David Chantrey's term of exile was over, and the spring had brought release to him. He was returning to England in stronger health and vigor than he had enjoyed for some years before his absence. It seemed to himself that he had completely regained the strength that had been his as a young man. He was a young man yet, he told himself—not six and thirty, with long years of happy work lying before him. The last eighteen months had been weary ones, though he could not count them as lost time, since they had restored him to health. The voyage home was a succession of almost perfectly happy days, as he dwelt beforehand upon the joy that awaited him. He had a packet of letters, those which had reached him from home during his absence; and he read them through once more in the long leisure hours of the voyage. Those from his friend Warden and his aunt which bore a recent date had certainly a rather unsatisfactory tone; but all of Sophy's had been brighter and more cheerful than he had anticipated. Every one of them longed for his return, that was evident. Even Warden, who did not know where his fate would take him to next, expressed an almost extravagant anxiety for his speedy presence in his own parish.
He loved his parish and his people with a peculiar pride and affection. It was twelve years since he had gone to Upton—a young man just in orders, and in the full glow of a fresh enthusiasm as to his duties. He believed no office to be equal to that of a minister of Christ. And though this glow had somewhat passed away, the enthusiasm had deepened rather than faded with the lapse of years, His long illness and exclusion from his office had imparted to it a graver tone. In former days, perhaps, he had been too much set upon the outer ceremonials of religion. He had been proud of his church and the overflowing congregation which assembled in it week after week testifying to his popularity. To pass along the streets of his little town, and receive everywhere the tokens of respect that greeted him, had been exceedingly pleasant. He had bent himself to win golden opinions, after quoting the words of Paul, "I am made all things to all men, that by all means I might save some." And he had succeeded in gaining the esteem of almost every class of his parishioners.
But during the long and lonely months of absence he had learned to love his people after a different fashion. There were some pleasant vices in his parish to which he had shut his eyes; some respectable delinquents with whom he had been on friendly terms, without using his privilege as a friend to point out their misdeeds. There was not a high tone of morality in his parish. Possibly he had been too anxious to please his people. He was going back to them with a deeper and stronger glow of enthusiasm concerning his duties and work among them; but with a graver sense of his own weakness, and a more humble knowledge of the Divine Father for whom he was an ambassador.
His vessel reached Southampton the day before its arrival could have been expected, and neither Sophy nor his friend Warden was there to welcome him. But this was an additional pleasure; he would take them all by surprise in the midst of their preparations for his return. Warden had warned him that there would be quite a public reception of him, with a great concourse of his parishioners, and every demonstration of rejoicing. It was in his nature to enjoy this; but still he would like a few quiet hours with Sophy first, and these he could secure by hastening home by the first train. He would reach Upton early in the evening.
It was an hour of intense happiness, and he felt it to his inmost soul. All the route was familiar to him after he had started from London; the streets and suburbs rushing past him swiftly, and the meadows, in the bright green and gold of spring, which followed them. He knew the populous villages, with their churches, where he was himself well known. Every station seemed almost like a home to him. As he drew nearer to Upton he leaned through, the window to catch the first glimpse of his own church, and the blue smoke rising from his own house; and a minute or two afterward, with a gladness that was half a pain, he found himself once more on the platform at Upton station.
"I am back again," he said, shaking hands with the station-master with a hearty grasp that spoke something of his gladness. "Is all going on well among you?"
"Yes, Mr. Chantrey; yes, sir," he answered. "You're welcome home, sir. God bless you! You've been missed more than any of us thought of when you went away. You're needed here, sir, more than you think of."
"Nothing has gone very wrong, I hope," said the rector, smiling. He had faithfully done his best to provide a good substitute in "Warden, but it was not in human nature not to feel pleased that no one could manage his parish as well as himself.
"No, no, sir," replied the station-master, "nothing but what you'll put right again at once by being at home yourself. No, there's nothing very wrong, I may say. Upton meant to give you a welcome home to-morrow, with arches of flowers and music. They'll be disappointed you arrived to-day, I know."
David Chantrey laughed, thinking of the welcome they had given him when he brought Sophy home as his young wife. His heart felt a new tenderness for her, and a throb of impatience to find her. He bade a hasty good-evening to the station-master, and walked off buoyantly toward the High street, along which his path lay. The station-master and the ticket-clerk watched him, and shook their heads significantly; but he was quite unconscious of their scrutiny. Never had the quiet little town seemed so lovely to him. The quaint irregular houses stood one-half of them in shadow, and the rest in the level rays of the May sunset; the chestnut-trees, with their young green leaves and their white blossoms lighting up each branch to the very summit of them; the hawthorn bushes here and there covered with snowy bloom; the children playing, and the swallows darting to and fro overhead; the distant shout of the cuckoo, and the deep low tone of the church clock just striking the hour—this was the threshold of home to him; the outer court, which was dearer to him and more completely his own than any other place in the wide world could ever be.
No one was quick to recognize him in his somewhat foreign aspect; the children at their play took no notice of him. All the tradespeople were busy getting their shops a little in order before the shutters were put up. He might perhaps pass through the street as far as Bolton Villa without being observed, and so be sure of a perfectly quiet evening. But as he thought so his heart gave a great bound, for there before him was Sophy herself hurrying along the uneven causeway, now lost behind some jutting building, and then seen once more, still hastening with quick, unsteady steps, as if bent on some pressing errand. He did not try to overtake her, though he could have done so easily. He felt that their first meeting must not be in the street, for the tears that smarted under his eyelids and dimmed his sight, and the quicker throbbing of his pulses, warned him that such a meeting would be no common incident in their lives. She had been his wife for nine years, and she was far dearer to him now than she had been when he married her. Eighteen months of their life together had been lost—a great price to pay for his restored health. But now a long, happy union lay before them.
He had not followed her for more than a minute or two when she suddenly turned and entered Ann Holland's little shop. Well, he could not take her by surprise better in any other house in Upton. Perhaps it might even be better than at Bolton Villa, amid its cumbrous surroundings; he always thought of his aunt's house with a sort of shudder. If Sophy had fortunately fixed upon this quiet house for paying the good old maid a kindly visit, there was not another place except their own home where he would rather receive her first greeting—that is if the drunken old saddler did not happen to be in. He paused to inquire from the journeyman, still at work in the shop; learning that Richard Holland was not at home, he passed impatiently to the kitchen beyond. Ann Holland was just closing the door of her little parlor, and David Chantrey approached her, hardly able to control the agitation he felt.
"I saw my wife step in here," he said, holding out his hand to her, but attempting to pass her and to open the door before which she still stood. She could not speak for a moment, but she kept her post firmly in opposition to him.
"My wife is here?" he asked, in a sharp impetuous tone.
"Yes; oh yes!" cried Ann Holland; "but wait a moment, Mr. Chantrey. Oh, wait a little while. Don't go in and see her yet."
"Why not?" he asked again, a sudden terror taking hold of him.
"Sit down a minute or two, sir," she answered. "Mrs. Chantrey's ill, just ailing a little. She is not prepared to meet you just yet. You were not expected before to-morrow, and she's excited; she hardly knows what she's saying or doing. You'd better not speak to her or see her till she's recovered herself a little."
"Poor Sophy!" cried David Chantrey, with a tremor in his voice; "did she see me coming, then? Go back to her, Miss Holland; she will want you. Is there nothing I can do for her? It has been a hard time for her, poor girl!"
Ann Holland went back into the parlor, and he smiled as he heard her take the precaution of turning the key in the lock. He threw himself into the three-cornered chair, and sat listening to the murmur of voices on the other side of the door. It seemed a very peaceful home. The quaintness and antiqueness of the homely kitchen chimed in with his present feeling; he wanted no display or grandeur. This was no common every-day world he was in; there was a strange flavor about every circumstance. Impatient as he was to see Sophy, and hold her once more in his arms, he could not but feel a sense of comfort and tranquillity mingling with his more unquiet happiness. There was a fire burning cheerily on the hearth, though it was a May evening. Coming from a warmer climate, he felt chilly, and he bent over the fire, stretching over it his long thin hands, which told plainly their story of mere scholarly work and of health never very vigorous, Smiling all the time, with the glow of the flame on his face, with its expression of tranquil gladness, as of one who had long been buffeted about, but had reached home at last, he sat listening till the voices ceased. A profound silence followed, which lasted some time, before Ann Holland returned to him saying softly, "She is asleep."
Ann Holland sat down on the other side of the hearth, opposite her rector; but she could not lift up her eyes to his face. There was no on in the world whom she loved so well. His forbearance and kindness toward her unfortunate brother, who was the plague and shame of her life, had completely won for him an affection that would have astonished him if he could have known its devotion. This moment would have been one of unalloyed delight to her had there been no trouble lurking for him, of which he was altogether unaware. So rejoiced she was at his return that it seemed as if no event in her monotonous life hitherto had been so happy; yet she was terrified at the very thought of his coming wretchedness. When Sophy had fled to her with the cry that her husband was come, and she dared not meet him as she was, she had seen in an instant that she must prevent it by some means or other. The hope that Mr. Chantrey's return would bring about a reformation in his wife had grown faint in her heart, for during the last few months the sin had taken deeper and deeper root; and now, the day only before she expected him, she had not had strength to resist the temptation to it. Sophy had been crying hysterically, and trembling at the thought of meeting him as she was; and she had made Ann promise to break to him gently the confession she would otherwise be compelled to make herself. Ann Holland sat opposite to him, with downcast eyes, and a face almost heart-broken by the shame and sorrow she foresaw for him.
"She is asleep," he said, repeating her words in a lowered voice, as if he was afraid of disturbing her.
"Yes," she answered.
"It is strange," he said, after a short pause; "strange she can sleep now. Has she been ill? Sophy always assured me she was quite well and strong. It is strange she can sleep when she knows I am here."
"She was very ill and low after you went, sir," she replied; "it was like as if her heart was broken, parting with you and Master Charlie both together. Dear, dear! it might have been better for her if you'd been poor folks, and she'd had to work hard for you both. She'd just nothing to do, and nobody to turn to for comfort, poor thing. Mrs. Bolton meant to be kind, and was kind in her way: but she fell into a low fever, and the doctors all ordered her as much wine and support as ever she could take."
"I never heard of it," said Mr. Chantrey; "they never told me."
"No; they were fearful of your coming back too soon," she went, on; "and, thank God, you are looking quite yourself again, sir. All Upton will be as glad as glad can be, and the old church'll be crammed again. Mr. Warden's done all a man could do; but everybody said he wasn't you and we longed for you back again, but not too soon—no, no, not too soon."
"But my wife," he said; "has she been ill all the time?"
For a minute or two she could not find words to answer his question. She knew that it could not be long before he learned the truth, if not from her or his wife, then from Mrs. Bolton or his friend Mr. Warden. It was too much the common talk of the neighborhood for him to escape hearing of it, even if she could hope that Mrs. Chantrey would have strength of mind enough to cast off the sin at once. Now was the time to break it to him gently, with quiet and friendly hints rather than with hard words. But how was she to do it? How could she best soften the sorrow and disgrace?
"Is my wife ill yet?" he demanded again, in a more agitated voice.
"Not ill now," she answered, "but she's not quite herself yet. You'll help her, sir. You'll know how to treat her kindly and softly, and bring her round again. There's a deal in being mild and patient with folks. You know my poor brother, as fierce as a tiger, and that obstinate, tortures would not move him; but he's like a lamb with you, Mr. Chantrey. I think sometimes if he could live in the same house with you, if he'd been your brother, poor fellow you'd save him; for he'll do anything for you, short of keeping away from drink. You'll bring Mrs. Chantrey round, I'm sure."
Mr. Chantrey smiled again, as the comparison between the drunken old saddler and his own fair, sweet young wife, flitted across his brain. Ann Holland, in her voluble flow of words, hit upon curious combinations. Still she had not removed his anxiety about his wife. "Was Sophy suffering from the effects of the low, nervous fever yet?
"Yes; I'll take care of my wife," he said, glancing toward the parlor door; "it has been a sore trial, this long separation of ours. But it's over now; and she is dearer to me than ever she was."
"Ay! love will do almost everything," she answered, sadly, "and I know you will never get tired or worn out, if it's for years and years. A thing like this doesn't come right all at once; but if it comes right at last, we have cause to be thankful. Mr. Warden has not had full patience; and Mrs. Bolton lost hers too soon. Neither of them knows it as I know it. You can't storm it away; and it's no use raving at it. Only love and patience can do it; and not that always. But we are bound to bear with them, poor things! even to death. We cannot measure God's patience with our measure."
Ann Holland's voice trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, which glistened in the firelight. She could not bear to speak more plainly to her rector, whom she loved and reverenced so greatly. She could not think of him as being brought down on a level with herself, the sister of a known drunkard. It seemed a horrible thing to her; this sorrow hanging over him, of which he was so utterly unconscious. Mr. Chantrey had fastened his eyes upon her as if he would read her inmost thoughts. His voice trembled a little too, when he spoke.
"What has this to do with my wife?" he asked, "for what reason have my aunt and Mr. Warden lost patience with her?"
"Oh! it's best for me to tell you, not them," she said, the tears streaming down her cheeks; "it will be very hard for you to hear, whoever says it. Everybody knows it; and it could never be kept from you. But you can save her, Mr. Chantrey, if anybody can. It's best for me to tell you at once. She was so ill, and low, and miserable; and the doctors kept on ordering her wine, and things like that; and it was the only thing that comforted her, and kept her up; and she got to depend upon it to save her from loneliness and wretchedness, and now she can't break herself of taking it—of taking too much."
"Oh! my God!" cried Mr. Chantrey. It was a cry from the very depths of his spirit, as by a sudden flash he saw the full meaning of Ann Holland's faltered words. Sophy had fled from him, conscious that she was in no fit state to meet him after their long separation. She was sleeping now the heavy sleep of excess. Was it possible that this was true? Could it be anything but a feverish dream that he was sitting there, and Ann Holland was telling him such an utterly incredible story? Sophy, his wife, the mother of his child!
But Ann Holland's tearful face, with its expression of profound grief and pity, was too real for her story to be a dream. He, David Chantrey, the rector of Upton, whom all men looked up to and esteemed, had a wife, who was whispered about among them all as a victim to a vile and degrading sin. A strong shock of revulsion ran through his veins, which had been thrilling with an unquiet happiness all the day. There was an inexplicable, mysterious misery in it. If he had come home to find her dead, he could have borne to look upon her lying in her coffin, knowing that life could never be bright again for him; but he would have held up his head among his fellow-men. It would have been no shame or degradation either for him or her to have laid her in the tranquil churchyard, beside their little child, where he could have seen her grave through his vestry window, and gone from it to his pulpit, facing his congregation, sorrowful but not disgraced. He was just coming back to his people with higher aims, and greater resolves, determined to fight more strenuously against every form of evil among them; and this was the first gigantic sin, which met him on his own threshold and his own hearth.
"She's so young," pleaded Ann Holland, frightened at the ashy hue that had spread over his face, "and she's been so lonesome. Then it was always easy to get it, when she felt low; for Mrs. Bolton's servants rule the house, and there's the best of everything in her cellars. James Brown says he could never refuse Mrs. Chantrey, she was so miserable, poor thing! But now you will take her home; and she'll have you, and Master Charlie. You'll save her, sir, sooner or later; never fear."
"Let me go and see her," he said, in a choking voice.
Ann Holland opened the door so carefully that the latch did not click or the hinges creak; and, shading the light with her hand, she stood beside him for a minute or two, as he looked down upon his sleeping wife. She did not dare to lift her eyes to his face; but she knew that all the light and glow of gladness had fled from it, and a gray look of terror had crept across it. He was a very different man from the one who had been seated on her hearth a short half-hour ago. He bade her leave him alone, and without a light, and she obeyed him, though reluctantly, and with an undefined fear of him in his wretchedness.
It seemed to Mr. Chantrey as if an age had passed over him. As persons who are drowning see in one brief moment all the course of their past lives, with its most trivial circumstances, so he seemed to have looked into his own future, stretching before him in gloom and darkness, and foreseen a thousand miserable results springing from this fatal source. She was his wife, dearer to him than any other object in the world; but after she had repented and reformed, as surely she would repent and reform, she could never be to him again what she had been. There Was a faint gleam of moonlight stealing into the familiar room, and he could just distinguish her form lying on the white-covered sofa. With an overwhelming sense of wretchedness and bewilderment he fell upon his knees beside her, and burying his face in his hands, cried again, "Oh! my God!"
How long he knelt there, Mr. Chantrey did not know. He felt cramped and stiff, for he did not stir from his first position; and he had uttered no other word of prayer. But at last Sophy moved and turned her head; and he lifted up his face at the sound. The moon was shining full into the room, and they could see one another, but not distinctly, as in daylight. She looked at him in dreamy silence for a few moments, and then she timidly stretched out her hand, and whispered, "David!"
"My wife!" he answered, laying his own cold hand upon hers.
For some few minutes neither of them spoke again. They gazed at one another as though some great gulf had opened between them, and neither of them could cross it. In the dim light they could only see the pallid, outline of each other's face, as though they had met in some strange, sad world. But presently he leaned over her, and kissed her.
"Oh!" she cried, with a sudden loudness that rang through the quiet room, "you know all! You know how wicked I am. But you don't know how lonely and wretched I have been. I tried to break myself of it I did try to keep from it; but it was always there on the table when I sat down to my meals with Aunt Bolton; and I could always find comfort in it. Oh! help me! Don't cast me off; don't hate me. Help me."
"I will help you," he answered, earnestly; but he could say no more. The mere sound of the words she spoke unnerved him.
"And I have made you miserable just as you are coming home!" she went on. "I never meant to do that. But I was so restless, looking forward to to-morrow; and aunt's maid advised me to take a little, for fear I should be quite ill when you came. I should have been all right to-morrow; and I was so resolved never to touch it again, after you had come home. You are come back quite strong, are you? There is no more fear for you? Oh! I will conquer myself; I must conquer myself. If it had not always been in my sight, and the doctors had not ordered it, I should never have been so wicked. Do you forgive me? Do you think God will forgive me?"
"Can you give it up?" he asked.
"Oh! I must, I will give it up," she sobbed; "but if I do, and if you forgive me, it can never be the same again. You will not think the same of me—and people have seen me—they all talk about it—and I shall always be ashamed before them. I am a disgrace to you; Aunt Bolton has said so again and again. Then there's Charlie; I'm not fit to be his mother. That is quite true. However long I live, people in Upton will remember it, and gossip about, it. If they had let me die it would have been better for us all. You could have loved me then."
"But I love you still," he answered, in a voice of tenderness and pity; "you are very dear to me. How can I ever cease to love you?"
Yet as he spoke a terrible thought flashed through his mind that his wife might some day become to him an object of unutterable disgust. An image of a besotted, drunken woman always in his house, and bearing his name, stood out for a moment sharply and distinctly before his imagination. He shuddered, and paused; but almost before she could notice it, he went on in low and solemn tones.
"Your sin does not separate you from me; you are my wife. I must help you and save you at whatever cost. Your soul is nearer to mine than any other; and what one human being can do for the soul of another, it is my lot to do. Do not be afraid of me, Sophy. You cannot estrange yourself from me; and yon cannot wear out the patience of God. He is ever waiting to receive back those who have wandered farthest from him. Can I refuse love and pity, when He freely gives them in full measure to you? Will Christ forsake you—He who saved Mary Magdalen? He will cast out this demon that has possession of you."
He was replying to some of the questions which had troubled him, while he was kneeling at her side, before she was awake. There was no separation possible of their lives. If she broke away from him, or if he sent her away from his home, they would still be bound together by ties that could never be broken. Whatever depth she sank to, she was his wife, and he must tread step by step with her the path that ran through all the future. But if any one could help her, and lead her back out of her present bondage, it was he; and he must not fail her in any extremity for lack of pity and tenderness.
He was about to speak again, when a loud, rough noise broke in upon the quiet of the house. It was nearly midnight; and Ann Holland's drunken brother was stumbling and staggering through his shop into the peaceful little kitchen, Sophy sat up and listened. They could hear his thick, coarse voice shouting out snatches of vulgar songs, mingled with oaths at his sister, who was doing her utmost to persuade him to go quietly to bed. His shambling step, dragging across the floor, seemed about to enter the darkened room where they were sitting; and Sophy caught her husband's arm, clinging to it with fright. It was a more bitter moment for Mr. Chantrey than even for her. The comparison thrust upon him was too terrible. His delicate, tender, beloved wife, and this coarse, brutal, degraded man! Was it possible that both were bound by the chains of the same sin?
But Ann Holland succeeded before long in getting her brother out of the way, and releasing them from their painful imprisonment. The streets of Upton were hushed in utter solitude and silence as they walked through them, speechless and heavy-hearted; those streets which, on the morrow, were to have been crowded with groups of his people, eager to welcome him home. They passed the church, lit up with the moonlight, clear enough to make every grave visible; a lovely light, in which all the dead seemed to be sleeping restfully. He sighed heavily as he passed by. Sophy was clinging to him, sobbing now and then; for her agitation had subsided into a weak dejection, which found no relief but in tears. Every step they trod along the too familiar road brought a fresh pang to him. For thousands of memories of happy days haunted him; and a thousand vague fears dogged him. He dared not open his heart either to the memories or the fears. Nothing was possible to him, except a silent, continuous cry to God for help.
"It is a melancholy coming home," Sophy murmured, as they stood together on the threshold of their aunt's house. He had not time to answer, for the door was opened quickly, and Mrs. Bolton hurried forward to welcome him. She had been expecting him for some time, for Ann Holland had sent word that both he and Mrs. Chantrey were at her house. One glance at his anxious and sorrowful face revealed to her the anguish of the last few hours. Sophy crept away guiltily up stairs; and she put her arm through his, and led him into the dining-room, where a luxurious supper was spread for him.
"You know all about it, then?" said Mrs. Bolton, as he threw himself into a chair by the fireside, looking utterly bowed down and wretched.
"Yes," he answered. "Oh! aunt, could you do nothing for her? Could you not prevent it? It is a miserable thing for a man to come back to."
"I have done all I could," she replied, hesitatingly. "I have been quite wretched about it myself; but what could I do? I told your friend Mr. Warden there was nothing in reason I would refuse to do; but his ideas were so impracticable they could not be carried out."
"What were they?" he asked.
"Positively that I should abstain altogether myself," she said; "and not only that, but I must refuse it to my guests, and have nothing of the kind in my house; not even those choice wines your uncle bought, Neither wine for myself nor ale for my servants! It was quite out of the question, you know. Mr. Warden was meddlesome to the very verge of impertinence about it, until I was compelled to give up inviting him to my house. He went so far as to doubt my being a Christian! And it was of no use telling him I followed our Lord's example more strictly by drinking wine than he did by abstaining from it. He used his influence with Sophy to persuade her to suggest the same thing, that I would keep it altogether out of her sight at all times; but she soon saw how impossible it was for a person of my station and responsibility to do such a thing. I told her it was putting total abstinence above religion."
"Did Sophy think that would save her?" asked Mr. Chantrey.
"She had a fancy it would," answered Mrs. Bolton, "but only because Mr. Warden put it into her head. She was quite reasonable about it, poor girl! I proved to her that our Lord did not do it, nor some of the best Christians that ever lived; and she was quite convinced. Even Ann Holland was troublesome about it, begging me to do all kinds of extraordinary things—to have Charlie here was one of them, as if that could cure her—but I soon made her understand her position and mine. I am sure nobody can be more anxious than I am to do what is right. I am afraid it is the development of an hereditary taste in your wife, David, and nothing will cure it; for I have made many inquiries about her family, and I hear several of her relations were given to excess; so you may depend upon it, it is hereditary and incurable."
There was little comfort for him in this speech, which was delivered in a satisfied and judicial tone. Sophy's sin had been present to Mrs. Bolton for so many months, and she had grown so accustomed to analyze it, and argue about it, that she could not enter into the sudden and direful shock the discovery had been to her nephew. An antagonism had risen in her mind about it, not only against Mr. Warden, but against some faint, suppressed reproaches of conscience, which made her secretly cleave to the idea that this vice was hereditary, and consequently incurable. She was afraid also of David reproaching her. But he did not. He was too crushed to reason yet about his wife's fall, or what measures might have been taken to prevent it. Long after his aunt had left him, and not a sound was to be heard in the house, he sat alone, scarcely thinking, but with one deep, poignant, bitter sense of anguish weighing upon his soul. Now and then he cried to God inarticulately; that dumb, incoherent cry of the stricken spirit to the only Saviour.
There was no doubt in Upton, when the people saw their rector again, that he knew full well the calamity that had befallen him. No one ventured to speak to him of it; but their very silence was a measure of the gravity of his trouble. His friend Warden told him more accurately than any one else could have done, how it had gradually come about, and what remonstrances he had made both to Mrs. Bolton and Sophy. Mr. Chantrey was impatient to get into his own house, where he could do what his aunt had refused to do, and where he could shield his wife from all temptation to yield to the craving for stimulants in any form. When they were at home once more, with their little son with them, filling up her time and thoughts, all would be well again.
But he did not know the force of the habit she had fallen into. At first there were a few gleams of hope and thankfulness during the pleasant days of summer, while it was a new thing for Sophy to have her husband and child with her. But he could not keep her altogether from temptation, while they visited constantly at Bolton Villa, and the houses of other friends. It was in vain that he abstained himself; that he made himself a fanatic on the question, as all his acquaintances said; Sophy could not go out without being exposed to temptation, and she was not strong enough to resist it. Before the next spring came, the people of Upton spoke of her as confirmed in her miserable failing. There was no one but herself who could now break off this fatal habit; and her will had grown wretchedly feeble. The sin domineered over her, and she felt herself a helpless slave to it. There had been no want of firmness or tenderness on the part of her husband; but it had taken too strong a hold upon her before he came to her aid. The intolerable sense of humiliation which she suffered only drove her to seek to forget it by sinking lower into the depth of her degradation and his.
A great change came over the rector of Upton. He went about among his parishioners, no longer gladly taking the leadership among them, and claiming the pre-eminence as his by right. It had been one of his most pleasant thoughts in former days that he was the rector of the parish, chosen of God, and appointed by men, to teach them truths good for himself and them, and to go before them, seeking out the path in which they should walk. But his own feet were now stumbling upon dark mountains. He was quickly losing his popularity among them; for whereas, while he was himself happy and honored, he had not seen clearly all the evils, and wrongs, and excesses of his parish, now he was growing, as they said, more fanatical and ascetic than Mr. Warden had been, who had won the name of a puritan among them. Why could he not leave the Upton Arms and the numerous smaller taverns alone, so long as the landladies and their daughters attended church, as they had been need to do? His presence at the dinner-parties of his friends was a check upon all hilarity; and by and by they ceased to invite him, and then, half ashamed to see his face, ceased to go to his church, where his sermons had not the smooth and flowery eloquence of former days.
Probably Mr. Chantrey knew better now what was good for his people; he had clearer views of the snares and dangers that beset them, and the sorrows that lie lurking on every man's path. He saw more distinctly what Christ came to do; and how he did it by complete self-abnegation, and by descending to the level of the lowest. But he had no delight in standing up in his pulpit in full face of his dwindling congregation. Language seemed poor to him; and it had grown difficult to him to put his burning thoughts into words. As the bitter experience of daily life seared his very soul, he found that no smooth, fit expressions of his self-communing rose to his lips. It pained him to face his people, and speak to them in old, trite forms of speech, while his heart was burning within him; and they knew it, as they sat quiet in their pews, looking up to him with inquisitive or indifferent eyes.
Mrs. Bolton could not escape her share of these troubles; though she never accused herself for a moment as having had any part in causing them. It was the archdeacon who had obtained the living of Upton for her favorite nephew; and she had settled there to be the patroness of every good thing in the parish. Mr. Chantrey's popularity had been a source of great satisfaction and self-applause to her. She had foreseen how useful he would be; what a shining light in this somewhat dark corner of the church. The increasing congregations, and the number of carriages at the church-door, had given her much pleasure. She had delighted in taking the lead, side by side with her nephew, and in being looked up to in Upton, as one who set an example in every good thing. But this unfortunate failing in her nephew's wife, developed under her roof and during his absence, had been a severe blow. No one directly blamed her for it, except the late curate, Mr. Warden, and a few extravagant, visionary persons, who deemed it best to abstain totally from the source of so much misery and poverty among their fellow-beings, and to take care, as far as in them lay, to place no stumbling-block in the way of feeble feet. But, strange to say, all the estimable people in Upton regarded her with less veneration since her niece had gone astray. Even Ann Holland was plainly less impressed and swayed by the idea of her goodness; and there were many others like Ann Holland. As for her nephew, he was gradually falling away from her in his trouble. He would seldom go to dine with her without Sophy; and he had urgent reasons to decline every invitation for her. Their conversations upon religious subjects, which had always tended to make her comfortably assured of her own state of grace, had quite ceased. David never talked to her now about his sermons, past or future. He was in the "wasteful wilderness" himself, and could not walk with her through trim alleys of the vineyards. Now and then there fell from him, as from his friend, unpractical notions of a Christian's duty; as if Christianity consisted more in acts of self-denial than in an accurate creed concerning fundamental doctrines. It was an uneasy time for Mrs. Bolton; and her chief consolation was found in a volume of sermons, published by the archdeacon, which made her feel sure that all must be right with the widow of such a dignitary.
It was May again; a soft, sunny day, with spring showers falling, or gathering in glistening clouds in the blue sky. The bells chimed for morning service, as the people came up to church from the old-fashioned streets. They greeted one another as they met in the churchyard, whispering that it had been a very bad week for poor Mr. Chantrey. Every one knew how uncontrollable his wife had been for some time past, except a few strangers, who still drove in from a distance. The congregation, some curiously, some wistfully, gazed earnestly at him, as with a worn and weary face, and with bowed-down head already streaked with gray, he took his place in the reading-desk. Ann Holland wiped away her tears stealthily, lest he should see she was weeping, and guess the reason. In the rectory pew the young, fair-haired boy sat alone, as he had often done of late; for his mother was to unfit to appear in church.
Mr. Chantrey read the service in a clear, steady voice, but with a tone of trouble in it which only a very dull ear could have missed. When he ascended his pulpit, and looked down with sad and sunken eyes upon his people, every face was lifted up to him attentively, as he gave out the text, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Mrs. Bolton moved uneasily in her pew, for she knew he was going to preach a disagreeable sermon. It was not as eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power. His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that not one of them could go to heaven alone; that there was no solitary path of salvation for any foot to tread. As long as any fell because of temptation, they were bound, as far as in them lay, to remove every kind of temptation. If each one was not careful to be his brother's keeper, then the voice of their brother's blood would cry unto God against them. There was scarcely a person present who could listen to their rector's sermon with feelings of self-satisfaction.
He left his pulpit at the close of it, troubled and exhausted. His little son followed him into the vestry to wait until the congregation, that loved to linger a little about the porch, should have dispersed. But hardly had he entered, than, looking out, as it was his wont to do, upon the grave of his other child, he saw a figure stretched across it, asleep. Could it possibly be his wife? Large drops of rain were beginning to fall upon her upturned face, but they did not rouse her from her heavy slumber; nor did the noise of many feet passing by along the churchyard path. It was a moment of unutterable shame and agony to him. His people saw her; they had heard of his trouble before, but now they saw it; and they were lingering to look at her. He must go out in the midst of them all, and they must see him take his miserable wife home.
Those who were there that day will never forget the sight. His people made way for him, as he passed among them, still in the gown he had worn while preaching, with a rigid and wan face, and eyes that seemed blind to every object except the unhappy woman he could not save. His little boy was pressing close behind him, but he bade him go back into the church, and wait until he came for him. Then he knelt down beside his wife in the falling rain, and lifted her gently, calling her by her name, "Sophy! Sophy!" But her heavy head fell back again upon the grave, and he was not strong enough to raise her from it. He burst into tears, a passion of tears; such as men only weep in hours of extreme anguish of mind. Slowly his people melted away, helpless to do anything for him; except two or three of his most familiar friends, who stayed to assist him in taking the wretched wife back to her home.
Ann Holland lingered unseen in the porch until all were out of sight. The child she loved so fondly was standing with the great door ajar, holding it with his small hand, and peeping out now and then. She called to him when all were gone, and he came out of the church gladly, yet with an air of concern on his round, rosy face.
"My mother is ill, very ill," he said, putting his hand into hers. "I saw her lying on baby's grave. Couldn't anything be done for her to make her well? Isn't there any doctor clever enough to cure her?"
"I don't know, dear," answered Ann Holland.
"My father never lets me go to see her when she's worst," he went on, "only Sarah goes into her room, and him. She talks and laughs often, and yet my father says she is ill. When I am a man I shall be a doctor, and learn how to make her well. But it will be a long time before I am clever enough for that, I'm afraid. My father says she's too ill for anybody to come to see us; isn't it a pity?"
"Yes, my dear," she answered.
"She can never hear me say my hymns now," he said; "and when she's not so ill that my father won't let me see her, she sits crying, crying ever so; and if I want to play with her, or read to her, she can't bear it, she says. I should think there ought to be somebody to cure her, if we could only find out. My father scarcely ever laughs now, because she's so ill; and when he plays with me he only looks sad, and he speaks in a quiet voice as if it would make her worse. Do try, Miss Holland, and ask everybody that comes to your house if they don't know of some very, very clever doctor for my mother."
"I will try," she said. "I'll do all I can. But you may run home now, Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you."
"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by, and remember, please."
She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days, for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags. How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been. These strange absences of his had at first been a severe trial to her; but of late years they had been a holiday time of rest, except for the continual anxiety she felt on his behalf. Her quaint and quiet kitchen, as she unlocked the door and entered it, seemed a haven of refuge, where she could indulge in the tears she had kept under control till now. The love she felt for Mr. Chantrey was so deep and true, that any sorrow of his must have grieved her. But she knew so well what this sorrow was! She knew through what long years it might last; and how hopeless it might grow before the end came. Looking back upon her own blighted life, she could foresee for him only a weary, miserable, ever-deepening wretchedness. The Sunday afternoon passed by slowly, and the evening came, The soft sunshine and spring showers of the morning were gone; and a sullen sweep of rain, driven by the east wind, was beating through the streets. A neighbor looked in to say she had seen the curate from the next parish pass through the town toward the church; and she thought Mr. Chantrey would very likely not be there. But Ann Holland had already decided not to go. At any moment she might hear her brother's shambling step draw near the door, and his fingers fumbling at the latch. She could not bear the neighbors to see him when he came off one of his vagabond tramps, dirty and ragged as he usually was. She must stay at home again for him; again, as she had done hundreds of times, mourning pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and without meaning beneath her eyes. Her mind was full of the thought of her unhappy brother, and Mr. Chantrey's miserable wife.
It was past her usual hour of going to bed before she made up the kitchen fire to be in readiness, lest her brother should knock her up at any hour during the night. At the last moment she opened the street-door, and stood listening for a little while, as she always did when he was not at home. The rain was still sweeping through the street, which was as silent as if the town had been deserted. The gas-lights in the lamps flickered with the wind, and lit up the pools and channels of water running down the pavements.
But just as she turned to go in, her quick ear caught the sound of distant footsteps, growing louder as they came in her direction. It was the tramp of several feet, marching slowly like those of persons bearing a heavy burden. She waited to see who and what it could be so late this Sunday night; and soon, under the flickering lamps, she caught sight of several men, carrying among them a hurdle, with a shapeless heap upon it. A sudden, vague panic seized her, and she hastily retreated inside her house, shutting and barring the door. She said to herself she did not wish to see what they were carrying past. But were they going past? She heard them still, tramping slowly on toward her house; would they pass by with their burden? She put down the light, for her hand trembled too much to hold it; and she stood listening, her ears quickened for every sound, and her white face turned toward the closed and fastened door.
A knock came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the driving rain, rested the hurdle, with the confused mass lying huddled together upon it. The men who bore it were silent, standing with their faces turned toward her; all of them strangers, except the one neighbor, who was on her threshold.
"They found him lying out in the fields near the Woodhouse farm," said her neighbor, in a loud whisper; "he'd strayed there, we reckon."
"Is he dead?" she asked, mechanically.
"Not dead, bless your heart! no!" was the answer; "we'll carry him in. There now! Don't take on. There's a special providence over folks like him; they never come to much harm, you know. Show us where to lay him."
Ann Holland made way for the men to pass her, as they carried their burden into the quiet, pleasant kitchen. She followed with the light, and looked down upon him; her brother, who had played with her, and learned the same lessons, when they were innocent little children together. His gray hair was matted, and his bloated face smeared with dust and damp. He was barefooted and bareheaded. But as she gazed down upon him, and listened to his heavy struggle for breath, she cried in a tone of terror. "He is dying."
An hour later the house was comparatively quiet again. A doctor had been, and said nothing could be done for Richard Holland, except to let him die where he was undisturbed. The men who had carried him home had dispersed, or had adjourned to the Upton Arms, to drink, and to talk over this close of a drunkard's life. The news had in some way reached the Rectory; and now only Mr. Chantrey and Ann Holland watched beside him. They had laid him, as he was, on the little white-covered sofa in the parlor, never so soiled before. Mr. Chantrey sat gazing at the degraded, dying man. No deeper debasement could come to any human being; almost the likeness of a human being had been lost. The mire and slough of the ditch into which he had fallen still clung to him; for only his face had been hastily washed clean by his sister's hand; a face that had forfeited all intelligence and seemliness; a coarse, squalid, disfigured face. Yet Ann was not repulsed by it; her tears fell upon it; and once she had bent over it, and kissed it gently. Now and then she put her mouth close to the deafened ear, and spoke to him, calling him by fond names, and imploring him to give some sign that he heard, and knew her. But there was no sign. The heavy breathing grew more thick and labored, yet feebler as the time passed slowly on. David Chantrey marvelled at the poor sister's patience and tenderness.
"Don't trouble to stay with me, sir," she said, at last, "I thought perhaps he'd come to himself, and you'd say a word to him. But there's no hope of that now."
"No," he answered, "I will not go, Ann," and his-voice trembled with dread. "Do you think my wife could ever be as bad as this?"
"God forbid!" she cried, earnestly. "God keep her from it! Oh! if she could but see; if she could but know! But he wasn't always like this. He was a kind, good-natured, clever man once. It's drinking that's ruined him."
"I will stay with you to the end," said Mr. Chantrey; "it is fit for me. You are teaching me a lesson of patience, Ann. All this day I have been thinking if it would be possible for me to give up my wife, and send her away from me, to end her days apart from mine. I have been in despair; in the very deeps. But now; why! even if I knew she would die thus, I cannot forsake her."
"Ay! we must have patience," she answered. "I always hoped to win him back again, but it was too strong for him and me. God knows how he's been tempted on all hands; even those that call themselves religious, and go to church regular as can be. He used to cry to me sometimes, and promise to turn over a new leaf; and then somebody perhaps that he looked up to would treat him at the Upton Arms. He might have been a good man, if he'd been left alone."
"Let us pray together for him and ourselves," said Mr. Chantrey, kneeling down once again by the little couch, as he had knelt the night of his return home. Ann still held her brother's head upon her arm, and her bowed face nearly rested upon it. But all words failed David Chantrey. "Father!" he cried, "Father!" There was nothing more that he could say. It was the single, despairing call of a soul that was full of trouble; that was "laid in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps." But the bewildered brain of the dying man caught the cry, and he muttered it over to himself; "Father! father! where is he?"
"It's God, our Father who art in heaven," said Ann Holland, uttering the words very slowly and distinctly in his ear; "try to think of Him, and pray to Him. He'll hear you, even now."
"Father!" he muttered again, "why! he'd be ashamed of his boy."
"It's God," she said, keeping down her sobs, "you've no other father. Think of Him: God, who loves you."
"He'd be ashamed of me," repeated the dying man.
For a minute or two he kept on whispering to himself words they could not hear, except the one word "shame." Then all was still. The miserable end had come; and neither love nor patience could avail him anything on this side the grave. He had gone as a drunkard into the presence of his Judge.
The death of Richard Holland might have had a salutary effect upon Sophy Chantrey, if it had not been for the shock of learning how deeply she had disgraced herself and her husband in the sight of his people. She felt that she could never again face those who had seen her on that Sunday morning. She shut herself up in her room, refusing to admit any one, except the servant who waited upon her, and steadily set herself against any communication with the world outside. Even her husband she would hardly speak to; and her child she would not see. The strain and stress of her remorse was more than she could bear. Before the week was gone, she had fled for forgetfulness to the vice which bound her in so heavy a chain. All the cunning of her nature, so strangely perverted, was put into action to procure a supply of the stimulants she craved; and she escaped from her misery for a little while by losing herself in suicidal lethargy and stupefaction.
Mr. Chantrey himself felt it to be impossible to meet the gaze of his usual congregation; he shrank even from walking through the streets of his own town, while his shame was fresh upon him. He exchanged duties with fellow-clergymen, and so evaded the immediate difficulty. But he knew that this could not go on for long. He could not conscientiously retain a position such as he held, if he had not the moral and mental strength necessary for the discharge of its obligations. Strength of all kinds seemed to fail him. His physical vitality was low; the health he had gained in Madeira had been too severely taxed since his return. He had fought bravely against the mental feebleness that was creeping gradually over him with a paralyzing languor; but he knew he could not bear the conflict much longer. Everything was telling against him. He would fain have proved to his people that a man can live out a noble, useful, Christ-like life, under crushing sorrows, and shame that was worse than sorrow. But it was not in him to do it. He found himself feeble and crippled, in the very thick of life's battle; and it appeared to him that his position as rector of the parish rendered his feebleness tenfold disastrous.
But this decay of power came slowly, though surely. By the close of his second winter in England he felt within himself that he must quit his country again, if he wished to live only a few years longer. There had been no bright sunny spot of gladness for him, no gleam of hope throughout the whole winter. He had been compelled to send his boy away again to school, to shield him from seeing the disgrace of his mother. His friends had almost ceased to come to his house, and he had no heart to go to theirs. It was only now and then that he accepted his aunt's invitations to dine alone with her.
"Aunt," he said one evening, when they two were alone together in her fantastic drawing-room, "I have resigned my living."
"Resigned your living!" she repeated, in utter amazement, "resigned Upton Rectory!"
She could hardly pronounce the words; and she gazed at him with an air of bewilderment which brought a smile to his careworn face.
"Yes," he answered, "life has grown intolerable to me here."
"And what do you mean to do?" she asked.
"I am going out to my friend Warden," he replied, "who has a charge in New Zealand; he promises me a curacy under him, if I can get nothing better. But I am sure of a charge of my own very soon."
"A curate to Warden! a curate in New Zealand!" ejaculated Mrs. Bolton. "David, are you mad?"
"Not mad, but in most sober sadness," he said. "Life is impossible to me here, and under my circumstances; and I wish to live a few years longer for Sophy's sake, and my boy's. New Zealand is the very place for me."
"But you can go away again for a year or two," said his aunt, "and come back when your health is restored. The bishop will give you permission readily. You must not give up your living because your health fails."
"The bishop has my resignation, and my reasons for it," answered Mr. Chantrey, "and ho has accepted it kindly and regretfully, he says; but he fully approves of it. All there is to be done now is to sell our household goods, and sail for a new home, in a new world."
"And Sophy?" gasped Mrs. Bolton; "what do you mean to do with her? Where shall you leave her?"
"She must come with me," he said; "I shall never leave her again. It will be a new chance for her: and with God's help she may yet conquer. Even if she cannot, it will be easier for me to bear my burden among strangers than here, where every one knows all about us. A missionary curate in New Zealand will be a very different personage from the rector of Upton."
He looked at his aunt with a smile, and an expression of hope, such as had not lit up his gray face for many a month. This new life opening before him, with all its social disadvantages, and many privations, would give his wife such an opportunity for recovery as the conventionalities of society at home could not furnish. Hope had visited him again, and he cherished it as a most welcome visitant.
"Good Heavens!" cried Mrs. Bolton, lost in astonishment, "David, you must not throw yourself away in this manner! I will see the bishop myself, and recall to his memory his old friendship for the archdeacon. He cannot have promised the living yet to any one. What would become of me, here in Upton, settled as I am, with a stranger in the rectory? Why did you not ask my advice before taking such a rash step?"
"Because I should not have followed your advice," he answered. "I settled the whole matter in my own mind before I broached it even to Warden. It is the only chance for us both. I am a broken, defeated man."
"Oh, my boy!" she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, "I cannot consent to your going away. You have always been my favorite nephew; and I could not endure to see a stranger in your place. It is all Sophy's fault. And why should you sacrifice your life, and Charlie's, for her? Let some place at a distance be found for her; no one will blame you, and you will not suffer so much from the disgrace, if you do not witness it. Only stay in Upton, and all I have shall be yours. It will be a happy place to you again, if you will only wait patiently for brighter days."
"No," he said, sorrowfully; "it has been a pleasant place to me, but it can never be so again. I must go for Sophy's sake. There is no hope for her here; there is hope for her among new scenes and fresh influences. I have spoken to her about it, and she is eager to go; she feels that there would be a chance for her. To turn away from my purpose now would be to doom her to her sin without hope of deliverance. It would be impossible for me to do that."
It was a terrible blow to Mrs. Bolton. She foresaw endless mortifications and heartburnings for herself in the presence, and under the rule, of a strange rector at Upton, over whom she would have no more authority or influence than any other parishioner. Besides, she was really fond of her nephew, and anxious to make his life smooth and agreeable to him. No one could be blind to the fact that his health was giving way again, and she thought with some apprehension of the life of hardship and poverty he was choosing. That he should throw away all that was desirable and advantageous for the sake of his wife, who was merely a trouble and dishonor to him, was an infatuation that she could not understand. He pointed out to her that he was also losing his influence over his people, and she maintained that even this was no reason why he should give up a suitable living and a pleasant rectory. At last, angry with him, and apprehensive for her future position in the parish, she refused to listen any longer to his representations, and spent the few weeks that intervened before their departure in a state of offended estrangement.