Janet's Love and Service. Margaret M. Robertson
“It might have done, with her to guide them; but it’s very different now, as you ken yourself, far better than I can tell you. It would be little else than a temptin’ o’ Providence to expose these helpless bairns, first to the perils o’ the sea, and then to those o’ a strange country. He’ll never do it. He’s restless now; and unsettled; but when time, that cures most troubles, goes by, he’ll think better of it, and bide where he is.”
Janet made no reply, but in her heart she took no such comfort. She knew it was no feeling of restlessness, no longing to be away from the scene of his sorrow that had decided the minister to emigrate, and that he had decided she very well knew. These might have hastened his plans, she thought, but he went for the sake of his children. They might make their own way in the world, and he thought he could better do this in the New World than in the Old. The decision of one whom she had always reverenced for his goodness and wisdom must be right, she thought; yet she had misgivings, many and sad, as to the future of the children she had come to love so well. It was to have her faint hope confirmed, and her strong fears chased away, that she had spoken that afternoon to her friend; and it was with a feeling of utter disconsolateness that, she turned to her work again, when, at last, she was left alone.
For Janet had a deeper cause for care than she had told, a vague feeling that the worldly wisdom of her friend could not help her here, keeping her silent about it to her. That very morning, her heart had leaped to her lips, when her master in his grave, brief way, had asked—
“Janet, will you go with us, and help me to take care of her bairns?”
And she had vowed to God, and to him, that she would never leave them while they needed the help that a faithful servant could give. But the after thought had come. She had other ties, and cares, and duties, apart from these that clustered so closely round the minister and his motherless children.
A mile or two down the glen stood the little cottage that had for a long time been the home of her widowed mother, and her son. More than half required for their maintenance Janet provided. Could she forsake them? Could any duty she owed to her master and his children make it right for her to forsake those whose blood flowed in her veins? True, her mother was by no means an aged woman yet, and her son was a well-doing helpful lad, who would soon be able to take care of himself. Her mother had another daughter too, but Janet knew that her sister could never supply her place to her mother. Though kind and well-intentioned, she was easy minded, not to say thriftless, and the mother of many bairns besides, and there could neither be room nor comfort for her mother at her fireside, should its shelter come to be needed.
Day after day Janet wearied herself going over the matter in her mind. “If it were not so far,” she thought, or “if her mother could go with her.” But this she knew, for many reasons, could never be, even if her mother could be brought to consent to such a plan. And Janet asked herself, “What would my mother do if Sandy were to die? And what would Sandy do if my mother were to die? And what would both do if sickness were to overtake them, and me far-away?” till she quite hated herself for ever thinking of putting the wide sea, between them and her.
There had been few pleasures scattered over Janet’s rough path to womanhood. Not more than two or three mornings since she could remember had she risen to other than a life of labour. Even during the bright brief years of her married-life, she had known little respite from toil, for her husband had been a poor man, and he had died suddenly, before her son was born. With few words spoken, and few tears shed, save what fell in secret, she had given her infant to her mother’s care, and gone back again to a servant’s place in the minister’s household. There she had been for ten years the stay and right hand of her beloved friend and mistress, “working the work of two,” as they told her, who would have made her discontented in her lot, with no thought from year’s end to year’s end, but how she might best do her duty in the situation in which God had placed her.
But far-away into the future—it might be years and years hence—she looked to the time when in a house of her own, she might devote herself entirely to the comfort of her mother and her son. In this hope she was content to strive and toil through the best years of her life, living poorly and saving every penny, to all appearance equally indifferent to the good word of those who honoured her for her faithfulness and patient labour, and to the bad word of those who did not scruple to call her most striking characteristics by less honourable names. She had never, during all these years, spoken, even to her mother, of her plans, but their fulfilment was none the less settled in her own mind, and none the less dear to her because of that. Could she give this up? Could she go away from her home, her friends, the land of her birth, and be content to see no respite from her labour till the end? Yes, she could. The love that had all these years been growing for the children she had tended with almost a mother’s care, would make the sacrifice possible—even easy to her. But her mother? How could she find courage to tell her that she must leave her alone in her old age? The thought of parting from her son, her “bonny Sandy,” loved with all the deeper fervour that the love was seldom spoken—even this gave her no such pang as did the thought of turning her back upon her mother. He was young, and had his life before him, and in the many changes time might bring, she could at least hope to see him again. But her mother, already verging on the three-score, she could never hope to see more, when once the broad Atlantic rolled between them.
And so, no wonder if in the misery of her indecision, Janet’s words grew fewer and sharper as the days wore on. With strange inconsistency she blamed the minister for his determination to go away, but suffered no one else to blame him, or indeed to hint that he could do otherwise than what was wisest and best for all. It was a sore subject, this anticipated departure of the minister, to many a one in Clayton besides her, and much was it discussed by all. But it was a subject on which Janet would not be approached. She gave short answers to those who offered their services in the way of advice. She preserved a scornful silence in the presence of those who seemed to think she could forsake her master and his children in their time of need, nor was she better pleased with those who thought her mother might be left for their sakes. And so she thought, and wished, and planned, and doubted, till she dazed herself with her vain efforts to get light, and could think and plan no more.
“I’ll leave it to my mother herself to decide,” she said, at last; “though, poor body, what can she say, but that I maun do what I think is my duty, and please myself. The Lord above kens I hae little thought o’ pleasin’ myself in this matter.” And in her perplexity Janet was ready to think her case an exception to the general rule, and that contrary to all experience and observation, duty pointed two ways at once.
Chapter Three.
The time came when the decision could no longer be delayed. The minister was away from home, and before his return it would be made known formally to his people that he was to leave them, and after that the sooner his departure took place it would be the better for all concerned, and so Janet must brace herself for the task.
So out of the dimness of her spotless kitchen she came one day into the pleasant light of May, knowing that before she entered it again, she would have made her mother’s heart as sore as her own. All day, and for many days, she had been planning what she should say to her mother, for she felt that it must be farewell.
“If you know not of two ways which to choose, take that which is roughest and least pleasing to yourself, and the chances are it will be the right one,” said she to herself. “I read that in a book once, but it’s ill choosing when both are rough, and I know not what to do.”
Out into the brightness of the Spring day she came, with many misgivings as to how she was to speed in her errand.
“It’s a bonny day, bairns,” said she, and her eye wandered wistfully down the village street, and over the green fields, to the hills that rose dimly in the distance. The mild air softly fanned her cheek, pleasant sights were round her everywhere, and at the garden gate she lingered, vaguely striving under their influence to cast her burden from her.