Oh! if belov'd ones from their hallow'd sphere,May witness warm affection's faithful tear,At this deep hour, they hear the mourner's sigh,And waft a blessing from their homes on high.
Oh! if belov'd ones from their hallow'd sphere,May witness warm affection's faithful tear,At this deep hour, they hear the mourner's sigh,And waft a blessing from their homes on high.
Oh! if belov'd ones from their hallow'd sphere,
May witness warm affection's faithful tear,
At this deep hour, they hear the mourner's sigh,
And waft a blessing from their homes on high.
At Florence, Clara Granville lingered and recovered, and lingered again, sleeping little, eating nothing, and patiently trying every remedy, though she herself was without hope of recovery, till at length, decorated in all the radiant coloring and bright beauty of consumption, she sank slowly but surely, evidently hastening to the grave, though still Mr. Granville, with the tenacity of affection, continued to hope, and still he told himself that she might, perhaps, yet be spared. Day after day he sat beside her couch, reading, conversing, and praying with her, while his brotherly attachment seemed to grow only the more engrossing and considerate the longer she needed his care; but it became evident to all around, that his cares and hopes on her account were drawing to a close, and that his sorrow must soon be without hope in a present world, though full of hope in a world to come.
Letters now reached Mr. Granville, announcing that his long-pending law-suit had been at length finally decided in his favor, giving him an income more than equal to his utmost desires; but letters far more deeply interesting to his feelings still were missing. Often and anxiously had he watched for a single line from Marion, yet so well had Sir Patrick arranged the measures which, as her guardian, he persuaded himself it might be allowable to take, in order to intercept her correspondence, that not a single letter ever escaped the vigilance of his emissaries; and Mr. Granville, though he still cherished, as his best earthly treasure, the belief of Marion's attachment, felt so painfully perplexed respecting her, and so grieved for Clara, that the almost unexpected change in his circumstances appeared scarcely worth a thought, while a dense curtain of sorrow seemed gathered around his spirits.
If the vital spark of his own existence had been about to expire, Richard could scarcely have felt more deeply than now, beside the dying bed of his young and lovely sister, who took his hand in her own one day, while a fixed expression of tenderness and grief appeared in her speaking eyes, and there was a melting softness in her voice, when she said:
"My only reluctance to die, is, dear Richard, because I must leave you! This is sorrow; but our sorrow shall hereafter be turned into joy. When patience has had her perfect work, you, like myself, have a sure and certain hope of a better world, and, unlike me, you have a hope also for this life, which contains the best blessing left to man upon earth. Yes, Richard, you will soon have a loved and trusted companion, suited in every respect to yourself; and with her, I trust, you may enjoy a long course of usefulness and of joy, after I am no more."
Mr. Granville kissed his sister's forehead with deep and solemn affection, while his cheek became pale and his lip quivered; but his heart was too full to reply, and Clara proceeded:
"We have saved ourselves much unnecessary anxiety by placing a firm and well-founded confidence in dear Marion. Let that remain unshaken, Richard, till you meet," said Clara, fixing her large, mournful eyes on him; and slowly closing them as she faintly added, "Tell Marion I died without a doubt of her constancy and truth. And now, there is but one wish remaining to me in life, Richard—only one——"
Clara hesitated, the hectic color deepened on her transparent cheek, her lip trembled, and she became silent, while Richard took her hand in his own, and listened with affectionate anxiety for what was to follow; but it came not. With a look of desolate grief Clara turned away her head and was silent, while Mr. Granville, using every term of affectionate endearment, entreated her not to let him suppose there was a wish of her heart unspoken, or a desire which he could grant unfulfilled. After a short struggle, during which he was alarmed by the greatness of her emotion, she seemed at length to have entirely conquered her feelings, and said in a perfectly calm, unimpassioned voice—
"A letter was conveyed to me last night—I know not how it came—from Sir Patrick. He has been some time in Florence; he sends every morning to inquire for me! I am told he even watches daily till the doctors come out, and asks how I am!"
"True, dear Clara, and I feel for him deeply."
"Richard!" added she, raising herself up with sudden energy, and clasping his arm, while her large, bright eyes became fixed on his, "I wish to see Sir Patrick once again! to have a last conversation with him on this side of the eternal world. There is a sacred power in the words of a dying friend, and I would summon the whole faculties of my being, to bid him a last and solemn farewell. He has always listened to me. If I have any influence, let me use it now. Think what a blessed consciousness I yet might carry to the grave, if our unhappy attachment were no longer a source of misery to both, but of real and eternal advantage. Let me make a final effort of life and of affection, to leave in his heart a thought of immortality. Such a hope might almost hold back my spirit from the gates of death! Dear Richard, I shall rise for half an hour to-morrow, and then let me see him!"
"It would destroy you, Clara! you are quite unfit for the effort; but give me a message. Say what you please; and, painful as it must be, I shall see Sir Patrick, personally. We can sympathise with each other now, as we never did before, and I shall deliver your very words. You are unfit now, Clara, for any agitation."
"Dear Richard! you never yet denied me anything! Do not now refuse my last—my very last request. Whatever be the faults of Sir Patrick, his attachment was disinterested and generous. I cannot die in peace without saying that I am grateful—without, at least, endeavoring to convince him, for his happiness now, as well as hereafter, how true it is, that 'he sins against this life who slights the next.'"
"It might be a work of usefulness and mercy," replied Mr. Granville, in a musing tone; "and if there be a pleasure in life you can yet enjoy, dear Clara, I am not the person who could withhold it."
"That I know. In this world which has so long been my home, Richard, I have never lived a moment without being the happier for your affection, and it will be so for ever. I am now counting the last grains of my sand-glass as they fall, and ready to go alone through the portals of the tomb. Every sorrow is about to be eternally forgotten, every blessing to be eternally enjoyed. Most of my feelings and affections are already transferred to another and a better world; while I ought, as a dying Christian, to be like an eagle soaring to the sky, and seeing nothing but the sun, yet, Richard, the hope of serving one whom I loved only too well still lingers round my heart, and will not be repulsed. Say then, Richard, that we may meet;—tell him that, standing on the very brink of eternity, I feel as if, even in another world, it would increase my felicity to know, if permitted to look back on earthly scenes, that I had not left him without hope or consolation."
"I do not believe, Clara, that the invisible world is very distant; but only that it is hid by the grossness of our mortal bodies; and I do believe, my dear sister, that we may both, perhaps, yet see the influence of your prayers and of your last words upon one whom I most sincerely pity," said Mr. Granville, observing the mild, full, melancholy eyes of his sister fixed upon him, while gradually, as he spoke, her countenance became irradiated with peace. "The ways of Providence are indeed wonderful! If Dunbar be willing to forget all that has ever been amiss between us both, I have forgotten it long ago. If he choose it, we shall become friends, till Marion makes us brothers."
"Oh that I could live to see that day, and then close my eyes in peace; but it must not be! In a few hours I shall have shed my last tear, endured my last sorrow, and conquered my last enemy. Who would not be willing, then, to change time for eternity, the sufferings of earth for the joys of heaven, misery for happiness, and a dying life for immortality!"
A lovelier morning never had smiled on the glad earth, than that on which Clara Granville received the visit of Sir Patrick alone. On a couch near the window, into which the sun poured a flood of light and warmth, propped up by cushions, Clara, with an unearthly brightness glittering in her eye, and burning on her cheek, looked more like a celestial spirit than a creature of earthly mould; but what passed between them, during the long interview which ensued, no one could tell. Clara's features, when it was about to close, betrayed no agitation, but continued almost motionless for some time, while the tone of her voice became slow and languid. Gradually her words appeared fainter; her voice grew nearly inaudible; the color which had tinged her cheek died away; and a death-like paleness succeeded. Not a groan was heaved, nor a feature disturbed; but scarcely had Sir Patrick time hastily to summon Mr. Granville, and to support her in his arms, before her countenance became rigid as marble, and her ethereal spirit had mysteriously fled from its mortal dwelling.
Loveliest of lovely things are they,On earth, that soonest pass away;The rose, that lives its little hour,Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.Ev'n love, long tried, and cherish'd long,Becomes more tender and more strong,At thought of that insatiate grave,From which its yearnings cannot save.
Loveliest of lovely things are they,On earth, that soonest pass away;The rose, that lives its little hour,Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth, that soonest pass away;
The rose, that lives its little hour,
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Ev'n love, long tried, and cherish'd long,Becomes more tender and more strong,At thought of that insatiate grave,From which its yearnings cannot save.
Ev'n love, long tried, and cherish'd long,
Becomes more tender and more strong,
At thought of that insatiate grave,
From which its yearnings cannot save.
Sir Patrick's grief and horror now became almost delirious, and he was tortured by a feeling of unutterable agony; yet still he seemed resolute to doubt the fatal truth, to hope against hope, to believe that by a miracle Clara might at length awaken from her seeming repose; but her hand grew cold within his own, and the glassy fixedness of her eye carried death to his heart. He felt and knew that all was over, yet he could not allow himself to credit the solemn event; till, at length, covering his face with his hands, he groaned aloud in all the anguish of a sorrow without hope or resignation.
Mr. Granville, forgetful, apparently, of his own grief, tried now to impart consolation from that rich fund of sublime peace and everlasting hope which belongs, at such an hour, to the Christian; for, though his own feelings were lacerated and torn with a sorrow that seemed as sudden as if he had never till now expected it, still there was a balm for his wounded spirit, which soothed the first anguish of his sufferings, and would at last, he knew, bring him daily more abundant consolation. No affliction seems to come so directly from the hand of God as the death of those who have been so truly loved; and in contemplating the wide gulf which now divided him from Clara, the manly spirit of Mr. Granville was overpowered with grief. This seemed a moment too awful for vehement sorrow. He had watched the last struggle of existence in one with whom every thought and emotion were hitherto shared, and now, while her beloved and well-known features remained the same, all intercourse and all sympathy between them had at once been closed; and, in the hours of solemn contemplation which followed, Richard felt more than ever a desire to learn what is seen and felt when the gloomy curtain of life is withdrawn, and the glories of eternity are first revealed; but, checking the speculations of a vain curiosity, he opened the pages of holy inspiration, there to find an inexhaustible fund of sublime and elevating comfort, convinced that, to have his affliction sanctified, was even better than to have it removed.
The sympathy established between Sir Patrick and Mr. Granville now brought them daily together, when the young Baronet learned, in such society, to venerate and admire that holy faith, which as yet he could neither feel nor comprehend; and every hour he became more conscious of its happy effects on the mind and heart of Richard Granville, who seemed always ready to forget every selfish thought, when the glory of God or the good of others claimed his most arduous and zealous devotion; and even his grief for Clara, deep and agonizing as it was, found a vent in the most implicit attention to all her wishes, and especially to her injunctions respecting the restoration of his friendly intercourse with Sir Patrick.
The darts of anguish fix not where the seatOf suff'ring hath been thoroughly fortifiedBy acquiescence in the will supreme,For time and for eternity.
The darts of anguish fix not where the seatOf suff'ring hath been thoroughly fortifiedBy acquiescence in the will supreme,For time and for eternity.
The darts of anguish fix not where the seat
Of suff'ring hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the will supreme,
For time and for eternity.
There is said to be a stage in sorrow, after which an addition can be borne with apathy; but this the heart of Marion seemed never likely to reach. It is a natural source of comfort, however, in mourning over the loss of those we love, to find that they are appreciated and lamented by others; and many kind letters of condolence on the death of Sir Arthur reached the young mourner, from old companions and young acquaintances. Some were written with overdone and inflated expressions of sorrow, as if the writer had lost a parent of her own; and if the occasion had been less heartbreaking to herself, Marion might almost have smiled at their tone of exaggerated grief. Others wrote studied compositions, so beautifully got up, and with such skilfully turned periods, that the writer must have felt certain of Marion's "Life and Correspondence" being hereafter collected and published; while others concluded with "Yours, in haste," as an evident apology for neither head nor heart being much enlisted on the occasion; but all were received with grateful interest, being more or less a proof of kind intentions, very soothing to the feelings of a solitary girl.
Each letter, as it came, caused her a palpitation of hope, followed by a pang of disappointment; for every morning she arose with a confident hope that now Richard Granville must certainly write, and every evening closed in with an added weight of discouragement and sorrow; for now indeed the roses of life seemed all to have faded, and the thorns only to remain.
As Shakspeare observes, "every one can master a grief but he that has it;" and among the many well-meaning but commonplace acquaintances who came to gossip over the sorrows of Marion, and to ascertain exactly how much Sir Arthur had left, there was not one to whom she could unveil her feelings. Each of her well-intentioned visitors said a few words in praise of Sir Arthur, enough to convince Marion that no one but herself could appreciate the hundredth part of his inestimable worth—a sentence or two then followed of pious reflection, obviously spoken with restraint, and picked up by rote from some volume of religious meditations, and the whole was generally concluded in a masterly manner, by repeating a few texts of Scripture, strung together from a concordance.
There is a solemn dignity in real grief, beside which all commonplace or trifling consolations fall powerless and cold; but strangers in return for their contributions of sympathy and comfort, evidently expected from Marion an ostentatious display of affection, and were often not a little disappointed, at the pale, still, concentrated calmness of the lonely girl, who, subdued beneath the weight of her recent sorrow, received visitors only when she felt able to do so with composure, speaking to them with gentle, melancholy kindness, and evidently endeavoring to derive all the comfort she could from their society; yet often in the solitude which followed, did she feel inclined to agree with an author, who remarks, that "la pitie n'est pas le plus due a celui qui pleure dans la solitude."
Marion seemed to live in a dream, yet she gazed on the daylight and the people moving about on their errands of pleasure or business, till she felt that the whole was a sad reality. The common, every day routine of life seemed strange and unnatural, amidst the agony of her first sorrow, when the tomb had so recently closed over her earliest friend. She felt as if nature herself should have suspended her ordinary course, and as if the melancholy awe so impressed upon her own heart should extend to everything animate or inanimate around—as if the very sun itself should scarcely rise and shine as heretofore; and nothing appeared to Marion so strange, as that sameness visible in the outward world, contrasted with the mighty revolution in all her own inward feelings. Marion tried to take a lesson in cheerful resignation, from thinking sometimes of the many created by the same Almighty Father, and yet suffering far more than she had ever done; and her eye fell one day on a blind beggar, seated near her window, shivering with cold, emaciated with hunger, solitary and deserted, shut out from the light of day, friendless, homeless, and desolate, with none to sympathize in his sorrows, or to cheer him by their affection. "Yet," thought Marion, "that miserable being finds an object to live for, and would not perhaps willingly die! God gives something to all his creatures; and who makes me to differ from the most wretched. But bodily wants are not the real sorrows of life! O no! The mind, when relieved from such abject cares, has more leisure to grieve over withered hopes and blighted affections; yet all trials, if rightly received, are but blessings in disguise. It is well if, by tasting such sorrows as mine—and they are many—I am taught to avoid the far greater and more permanent evils of futurity. In this world, we are suspended over the abyss of eternity, by a thread which grows more feeble every hour; and all events should be welcome which are ordained by infinite wisdom, to prepare me for that hour when my place on earth shall be vacant, and my place in eternity—in a ceaseless eternity, shall be filled."
Time has wings, even when they move most heavily, and as day after day passed slowly onwards, Marion felt more and more astonished to hear nothing of Agnes, who had written but once, a very few days after her departure from home, in gay and almost triumphant spirits, boasting of the excessive attention she met with from all the party, of the splendor in which they travelled, of the admiration she had herself excited, and of several magnificent presents she had received from Lord Doncaster. In a postscript to this letter, she expressed a careless, patronizing hope, that poor, dear Sir Arthur was now convalescent; and as for anything but a recovery, she seemed no more to doubt it than if death had been altogether abolished. To Marion's surprise, when looking at the signature of Agnes, a broad line had been drawn through the name of Dunbar, and the whole was surrounded by a fantastic wreath of flourishes, exactly imitating the very peculiar way in which Lord Doncaster was accustomed usually to encircle his own autograph; and much she marvelled what this uncommon device was intended to indicate, though she secretly dreaded to hear the interpretation of it, which her fears had at first suggested.
As the mind and heart become more matured in this world, they too often become, from sad experience, more apprehensive of evil, and more suspicious of earthly friendships; but it was otherwise with Marion in respect to Richard Granville; though a dark curtain had fallen suddenly between them, all intercourse was most unaccountably suspended, and the very thought of his attachment, once a pleasure without alloy, was now accompanied by a heavy, leaden depression and anxiety. She told herself a thousand times over that all would hereafter be explained, and yet her heart seemed turning to stone, while day after day dawned and closed without a line to give her comfort or to reassure her heart.
In this state of wearing suspense a visiting card was brought to Marion one morning of Captain De Crespigny's, accompanied by a letter which he had brought from Sir Patrick, strongly urging on her, in almost arbitrary terms, his earnest desire that she should reconsider her decision against her friend, and no longer wasting her affections on a penniless curate, who had proved himself undeserving of her,—bestow them where they would be so much better appreciated, and where they would exalt her to so distinguished a situation. Marion was astonished to think how Sir Patrick could know that she had any cause of dissatisfaction against Mr. Granville, whom she had never even named of late; but resolute if possible to avoid meeting Captain De Crespigny, she was denied again and again when he called, though to her surprise he persevered in almost daily inquiring for her, and numbered his visiting cards conspicuously on the corner till they amounted at last to more than a dozen.
Marion was sitting alone one evening, beside her solitary hearth, and to a spectator she would have seemed of more than earthly beauty, though the cold tear stood unheeded on her cheek, while her memory had become haunted by the ghost of departed happiness. She thought of her deceased uncle in his silent grave, yet it seemed as if still she could trace his step and hear his voice by her side. All was still as death, her soul seemed wandering in a mysterious existence, amidst the solitary and deserted world, and hope itself grew dim within her breast. The flood-gates of memory were now unclosed, pouring into her heart and spirit a ceaseless stream of old recollections, old scenes, and recent sorrows; while the bright mirror of joy which had once shone in radiant splendor before her eyes seemed now broken to shivers. No one seemed destined hereafter to know the deep mine of thoughts and affections which lay unspoken in her breast. She felt as if the summer might shine in its brightness, the spring might be gay with the blossoms of hope, but that her spring and summer would return in this world no more, yet she believed and knew that it was better to witness the death of every dear affection, and the burial of every promising expectation, if, when thus blighted and withered upon earth, they became rooted and strengthened for eternity.
"What empty shadows glimmer nigh!They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love!Oh! die to thought, to mem'ry die,Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!"
"What empty shadows glimmer nigh!They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love!Oh! die to thought, to mem'ry die,Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!"
"What empty shadows glimmer nigh!
They once were Friendship, Truth, and Love!
Oh! die to thought, to mem'ry die,
Since lifeless to my heart ye prove!"
Martin had brought in the tea-tray, and Marion scarcely noticed his entrance or departure while mournfully gazing on the dim embers expiring in the grate, when her attention became suddenly attracted by hearing a carriage draw up close to the door, and her pale cheek grew paler, when a moment afterwards her sister hurried into the room, and with a strange, wild, hysterical smile, clasped her arms around Marion, and locked her in a long embrace. Marion thought no grief too great for the loss they had both sustained, and yet she became startled to perceive that Agnes was actually shivering with agitation; that her eyes were blood-shot, her hair dishevelled, her whole form shrunk and altered, while her lips quivered for a moment as if she would have spoken but could not articulate; and a look of unutterable anguish swept across her pallid countenance. At length, burying her face on Marion's shoulder, she exclaimed, in a voice of thrilling agony,
"I knew you would welcome me! I knew it, Marion! Cold and heartless as I have been, you will not reproach me. You deserve a better sister."
"I could love none other so well," replied Marion, alarmed and shocked at the unexpected excess of Agnes' grief. "We are all the world to each other now, Agnes!"
"Yes! yes! Who ever dreamed it could come to this! You alone will pity me, Marion! Here at least I shall find a refuge till I find one in the grave! Do not look so alarmed, Marion! If I had brought disgrace to this house, I never would have entered it again; but I have been duped, made miserable, and, worse than all, ridiculous! The whole world will laugh, and well they may; but in the living death I have brought upon myself, still one friend remains who will never reproach me for my folly. Dear kind Sir Arthur, too, if he had lived! Alas! Marion, I know his value now; but I know it too late! To obtain his forgiveness, I could follow him to the very grave."
Marion gasped for breath, and tried to suppress her emotion, that she might compose the mind of Agnes, whose voice had become hollow, her eyes were brightened by fever, and there was a frantic energy in her tone and manner so tearfully agitating, that Marion entreated her to postpone all farther discussion till she was better able to bear it; but Agnes continued to pour forth her words like a gushing torrent.
"I shall be better when all is told! Hear me out now, Marion! Believe me it is better! You remember Dixon!—that wretched woman who attempted once to destroy me. She stole into my room at Mrs. O'Donoghoe's some weeks ago. Imagine my horror and affright when she entered! Dixon related to me her own history—seduced, ruined, and forsaken by Captain De Crespigny. She fancied at first that he had deserted her for me; but she has since discovered, as I have done, Marion, that he is attached only to you!"
"It matters little, Agnes, who Captain De Crespigny fancies for a passing hour, provided it be one whose happiness cannot be injured by his caprice."
"Dixon added," continued Agnes, with a gasping sob of angry emotion, "that Lord Doncaster had been equally deceived into believing that his nephew liked me—that I was the only obstacle to his marrying the heiress, Miss Howard; and his whole attentions at Harrowgate were paid to expose my self-interestedness,—he had carried it on as a farce to amuse an idle hour. The plot had amused him; and, after a time, he became flattered by the consciousness that a girl, young, beautiful, and admired, as I was, could be induced to accept him; but Mrs. O'Donoghoe is now actually his mistress! Spare me, Marion, the recapitulation of all that passed: it is too humbling, too dreadful. She told me that Captain De Crespigny, the only man I ever loved, had spoken of me to his uncle—as—as I deserved, with scorn, derision, and censure! She repeated the whole scene, and I then saw myself as I am in the sight of others—seared in heart, degraded, contemptible, wretched! and oh! how ungrateful to those who were, indeed, my friends!"
Marion saw that Agnes, when she spoke, gazed at the portrait of Sir Arthur; and tears sprang into the eyes of both, as they looked upon that silent memorial of past worth and affection.
"My reputation must be irreparably injured in the world's eye by such association!" continued Agnes, rapidly. "All is agony and horror! While Dixon yet spoke, I hated myself and everything around. Shame and mortification overpowered me! All became shadowy, confused, and wavering in my thoughts. That night I was seized with fever and delirium. A sick-nurse was placed to attend on me; and I am thankful to find that Mrs. O'Donoghoe, with her party, instantly left the house. I am ashamed to think what folly my ravings must have disclosed! The worst horror of fever is, that it betrays all to others! I hovered on the very brink of the grave! Oh! that I had been as fully prepared to enter another world as I was to leave this! How happy are those whose trials and mortifications are buried in the silent grave, and whose pulse is no longer like mine—the knell of a living death! Life is, indeed, an awful gift, with its deceitful hopes and consuming sorrows!"
"Yes, if we will not be satisfied with the happiness provided for us by God himself; if we will persist in laying out a plan of life for ourselves, and in being wretched when the infinite wisdom of our Creator sees fit to alter it. Even now, Agnes, you may, if you choose, have peace and cheerfulness. How much better it is, to lose all your lovers, than to marry a bad husband! Let us live for each other; let us improve our minds; let us console the many who are worse off than ourselves; let us encourage one another in all the difficulties of life; and, whatever is wanting to us now, we can look the more thankfully forward to those regions of eternal joy, for which our sorrows here are all sent on purpose to prepare us. Dear Agnes, for my sake you must not despond."
"I ought not, Marion, while you are my sister! I hate the world and every thing in it, but who would not love you," replied Agnes, in a voice of dark and stormy grief, while no tear was on her cheek. "My heart seems dry as summer dust! My body is a dreary sepulchre to my mind, all dark, cold, and desolate. There is nothing in life worth living for!"
Though little of Agnes' depression was really caused by Sir Arthur's death, yet her grief became now as deep as crape and bombazine could make it. She had not the generosity to struggle against her mortified feelings, or to spare those of Marion, but from day to day her wayward mind seemed to cherish the chagrin which inch by inch consumed her. No gentle self-renunciation appeared in her sorrow, but she seemed to fancy that in all the world there was no tear except of her shedding,—no sigh but of her breathing,—and she forgot to observe how Marion had banished all her own anxieties and cares while listening to the egotism of grief in another, thus bearing the whole burden of both. Agnes gradually delivered herself up to a state of peevish, listless, apathetic despondency. If she attempted to read, her eyes looked only on a wilderness of words without meaning; she had no taste for work, not a correspondent in the world, and never had cared for a newspaper; therefore unable to fix her attention on any employment, she proceeded with sullen, mechanical indifference, through the ordinary routine of life, without energy and without interest.
Agnes' mind was like a crushed butterfly, disfigured and valueless; all its buoyant hopes and fantastic flights for ever at an end. She knew not that sunshine of the heart, often divinely given amidst the darkest hours of life, when inward peace, amidst external sorrow, might be compared to a cheerful, quiet room, while a torrent and tempest are raging unheeded around. Agnes mistakenly believed that the only possible aggravation to her melancholy would arise, if her thoughts were turned to religion, since hitherto she had seen in it nothing but the gloomy terrors of futurity. She never had cultivated any taste for reading that infallible balm to the depressed, and least of all would she have thought of appealing to the Holy Scriptures for relief from the cankering irritation of her proud but broken spirit, and nothing had ever annoyed her more, than when Marion, one day, from the fulness of her own heart, observed with soothing gentleness, that they should be too grateful for the blessings bestowed, to repine for those which were withheld, especially as affliction was generally the surest way to amend the heart.
"Yes! but in mending you may break it," replied Agnes, discontentedly. "My existence here is a living death, with nothing to care for, nothing to hope for, nothing to do, meditating continually on my feelings, hating life, and yet dreading death."
"But," replied Marion, laying her hand on the Bible, "here, Agnes, I find enough to care for, enough to hope for, and more than enough to do. No mortal being has all his wishes granted, and why should we expect to be an exception? The world and its affections have deprived us of peace, and this is the only guiding-star which can lead us to find it again. If we were to study a portion of this volume together every day——"
"Marion! I am surely melancholy enough already, without becoming methodistical!" interrupted Agnes, impatiently. "I wept when I was born; and every day since shews me I had cause to do so! If I ever do get up my spirits again, I may perhaps read the Bible more carefully, but, not while I feel so low and depressed."
"You remind me, Agnes, of Lady Towercliffe saying last year, that she felt much too ill to see a doctor, but would send for one if she became better. We find ourselves lonely and benighted now; but here is a bright path of glory pointed out, and strength offered us to pursue it."
"Well, Marion! if you must soar to the clouds, pray leave me to grovel on the earth!" replied Agnes, peevishly. "You are so fond of reading now, that, like Petrarch, your head will be pillowed on a book when you die; but can you not talk of something more cheerful to me? Those mournful subjects are fit only for a deathbed, or a tract. When people talk to me of religion, I always feel like the felons at Newgate in the condemned pew, with their coffins gaping at their elbow! What makes you always talk so dismally about resignation now, Marion?"
"My own sorrows and your's, Agnes. We both need comfort, and neither of us can find any, except in religion. 'God gives what bankrupt nature never can.' The effect of time would be only to benumb our hearts; but faith could restore them to cheerfulness."
"You might as well plant flowers on a tomb-stone, as attempt to enliven me, Marion! It is a hopeless endeavor! No! the wing of hope is broken within me for ever and ever. It is the misfortune of having too much feeling! Life seems to me a cold and bitter blast, with all its events, like snow-flakes, driving in my face. I have been brought into it without my consent, and shall be torn from it against my will, while
Dream after dream ensues;And still I dream that I shall still succeed,And still am disappointed."
Dream after dream ensues;And still I dream that I shall still succeed,And still am disappointed."
Dream after dream ensues;
And still I dream that I shall still succeed,
And still am disappointed."
"Yet, Agnes, there is not probably a single living being with whom you would change places!"
"Yes! hundreds! thousands!"
"Indeed! Would you take the looks, habits, tastes, age, health, and conversation, of any other person who could be named, instead of your own?"
"No! not exactly! Probably no person living would agree to such an exchange, and least of all one who has in some respects such ample reason to be satisfied," replied Agnes, with a complacent glance at the mirror, which was not, however, so satisfactory as in former days; for her eye had lost much of its lustre, the bloom had faded from her cheek, and her very features looked crushed and contracted by the gnawing effect of mortification. "I should like to have the fortune of Caroline Howard, the rank of Charlotte Malcolm——"
"But Agnes! you are not entitled to expect such a pic-nic of happiness, 'made of ev'ry creature's best.' No; the more we look into life, the more we shall see how equally distributed are its enjoyments—satiety to the rich, contentment to the poor, and compensation of one kind or other to all, for their various privations; but one only gift of God makes life a blessing or a curse, according as it is given or withheld; and it is only in proportion as we have the gifts of Divine grace showered upon us, that we can measure our own happiness, or that of any other mortal being."
Agnes's ill-humor was growing rapidly into misanthropy, and her sorrow seemed never likely to be of that kind which "forgets to weep, and learns to pray;" but Marion's more happily gifted mind clung to every natural source of enjoyment which offered itself, being resolute, even when she was not happy, for the sake of Agnes, to appear so. Marion's sorrows taught her to feel tenfold for others; but the sympathies of Agnes were concentrated entirely on herself.
There is not merely piety, but good humor also, in being happy; and much ill-humor is invariably associated with that grief which refuses to be consoled. Agnes had strewed her own path with thorns, and would not be comforted; her heart had now the frozen coldness of an ice-bound stream, on which the breeze might play, or the sun might shine, while it still continued cold and cheerless as before; but Marion, resisting all the selfish supineness of sorrow, found out many around to whom her time could be made useful. With no schemes of worldly ambition, she felt that there must be, in every heart, some object to live for; and in her solitary walks, the very trees and flowers became her companions, while the brightness of nature's coloring, the hum of bees, the chirping of birds, the ripple of a pebbly stream, or the daisy she picked on the grass, reminded her that there are simple pleasures she was born to enjoy, and of which she had formerly been deprived during the long years when her best feelings had been heartlessly wasted in the tumult of education at Mrs. Penfold's. On first beholding any sign of human life and enjoyment, it seemed to Marion strange and unnatural. The joyous laugh of children at play in the fields grated harshly on her ear; but before long, she pleased herself with listening to the milk-girls gaily singing as they passed along the road, and was ready to feel for that most desolate of all beings, the blind fiddler, playing his melancholy tune on a rainy night. Religion was to Marion now like the sun behind a fog. She knew that it would before long warm, cheer, and revive her; yet for a time it seemed shorn of its brighter beams, and, in the words of a Christian poet, she was ready to say,
"Give what Thou can'st, without Thee I am poor,And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away."
"Give what Thou can'st, without Thee I am poor,And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away."
"Give what Thou can'st, without Thee I am poor,
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away."
The emotion which Agnes felt on first returning home, had been only like the last quiver of molten lead before it becomes cold and hard for ever. She now grew daily more peevish and discontented, and, far from affording any relief to Marion only aggravated her distress; for if there were any subject more disagreeable than another to be harped upon, she fastened on it with ceaseless irritability, continually prophesying evil, and recollecting injuries. She took the most teazing view of all subjects, attributed the worst motives to everybody's conduct, and spoke with incessant and bitter invectives against all those by whom she thought herself ill-treated. Far from forgiving injuries, she seemed never, even for a moment, to forget them, while the effect of her tedious vituperation was like that of a file upon velvet, to the gentle Marion, who tried often to give a more Christian, as well as a more cheerful turn, to theirtete-a-teteconversation.
It was singular that Agnes still evidently found a mysterious pleasure in exercising to the utmost her powers of torturing; and in nothing did she so deeply wound the feelings of Marion, as by constantly comparing the conduct of Richard Granville to that of Captain De Crespigny, speaking coldly of both, as being selfish, hypocritical, and deceitful. Marion's whole heart shrank from allowing any resemblance, while once or twice she spoke warmly and eloquently in defence of her absent lover; but finding that this only lifted the veil which concealed her own inmost feelings, and exposed them to one who made no generous use of her confidence, she at length passively allowed Agnes to follow the bent of her humor, and kept their discussions as much as possible on indifferent topics, taking always as cheerful and contented a view as she could of life.
"You know, Agnes," observed Marion one day, in answer to some peevish lamentations of her sister's, "we might as well attempt to carry the ocean in an oyster-shell, as to satisfy our immortal souls with anything in this life. Christians must not let their imaginations run wild after every fancy, but put on the strait-waistcoat of reason and religion, to curb their inclinations. We should not only expect, but desire the correction which is necessary, as much for us as for others. You cannot expect all our years to be summers!"
"No!" replied Agnes, discontentedly; "but they need not all be winters! You seem to think we are like the Indian savages, who must carry a weight on their heads to make them upright."
"Yes, Agnes, I do!" added Marion, gently. "It often occurs to my mind what a character mine must naturally have been, which has required so much discipline to correct it; for every sorrow or anxiety I feel is absolutely necessary for my good, I know, or it would not be sent. Though the blossoms of hope lie withered at our feet, however, let us reap the fruit hereafter, and who could wish to be fed with the promises of spring, rather than with the fulfilment of autumn?"
During the deepest midnight, the unseen light is still incessantly approaching, though man remains insensible of its progress till the glorious dawn of morning; and thus the march of coming events hurries daily on unnoticed and unknown. Never before had it appeared, to the impatient mind of Agnes, that the sands of her hour-glass fell so slowly and silently. In her heart there was scarcely sufficient depth of soil for grief to strike a very permanent root, as her superficial feelings were calculated only to produce a mushroom crop of petty discontents and selfish grievances. Sharp and acute as the pang of her disappointed vanity had been, it seemed destined not to be very lasting, as Marion, on returning one day from a long walk, almost smiled to find Lady Towercliffe seated in their small parlour, and diligently pouring a torrent of lively gossip into the ears of Agnes, who felt little disposed at first to become interested in all the ill-assorted marriages people might choose to make, or to care who had died, or were likely to be born: but gradually her mind had been opened to the consideration of whether Miss Brown were a suitable match for Mr. Grey—whether £500 a year might possibly be enough to maintain Captain Jackson of the 10th and Lady Maria Meredith, whose individual expenditure on dress amounted to £400 per annum each, and whether it would be best for Lieutenant Stanley and Miss Maynard to marry and settle in Australia, or to continue single and remain at home.
Agnes had no possible chance of seeing the parties, or of influencing their decision. She would probably never hear more of them, nor had she been previously aware of their existence, yet the magic of Lady Towercliffe's eloquence gradually led her on to argue the merits of each case, as if she had been the arbiter of their fate, till at length, being insensibly roused from her stupor of melancholy indulgence, the visit was concluded by Agnes joyfully consenting to dine at Lady Towercliffe's next day, to meet a party of friends.
After having feared that her sister never would smile again, Marion now, with glad surprise, heard Agnes once more actually laugh, and she could not but wonder that Lady Towercliffe, by putting her through a course of gossip, and administering to a "mind diseased" a strong mixture of love affairs, quarrels, sicknesses, and bankruptcies, had acted on the spirits of Agnes as a counter-irritation, so that, in the contemplation of other people's miseries, she attained a spurious resignation beneath her own. As sorrow is the rust of the soul, everything that traverses the surface, has a tendency to scour it away, and the scattered links of Agnes' happiness seemed brightening now again, as if they might at last be reunited into as glittering a chain as before, while her cheek resumed its wonted hue and her tongue its wonted volubility. After the first great affliction of life, it is said that the sufferer never is again the same, "that the heart can know no second spring;" but now there seemed every probability that, though the drooping pinions of her ambition had been lowered, Agnes might soon put a patch on her worn-out spirits, and be only too much restored to her former self. When the carriage next day arrived, which was to convey her to Lady Towercliffe's, Marion, ever ready to enjoy any happiness reflected from the eyes of others, bid her good night with a sensation of real pleasure at this unexpected revival.
There are strange coincidences in every day life, and the small dinner party at Lady Towercliffe's accidentally contained the two last persons on earth who would have wished to meet. When Lord Towercliffe received Agnes with friendly cordiality at the door, he had not yet relinquished her hand before he suddenly felt his own grasped with a convulsive start, and when he hastily looked up, the countenance of his newly arrived guest had grown pale as that of a spectre, her eyes were closed, and he felt her hand become as cold and heavy as lead. Too well-bred to notice her strange emotion, which there was an evident effort to conceal, he naturally ascribed it to the remembrance of recent family affliction, when now, for the first time, entering society again, and he silently led Agnes to a seat beside Lady Charlotte Malcolm and Miss Howard Smytheson.
Agnes did not once look round the room, but she heard the low, deep tones of a voice with which she had too long been familiar, though now it must for ever be to her the voice of a stranger. Captain De Crespigny had been, some time previously, dividing his fascinations between the only two young ladies in the room, and he continued still, with the same light laugh as before, to exhibit his rare gift of conversational humor and vivacity, after giving a slight bow to Agnes, which she did not even see. A mist was before her sight—a ringing in her ears—her very heart seemed benumbed—and her only desire being to avoid notice, while her parched lips refused to articulate, she silently fixed her large eyes on Lady Caroline Malcolm, assuming an aspect of attention, and inwardly thankful that there was something in the room at which she could look, while circumstances had thus so painfully and so very unexpectedly "awoke the nerve where agony was born."
The world, usually one great "School for Scandal," had not yet circulated the story of Captain De Crespigny's inconstancy, and Agnes' disappointment; therefore, dreading above all things the contemptuous pity bestowed on a case like hers, she now exerted herself, from the fear of ridicule more than even of censure. The strongest emotions of existence are concealed in the great drama of life; and though Agnes felt herself grow blind when dinner was announced, yet she afterwards retained a confused recollection of having walked down stairs, leaning on the arm of an officer whom she had never seen before, discussing the hue of a ribbon, or the probability of a war, while her whole heart, mind, and spirit, were torn with contending emotions.
Strange is the ignorance in which people may live respecting the real thoughts and feelings of those with whom they are at the moment in actual contact! Agnes possessed an energy and pride of spirit which supported her now, while with flushed cheeks, and eyes brightened by agitation, her volubility became like a delirium. What she said to the stranger might be sense or nonsense, she neither cared nor knew, while her own laugh sounded unnatural in her ears; but still her companion listened and smiled, looking even more admiration than he felt, and while Agnes rattled on with apparent recklessness, he was inwardly conjecturing whether this could possibly be the beautiful Miss Dunbar who had endeavord to "entrap" his brother officer De Crespigny, artfully attempting what she had not been artful enough to achieve.
When the endless dinner was ended at last, and the ladies rose to withdraw, Agnes could willingly have fled from the house for solitude; but Lady Towercliffe, to beguile the interval, importunately begged for music, and persecuted her to sing. It was weeks since Agnes had attempted a note, but, anxious to avoid notice, she tried to remember the songs best known to her. Each as it rose to memory, seemed filled with remembrances in which she dared not indulge. Who but the unhappy can tell the power of music in recalling vanished years and vanished joys! One song Captain De Crespigny had formerly accompanied, another he had admired, a third he had copied out for her. All their sentiments of love and constancy he had with ready flattery applied to herself, and each had been played or sung only for him.
Hopes and feelings now for ever extinct, crowded into her memory; a cold, curdling anguish gathered round her heart; the notes died away inaudibly, and Agnes at length, leaning her forehead on the music-desk, burst into an irresistible flood of tears, while her eyes rested at these words,—