THE WONDERFUL WOMAN
BUT underneath the wonderfulness there was a heartache. You can hardly
expect it to have been otherwise; and, for my part, I would not have
had it otherwise. She wouldn’t have been one quarter the adorable old
lady she was, if there hadn’t been that heartache.
If, from some lofty and ascetic perch, she could have calmly
contemplated her approaching departure from Delancey Castle with never
a tremor, with never a soul-stabbing, then, very assuredly, she would
have been one of a genus of human beings that I would find it in vain
to attempt to comprehend. It is through the very humanity of the saints
that one feels their lovableness. They felt intensely; they had their
loves and their hates, their likes and their dislikes, their joys and
their sorrows; they were living, sensitive, human creatures, not masses
of granite, nor insensible lumps of putty. And it wasn’t one atom
because they didn’t care for happiness and pleasure, and possibly even
for luxury, that they became saints, but just because they did care,
and caring gave all these things as a free and generous gift to God.
Of course you know this every bit as well as I do, but I like to remind
myself of it every now and then. And sometimes God may have given them
back their own actual gifts to Him, even while they were still on
earth,--gifts refined, transmuted by some wonderful purifying process
in His hands. But most often it would seem that He gave them another
gift in exchange,--that wonderful gift, Sorrow, of which only a saint
can see the true beauty. Yet always He gave them back in full and
overflowing measure one gift that must of necessity have been offered
with the other gifts,--the gift of love towards Him.
I don’t mean to infer from this that Lady Mary was a saint. That would
be a matter on which I naturally should not venture to express an
opinion. One leaves such decisions to God and the Holy Fathers. But she
was very assuredly a wonderful woman, as Father Maloney had remarked.
If her heart was old in years, it was young in immortal youth. She
revelled in the sunshine, she revelled in happiness; I am not sure that
she didn’t bask in it. I fancy there would be little real gratitude if
we accepted these gifts timorously, fearing lest their removal should
follow quickly. To my thinking, the truest gratitude, the fullest
trust, is to accept them with whole-hearted enjoyment, to say a real
“thank You” for the loan, when the time comes that God asks us to give
it back again. Naturally our manners would be as disagreeable as those
of a badly brought-up child if we clung to the gift lent us till it had
to be taken from us by force. The first hint is sufficient for a nicely
brought-up child. But never be grudging or timorous of enjoyment during
such time as the happiness is lent.
Truly I believe this was Lady Mary’s attitude. Now, of course, there
was a big sense of loss, a pretty heavy heartache, and even the tiniest
question, Why? At the first, I don’t think that she had realized that
the happiness had been merely a loan. She had looked upon it as hers
by right. There’s the danger with prolonged loans. You begin to forget
that they aren’t actually yours. But, if she had forgotten, it was
only for a moment; and now, in spite of the heartache, her “thank You”
was genuinely spoken.
* * * * *
Lady Mary was sitting by a window facing towards the sea. It shone
pearly iridescent, in the evening light. The sky beyond reflected the
glory of the sunset; grey near the water, it merged upwards into soft
rose-colour, and thence to blue-green. The earth was bathed in soft,
glowing light.
Only the faintest whisper of air came through the open window,--a
faint, cool sigh of relief after the heat of the day. Below, in
the garden, were golden splotches of colour--beds of great African
marigolds, a vivid contrast to the cool green of the close-dipped
grass. Through the silence came the musical dripping of a fountain.
Overhead a door opened. She heard a child’s voice, and then a little
burst of laughter. Again there was silence. And slowly the rose-colour
faded in the sky, till only a pale lavender-grey haze covered land and
water.
The gold of the marigolds became softly blurred; the green of the grass
lost its colour.
A little haunting melody came suddenly into her mind,--one she had
often played in childhood. It was a melody by Heller. There is a
footnote at the bottom of the page on which it is written, which
designates it “Twilight,” or “Le crépuscule.” The latter word came into
her mind at the moment. It held greater significance to her than the
English word. It represented more clearly the onward stealing of the
grey shadows, the soft sweet evening sadness, the slow passing of the
day’s glory.
And then, once more, overhead a door opened. There was a pattering of
footsteps along the corridor, a child’s voice, clear, demanding:
“Granny, prayers!”
Lady Mary got up from her chair. If there was something of the evening
shadows in her eyes, I fancy there was also the aftermath of the
sunset’s glory.
“Tomorrow I must tell Antony,” she said.