The Misses Stanley were sitting up far into the night. They had been prostrated in the morning by the sultry oppression of the coming storm. Later, when it burst, and the blackened sky grew ablaze with lightning, and the very earth was trembling at the deafening thunder-claps, they fled to the cellar, closing and bolting the door, in that unreasoning panic which seizes even very sensible people when the heavens begin to utter their terrible voices; and there they gasped, and sighed, and panted, and listened, forgetting even the headache which a while before had nailed their heads to the pillow. "Ah!" they would whisper to each other, "did you hear that?--and that?--One of the chimneys has surely been struck! Can that be the rattle of the falling bricks? Is the roof coming down, do you think? Are we safe here?" and they caught each other's hands and pressed them tightly, and leaned against the door with all their might, to keep it shut against the danger.
"Do you hear that hissing? Has the house taken fire? Do you smell smoke?" It was only the first heavy downpour of the rain upon the resounding tin roof. The steady continuance of the monotone assured them of that in time, as the thunder grew intermittent and less loud. Even the hissing of the rain grew faint after a while, and there came a breath of cooler air down even into the locked-up cellar.
The terror was past, and they crept out of their hole again into the light, like the mice and the spiders and other timid folk. The storm was over and they were happy and safe. They had been able to eat no breakfast; dinner had been standing on the table cooling and getting spoiled while they were trembling in the cellar. So they had tea, and partook of it with relish. The air was purified by the storm; it was reviving to breathe it, and the world, seen through the open windows, though wet, was brightened and refreshed by the rain, like a young girl fresh from the luxury of a good cry.
It was sweet to be alive now, and drink in the scented air, so crisp and fresh, yet without a suspicion of cold; and a while since life had been a burden. The ladies sat and breathed, and sighed, and toyed with existence, and spoke softly to one another, and were silent; and evening wore on and night came, and still it was too pleasant to move. Their lamp was lighted--a dim one, with no garish gleam to disturb enjoyment within, or lure the flapping night-moths and beetles from without--and feeling hungry they thought they would have supper, a most unusual thing. It was but strawberries and cakes with lemonade and cold tea, but for them it was a carouse; they sat picking and sipping for very long, forgetful of time, and most other things, and bathed by gentle stirrings of the soothing air, restful and in soft shadow, while in the moonlit garden without, the white radiance was reflected and broken into a hundred glittering sparkles from every dripping leaf.
"I declare," said the younger sister, "midnight is decidedly the most enjoyable part of the day, at this time of year."
"It is long past midnight, Matilda," her sister answered, "I am afraid to look what hour of the morning it must be."
"Morning? To-morrow morning? This is to-morrow then! I like it; and if we go to bed it will be to-day when we get up again. I prefer to-morrow myself. Let's sit up all night, Tookey dear, and remain in the future 'till daylight does appear,' and turns it into to-day again. Commonplace affair that sun, compared to the moon, and disagreeably hot at this season, besides. I envy the owls, and mice, and bats, and things, coming out at night and sleeping all day.Ican't sleep in the daytime."
"The more need to go to bed at night. Come, Tilly!--or how shall we get up in the morning? Late rising puts everything out of joint for all day, and bothers the poor servants sadly."
"Bother the servants! By all means, say I. 'Never do to-morrow what should be done to-day.' You know that is a proverb! And this is to-morrow. It was you who said so; so let us sit still. I think I have proved my case."
"Pshaw, Matilda! don't be childish. And the downstairs windows still to shut up! Bring the light, dear. We'll make the round, and see that all is fast."
It was a nightly procession in which these two ladies walked through all the rooms on the ground floor. Miss Penelope the elder--called Tookey for short by her sister--went first, trying the locked doors, closing and bolting the windows, while Matilda with a candle held aloft, kept close beside her. It fluttered her heart to go into an empty room after dark, and it caught her breath to remain alone in the drawing-room while her sister made the rounds, so she accompanied her close, always within touching distance, and ready to scream should occasion arise. Last of all they closed the drawing-room windows, and barred the heavy inside shutters, provided with bells, so that no housebreaker should be able to enter without ringing; and then with their candlesticks in their hands, having extinguished the lamp, they stood taking a last look, as it were, on the scene of their waking existence, before wending upstairs to sleep and forgetfulness, when----
Bang! The sound seemed deafening, coming as it did so unexpectedly, in the night stillness, with all the world slumbering save themselves. Again! Not so loud this time, it seemed, with the ear already attentive. It was a knock at the hall door. And now the bell was rung, a jangling peal resounding through the house, and under cover of the uproar there was a crunching on the gravel as of hasty steps.
The sisters looked at one another with parted lips, and eyes that sought help and counsel and assurance each in the other's. Matilda assuredly had neither strength nor wisdom for their joint support, but her need was so great and she looked with such fervent trustfulness at her sister, that Penelope felt she must brace herself up and take courage for both, though her heart was faint within her. She was the object of a faith which supported by its helpless reliance, and stimulated her to effort that it might not prove misplaced. So strength ere now has been bred of double weakness, though in this case it was put forth but falteringly at first.
There was a shuffling now and a whispering in the lobby. Penelope held the door handle and listened. Matilda threw her weight against the door, expecting it would be burst open; but it was not, and thus they stood breathlessly awaiting some unspecified terror which did not arrive, till doubt grew too painful, and Penelope in very desperation flung wide the door. Three pale faces were disclosed blinking at the gleam of the ladies' candles, and Matilda screamed. An answering scream was raised by the three pale faces startled by the sudden flash of light in the darkened passage, and already prepared to be frightened by anything which might happen.
"How very foolish!" said Miss Penelope, who, having wrought herself up to do battle of some kind, had her nerves better in hand. "Do you not see it is the servants? Awakened by the noise, they have come downstairs, and seeing light in here at such an hour, supposed it was a thief. Now we must see who is at the front door."
"No, Penelope! I implore you, do not!"
"Oh, ma'am," said the cook, "if anything happens toyouwhat will become ofus?" and the other maids looked deprecating in concert, while even Miss Matilda ejaculated, "What, indeed?"
"We cannot stand here all night! And we could not go to bed with burglars perhaps waiting on the doorstep till we are asleep."
"Think, Penelope, if they should burst in when we unbar the door!"
"They had better not. Is there not my father's gun?" and so saying she stepped on a chair to reach down that redoubtable weapon from where it rested on two brass hooks, high up over the fireplace in the hall. There it had rested ever since the decease of the late lamented Deputy Assistant Commissary General--called General for short, or perhaps for honour--the parent of the Misses Stanley.
"Oh, Tookey! don't!" cried Miss Matilda. "It might go off and hurt some one," and the maids drew up their shoulders to their ears, and looked apprehensive in chorus.
"Nonsense!" answered Miss Stanley severely. "Do you not see I am pointing it to the ceiling?"
"One never knows, such strange things happen with guns. The barrels burst, they say, or else they go off, and shoot the people they have no business to touch, and let others escape who really ought to have been hit. Remember how poor Major Hopkins' gun went off, nobody knew how, and killed papa's spaniel, and let the duck fly away. I shall never forget how cross poor papa was when he came home, and he never asked Major Hopkins to come again." And Miss Matilda looked regretful, as does the Historic Muse when she registers the might-have-beens. "Pray point the muzzle up the chimney, dear; it is safer."
Penelope, with a disdainful shrug, moved to the door, raised her firearm to her shoulder, and motioned the maids to undo the fastenings and open. They obeyed, and as the door flew back there entered a puff of wind which blew out the candles and made everybody scream--everybody except Miss Stanley. She, like a hero, stood to her gun, and pulled the trigger--she pulled it frequently, in fact, but as the piece was not loaded, that made no difference. Indeed, it was much better, her timid companions were saved the dreadful bang, while she herself had the heroic feeling of having shot a gang of burglars; that is, she would have shot them if her gun had been loaded, and they had been there to be shot. But they were not, fortunately for themselves. There was no one there at all. The band of affrighted females came slowly to realize the fact, as their panic subsided, and they re-lit the candles. "But who," they began to inquire, "could it be, who had knocked so loudly and rung the bell?" As their tremors abated they ventured out upon the verandah, which ran round the house, to reconnoitre. There was no one there, and again they grew uneasy. The visitant must have concealed himself in the shrubbery, and if so, he must certainly be evil-disposed. Miss Stanley took up her gun again; she had no misgiving about handling it now, and it looked as formidable as ever, for of course the man in the shrubbery could not know that it was unloaded, and she made sure he would not put its being so to the test.
"Here is a large parcel, ma'am!" cried the parlour-maid, "shall I bring it in? It is covered with old matting and tied with a shoe-string."
"Take care, Rhoda!" said Matilda. "Let us look at it first. I have heard of thieves tying themselves up in parcels in order to be taken into the houses they intended to rob. Perhaps you had better fire your gun into this, Penelope; I have known that to be done in a story with the best effects."
Miss Penelope came to look. "I think we may take this one in, Tilly, without fear. If it contains a man he cannot be very big. See! I can lift the bundle myself. Bring it in, Rhoda; we will examine it in the dining-room."
"It must be living, ma'am! I see it moving. Will it bite?" and she took it up suspiciously and with precaution.
A cry, small and plaintive, was now heard.
"Do you hear that?" said Miss Matilda, "mewing--I think. Can anybody have brought us a cat and kittens? A practical joke I suppose they think it. Yet I like kittens,--soft little balls of fluff and fun," she went on, putting on her gloves at the same time, "but strange cats may bite or scratch. Very impertinent, was it not, of the senders? They mean, I suppose, that we are old maids. Well! If we are, at least it is from choice, and I venture to say we are more comfortably situated than the husband or wife of this impertinent."
"Tush! sister," said Penelope, glancing to the servants standing at the lower end of the table and full of curiosity. "Have you a penknife? Quick! No cat ever mewed like that."
And now indeed it was a lusty cry, distinctly human and articulating mamma. The string was cut, the wrappings were kicked away by the struggling contents of the parcel, and a good-sized, healthy infant, well nourished, well clad, flushing red in the opening paroxysm of a big cry on waking, was disclosed to view.
"A little child!" cried Miss Matilda in transports.
"What a frightful din!" said Miss Stanley, putting her fingers in her ears. "To think that anything so small should make so much noise! What ever shall we do with it?"
"Give it some milk, of course; bathe it, put it to bed. That is what they always do with babies, I believe. Cook! get hot water at once--and a large basin--and some milk--and--and--everything else that is necessary. Quick! you others, and help her," she added, observing the lingering steps of the maids, yawning now, and utterly disgusted and wishing themselves back in bed, though a moment ago they had been all wakefulness and interest.
It was curious to see how Matilda took the lead, now that her sympathies were appealed to, while her practical sister, the mistress and manager of the establishment, stood aside bewildered and confused. She took the child in her arms and walked up and down, dandling it, singing, and purring forth floods of baby talk, till the little one stopped short in the middle of its lament to look at her, and ascertain who this voluble person might be. Then, finding she could make out nothing by her scrutiny, she prepared to resume with augmented vigour, but Matilda would not have it. She sat down with the doubter in her lap, bent over it, and made a bower for it with her curls, crooning more volubly than ever, and tickling it with the ringlet points, till the astonished infant grew confused, forgot that it had intended to scream, and presently was smiling and crowing and pulling the ringlets like bell-ropes.
Miss Matilda's ringlets were perhaps her most noticeable feature--long, waving, twining masses of falling hair; giving her face a pensive and romantic expression which has long ceased to be fashionable, though it once was greatly admired, as was also the poetry of Moore and Mrs. Hemans about the same time. In her youth, and that was not so many years before, an officer in Montreal--it was there the family lived then--had told her she looked like a muse, and not long after he was ordered away to the Crimean war. Her own father was ordered there too, but he said he owed a higher duty to his motherless daughters than to leave them, and he thought he owed it to his own ease not to let himself be sent ranging over Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, in search of transport mules and donkeys, and so he left the Service. He lingered in Montreal after the troops were withdrawn; but soon that community of busy traders grew insupportable in the absence of his fellow-loungers; he bought a farm near Saint Euphrase, and there established himself, carrying his daughters with him. He had already, as he told them, sacrificed his prospects of advancement to their need of a protector, and now it was for them to yield the social comforts of town life, bury themselves in the country, and with grateful assiduity make his home as comfortable, and his rheumatism as little intolerable as possible. After the fall of Sebastopol the troops returned to Canada, and "General" Stanley was able from time to time to relieve the monotony of his retirement with the society of old friends; but the officer who had called Matilda a muse never re-appeared, and no other gentleman since had said anything half as nice. So Matilda cherished her ringlets and her recollections--not very painful ones--and lived tranquilly on, with no event to mark the flight of years, till the death of her father, which took place some three or four years before the time I write of. After that the sisters lived on as before, only more retiredly still. Miss Penelope developed considerable business faculty in managing their affairs, and overlooking Jean Bruneau, the factotum on the farm; and dropped some of the feminine helplessnesses of her youth, though she was still as much in terror of thunder, burglars, fire and snakes as ever. Matilda having less need to exert her powers, continued the same ringletted damsel she had always been. She busied herself with her flowers and her birds, a little music not too difficult or new, a little poetry and fiction, and a good deal of kindness when the need for it was made plain to her. Her youth was passing or had passed into middle life, but the current of her days had been so even that she had not observed their flight. She had had no cares, and her heart slept peacefully, for it had never been awakened. Captain Lorrimer may have called her a muse, and Major Hopkins may have looked in her eyes, but these things had never been carried to a disturbing length; just enough to afford a little pensive self-consciousness, when she read of deserted maids, or Love's young dream, and make her fancy that she understood it all, and ejaculate that "it was so true." Then she would look up and shake her curls with a quite comfortable sigh, and her prosaic sister would watch her admiringly, and wonder where the men's eyes could have been that she was still unmarried. Perhaps it was well for her that she was so. Perhaps it would be well, at least it would be comfortable, for many of us if our hearts would sleep through life, and leave digestion to do its work in peace. How sweet and enjoyable to lead untroubled lives, free from the ecstasies alike of joy and woe, as do the flowers, as did this "muse"--this "grass of Parnassus"--basking in summer suns and drinking dews, without ambition or desire or strife.
But this is wandering. We left Miss Penelope desirous of getting to bed; and Miss Matilda engrossed in her new plaything.
"I shall certainly keep it, Penelope! The very thing of all others I should have liked best to have."
"Is not that rather an odd thing to say?"
"That I am charmed to have found a living doll?--I think it is quite natural.Youare too sensible, of course, but for other people--for me--it seems the most natural thing in the world. You know I always doted on dolls, especially when they could wink their eyes. This one can do that, and lots of other things besides. It will be delightful. And to think how I have been mourning the loss of my lame canary these last few days! You would not believe the tears I have shed every time I have looked at the empty cage, and how lonely I have felt; and here, in the middle of the night, just when we are going to bed, arrives this little pet! Is it not opportune? If I had awakened in the night, I might have thought of poor dicky, and then I should certainly have cried. Now I shall take this sweet little image with me, and if I awake, it will be to think how I can make up to it the loss of its mother; though indeed the mother who could find it in her breast to cast her off in this disgraceful way can be no loss."
It was three months later. The Selbys' shrubbery had changed from the vigorous greens of summer to russet, paling here into sulphur yellow, there deepening to orange and crimson which outshone the less vivid tints of the early chrysanthemums. The autumn flowers, nipped by early frosts, lay black and ragged on their erewhile brilliant beds. The sun was warm and the air sweet with the breath of leaves falling softly in their brightness, one by one, peaceful, beautiful, fragrant, like the ending of a well-spent life.
In the parlour the windows were open; and a fire burning in the grate to temper the air in shady corners proclaimed the fall of the year.
Stretched on a sofa, thin and wan, with hair pushed back--hair which three months before had been soft and glossy and of the loveliest brown, now dry, rusty, grizzled, banded with locks of grey, and mixed all through with threads of shining white--her fingers shrunk and bloodless, clasping a baby's bells and coral, and her dim eyes wet with silent tears, lay the desolate mother mourning for her child. She had been very ill, and bodily weakness, unable to suffer more, was the one consoler as yet to mitigate her grief, by benumbing the capacity for pain. Her George had mingled tears with hers, tears drawn as much by the sight of what she suffered as by its cause. He had tended and watched her with more than a woman's tenderness, but after all he was a man, with his day's work to perform whatever might befall, and the doing it supported him by bringing distraction and thereby rest. True, it jarred miserably on the overwrought nerves to keep up the routine of music lessons, to watch the "fingering" of inattentive pupils and have his senses pierced by their frequent discords; but it was easier to find endurance for these physical ills than for the heartstrain he had felt at home. The patience and fatigue of the outdoor toil brought the calmness he needed so much in the presence of his stricken wife.
For her there was no break or respite to the rush of black and miserable thought. If the child had died she could have borne it. It would have been grief, but grief of the common kind, and for which there is consolation in the pious certainties of another life. It would have been agony to part with her treasure, but agony with a hope. In time she would have learned to bear the bereavement with sorrowful patience and resignation--to think of her blossom snatched away, rather as one transplanted and someday to be recovered in brighter bloom, growing in immortal gardens; just as she looked on the other--brother of the lost one, born since her loss, and which had never seen the light. Oh, if she could but have thought of the two as with each other! But even the consolations of faith were denied her. The child had vanished utterly, and she was left to wonder and surmise whither it might have been carried. Surely if it had died there would have been found some sign or vestige, and then her mother's heart would have been at rest. She would have wept and there would have been an end. She could have rested her thoughts on the armies of the Holy Innocents, and in her dreams a cherub face would have come to her with shining wings, whispering hope and consolation. But even this saddened peace was not for her. She would not entertain the thought that her baby was dead; it was away somewhere--where, oh where?--and perhaps it needed her, and was crying for her, and she could not come to it; and a restlessness seized her, a low dull fever of impotent longing, and kept her pacing the chamber to and fro, till exhaustion numbed her senses and she fell asleep. But oh, what sleep! It was more miserable than waking. Fancy gave shape to her yearnings, and dreams revived their wretchedness into more tangible shape. The baby's cry, as if in pain, rang through them all, and sometimes she could see the arms stretched out to her, but never the face. A shadow undefined came in between, and bore her darling away into darkness. Sometimes her feet would be heavy as lead, and scarcely could she drag herself after, while the shadow fled out of sight, and the cries came to her fitfully, and far away, borne on the wind. At other times she would be able to pursue, but that brought little comfort. The shadow still fled before her, and ah, by what dreary ways! Sometimes it would be dark, and yet she could see them speeding on before; across a raging river, where the waters tossed and tumbled about her, lifting her from her feet, or overwhelming her in their depths; but still she hurried on and clambered up the slippery rocks on the further shore, and up and up where there was no foothold, and she felt herself falling through depths and catching and clinging with her hands and drawing herself upward and up and up among curling mists to dreary deserts far above the clouds. And still the shadow sped on before, and she pursued across the sandy wastes, where horrid reptiles hissed at her as she went by, and clouds of dust arose and came between, obscuring and impeding the way. And still she would pursue and seem to be overtaking. The child's cry would become quite close, and she would see the very dimples at the finger joints and the streaming hair, and she would stretch her hand to lay it on the form, and her hand would pass through it like a shadow and she would awake. It was all a dream, her darling was gone from her and she was desolate.
On the day of the theft she had driven about the town in search of her husband, sometimes hearing of him but never meeting; and then she had gone to the police station herself, breathless with anxiety and haste, and there they were so mechanical and full of formalities, and heard her story with so aggravating an official calm that it wellnigh drove her mad. The person she addressed on entering was sweltering on two chairs, without coat or collar, and his boots pulled off. Before he would listen to a lady he felt it due to himself to rectify his appearance. The boots were tight and could not be quickly stepped into; the coat was on a nail in another part of the office. Then the book of complaints had to be found, and a pen, and so many flies had drowned themselves in the ink that the stand must be refilled, and Mary stood wringing her hands and swaying back and forth in agonized impatience.
"Calm yourself, madame," he said, while he dipped in the ink his pen, and then removed first a dead fly from the point, and next a hair. "I shall now take down your complaints," and he bent over his book, extending his left elbow and bending his head towards it, with the eyes squinting across the page he was about to illustrate with his caligraphy, while with an expert turn of the wrist he made a preliminary flourish in waiting for this member of the public to begin stating her grievance; "but stay one moment, madame; I believe I have mislaid my glasses;" and he started up and laid his hand upon each of his pockets in turn. "No! I believe I must have lef dem in ze ozer desk beside ze journaux."
"Oh man! man!" cried Mary in desperation, "while you are putting off time my baby is being carried further and further away; and we know not where she may be or what they are doing to her!"
"Be tranquillisée madame! Ze occurrence--is of frequent--how you say?--occurrence. Zere are tree--five!" and he held up his fingers to show the number--"infants vich make disappearance all ze days, and zey all turn zemselves up again before to-morrow. Ze leetle tings march in ze streets voisines, and know not ze retour. Ze police arrest, and bring here; and voilà!--l'enfant perdu ees on return to ze famille." At this point the spectacles were discovered, and the speaker returned to his book.
"My babycouldnot run away. She cannot walk yet." Mary answered. "My baby has been carried off, and you are wasting precious time in talk."
"Ze publique ees so déraisonnable! And me. Behold me!"--and he spread out all his fingers and shrugged his shoulders in philosophic and forbearing remonstrance--"I attend madame's informations."
The "informations" were given, recorded and commented on, and the slow machinery of justice set in motion at last, and the distracted mother turned away to the grey nunnery where foundlings are received and cared for. There she left a description of her child, and begged that if any one resembling hers were presented, she might at once be informed. Then she went home. What to her was the thunder storm and lashing rain? A wilder tempest of doubt raged in her own aching heart. Her husband had arrived before her, and in tears on his shoulder she found the first momentary easement since her trouble began. The world was so hard and callous, so busy, every one with his own affairs; people accepted her desolation so calmly, told her not to fret, that the child would soon be found. She could not have believed the atrocious selfishness of mankind if she had not seen it. The street children, playing after the rain, were as gleeful as ever, without a thought of her distress; losing their balls across the fence and coming over after them--breaking in on her very inclosure, sacred to miserable anxiety, as if nothing were the matter. Her own servants were no better, they were going on with their cooking and their housework just as usual. There was the dinner bell! Who could think of dinner on a day like this? And yet George--and she could not but own that George had proper feeling, and was as anxious and distressed as amanwell could be--even George seemed to have bodily appetite. He was not cannibal enough to dine, but he did eat a slice of beef, and drink a tumbler of wine and water. It seemed incomprehensible to her, somehow, that even the round heavens should revolve as usual. But they did. It was growing dark just the same as if nothing had befallen her baby, and the long still night was before her. There were hours and hours to wait before another day would arise, with its possibilities of news or restoration, and how was she to spend them? She could not sit still, far less lie down. She wondered about the house hour after hour, and three several times her husband took a cab to the police head-quarters in vain. There was no news.
The morrow brought no change; but weariness stilled the restlessness of her misery. She could not eat or drink or sleep, or even wander to and fro; she could but wait, seated in the porch and watching the gate for coming news--for news which did not come. The chief of police appeared, and questioned Lisette and went again. Another day, and Lisette was sent for to see Indians taken upon suspicion, and in the evening she returned having identified one. But still there was no news of the child. The squaw arrested declared she knew nothing of it, had not taken it, had not been in the city that day.
And now Mary's strength gave way. She fainted, and when revived it was found that she was dangerously ill; and through long weeks her life trembled on the verge of dissolution, flickering and waning till it seemed scarce possible the spark should not go out. And then, too weak to suffer, she began to mend, and in the vacuity of utter exhaustion, her mind obtained that rest which no doubt saved her reason, sparing her the weary waitings on for news which never came. In her illness a son was born--was born and died--but only in her convalescence did she become aware of her loss. That was a grief, but it was grief of the more ordinary kind, and one to which the Church's consolations effectively minister. The little one's earthly sojourn was accomplished; it needed her care no longer, and the hopes of religion were a soothing balm to mingle with her tears. But the other?--She was so sure the little daughter needed her still. Sleeping or waking her heart yearned to be with her, and often in the night when she awoke, the baby voice would be ringing in her ears, calling her to come. That was a dry aching feverish unassuageable grief, on which ordinary consolation had no power. It might have killed her with its gnawing carking care, but for the gentler sorrow of the other loss, which vented itself naturally in tears, and the tears relieved the over-burdened heart, easing it and strengthening it for the stronger grief. Then, too, there was George to share her sorrow, and sorrows are less crushing when they are not borne alone. And there were friends who came to see her and strove to console. Utterly futile as was all they could say, their presence and their sympathy were grateful. It is so desolate after awhile to have to bear our wretchedness all alone. An ear in which to pour our complaints, an eye to look pitifully on our pain, soothes and strengthens, if it cannot mitigate the anguish. And Mary had these. Her nephew Ralph Herkimer and his wife were, as the servants said, most attentive; and the sympathy of the wife at least was very genuine, while Ralph's was equally well expressed. And after all, till men become able to read each other's souls--a state of things which even the best of us would not relish--it is the expression which is efficacious or otherwise, not the prompting spirit. Consider it, oh ye of the hard shell, who plume yourselves on your good hearts and sweet natures! How many a cocoanut has been left to rot, because the eaters could not penetrate the husk!
Mary's sisters, too, when they heard of her desolation, had relented; and found they must forgive her having married against their wish. Being human, even if peculiar, they could not but be sorry, only they had said so many things in their heat that each felt awkward about proposing to the other to relax the estrangement so far as to call on the offender. Public opinion, however decided the matter. Mary's distress was perfectly well known to every one, and when the ladies of their acquaintance began to inquire for their sister and to express sympathy, it was even more "awkward" to acknowledge the estrangement than to bring it to an end.
Circumstances were kind to them in their attempt to make friends, and let them down very gently. When they called the first time their sister was far too ill to see any one, which spared them the "awkwardness" of a meeting. They called every day afterwards, and so had their bulletin ready for inquiring friends, and also had their own feelings modulated gradually to a gentler frame. By-and-by they were admitted to the sickroom. Mary was too feeble to talk; she welcomed them with a faint smile, to which the only possible answer on their part was a kiss, a kiss of reconciliation as well as sympathy, all the more reconciling in that no words were possible on either side, for so soon as it was given the nurse was ready to usher them out again without parley.
On the late October day we have mentioned Mary lay with her thin fingers twined about the baby's plaything, and tears stealing from her eyes. As each movement of her chest stirred the little bells, their ringing thrilled her senses like a pain.
It was the far-away cry of a departed joy, reminding her of its loss. And yet she clasped the bauble but the tighter for each new sting it inflicted on her heart; it brought the vanished past a little nearer, and she almost coveted the pain as a relief from the leaden desolation under which she lay. So, when a wound begins to heal, one will touch and trifle with it, reviving the smart as an easement from the weary numbness of the congested tissues. She was absorbed in her sorrowful musings and did not note the entrance of her sisters, till, in their sabled gowns, coming between her and the light, they bent over her. Susan kissed her on the forehead, and Judith's tightened lips delivered a peck upon her mouth. Then she opened her eyes with a wan smile, and faintly bade them welcome, endeavouring to raise herself the while.
"Keep still, Mary," said Susan. "Do not attempt to move. You will get strong all the sooner for taking care now."
"I think," said Judith, observing the child's coral in her hands, which she was at the moment slipping away among her coverings, "you should put away those things. They can do no good, and can only revive distressing thoughts."
Mary sighed, and asked if they had walked.
"Give it to me, Mary!" persisted Judith the energetic, "and let me put it away and lock it up."
"Oh, no!" said Mary, clasping it with both hands to her breast, and smiling sorrowfully. "It comforts me."
"Very wrong! Foolishly injudicious in Mr. Selby to allow it," and Miss Judith stood up with a jerk, as though she would take the obnoxious article by force. "Susan----"
"Judith! Better let alone," her sister interrupted, attempting to draw her back to her chair.
Judith flushed hotly. Like other zealous reformers of their neighbours, she was irritably intolerant of advice to herself; because, of course, she must be right--she always was. So are the others. She turned upon her sister with a frown, and there might have been words; but at that moment the click of the gate-latch sounded. The gate opened, and a clergyman appeared--a young clergyman. Judith admired clergymen, and we all admire youth, at least all who have lost their own.
By the time the Reverend Dionysius Bunce entered the room. Miss Judith's angry flush had cooled down, and her tightened lips had relaxed into a smile of virgin sweetness. She had a taste for clergymen, just as some other ladies have a taste for horses, and some for cats. People talk of "pigeon-fanciers." Miss Judith was a parson-fancier, that is, she fancied the parsons but she could not keep them, as the pigeon-fanciers keeptheirpets; they always flew away to fresher fields. Mr. Bunce was curate of St. Wittikind's, the church where Selby was organist and choirmaster. It was a place of worship which Miss Judith's pietistical scruples would not allow her to attend. The people there were given to singing harmoniously words which she held should be said discordantly, and to other practices equally to be regretted. St. Wittikind's, in fact, was "high," and she never mentioned it without drawing a long breath, and shaking her head sadly. Still, if her mind was controversial it was also feminine, and the curate's trim, ecclesiastical uniform attracted her much. The linen was so white, so tight, and so starchy, while that of the married curate of her own St. Silas' was yellow, limp, and even slovenly, like the services in which he assisted. No doubt it was right, from her standpoint, that the service should be bald and unattractive, and she had very decided views about vestmentsinchurch, but in vestureoutof church, she had a woman's preference for neatness, and if she could win this young man from his unevangelical vagaries, would it not be like plucking a brand from the burning? She had long known him by sight, as indeed, she knew all the clergy, but hitherto he had been one of the black sheep in her eyes. Now, when she met him in a room, he was so neat and seemed so young and inexperienced, that her heart yearned towards him with a mother's interest--no! not a mother's interest precisely, but an interest of the adaptable kind, which may change into any other sort as occasion dictates.
In Miss Susan's eyes the curate appeared uninteresting enough. She thought him stubby, commonplace, and scarcely a gentleman, save that to a good churchwoman like herself, his orders, like the Queen's commission in the army, made his position unassailable. But then, Miss Susan had no enthusiasm, and was disposed to let the brands burn, each in its own fashion. She would have liked to go now, when she saw the clergyman sit down beside Mary's sofa, and pull out his book, and had risen with that intention, when Judith, clasping her black gloves and smiling with grave sweetness, as one may smile at a christening, asked if it was absolutely needful that they should go away. "For herself," she said, "there was no portion of our beautiful liturgy in which she so much delighted as in those sweet and improving passages which occur in the 'visitation of the sick,' and if Mr. Bunce did not object, she would feel it a privilege to be permitted to remain."
Poor Mr. Bunce could only acquiesce, and go on with his function, resigning the hope of whatever satisfaction he might otherwise have found in its performance, and a good deal disturbed by Miss Judith's sighs of extreme interest in one place, and the fervency of her responses in another. Susan, too, perforce sat down again, wondering internally at the queerness of her sister's taste. For herself, she felt perfectly well, and it only depressed her to listen to the curate's words. She looked out of the window where the sun was shining, and could not but think that it would have been far more cheerful to be walking down the street.
Having finished, Mr. Bunce would have liked to remain a little for a quiet chat with Mrs. Selby; but Miss Judith sat still and seemed bent on taking on herself the entire duty of conversing with him. It might be well intended, he thought, to save her sister fatigue, but it was not very interesting, so he quickly rose to leave. Judith did so at the same time, and when he reached the gate, the reverend man discovered that fate had condemned him to accompany the two ladies along more than a mile of suburban street, where he saw no hope of breaking away.
It was with a sweet and respectful smile that Judith looked at the curate, and left him to make the first observation. She would have liked to look up to him; that being her natural mental attitude to men of his cloth; but physically the thing was impracticable. She was not notably a tall woman, but he was distinctly a short man; and though too bulky to be called little, his figure justified Susan's mental definition of him as "stumpy." He was her junior too, and his countenance was not impressive. It was blond as regarded hair and eyes, indefinite in feature, pasty in complexion; still, it was neatly kept, and relieved from vacuity by that undoubting self-complacency which comes to those privileged to reprove and exhort unchallenged, for twenty minutes at a stretch.
Mr. Bunce waited, coughed, observed on the fineness of the weather, and was silent. Miss Susan agreed with him in her mind, but having nothing to say on the subject, said nothing, and it was left for Judith to fan the verbal spark, and nurse it into a conversation. She opened in dulcet tones, and with a respectful effusiveness, like the carved nymphs round an old fountain, catching the wasting driblets in their marble shells. She agreed that the weather was indeed extremely pleasant, and counted up how many other fine days there had been that week and the week before. But there had been a shower the week before that, just when the people were leaving the missionary meeting, where the good Bishop of Rara Tonga spoke so sweetly. Had Mr. Bunce been there? No? Ah! then, he had indeed missed a treat. It had been most instructive. The bishop told about a deacon who remembered having eaten part of his grandmother, and about the octopus coming out of the sea, to eat breadfruit on shore on moonlight nights,--perhaps it was not breadfruit, by the way, it may have been something else; and perhaps it was not an octopus; but at any rate it was some dreadful creature, and it did something very curious, and it was all most interesting; "and indeed, Mr. Bunce, you missed a treat."
Mr. Bunce said he found his parochial duty too heavy and too engrossing to admit of desultory meeting-going.
"But the heathen! Mr. Bunce, if you take no interest in the octopus."
"We have heathens in Montreal, Miss Herkimer, as ignorant of good as any South Sea Islander. They want to be taught, and some even to be fed, for work is scarce this year, and winter coming on."
"Ah, yes!" answered Miss Judith, "it is sad to think of, and," she added--with a twinge of conscience for what she was about, to say, for she was of St. Silas, and set no great store by the church activities of St. Wittikind, but then good manners and Christian charity require one to stretch a point verbally sometimes--"You are doing much good in St. Wittikind's, I understand. We in St. Silas are doing what we can too. We distribute fifty thousand gospel leaflets every month, and with--well, they must have the best results. So many benighted Romanists have no other opportunity to get a glimpse of the truth; and you know, Mr. Bunce, the truthmustprevail."
"No doubt. Miss Herkimer, it will, someday. In St. Wittikind's parish, however, we find so many in physical want, and so many with no religion at all, that our hands are full, and we do not attempt controversy."
Miss Judith sighed softly, so as not to be observed. These were not the views in vogue at St. Silas, and of course they were wrong; but with her "yearning" towards this curate, who seemed meet for better things, if he could be won, it seemed her duty to be winning. So she suppressed her inclination to say something "sound," merely observing that all souls were alike precious, and then added that she had heard much of the zealous beneficence exercised at St. Wittikind's, and "would he explain about those sisterhoods, of which people talked so much."
This, to use an Americanism, "fetched" the curate--fetched him round, as it were, to his own shopdoor, the pulpit, into which he at once stepped, and held forth fluently and minutely, and at very great length, while Judith listened with interest. Not so Susan, who found the prelection both tedious and unnecessary. She paid what she thought she could afford to the different charities recommended by her church, whose business she considered it to see that its member's money was well applied; and having paid, she took a receipt in full from her conscience, and did not wish to hear any more about giving till that day twelvemonths, when, if convenient, she would renew the contribution. Every one, she said, had her own preference in fancy-work and amusements; hers was Berlin wool--as indeed her drawing-room showed, where every chair and ottoman was bedecked with representations of impossible herbage in the crudest of colour and design. Judith's fad was handing tracts to ragged French and Irish men, an equally harmless exercise, though with less result to show, seeing the recipients hardly waited till her back was turned before lighting their pipes with them.
Susan's eyes strayed from one passer-by to the next, in search of something to interest her more than the clerical monologue proceeding at her side, and by-and-by she espied a gentleman being driven in the direction from which she had come. An idea struck her; she hailed the cab, which stopped before her, and the gentleman within looked out inquiringly.
"Oh! Mr. Jordan," she said, "forgive my stopping you; but this was the day that wretched woman who stole our little niece was to be tried, and I know you have charge of Mr. Selby's interests in the matter. Is the case decided? What have they done with her? Has she confessed?"
"She has been acquitted, ma'am. I am just now on my way to Mrs. Selby's, who will no doubt be impatient to hear the result; though, for myself, I have suspected for some time there was a mistake in arresting her."
"Acquitted? But the nurse-girl swore positively--did she not?--that that was the squaw who was at the house! And the ferry-boatmen corroborated what she said."
"Yes. The man swore that a squaw with a bundle, which he suspected might be a baby, crossed in the steamboat that afternoon, and he was inclined to swear to the identity of the blanket the prisoner wore, on account of its being torn at one corner. The girl Lisette was very positive about both the blanket and the wearer, and I fear her being so will materially prejudice any further attempts we may make, for the priest swore to the squaw's having been in Caughnawaga all day, and he produced the school roll of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart to show that she had not only been there, but had taken the medal of honour that day."
"Ah!" ejaculated Judith with emphasis, "what a system is Popery! So insidious! So soul-destroying!--capable of any subterfuge. I wonder you don't take out a warrant and have that convent searched."
Mr. Bunce opened his eyes, startled and shocked that one so much interested in works of beneficence should have so little charity.
Mr. Jordan, who knew the lady better, sniffed impatiently but not loud, as recognizing the ebullition to be constitutional and unworthy of notice. "The worst of it is," he said, "the girl has sworn so positively that it will weaken the value of her testimony when we bring her up by-and-by to identify the real offender, if found. And we have no other witness to produce. In my professional experience I have always found that too much zeal is dangerous--far worse than too little! How doyoufind it, Mr. Bunce inyourprofession? Zeal without knowledge, eh?" and he glanced with a sly smile from Miss Judy's face to the curate's.
The curate looked blankly before him. He was too slightly acquainted with the ladies to feel warranted in poking fun at their eccentricities; and he was too much of a cleric to welcome a layman's jest on subjects pertaining to his cloth. It was well, he thought, that the lady should have a zeal, whether wise or the reverse. The trouble he had found had oftener been to kindle a zeal than to direct it, and he doubted not but with judicious guidance this ardent lady might be brought right--that is, to take views like his own of most things.
The pause resulting from Mr. Jordan's wit and the curate's unresponsiveness was broken by Miss Susan, who was growing restless. Though no longer young, she retained some of the characteristics of her departed youth, and had what, to misquote the high-heeled dignitaries of literature, might be called "the modern spirit." Had she been thirty years younger than the family bible showed her to be she would assuredly have said that all men of the professions--especially successful ones--were prigs, and most of them bores into the bargain; and, as it was, she thought it. Foolish old woman! Her weakness, in days of old had been for the red coats, and though none of them had ever proposed, she was still loyal to her ancient ideal. Her roving eye descried her nephew Ralph on the other side of the way, and just as the pause incident to the curate's silence became notable, she called aloud, "Ralph!" and waved her parasol.
Ralph obeyed the signal, and joined the party on the curbstone, around the cab door.
"Ah, Ralph!" cried Mr. Jordan. "Going to call on your aunt, I daresay, and tell her the trial is over and that it is proved now we have been on a wrong scent these last three months, and must begin all over again from the beginning. Here, get in; we may as well go together--or, better still, I will yield you up the cab. You can explain it all, just as well as I could; it seems like a fresh disappointment to the poor lady, and the news will come better from a relative." Then, looking at his watch, "I have a meeting due in ten minutes from now; I shall still be in time; so good-bye! and thanks."
"No--you--don't! Mr. Jordan," responded Ralph. "I will not deny that I intended to call at Selby's; but, sinceyouare so far on your way, just complete the trip. Take all the credit yourself and charge it in your bill. I can't do that, you know, being only a broker."
Jordan looked disgusted, re-seated himself in his cab and drove away. Susan repeated her expressions of regret at what she still looked on as a miscarriage of justice; but Ralph replied:
"Not at all! No one who was present at the trial could have looked for any other conclusion. We must just try again; but--now that old Jordan is out of hearing, one may venture to say it--the whole case has been mismanaged. Why did they not offer a reward at the first? Now, I fear, it will be too late! The little circumstances which detectives are able to piece together to so good a purpose are soon forgotten, and so the clue is lost."
"Poor Mary!" said Susan, "my heart bleeds for her. It may turn out for the best, perhaps, and remedy the iniquity of Gerald's preposterous will, by keeping the money in his own family, but it is very sad. She seems crushed. If her boy had been spared to her--but to lose them both! It is turning her hair grey. She who used to be the flower of our family!"
Judith's lips tightened at "flower of the family." Herself was that interesting blossom she thought, but that was not what she said. On the contrary she expressed herself with evangelical superiority to such trifles.
"Iregard it as a dispensation, to wean her from earthly joys. It is in love that, when we make ourselves idols, they are taken away. Perhaps, too, it may be a judgment on her for marrying in defiance of those who were older and wiser than herself. There are warnings in all these mysterious happenings, and food for thought;" and she rolled her eyes Sibyl-wise over Ralph to the curate.
There was an irreverent gleam in Ralph's eyes, and he turned to watch a passing dray till his inclination to laugh went off. The curate was regarding her with a puzzled expression. He was a well-meaning young man, who wished both to be and to do good; but who, not being any wiser than his neighbours, notwithstanding the higher ground on which, in right of his orders, he believed himself to stand, was often in doubt both as to what he ought to feel and to say. He was very sure it would never have occurred to himself to use the language he had listened to, and he began to wonder if he had stumbled on some advancedly serious person, whose acquaintance would be improving, or--or something else. There seemed a fine devotional tone in her opening words, especially enunciated as they were, with a full and rounded unction. They were not very novel, perhaps; he seemed to have heard the like before, and more than once; but then, what that is true is also new?--as was said, or something not unlike it in sound, by a late prime minister. Her next proposition rather startled him, carrying him back to his college days, and reminding him of the stealing of Jove's thunderbolts; but there was a third-like the third course beloved by another prime minister, reconciling contradictions and committing to nothing--"mysterious happenings, food for thought." That was it! He would think it over; and there was balm in this, for had she not been listening to him, as they came along, as to another Gamaliel, while he described the charitable schemes of St. Wittikind's? and would it not be painful to think otherwise than well of so responsive a lady?
Confused by all these thoughts the curate did not speak; and Susan, thinking it high time to break up the meeting, reminded Judith that their dressmaker lived hard by, and now would be a good opportunity to order their winter gowns. Judith said goodbye regretfully and made the curate promise to come very soon and tell her more about St. Wittikind's, and the two gentlemen walked townwards together.
"You seem to know my aunt well," said Ralph. "I am agreeably surprised. I fancied she was too grimly Low Church to speak to any clergyman not of St. Silas or St. Zebedee. I hope your acquaintance will broaden her views, which are rather extreme, and something of a nuisance in the family. However, Aunt Judy means well. We all allow that. The trouble is that she will never allow that we mean well, when we go counter to her advice; and then she treats us to a word in season, which is apt to be very highly seasoned with brimstone and what not."
There was a tone of levity and indifference to his cloth in this talk which jarred on Mr. Bunce. It was evident that Ralph looked on him as just like a secular person, or perhaps as less shrewd, and this was not as he liked. His associations were mostly with the docile of the other sex, and the more reverential of his own, and the company of this robust worldling was so unpleasantly bracing that they soon parted, and Ralph was alone when he reached his office.
"A man waiting to see you, sir."
"What sort of man?"
"An Indian. The same I think who came for your guns last year, when you went camping out."
"Tell him I've gone out."
"He saw you come in through the glass door."
"Say I'm engaged."
"He says he will wait till you are at leisure."
"Bid him come in, then," and presently Paul stood before his employer, looking in his eyes but saying nothing.
"Well, Paul?" said Ralph, without looking up from the letter he appeared to be writing, "deer have been seen near the Lake of Two Mountains, eh? Too busy! Shall not be able to leave town this Fall. Hard on a man--is it not? Wish I was an Indian and could do as I pleased."
"Ouff," grunted Paul, with an impatient glance, and that slight twitch of the eyebrows equivalent to a Frenchman's shrug, which says so plainly "Why all these idle words?" Then, producing a paper from his bosom he handed it to Ralph.
"Ze notaire gave dis! Want pay--for Thérèse--Judge court defend."
"Ah!" said Ralph, taking the paper and glancing over it. "Your bill of costs. Defending that squaw--eh? You want me to look it over?--Oh yes! quite right. O.K![1]all correct! Pay it at once, Paul, and finish the business."
"Ze dollars?" answered Paul. "You give! I pay."
"It's all right, Paul! The account, I mean. But you must pay your own bills, you know--defend your own family. She's your squaw, not mine."
Paul shot a fiery glance from under his gathered brows. "Zis my squaw sister! Done for you!--O.K? Squaw get dollars for fetch back papoose. Easy fetch back."
"What do you mean, Paul? What will be so easy for you to fetch back?" said Ralph wheeling round in his chair.
"Fetch papoose. Got no dollars for pay notaire."
"Man alive! Did I not pay you as I promised?"
"Fifty dollars! O.K! Squaw take papoose for pay. Notaire want sixty-five. Squaw bring back papoose. Get two hundred dollars. Pay notaire. O.K.!"
"Come now, Paul!" cried Ralph, not over well pleased, yet with a business man's pleasure in a bit of smartness, even when it told against himself. "You've euchred me, I allow it. But don't draw the string too tight in case it breaks. What do you want?"
"Two hundred dollars," said Paul.
"But the bill of costs is only sixty-five."
"How long live squaw and papoose on hundred dollars?"
"You leave thirty-five out of the reckoning. However, we will suppose that goes to you for your smartness. Well! I'm busy, Paul, I'll give you your two hundred dollars at once to get you away. Not, mind you, that I couldn't fight you off, if I cared to; but I have other things to think of."
"And for Fidèle and the papoose?"
"That must suffice them for the present. When it is all spent--we will see--" and so Ralph got rid of his importunate visitor for the present, though not without misgiving.