Complete Works. Anna Buchan
those people who never say an ill word of anyone. It makes conversation as savourless as porridge without salt. One needn't talk scandal. I hate scandal—but there is no harm in remarking on the queer ways of your neighbours: anyone who likes can remark on mine. Even when you are old and done and waiting for the summons it isn't wrong surely to get amusement out of the other pilgrims—if you can. Do you know your Pilgrim's Progress, Pamela? Do you remember where Christiana and the others reach the Land of Beulah? It is the end of the journey, and they have nothing to do but to wait, while the children go into the King's gardens and gather there sweet flowers…. It is all true. I know, for I have reached the Land of Beulah. 'How welcome is death,' says Bunyan, 'to them that have nothing to do but to die.' For the last twenty-five years the way has been pretty hard. I've stumbled along very lamely, followed my Lord on crutches like Mr. Fearing, but now the end is in sight and I can be at ease. All these years I have never been able to read the letters and diaries of my boys—they tore my very heart—but now I can read them without tears, and rejoice in having had such sons to give. I used to be tortured by dreams of them, when I thought I held them and spoke to them, and woke to weep in agony, but now when they come to me I can wake and smile, satisfied that very soon they will be mine again. Sorrow is a wonderful thing. It shatters this old earth, but it makes a new heaven. I can thank God now for taking my boys. Augusta is a saint and acquiesced from the first, but I was rebellious. I see that Heaven and myself had part in my boys; now Heaven has all, and all the better is it for the boys. I hope God will forgive my bitterness, and all the grief I have given with words. 'No suffering is for the present joyous … nevertheless afterwards….' When the Great War broke out and the terrible casualty lists became longer and longer, and 'with rue our hearts were laden,' I found some of the 'peaceable fruits' we are promised. I found I could go without impertinence into the house of mourning, even when I hardly knew the people, and ask them to let me share their grief, and I think sometimes I was able to help just a little."
"I know how you helped," said Pamela; "the Macdonalds told me. Do you know, I think I envy you. You have suffered much, but you have loved much. Your life has meant something. Looking back I've nothing to think on but social successes that now seem very small and foolish, and years of dressing and talking and dancing and laughing. My life seems like a brightly coloured bubble—as light and as useless."
"Not useless. We need the flowers and the butterflies and the things that adorn…. I wish Jean would give herself over to pleasure for a little. Her poor little head is full of schemes—quite practical schemes they are too, she has a shrewd head—about helping others. I tell her she will do it all in good time, but I want her to forget the woes of the world for a little and rejoice in her youth."
"I know," said Pamela. "I was astonished to find how responsible she felt for the misery in the world. She is determined to build a heaven in hell's despair! It reminds one of Saint Theresa setting out holding her little brother's hand to convert the Moors!… Now I've stayed too long and tired you, and Augusta will have me assassinated. Thank you, my very dear lady, for letting me come to see you, and for—telling me about your sons. Bless you…."
CHAPTER XXII
"For never anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it."
As You Like It.
The lot of the conscientious philanthropist is not an easy one. The kind but unthinking rich can strew their benefits about, careless of their effect on the recipients, but the path of the earnest lover of his fellows is thorny and difficult, and dark with disappointment.
To Jean in her innocence it had seemed that money was the one thing necessary to make bright the lives of her poorer neighbours. She pictured herself as a sort of fairy godmother going from house to house carrying sunshine and leaving smiles and happiness in her wake. She soon found that her dreams had been rosy delusions. Far otherwise was the result of her efforts.
"It's like something in a fairy-tale," she complained to Pamela. "You are given a fairy palace, but when you try to go to it mountains of glass are set before you and you can't reach it. You can't think how different the people are to me now. The very poor whom I thought I could help don't treat me any longer like a friend to whom they can tell their troubles in a friendly way. The poor-spirited ones whine, with an eye on my pocket, and where I used to get welcoming smiles I now only get expectant grins. And the high-spirited ones are so afraid that I'll offer them help that their time is spent in snubbing me and keeping me in my place."
"It's no use getting down about it," Pamela told her. "You are only finding what thousands have found before you, that's it the most difficult thing in the world to be wisely charitable. You will never remove mountains. If you can smooth a step here and there for people and make your small corner of the world as pleasant as possible you do very well."
Jean agreed with a sigh. "If I don't finish by doing harm. I have awful thoughts sometimes about the dire effects money may have on the boys—on Mhor especially. In any case it will change their lives entirely. It's a solemnising thought," and she laughed ruefully.
Jean plodded on her well-doing way, and knocked her head against many posts, and blundered into pitfalls, and perhaps did more good and earned more real gratitude than she had any idea of.
"It doesn't matter if I'm cheated ninety-nine times if I'm some real help the hundredth time," she told herself. "Puir thing," said the recipients of her bounty, in kindly tolerance, "she means weel, and it's a kindness to help her awa' wi' some o' her siller. A' she gies us is juist like tippence frae you or me."
One woman, at any rate, blessed Jean in her heart, though her stiff, ungracious lips could not utter a word of thanks. Mary Abbot lived in a neat cottage surrounded by a neat garden. She was a dressmaker in a small way, and had supported her mother till her death. She had been very happy with her work and her bright, tidy house and her garden and her friends, but for more than a year a black fear had brooded over her. Her sight, which was her living, was going. She saw nothing before her but the workhouse. Death she would have welcomed, but this was shame. For months she had fought it out, as her eyes grew dimmer, letting no one know of the anxiety that gnawed at her heart. No one suspected anything wrong. She was always neatly dressed at church, she always had her small contribution ready for collectors, her house shone with rubbing, and as she did not seem to want to take in sewing now, people thought that she must have made a competency and did not need to work so hard.
Jean knew Miss Abbot well by sight. She had sat behind her in church all the Sundays of her life, and had often admired the tidy appearance of the dressmaker, and thought that she was an excellent advertisement of her own wares. Lately she had noticed her thin and ill-coloured, and Mrs. Macdonald had said one day, "I wonder if Miss Abbot is all right. She used to be such a help at the sewing meeting, and now she doesn't come at all, and her excuses are lame. When I go to see her she always says she is perfectly well, but I am not at ease about her. She's the sort of woman who would drop before she made a word of complaint…."
One morning when passing the door Jean saw Miss Abbot polishing her brass knocker. She stopped to say good morning.
"Are you keeping well, Miss Abbot? There is so much illness about."
"I'm in my usual, thank you," said Miss Abbot stiffly.
"I always admire the flowers in your window," said Jean. "How do you manage to keep them so fresh looking? Ours get so mangy. May I come in for a second and look at them?"
Miss Abbot stood aside and said coldly that Jean might come in if she liked, but her flowers were nothing extra.
It was the tidiest of kitchens she entered. Everything shone that could be made to shine. A hearthrug made by Miss Abbot's mother lay before the fireplace, in which a mere handful of fire was burning. An arm-chair with cheerful red cushions stood beside the fire. It was quite comfortable, but Jean felt a bareness. There were no pots on the fire—nothing seemed to be cooking for dinner.
She admired the flowers and