CHAPTER XII
IN THE RECTORY GARDEN
'A good man's life is like a fairest flower: It casts a fragrant breath on all around.'
Though Miss Forster's pet flower-beds were a subject for modestcongratulation to their owner, they were not to be compared to those atthe Rectory, which were indeed a feast of scent and colour. The Rectorwas worthily proud of his garden. It represented a considerable amountof skill and artistic taste on the part of himself and his handy-man,for the rare plants and exquisite groupings of contrasting blossomswould have done credit to a more imposing establishment, and he had aschoice a collection of shrubs as could be grown anywhere in the county.
It was almost sunset when Peggy, having seen the last of Archie'scontrivances, and bidden good-bye to kind Miss Forster, passed by theRectory hedge, and hearing the brisk sound of the mowing-machine, pushedopen the little gate and went in, knowing she was always sure of awelcome.
Peggy loved to get Mr. Howell sometimes quite to herself. Perhaps it wasbecause he was one of those rare characters in whose presence we canfeel certain of perfect sympathy, or perhaps it grew from a more subtleand silent bond, felt keenly by the child, though never spoken of, forPeggy could remember a time when the Rector's hair was raven black, andthere had been a little Raymond Howell playing about on the smooth lawnsof the old garden. Folks had said that the Rector, like many a man whomarries late in life, had made an idol of his motherless boy, and theyhad said, again, that the father's heart was broken and the print ofdeath was on his face as he stood by his child's open grave. But theyjudged wrong, for he had wrestled with his sorrow, like Jacob with theangel of old, and came forth from the struggle with hair indeed as whiteas snow, but a face so full of the glory of his conquest that those wholooked felt as if he, too, had died, and they saw his immortality.
'Ah, he's a changed man!' said Ellen, the nurse, to Susan, the cook, asthey talked in whispers over the night-nursery fire when the childrenwere in bed. 'If he was a saint before, it's an angel he is now, andnothing less. They say he takes no thought for himself at all. Hisheart's been left in the grave with the poor boy, it's true, but, markmy words, if there's a soul in trouble in all the parish it's no kinderfriend they'll find than Mr. Howell.'
Little five-year-old Peggy, lying wide awake, straining her ears tooverhear the whispered conversation, sat up in bed with burning cheeks.
'Oh, nurse!' she cried. '_Poor_ Mr. Howell! Have they lost his heart inthe churchyard, and can't anybody find it for him?'
'Go to sleep at once, you naughty girl, or I'll call your aunt,' saidEllen, putting out the candle to avoid further complications, for sheknew she ought not to have been talking within hearing of her charges,and hoped Peggy would forget the matter by morning.
But the child lay awake for a long time, puzzling her small brain. Shewas not quite sure what a heart was, but she thought the Rector wouldmiss it, and that he was in some sort of trouble she realized wellenough.
'Can people live without hearts?' she asked Lilian next day.
'Of course not,' replied Lilian, with the superior wisdom of nine yearsold, and dismissed the idea with scorn.
But Peggy did not consider the question ended by any means. Like mostchildren, with the instinctive dread of being laughed at, she neverthought of confiding her difficulty to an older person, but solving theproblem according to her own quaint ideas, she dodged the vigilance ofEllen, and trotted off alone to the churchyard. The lych-gate waslocked, but she toiled over the steep steps that spanned the wall, andwading through the long grass under the yew-trees, found the spot, allcovered with flowers, which Lilian had pointed out on Sunday, where'Mary, the wife of the Reverend Philip Howell,' slept, 'in sure andcertain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,' and where thestonemason had been already busy with the newly-added line: 'AlsoRaymond, only son of the above.'
Who can tell all that goes on in the mind of a little child, or what itunderstands of death? In a vague way Peggy knew that her playfellow had'gone to heaven, where mother is,' but she did not think of that as anycause for sorrow, nor did she connect him for an instant with the placewhere she stood, but, with her nurse's words still troubling her, sheknelt down and searched among the white flowers that hid the bare earthbeneath.
A step on the gravel walk startled her to her feet, but it was only theRector, coming slowly down the path from the church-door.
'Don't go away, little Margaret,' he said quietly. 'God's acre is freeto all. We have both precious seed sown here that we hope to findblooming some day in Paradise.'
'Oh, Mr. Howell,' burst out Peggy, her gray eyes brimming over withtears, 'is it really true that your heart is lost here? Don't you think,if we were both to look, we might find it again?'
The Rector stroked the brown curls with a tender hand.
'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No, child, it'snot here, but up in the light beyond;' and he pointed where the sun,breaking through the clouds, burst out in a flood of golden glory. 'Wemake our plans for this world,' he said softly, speaking as much tohimself as to Peggy, 'and say we will do this or that, but sometimes Godtakes it out of our hands and arranges it for us; but His ways arebetter than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts, and, afterall, death is but the gate to life immortal.'
Since then a great friendship had existed between these two, made allthe stronger, perhaps, by the fifty years that divided them, for oldfolk have often more tolerance and sympathy for childhood than havethose whose eyes are still blinded by the bustle of life, and, whateverPeggy might be to others, with Mr. Howell she was always at her highestand best.
'As welcome as the flowers in May, dear child,' said the Rector thisevening. 'I was just longing for an excuse to leave the lawn-mower, andnow I feel bound to give up work and entertain you. Come and look at mycarnations.' And taking a basket as a receptacle for any weeds thatmight offend his eye, he led the way, Peggy trotting after him with herlittle tongue wagging freely in a lively account of her latestadventures, and the marvels which her new friend Archie was constructingin Miss Forster's garden.
'Yes, he's a clever lad,' said Mr. Howell, 'and likely to do well and bea comfort to her, I hope. It's a grand thing when a boy can fill hislife with a hobby; it leaves him no time to get into mischief.'
'I think flowers are your hobby, next to the parish,' said Peggy, as shewatched the Rector tying up his carnations, touching each blossom ascarefully as if it were a child, with a tender pride in its loveliness.
'Flowers are such dear friends, you see, Peggy; they rarely disappointor deceive you. Treat them well, and they repay you a thousandfold; andthe best of it is they give so much pleasure to others as well as toourselves. By-the-by, how are Miss Forster's carnations getting on?'
'Beautifully! She has a lovely apricot-coloured one she hopes may take aprize, but I don't like it as well as your yellow. She says the showwill be bigger than ever this year; so many of the village people havesent in entries.'
'I'm glad of that. Gardening is the best hobby a working man can takeup. He won't want to think of the public-house when he's digging in hispatch of ground and watching the plants he's raised himself. I alwaysagree with good old Francis Bacon that "God Almighty first planted agarden, and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures." I have givenaway a great many roots in the village this spring, in the hope that theflowers would find their way to the show in due course. People aregenerally so pleased with them.'
'I took a nice carnation plant down to old Mrs. Johnson at the smithy,'said Peggy, 'but she didn't seem at all pleased. She said I might haveknown she wanted a Bizarre, and not a Picotee, and I was bringing "coalsto Newcastle."'
'But you left it for her, all the same?'
'Oh yes; I believe she liked it really, for it was quite a new kind; butshe loves to grumble; she's a terribly cross old woman.'
'Poor old soul! She's let her heart wither up instead of ripening! Wemust all do one or the other, Peggy, child, as we grow o
lder. It is onlythe sunshine of God's presence that can mellow us thoroughly, and ifpeople wilfully turn away from that they are bound to become shrivelledand sour. Worldly prosperity is like a strong electric light--it maybring out flowers, but it will never ripen character; so don't forgetthat, or ever exchange it for the true sunlight. Now come and help me tochoose out which flowers to specially train for the show, and we shalljust have time to stake them before dark.'
The Rector never made the mistake of continually talking down to achild's level. He spoke with Peggy exactly as he would have done with agrown-up friend, and if she could not always follow his train ofthought, I think the mere effort to do so was good for her, and theolder she grew, the more truly she understood and appreciated him.
It is not only when we try to amuse them that the children love us best(who has not sometimes seen the look of almost contempt in the eyes of alittle one for the good-natured elder who plays the fool for hisbenefit?), and often the companion most cared for and sought after by achild is he who unconsciously raises the standard of the eager, growingsoul.
For reasons of his own the Rector kept Peggy late that evening, and theymade a little tour of the garden, selecting what they called theirprize plants, putting indiarubber bands round carnation-buds to keepthem from bursting, and tying up the most promising stocks and asterswith a scrupulous care, working until the light had almost failed andthe sky stood out yellow against the outline of the cypress-trees. Itgrew so dim and still in the twilight that Peggy cried out in alarm as atall figure seemed to rise from the shadows under the dark yew-hedge,and came towards them; but peering through the gathering dusk, sherecognised the face of her old friend Mr. Neville.
'John!' exclaimed the Rector, 'I thought you had been at the Abbey allthis time!'
'I haven't found the courage yet,' returned the other huskily, picking aprize dahlia to pieces with a recklessness that seemed wanton in Peggy'seyes.
'Oh, Mr. Neville, is it really you? However did you get here?' shecried.
'Mayn't I know the Rector, too, Peggy? He happens to be a very oldfriend of mine, and I have come to see him.'
'You said you knew Father and Aunt Helen, too, but you have never beento see us,' said Peggy reproachfully. 'I'm afraid there's only AuntHelen in to-night, but I know she'd love you to come.'
'I'm not so sure about that,' said Mr. Neville rather bitterly. 'I don'tknow whether I should be welcome, Peggy dear. Aunt Helen and Iquarrelled once, long ago, and I doubt if she could forgive me.'
'Oh, she would--I know she would!' exclaimed Peggy. 'She always forgivesus, however naughty we are; and she told me once--the night she wascrying over the old letters in her writing-desk--that if you quarrelledwith anyone it was better to make it up at once, and not let it go onfor ever. Do, please, try!'
'Go, my boy,' said the Rector. 'Tell her the simple truth, and don'tspoil two lives for the sake of an old tale that is best forgotten.'
* * * * *
Peggy waited wide awake in bed for hours that night to catch Father'sstep in the passage and call him in for a good-night kiss.
'Oh, Daddy!' she cried, as she clasped him round the neck, 'is AuntHelen really and truly going to marry Mr. Neville?'
'Really and truly, at last, dear; and I could not wish to see her inbetter hands.'
'But whatever _shall_ we do without her?'
'We must manage as best we can, Peggy, and try and not spoil herhappiness by any selfish regrets. I have had terrible trouble topersuade her to leave us all, for she was ready to sacrifice herselfbravely a second time, but that I would not allow. Aunt Helen hasthought for us, and worked for us, all these years, and now we mustlearn to look after ourselves. You are getting big girls, and Lilianmust be my little housekeeper, and a mother to the rest of you. AuntHelen has taught you how to behave, so don't you think, little woman, itis time to begin to settle down, and do your best to grow up what sheand I would like you to be?'
'I'll try,' said Peggy, kissing him. 'We don't want to lose Aunt Helen,but oh!'--as she nestled down among the bed-clothes--'what a delightfuluncle Mr. Neville will make!'
A Terrible Tomboy Page 13
