Rose Galbraith (30 page)

“But I don't understand,” said the aunt with a troubled air. “I'm quite sure my husband would not have sent you any such paper.

“That's what I thought too. I'm sure he didn't,” said Rose. “And then another thing, you remember the night I was playing the piano, and then we went upstairs early? Well, I left my little bag on the piano, and when I got upstairs I missed it and came down for it, and as I went back I heard Lord MacCallummore saying some very odd things to Uncle Robert, about not being able to pay him something he owed him. It seemed to have something to do with me, for he mentioned my name. I couldn't hear all they said, but I've never trusted Lord MacCallummore since. And anyway, Aunt Janet, my mother didn't trust his father. Perhaps you never knew all about that affair, but Mother told me. And if I were you I would do something to keep him out of the castle. I'd send for a policeman if there wasn't any other way. I'm sure he's up to something, searching through Uncle's things. Perhaps if you would appeal to Lord Campbell he would be able to help you. He's very kind and pleasant. You could say I suggested it.”

By this time Aunt Janet was wide-eyed and trembling.

“Oh, my dear! Oh, my dear! I couldn't do a thing like that. I don't know what your uncle would say if I did a thing like that.”

“But if you were doing it to protect Uncle's rights, he couldn't blame you, could he? Besides, if he can't move or speak, what could he do about it? He wouldn't know it, would he? I certainly don't think you ought to let him hunt around for things here. There might be some very important thing, some valuable, that would be missing if you don't protect it somehow.”

“Perhaps you're right,” said Aunt Janet. “I'll have to think about it. Of course I could send for your uncle's brother, but I've never liked him. Well, I'll see. It's all very strange though, I don't understand it. I was worried about your coming because I knew that Lord MacCallummore was anxious to get well acquainted with you. I think perhaps he wanted to marry you. But now, of course—well, you're really going to be married, are you?”

“Yes,” said Rose, with a glory of loveliness in her face.

“That's just the way your mother talked.” And then after a pause, “What have you got for a wedding dress? We must talk fast, because if you're going to read to your uncle you'd better do it pretty soon. It might get him to sleep and perhaps would make him less unhappy. But tell me, have you got a wedding dress?”

“Why, no, not yet,” Rose said, smiling. “I'll get something simple. It won't matter much. We won't have a large wedding, just the family. I hope you will come.”

“Oh, no I wouldn't want to come. It would make me think of your mother's wedding that never came off. I'd cry, and I hate to cry. But I was wondering if you would like to wear your mother's wedding dress?”

“My mother's wedding dress?” said Rose, amazed. “But she told me she just had her plain little traveling dress that she came away from home in.”

“Yes, she did. But she had a wedding dress, all beautiful with handmade lace, wonderful Carrickmacross lace. It was made especially for her wedding dress, and she never wore it. Instead she ran away with your father, and had to be married in a very common little traveling dress. But the real wedding dress that was made for your mother is upstairs now in a big white box, and if you would like to have it, I'll give it to you.”

“Oh, Aunt Janet. Why yes, of course I'd like to have it. It would be wonderful. Mother told me about that dress, and I always felt sorry I couldn't see it. I would treasure it so very much, or I would send it back to you again after my wedding. If I could wear it, that would be wonderful.”

“No, I don't want it back again. It would ease my soul to get it out of the house. Nights, often, I could not sleep, thinking of my little sister and all the things she gave up. But I guess somehow you've made me feel she was happy anyway.”

“Yes, she was very very happy as long as my dear father lived,” said Rose.

“Well, then I will give you the dress.”

She touched a bell near her, and Thomas appeared.

“Tell Maggie to go up to the tower and get the very large white box on the top of the big mahogany dresser. Tell her it's the wedding dress. She will know which one I mean.”

Then she turned to Rose again.

“Now, would you like to play on your mother's piano a few minutes while I go up and see if your uncle is awake so you could read to him?”

“Oh, yes,” said Rose, “if you think it won't disturb him.”

“Well, it's a very long way off from him. He won't be able to hear it very well. Anyway, he said once he thought you played well. Perhaps he would like it. Try it.”

A
unt Janet disappeared, and in amazement, Rose sat down at the piano and began to play, softly at first, tenderly; nocturnes and scraps of lovely music that sounded of rippling water and waving ferns and flying birds. Then more tenderly still she melted into the dear old hymn tunes her mother had loved.

Gordon stood there and listened, watching her, entranced. To think his dear girl could play like that. And all through the years he had never known it.

Then he began to wish that his father and mother could be here and see the grand old castle walls and the exquisite painting of the lovely girl-mother; see the sweet girl playing there in the dim candlelight. Oh, Mother didn't need to worry lest he was marrying a coarse girl. Why, she was rare and wonderful. Even Mother would see she had an irreproachable background. If he could only just tell it to them as he was seeing it now!

And then Aunt Janet came back, with Thomas in her wake, bearing the big white box.

“We'll put it here on the hall table,” she said, “till you have to go. I'd keep you here all night, of course, if it wasn't for Lord MacCallummore. I wouldn't know what to tell him, and after what you have told me, he might make us trouble. I wouldn't want him to upset your uncle. Now, come right up, both of you. He's awake and the nurse thinks it may help him, put him to sleep, perhaps. Oh, his eyes look so restless. They seem to burn into you like coals of fire.”

She led them upstairs to the big bedroom where the uncle lay grim and silent as a statue. Rose entered, with Gordon just behind her, a small limp leather-covered Bible in her hand, with a folded paper inside on which she had written a series of verses and references.

Her aunt motioned to her to sit by a table on which was a shaded lamp and so seated, she began to read.

“Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

The eyes of the sick man came open wide, and he stared straight ahead as if searching for the voice. Gordon, as he stood across from the bed, could watch him, the grim locked face that never changed.

The girl's voice went steadily on, with a fresh clearness that had an arresting quality.

“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned … Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow … Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”

The room was very still. Aunt Janet was standing over by the door out of sight from the bed, and her eyes were wide and almost frightened. The nurse stood near the bed, her eye on the patient, and just out in the hall by the doorway where they could not be seen stood Thomas and Maggie, silent and with bowed heads, as if they were attending a sacrament. And Gordon stood there quietly watching it all, thrilling with the voice of his dear girl uttering the wonderful, hope-filled truths.

“Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidist, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.”

The reader paused an instant and fluttered over the leaves and then went on again, with the clear ringing statements.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Another fluttering of the leaves and then, “How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only?”

Then, turning to another place, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

Suddenly Aunt Janet stepped up to Rose and motioned her to go over where her uncle could see her face. She had noticed that his eyes were turning in almost an agony to find the voice. So Rose got up and went quietly over to stand at the foot of the bed where she could look into the sick man's eyes. She smiled as she came near, holding the little book up that he might see what she was reading from. Then she read on.

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, Be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

It seemed to Rose as she lifted her eyes in her reading and looked straight at her uncle, that his eyes were fixed on her with intelligence. She was convinced that he knew her and that he understood what she was reading. There was a kind of startled, understanding look in his expression, though the actual lines of his face had not altered. But she read straight on through the verses she had selected.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered … I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

Then the voice grew sweeter, with a comforting strain as she went on.

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

Rose closed the book and looked around with a tender, almost frightened little smile. She had not considered what to do next. It seemed an awkward pause, yet these were all the verses she had prepared to read. What ought she to do next? Speak to her uncle, or just say good night and walk out? She looked uncertainly toward Gordon, and quietly he walked toward her and stood beside her, where the wicked man could see him. Reverently he bowed his head and prayed in clear earnest tones.

“Father in heaven, we thank Thee for these wonderful words from Thine own Book. They have cheered our hearts, and we know that if we lay hold upon them they will give us life, for Thou hast put them in Thy Book for that purpose. So we leave them with this dear one, and ask Thee to watch over him tonight and give him rest and peace.”

It was all very still for a minute. Rose could see that her aunt was weeping. Quietly she stepped to the bedside and stooping, placed a soft little kiss on the sick man's forehead. She whispered, “Good night, dear Uncle Robert,” and as quietly as they had come they went out.

Almost in silence they started to walk down the winding way, until they were halfway down to the level below. Then they stopped and turned and looked back up to the castle.

“It's a grand old monument to the past,” said Gordon solemnly. “Seems almost as if it were built soon after the world was made, doesn't it? And yet, somehow, there's something arrogant about it, like the silent old man who owns it.”

“Yes,” said Rose in a voice of awe, “it is like that. But oh, Gordon, I'm so glad you prayed! It just made the right ending. It seemed as if it wasn't finished when I got done reading.”

“Was that all right?” he asked anxiously. “I didn't know but you'd think I was butting in and spoiling things. An utter stranger!”

“You're not an utter stranger!” She smiled up at him in the starlight. “You're my very own. And it made a perfect ending. I'm so glad you did it. It's going to be so wonderful to have you able to
pray
!
”

Then his arm went about her, and there in the quiet loneliness of that mountain drive their lips met.

As they walked on they fell to talking about the uncle and aunt they had just left in their stately castle.

“Oh, I hope he heard, and understood what it all meant,” said Rose eagerly.

“He did. I'm sure he did. I was watching his eyes. They took it all in, and sometimes they looked kind of frightened, and sometimes relief came, almost a light, as if he thought God was speaking to him. And when you went around and stood where he could see you, I'm sure he knew you and was grimly glad you had come.”

“Oh, and I never thought I'd ever be glad about him,” she sighed. “I thought he was the most disagreeable old party I'd even seen. But now it's strange, how much I want him to find rest in his Savior.”

“Yes,” said Gordon thoughtfully. “That's the Spirit of God that is in us when we accept Christ, I guess. That must be ‘the power that worketh in us' as you wrote me, ‘to the end that we might be conformed to the image of His Son.' ” He smiled down at her through the starlight.