My Heart's in the Highlands
Copyright© 2024 by Amy Le Feuvre
Chapter 4: Winter in the Glen
Oh Winter ruler of the inverted year...
... Thou hold’st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning East,
Short’ning his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him impatient of his stay
Down to the rosy West; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering at short notice in one group
The family dispersed, and fixing thought
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
Cowper.
IF Rowena had been asked if her married life now had fulfilled all her desires, she would have answered emphatically in the affirmative. Her husband adored her, and so did his child. She had full scope for her social activities all the summer; she had time, as she said, to find her soul and brain during the silent winter. For they did not move up to town as her sister-in-law wished. Neither of them had any desire to leave their Highland home.
Rowena tramped round the snowy moors with her husband, sometimes skating on part of the frozen loch, and sledging when the frost held the roads in its iron grip. Then when dusk came, she would sit sewing by the blazing log fires and the General would read aloud to her. He loved the solitude of their life and always protested if there was talk of having any visitors. One afternoon Rowena had taken Mysie with her and they had wandered into some fir woods, cracking the dry leaves and twigs underfoot with keen enjoyment of the aromatic scent of the pines, and of the fresh green moss and moist earth around them.
They were listening to some owls hooting just before turning towards home, when a cooee-ee rang out, and the next moment Dora Arnold Rashleigh came crashing through some undergrowth with her dogs.
“Why, Dora, what are you doing here!” asked Rowena. “I thought the Lodge was shut up and you were all back in town.”
“So we were till two days ago, but Joyce suddenly developed scarlet fever, and I hate illness, so I came off out of it, and I remembered how happy you had been at the Lodge by yourself one winter so thought I’d try a month or so. Fact is, the Glen has got hold of me—it’s a way some of these Scotch places have! And I arrived yesterday morning with a maid, and Granny Mactavish is delighted to do for me, but she quotes you on every occasion. We’ve been trespassing in your woods, haven’t we?”
Rowena was astonished. She had not seen as much of Dora as she had hoped to do. Di and she had not got on together. They were both too masterful, and Dora had kept away from Rowena in consequence.
“How ripping to be in the Lodge quite by yourself!” said Mysie. “Do ask mother and me to tea one day; it will make me think of the days I went over to tea with her. It was a jolly old time!”
“I invite you to tea to-morrow,” said Dora gaily. Rowena looked a little perturbed.
“My dear girl, you can’t stay in the empty house by yourself. Surely your parents won’t like it. You had better come to us.”
Dora shook her head.
“You forget that women can do anything nowadays. I’ll come over to you whenever I feel dull. I’m going to have a couple of friends down next week. They’re overworked and want a rest.”
Then, as Mysie danced along in front, calling the dogs after her, Dora turned to Rowena with an intent look upon her face.
“I want a talk with you. I’ve been longing for it. I want to have the highest goal. I’ve discovered mine is pretty low down, and I want to right it.”
“Oh, Dora dear, I’m so glad.”
As they walked homewards, their talk was a serious one, and when they parted, Dora said:
“Come to-morrow, and we’ll make Mysie happy with the dogs somewhere whilst we have another talk. I really came back here to see more of you. Things you said to me have stuck.”
Rowena went home with a light in her eyes and a glow in her heart. Di had disappointed her with her irresponsiveness, and all the time another was standing by who was longing to be helped and guided.
The next day she and Mysie went to tea at the Lodge as arranged, and when Mysie, in her old fashion, had gone out to see Granny in the kitchen, Rowena and Dora had a long talk together.
“You see,” said Dora after a time, “I don’t want to alter my life or give up my work. That’s all right. But I want to put something in it that I haven’t got. And when we are working away at these women, and getting them into Clubs and Guilds and all that sort of thing, we are continually knocking up against cases embittered by their circumstances and soured by trouble, and then one feels rather helpless. To tell them to go to church makes them smile. I think they feel they want something more. You have a living Power in your life. I can see it. I want to have that too, and I want to tell others how they can get it. You can’t cure a vicious minded woman by giving her a dancing club, or comfort a broken-hearted one by teaching her how to make baskets! If one’s work is to be a success, you must give of your best; and my best is not worth having. You quoted a verse to me one day in the summer: ‘Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it.’ And of course I’ve been thinking we, and every one of these women we try to help, are made or built by God in the first instance, and if we come to grief, there’s no one can rebuild us properly except our Maker. I want to put myself in His Hands; tell me how to do it.”
It was not difficult for Rowena to help the girl. She was anxious and willing and quite convinced that a life without God was a failure.
Before many days were past, the light came to her. She was very happy in the empty Lodge, spent most of her days with Rowena, and sat chatting in the kitchen with old Granny after her simple dinner was over. But in three weeks’ time she went back to town.
“I shall lodge with a friend till our house is disinfected,” she told Rowena. “Joyce is nearly well, they tell me. I must be getting on with my work, and now I have got what I came for, there is nothing to keep me. I wish we had a few more of your sort in town, Mrs. Macdonald. You are so very definite. I find people so very vague when you start talking religion. If I get into a fog, I shall write to you. I have made you my father—no—mother-confessor!”
And when she said good-bye to General Macdonald, she said to him with a little laugh:
“I consider Mrs. Macdonald is wasting her life down here. You ought to come to town oftener. Of course, if the mountain won’t come to Mahomet, Mahomet must come to the mountain, and that’s what I’ve done, but there are lots of others who couldn’t afford the time or money to do it. Think of your fellow-creatures sometimes, General, and bring your wife to town. We want her there badly.”
When she had gone Rowena told her husband about her. As a rule she did not betray the confidence of any who confided in her. She had learnt the wisdom of that in her life with Mrs. Burke. And her husband did not understand even yet, the gift that she had for drawing out the best in people, and winning their confidence and love.
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