Star of Light (14 page)

“Of course not,” Mrs. Swift assured her, as eager as she was. “John shall take you and Hamid, and I’ll stay with Jenny. I don’t think she ought to go.”

“There’ll be no end of trouble if she’s left behind,” said her father, and the eagerness vanished from their faces and they both sighed.

“Is Jenny in bed?” inquired Rosemary. “Could I tell her all about it, or will she be asleep?”

Mr. and Mrs. Swift glanced at each other, and there was a moment’s silence. Then Mrs. Swift spoke. “Yes, do go and tell her,” she said. “Rosemary, I wish you could somehow talk her into a better mood. She’s so fond of you, and I don’t seem to be able to do anything with her tonight. We’ve had such a miserable day because she didn’t want to go on the picnic. She wanted to stay and help you look for Kinza. Of course, I know she’s been ill and all
that, but really she does behave like a spoiled baby when she can’t get her own way.”

“I sent her to bed when we got in,” added Mr. Swift gloomily. “Her tempers are just getting too much. She’s not used to being punished and took it very badly, so I don’t know what sort of mood you’ll find her in. She’ll certainly kick up an awful fuss if she’s not allowed to go tomorrow.”

“Poor Jenny!” said Rosemary. “I’ll go and see if she’s still awake,” and she climbed the stairs rather slowly and knocked at the door. There was no answer. She opened the door and went in.

“What do you want?” said a sullen voice from under the bedclothes. “I haven’t gone to sleep early like you said, so you needn’t think I have.”

“It’s me, Jenny,” said Rosemary quietly, and went over and sat down on the bed.

Jenny came out at once, rather embarrassed, for she always spoke politely in front of Aunt Rosemary, wanting her to think she was a nice child. However, Mummy and Daddy had probably been talking about her, and she must make Aunt Rosemary see her point of view. Surely she would understand and see how ill-treated she was.

“Oh, Auntie Rosemary,” cried Jenny, bursting into tears, “I’m so glad you’ve come! I’ve been thinking about Kinza all day long.”

“Oh, no, you haven’t,” replied Rosemary in a very matter-of-fact voice. “You’ve been thinking about yourself all day long, and that’s why you’re so unhappy. Selfish people are always unhappy because they mind so much when they can’t have their own way.”

“I’m
not
selfish,” sobbed Jenny angrily. “You don’t understand any more than Mummy and Daddy do. I couldn’t stop wondering where Kinza was, and they took me away where I couldn’t find out or hear if there was any news.”

“But your hearing the news wouldn’t have helped Kinza at all,” replied Rosemary. “It would just have satisfied your own curiosity. And because you couldn’t be satisfied, you made Mummy and Daddy miserable all day long, and if that’s not selfish I don’t know what is.”

Jenny could think of nothing to say to that, so she just repeated, “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, Jenny, Jenny, I understand so well,” cried Aunt Rosemary, suddenly kneeling down and drawing the angry, hot little girl toward her. “I understand that because you have always had everything you want, and because Mummy and Daddy have always given you such lovely things and been so good to you, you think nothing matters in the world except your own happiness. Your heart is like a little closed-in circle with yourself in the middle, and every time something happens that hurts or annoys you, you think the world is coming to an end. As you get older, Jenny, you will find that there are more and more things that will annoy and hurt you, and you are going to grow into a very unhappy, unloving person. You see, you haven’t really time or room to love anyone else properly because you’re too busy loving yourself.”

Jenny was quite silent. No one had ever talked to her like this before. Her mother and father usually
ended by saying, “Never mind, darling; we’re sure you didn’t mean it. Let’s forget all about it.”

But perhaps Auntie Rosemary was partly speaking the truth. She often did feel very, very unhappy, simply because it was not always possible for her to have her own way. She thought of a girl at school who had wanted to learn to ride a horse, and who had wanted a new dress for a party, but she couldn’t have either because her father couldn’t afford it. Yet she had not made a fuss about it and had seemed to really enjoy the party even though she was wearing one of her sister’s old dresses. Jenny could not understand it.

“I can’t help minding things,” said Jenny at last in a small, hurt voice. “And I do love people. I love Mummy and Daddy and you and Kinza and lots of people.”

“Only as long as we please you,” replied Rosemary. “As soon as we stop doing what you want, you are quite happy to make us miserable, as you’ve made Mummy and Daddy miserable today.”

Jenny was silent again. It was no good trying to make Aunt Rosemary understand her, because apparently she knew all about her, but it made her feel peaceful in a strange kind of way. Jenny suddenly felt she could stop pretending.

“I
do
want to be good and happy,” she whispered, “and I
do
want to make Mummy happy. But I can’t. I just seem to mind things so much that I can’t help being cross.”

“Yes,” agreed Rosemary thoughtfully, “I know. The only way you can change is to ask Jesus into
your heart, and He will come into the circle and change you. At first you will still want to have your own way, but the more you love Him, the less you will love yourself first. You will want what He wants, and gradually you will become happier and happier and feel more satisfied. It sounds difficult, but it’s really quite simple.”

“Oh, I see,” said Jenny rather sleepily. She had stopped crying and was lying very still. Rosemary waited a moment and then said, “I really came to tell you some news of Kinza. We’ve discovered where she’s gone, and tomorrow your father and Hamid and I are going to her home, and we are going to try to persuade her stepfather to let us have her back.”

“Oh, where? When? How?” cried Jenny, springing up in bed. “Tell me all about it quickly! Can I come too?”

“No,” said Rosemary, “you can’t. Mummy says we will get back too late, and probably the fewer of us who go the better. You’ve got a chance to make up for today by obeying without being cross and sulky. Now I’ll tell you how I found out and all about it.” As she told her, Jenny lay and listened quietly.

It was all going to come out right after all, perhaps, and she did not deserve it. Last night she had made a sort of promise—“If Kinza comes back, I’m going to be good forever and ever.”

“Auntie,” she whispered, her face half-buried in the pillow, “tell Mummy to come. I want to tell her I’m sorry and that I’ll be good tomorrow.”

An Exciting Night

T
he next day dawned bright and clear, and the rescue party set off early in the afternoon. Jenny, desperately disappointed that she wasn’t going, too, but determined to make the best of it, stood and waved them off. Hamid, all his fears forgotten in the thrill of being inside the beautiful car, sat in the backseat like a prince and nodded proudly to the crowd of openmouthed, admiring urchins running behind. Far down the road they followed, shouting and hooting, rags fluttering. Hamid stuck his head far out of the window and yelled with triumph, and Rosemary pulled him in again by the seat of his trousers.

It was a beautiful drive. Hamid remembered the hot, dusty evening when he had toiled up the same
hill with Kinza on his back. He had been too tired then to look about him and admire the view, but now he wanted to see everything, and he leapt from side to side of the car like a monkey in a cage.

Later he slept, curled up on the backseat, and when he woke he found the car had stopped in an area surrounded by mountains, and the Englishman and the nurse were drinking tea and eating sandwiches. Hamid was given a sugar bun, and he thought he was in heaven.

Only one thought spoiled his pleasure. As the sun sank toward the western mountains, the grey car was traveling toward his village and his stepfather. The big Englishman and the nurse had promised that he would be kept safe, so he was not really very afraid. He laid his head on his arms on the window ledge, thinking. He was coming near to his mother, too, and his heart cried out for her. It would be hard to be so close and yet be unable to see her or speak to her. Two big tears brimmed up in his eyes and trickled over onto the shiny leather car seats.

After a while, the car turned off the main road onto a stony mountain road, traveling more slowly between scrubby hills where the villages of the mountain people nestled. Children were bringing their goats home, and several times the car had to stop while a small figure and his flock crossed the road.

Then the sun set behind the hills, and Hamid could see the shape of his home mountain in the distance with two bright stars twinkling above it. His heart began to beat very fast and his mouth felt rather dry.

It was quite dark when they reached the familiar marketplace. They drove beyond the few shops to where the rough road dwindled into a track, and there Mr. Swift stopped the car.

Hamid tumbled out and ran behind an olive tree while the nurse spoke to a boy standing in the doorway of a house and asked him to mind the car. Hamid knew this boy and did not wish to be recognized by anyone, so he waited until the boy’s back was turned, and then came skulking out from his hiding place and without a word set off quickly along the familiar path, with Mr. Swift and the nurse hurrying along behind him. This was the very track up which he had toiled on hot summer evenings carrying Kinza home from market; here was the fountain where he and Rahma had filled buckets at sunrise; to his left was the burying ground, with the three little graves where the marigolds grew; and there in front of him, at the top of the hill, gleamed the lights in the cottages on the outskirts of the village. Just another fifty yards’ climb and he could see his own lamplit doorway and the rosy glow of the charcoal fire. He stopped short and beckoned his followers to his side.

“There,” he breathed, pointing toward it. “It is the third house beyond the fig tree. You just push the gate open—there is no latch. Don’t be afraid of the dog—he’s chained. And remember, you have promised not to tell my stepfather.”

“Yes, Hamid,” said the nurse quietly, “I’ve promised. And if he comes with us to the car you must hide until he goes away. We will not leave
without you. Otherwise, we’ll meet you here.”

They went cautiously on up the rocky path, and Hamid went off to hide himself safely behind the bushes at the bottom of the burying ground. Crouching there, hugging his knees, he remembered his first escape, when he had crept down the hill at midnight and felt so afraid of evil spirits in the dark. Suddenly he realized he was not afraid anymore, and then remembered why. Death was no longer a place of shadows and lost spirits—it was simply a door into the light and sunshine of God’s home, and the nurse had said that little children who had no knowledge of good and evil were welcome there, so his little brothers and sister were safe and happy after all. Hamid suddenly wished he could go there, too, instead of crouching like an outcast within sight of his own home. He longed for the warm fireside, for the nuzzling goats, for Rahma and, above all, for his mother. His heart strained toward her. Surely she would hear and come.

Mr. Swift and Rosemary made their way by flashlight, in single file, along the mud track that led to Hamid’s home.

Nobody saw them passing, and when they reached the gate, it was as he had said. It opened with a gentle push, and they stepped out of the shadows and stood hesitating in the light that streamed through the open doorway.

There was the rattle of a chain and the big black dog leaped up and strained on its lead. The bearded man sitting just inside glanced out, saw them, and rose instantly and crossed the hut. There seemed to
be a sort of scuffle inside, a quick murmur of low voices, and then the master of the house appeared, smiling and bowing and full of polite greetings. He invited his guests to enter and tell their business inside and to share their meal, even though the food was poor. Stooping, they passed through the low doorway and stood in the tiny dim room, looking around.