THE next day we said good-bye to mother, but I cannot write about that; it was far too dreadful a time to be described, but I am sure that I shall not forget it as long as I live. I shall always remember mother’s face, as she looked out at us for the last time from the carriage window, and I shall always remember the last words she spoke to us on the platform, when she said goodbye. And, just as the train was moving off, she leant out, and said, with a smile, though she had tears in her eyes at the same time—
‘Don’t forget the question on the card, darlings. “What would Jesus do?”’
Those were mother’s last words to us, and then the train moved off, and we saw her no more.
I walked away by Uncle John’s side, feeling very lonely and miserable. ‘Oh, mother, mother, how I miss you!’ I kept saying, over and over again to myself, and then I looked up, and asked the Lord Jesus to be near me, and to comfort me. And I am sure He did.
We went back to West Court, to Uncle John’s house, and, after another week, we had to say goodbye to each other. Melville was going to a school in the north of England, I was going to a school in the south, and the children were to stop at West Court, with Uncle John and Aunt Jane. It was not so bad as saying goodbye to mother ; but still it was very hard to leave them all. Melville was eagerly looking forward to school life, and school friends, and school games, but I felt afraid of going amongst strangers, and thought at times that I should never be happy again.
Uncle John meant to have brought me to Clinton, but, just at the last moment, an important engagement obliged him to stay at home, and I had to come alone. He came to the station with me, however, and was very kind to me. He chose a nice carriage for me, and bought an illustrated paper for me to read, and asked a lady in the carriage to keep an eye on me.
‘You will be all right, Olive,’ he said. ‘I have written to Miss Maynard to send someone to meet you at the station. Goodbye, my dear. Keep up a good heart! Goodbye!’
The train moved off ; he waved his hand to me, and then I saw him no more, and felt that I had indeed, as mother said, ‘gone out into the world.’
The lady in the carriage did not take much notice of me. She was reading a book in a yellow cover all the morning, and hardly looked up for a moment. At twelve o’clock she left the train, and a gentleman came to meet her, and I watched them drive away together before the train started again.
Then I was quite alone in the carriage. I am not at all afraid of travelling, and Uncle John had written down on a card the names of the different stations, and the time at which the train was due at each, and had made a large red line where I was to change my carriage.
So I managed very nicely, and all went on well till I arrived at Birmingham, one of the places where there was a red line, and where I expected to have to wait half an hour.
When the man came to take the tickets I asked him on which platform I should find the train I wanted, but found it had gone a quarter of an hour before. We had lost time on the way, and could not catch the express, he said. We should be shunted on to another line, and go on by a slow train presently.
We did not go into Birmingham station, but were shunted round the town for about twenty minutes! Oh, what a large place it looked, with its rows of smoking chimneys, its long streets, and its large warehouses! It looked very dismal to me that evening ; for I was feeling more lonely than I had ever felt before.
I was beginning to feel very anxious as to what time I should reach Clinton. Uncle John had told Miss Maynard that I should arrive by the eight o’clock train. What if I should miss that, and there should be no one there to meet me! I had a feverish cold last week, and Uncle John had said in his letter to Miss Maynard that he was not quite certain that I should be able to travel ; so I felt sure that, if I did not reach Clinton at eight o’clock, she would not expect me later. I should arrive in the middle of the night, quite alone, with no one to take care. of me, or to tell me what to do.
I was growing more and more tired ; my head ached, and I felt sick and miserable. There was no one else in the carriage, and, after a time, it got quite dark, and the lamps had never been lighted. I crept into a corner, and leant my head on the cushion, and cried. I felt so very lonely and unhappy. ‘Oh, mother, mother,’ I said, ‘if only you were here, to take me in your arms and comfort me!’
But, as I said it, a verse came into my mind, a verse which had come in our reading with mother a short time before she went away: ‘Underneath are the everlasting arms.’
I am sure God’s Holy Spirit, the Comforter, whispered that verse to me just then. It was just what I needed, the Everlasting Arms—the arms of the Lord—strong, loving arms underneath me. As I lay in the corner of that dark carriage, I rested on those arms and on that love. And I do not think I felt at all afraid after that.
At half-past eleven the train reached Clinton, and drew up on the platform. How anxiously I looked out of the window as we steamed into the dimly-lighted station. A few enters, a man-servant in livery, and several other people were standing waiting for the train, but no one seemed to be looking for me.
I stepped out of the carriage, and the light of the station lamps dazzled me, after being so long in the darkness. A porter came up to me and asked about my luggage, and I followed him to the van, but I felt as if I were walking in a dream. I was worn out, sleepy, and bewildered.
‘Is there no one here to meet me ?’ I asked.
‘No, miss,’ he said; ‘I believe not. I don’t see any one waiting. Who did you expect, miss ?’
‘I hardly know,’ I said. ‘I am going to school in Clinton, and have missed the quick train.’
A lady, who was standing by, overheard what I was saying to the porter. She was such a kind lady, with a face something like mother’s. Her man-servant, the one I had seen on the platform, was getting her luggage, and she was standing by waiting till all was collected.
‘What is the matter, my dear ?’ she said, coming up to me. ‘Tell me about it.’
So I told her just how it was, and she said she would help me as much as she could. I am sure God put it into her heart to do so.
She called her man-servant, and told him to find my boxes, and choose a cab for me, and then she saw me safely into it, and told. the man to drive to Marlborough Place, which was Miss Maynard’s address.
I had not driven far, when I passed an illuminated clock, and I saw that it was nearly twelve o’clock. And then a fresh fear crossed my mind.