it seemed to Christina that the room was going round and she
found a chair and sat down quickly, for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's voice from
far away was calling out the most amazing and unbelievable
thing--shouting that Gavin was not dead! He had been found! He had
been buried in a shell-hole, half-dead, and when the Blue Bonnets swept
back over the enemy's trenches he had been rescued. He had been badly
wounded and had lain unconscious for a long time. But he was alive and
was in a hospital in France!
Christina flew over the brown hills on the way to her mother with the
news, saying over and over to her benumbed senses that Gavin was not
dead, that he was alive. It seemed as if her heart had been so
stupefied with grief that it could not yet accept joy. She ran in a
kind of dream saying that she would soon wake up and find that this was
not true.
But the glorious news was confirmed. There was a week of alternate
wild hope and fear, and then, as wonderful as a message from the dead,
came a cable from Gavin himself. He was in a hospital in France and
was progressing rapidly. The next news told that he was in England,
and then came a blessed letter from his nurse, saying that he was
recovering slowly but surely and was promising himself that it would
not be long until he would write a letter home.
Such a clamour of joy and relief as the news of Gavin brought to
Orchard Glen no one would have thought possible. Every one had
sorrowed deeply with the Grant Girls and now the whole countryside came
out to Craig-Ellachie to rejoice with them and to hear again and again
the story of Gavin's rescue. And the Grant Girls put in such a garden
as the county had never seen, and grew young and bright again with joy
and hope.
As for Christina she moved about in a golden dream. Life was not real
at all these days, but the dream of it was beautiful and the colour
came back to her cheeks and the light to her eyes, and she went about
the house with her old swift motions.
She could not believe in the reality of her joy at all until she
received her first letter from Gavin. As soon as the message came that
he was in England she wrote him. It was her answer to the letter that
he had never intended her to see during his life. It must have been a
satisfactory answer, for not all the skill of surgeon and sister
combined had produced a fraction of the healing and strengthening
quality that its closely written pages brought to the wounded soldier
in England. And his answer made Christina's eyes brighter and her step
lighter than they had been since the day Jimmy and Neil went over the
top.
It was not until Gavin was so well that he was walking about that he
wrote confessing the full extent of his injuries. He had lost an arm,
only his left arm, he wrote, which he really didn't miss much. He made
jokes about it and warned Auntie Janet that she need not be laying
plans to do as she pleased, for he could manage the whole family and
make them mind, even with one arm. And as he was still a little lame
and would be likely to carry a heavy stick for some time he would be
quite able to keep her in her place.
But he did not write so lightly on the matter to Christina. He had
only one arm, and was a poor hobbling creature, he confessed, and how
could he ask her to share life with him? He was only half a man, and a
poor weak half at that.
But Christina wrote him such a letter as forever put such notions out
of Gavin's head. It was a letter that made him feel not like half a
man but as though he had the strength of ten. For what was the loss of
an arm when one had such a warm heart beating for him, and awaiting his
coming?
Christina had not seen Wallace Sutherland since the day he had
disappeared from her view in the black mist that had rolled up over her
with the news that Gavin was killed. Her mind had been too much racked
to think of him since, but now that it was at rest she remembered him
with a feeling of shame. So she sat down and wrote him a letter,
telling him humbly and frankly all the truth, how Gavin had held her
heart long before she realised it. She begged him to forgive her if
she had done him any injury and ended up by the tactful hint that as
their association had been a pleasant friendship, in which the
kindnesses had been so many and so generous on his side, she hoped he
would think of her with pleasure, and that they would always continue
to be friends.
But Wallace was thinking of Christina with feelings entirely the
reverse of pleasant. And his mother was thinking very bitter thoughts
about her indeed. For just when Mrs. Sutherland had become reconciled
to her son's changed prospects, and when Uncle William was doing
handsomely by the boy, when there was every prospect that Wallace would
soon be married and be safe from the recruiting officers, with a farm
and a wife and a widowed mother between him and military service, when
everything had turned out better than she had dared to hope, suddenly
the whole fabric of her plans came crashing about her ears. And all
owing to the outrageous conduct of a girl who had thrown her son aside
for a farm boy, merely for the glamour of a medal won on the
battlefield!
It was really very hard on poor Mrs. Sutherland, and Christina was
overcome with shame when she thought of her. For Wallace sold the Ford
place to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn for a shamefully low figure and went off to
the States where quite likely some wicked sleuth of a recruiting
officer would find him and send him to the war after all.
Christina was very humble and very much ashamed of herself, but it was
hard to worry over Wallace when such wonderful things were happening in
one's own life. For before the apple blossoms came to decorate the
orchard for her birthday, Sandy was home to help celebrate. Even the
news that he was wounded came as a relief from the strain of waiting.
At least he was off the battlefield. And then it proved that the wound
was not serious; but he was lame and unfit for more active service and
was coming home to finish his course at college if that were at all
possible.
And Uncle Neil took out his fiddle when the letter heralding Sandy's
return was received, and played softly some of his old favourite airs;
tunes Christina had not heard since the boys went away to the war. And
they brought the tender tears to her eyes, remembering the happy old
days when they were all at home and Grandpa sang the Hindmost Hymn at
eventide. Sandy's presence brought new life to the Lindsay home. John
and Uncle Neil sat up half the nights listening to his tales of the
world of glory and horror in which he had been living. And Christina
and her mother could scarcely let him out of their sight. He was all
that had been spared them from the War Monster's greed.
In spite of all the dread sights he had witnessed he was the same gay
old Sandy, and the home took on some of its old-time life and gaiety.
He and Christina soon fell back into their habit of comradeship. They
had many confidences to exchange, and Christina had to tell all the
story of Gavin and what his going had meant to her. Sandy was full of
joy at the telling. Gavin had always been a True Knight in his eyes
and then he had all the returned soldier's disdain of the slacker.
Christina could not but shudder at what her life might have been had
ambition ruled, instead of her heart and Wallace and Sandy were meeting
here in the old home.
They had many long talks on the pump platform under the blossoming
orchard boughs, and they smiled often over their great plans that had
all turned out so differently from what they had expected.
"Are you still bound to get out of Orchard Glen?" asked Sandy slyly,
and Christina had to confess that she was not. She could not quite
explain to Sandy that all her restless ambition had been but the desire
for something great and heroic such as her simple life did not seem to
contain. But the great and heroic had come right to her door, unseen,
it is true, but now recognised, and her soul was perfectly content in
its radiance. Life could never be narrow and common-place any more.
She had attained all her ambition through following the road her heart
indicated,--the shining pathway of loving self-sacrifice that leads to
the stars.