"No, he"s gone."
"You know, Jane, he"s caught your religion. I never heard anything like it. He"s got the whole thing pat. I"d be almost scared to go round teaching a thing like that. Why, folks"ll be doing anything they please soon. I"ve been wondering if I could get strong enough to kind of dispose of Matilda, in some perfectly right way, you know. I wouldn"t think of anything that wasn"t perfectly right, you know."
Jane seemed a little numb and stood watching the b.u.t.tering of the scone-pan without speaking.
"I keep saying: "Matilda doesn"t want to come back. Matilda"s disposed of in a perfectly pleasant way." I"ve been saying it ever since I began on those scones. I guess I"ve said it twenty times, and I"m beginning to make a real impression on myself. I"m beginning to feel sure G.o.d is fixing things up. It"s too beautiful to feel G.o.d taking an interest in your affairs. Matilda doesn"t want to come home. Matilda is completely disposed of in a perfectly pleasant way." Susan"s accents were very emphatic.
"Auntie," said Jane, turning her eyes towards her and rallying her attention by a strong effort, "you know your perfect faith is because Aunt Matilda really isn"t anxious to come home. It"s only if you"re doubting that there"s any doubt about it. One doesn"t alter Destiny, one only apprehends it. Oh, dear," she said though, sitting down suddenly, and hiding her face in her hands, "the thing about light is that it always keeps bursting over you with a new light, and my own teaching has suddenly come to me as if I"d never known what any of it meant before.
I"m too stunned at seeing how I"ve limited myself. I"m really too stupid."
Susan glanced at her as she poured the batter into the pan, and then kept glancing. Her face grew softened, "I wouldn"t worry, dear," she said finally, "don"t you bother over anything. G.o.d"s taking care of everything and everybody. It"s every bit of it all right. You must know that yourself, or you never could have taught it to me."
"Yes, I do know it,--but in spite of myself I can"t see--I can"t dare think--"
"You told me not to worry over old Mrs. Croft," said Susan, coming around by her side and putting her arm about her; "you said worry spoiled everything. And I did try so hard."
"Yes, I know, I"ll try. I really will--But--" suddenly she turned deep crimson, "it seems too awful for me to take one minute to work on myself or my life. I need all my time for others."
"But you don"t have to," said Susan, "all you"ve got to do is to know things are right. You know they"re right because they are right.
Everything"s coming along fine, and you just feel it coming; that"s your part. My goodness, Jane, isn"t this funny? There isn"t a blessed thing you"ve preached to me that I ain"t having to preach back to you now. You don"t seem to have sensed hardly any of your own meaning. Talk about being a channel; you"d better choke up a little and hold back some for yourself."
Jane threw her arms around her and kissed her. "Auntie, you"re right, you"re right. I won"t doubt a mite more. I"ll try to know as much as I seem to have taught."
"Just be yourself, you Sunshine Jane, you," Susan was clinging close to the girl she loved so well, "just be yourself. Nothing else is needed."
"Yes," Jane whispered, "I will."
"That"s the thing," said Susan; ""cause you"ve certainly taught us a lot. I"ll lay the table now," she moved towards the door, "Matilda doesn"t want to come home. Matilda wants to stay away in some perfectly pleasant way," she added with heavy emphasis, pa.s.sed through, and let the door close.
Jane was left alone in the kitchen.
"He said he loved me!" she thought over and over. "It seems so wonderful--the most wonderful thing that has ever happened since the world was made. He said he loved me!"
She went up-stairs to her own room and shut the door softly. "Of course I can never marry him," she whispered aloud, "but he did say he loved me. Oh, I know that nothing so wonderful ever was in this world before!"
CHAPTER XVII
WHY JANE SHOULD HAVE BELIEVED
THE Sunshine Nurse was long in seeking sleep that night and early to rise the next morning. She found herself suddenly metamorphosed--facing a new world--two worlds in fact. There was the world of Lorenzo"s actually loving her, which was a dream from which she would surely awaken, and then there was that second world of wonder, the world of her own teaching, a world in which she started, big-eyed, at all in which she had trusted, and wondered if it could be possible that what she believed firmly and preached so ardently was really true. "It isn"t setting limits to face what must be," she said over and over to herself, "and I _must_ pay poor father"s debts, and there is no possible way for me to get the money except to earn it bit by bit." The statement had gone to bed with her, and it rose with her when she rose; it looked indisputable, incontrovertible, as all fixed statements have a way of looking--and yet each time that she made it she felt hot with guilt.
"It"s setting limits," cried her soul, "it"s saying that G.o.d can"t possibly do what He pleases," and, as she listened to the strong, heaven-sent cry of rebellion against petty earthly laws, she struggled in the meshes of her own old earlier learning, the "old garment" which clings so close about us all, and which we simply must discard before we can don the new robe of Infinite Hope and Radiant Belief in G.o.d"s law of Only Good for Each and Every One.
Jane always rose an hour before her aunt. The hour was spent in opening windows, brushing up and building the kitchen fire. It was always a pleasant hour, for she usually filled it to the brim with work well done and thoughts sent strongly and happily out over the coming time. But to-day all this was changed; new thoughts rioted forth on every side, and a sort of chaos took the place of her usually sunny calm. This riot and chaos is the common, logical outcome of all who feel sure that they are wiser than G.o.d. You cannot possibly set any border to His Kingdom and then be happy in that outer darkness which you have deliberately chosen for your own part. As well ask a cow to shut herself out of her pasture and rest happy in the waste beyond. "I mustn"t think, because it is none of it for me--" she repeated over and over, much as if the aforesaid cow declared, "I am barred out--I can never get back--I must starve contentedly." Jane--who would have laughed at my ill.u.s.tration quite as you have laughed yourself--saw only distress in her own, and had to wink away so many tears that finally in maddest self-defense she rushed out doors and fled to the little garden that had, through so many years, been Susan"s refuge in such a droll way.
And Lorenzo was there!
He looked very blithe and happy. "Well," he said, "have you thought it over and decided that you"re right, after all?"
She was panting, and surprise flooded her face with color. "Oh--" she gasped, "oh!" and then: "Right--of course I"m right!"
He approached, his hand extended. "Right in believing, or right in mistrusting?"
She gave him her hand, and he took it. "Don"t put it that way," she said; "it isn"t that way."
"But, dear Jane, that"s the only way to put it. It"s the way you"ve been teaching us. Either we can look up and ahead confidently, or you"re all wrong. I can"t believe that you"re ever even a little bit wrong, so I"m going to believe that it"s all true."
"No, no--it isn"t--I mean--Oh, in my case, it can"t be so. Everything that I said was true, only I myself am meant to--to work--not to--to marry. It"s a kind of pledge I"ve taken to myself. It doesn"t change the teaching." Then she dragged her hand free.
Lorenzo smiled. "You can"t tell me any of that. I know. I"m the happiest man in the world." Then he went on, taking up the rake and scratching a little here and there: "Like other pupils, I"ve surpa.s.sed my teacher.
You"ve preached, and I practice; you can describe G.o.d"s thoughts, and I think them. You"re sure that He can do anything, and I know what He"s going to do. I"ve been let straight into one of His secrets. It"s been revealed to me how the world is run."
Jane stared. "How can you talk so?"
"I talk so because I know so. Everything"s coming right for you."
"You"re crazy," she tried to laugh.
"I"ve heard people say that of you. Not that it matters."
She stood watching him and considering his words. "I wouldn"t let you give me the money to straighten out my father"s affairs, even if you were ever so rich, you know," she said slowly. "I couldn"t."
"I know it."
"And I wouldn"t let Auntie pay the debts."
"I know. G.o.d doesn"t require either your aunt"s help or mine in this matter."
Jane"s eyes moistened slightly. "Please don"t make a joke of anything so hard and sad."
"I"m not joking; I"m a veritable apostle of joy. I"m as happy as I can be."
She looked at him with real wonder because his appearance certainly bore out his words. "I wish that I knew what you meant."
He dropped the rake, came to her side, and caught her hand. "Can"t you trust G.o.d--can"t you trust me?--won"t you try?"
She looked up into his face. "I wish that I could, but how can I?"
"You ought to know. So deep and big and true a nature. Surely you ought to be able to understand your own teaching!"
"But I can"t see any way."
"Your book says that one must not think of ways; one must just look straight to the good end."
"Oh, but there isn"t any such end possible for me."