Yes! it is well for us: from these alarms,Like children scared, we fly into thine arms;And pressing sorrows put our pride to routWith a swift faith which has not time to doubt.Faber.Learn by a mortal yearning to ascendTowards a higher object. Love was given,Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;For this the passion to excess was driven---That self might be annulled; her bondage proveThe fetters of a dream, opposed to love.Wordsworth.
The next thing that I recall, is rousing from slumber, or something related to slumber, and seeing a tall woman in the dress of a sister, standing by my bed. It was night, and there was a lamp upon a table near. The unusual dress, and the unfamiliarity of her whole appearance, made me start and stare at her, half raising myself in the bed.
"Why did you come here?" I said. "Who sent for you?"
"I came because you were sick and suffering, and I was sent in the Name ----" and bending her head slightly, she said a Name too sacred for these pages.
I gave a great sigh of relief, and sank back on my pillow. Her answer satisfied me, for I was not able to reason. I let her hold my hand; and all through that dark and troubled time submitted to her will, and desired her presence, and was soothed by her voice and touch.
Sister Madeline was not at all the ideal sister, being tall and dark, and with nothing peculiarly devotional or pensive in her cast of feature. Her face was a fine, earnest one. Her movements were full of energy and decision, though not quick or sharp. The whole impression left was that of one by nature far from humility, tenderness, devotion; but, by the force of a magnificent faith, made passionately humble, devout from the very heart, more than humanly compassionate and tender.
I never felt toward her as if she were "born so"--but as if she were rescued from the world by some great effort or experience; as if it were all "made ground," reclaimed from nature by infinite patience and incessant labor. She lived the life of an angel upon the earth. I never saw her, by look, by word, or tone, transgress the least of the commandments, so wonderful was the curb she held over all her human feelings. Nor was this perfection attained by a sudden and grand sacrifice; the consecration of herself to the religious life was not the "single step 'twixt earth and heaven," but it was attained by daily and hourly study--by the practice of a hundred self-denials--by the most accurate science of spiritual progress.
Doubtless, saints can be made in other ways, but this is one way they can be made, starting with a sincere intention to serve God. At least, so I believe, from knowing Sister Madeline.
She made a great change in my life, and I owe her a great deal. It is not strange I feel enthusiasm for her. I cannot bear to think what my coming back to life would have been without her.
Of the alarming nature of my illness, I only know that there were several days when Richard never left the house, but waited, hour after hour, in the library below, for the news of my condition, and when even Uncle Leonard came home in the middle of the day, and walked about the house, silent and unapproachable.
One night--how well I remember it! I had been convalescent, I do not know how long; I had passed the childish state of interest in mybouilli, and fretfulness about mypeignoir; my mind had begun to regain its ordinary power, and with the first efforts of memory and thought had come fearful depression and despondency. I was so weak, physically, that I could not fight against this in the least. Sister Madeline came to my bedside, and found me in an agony of weeping. It was not an easy matter to gain my confidence, for I thought she knew nothing of me, and I was not equal to the mental effort of explaining myself; she was only associated with my illness. But at last she made me understand that she was not ignorant of a great deal that troubled me.
"Who has told you?" I said, my heart hardening itself against Richard, who could have spoken of my trouble to a stranger.
"You, yourself," she answered me.
"I have raved?" I said.
"Yes."
"And who has heard me?"
"No one else. I sent every one else from the room whenever your delirium became intelligible."
This made me grateful toward her; and I longed for sympathy. I threw my arms about her and wept bitterly.
"Then you know that I can never cry enough," I said.
"I do not know that," she answered. After a vain attempt to soothe me with general words of comfort, she said, with much wisdom, "Tell me exactly what thought gives you the most pain, now, at this moment."
"The thought of his dreadful act, and that by it he has lost his soul."
"We know with Whom all things are possible," she said, "and we do not know what cloud may have been over his reason at that moment. Would it comfort you to pray for him?"
"Ought I?" I asked, raising my head.
"I do not know any reason that you ought not," she returned. "Shall I say some prayers for him now?"
I grasped her hand: she took a little book from her pocket, and knelt down beside me, holding my hand in hers. Oh, the mercy, the relief of those prayers! They may not have done him any good, but they did me. The hopeless grief that was killing me, I "wept it from my heart" that hour.
"Promise me one thing," I whispered as she rose, "that you will read that prayer, every hour during the day, to-morrow, by my bed, whether I am sleeping or awake."
"I promise," she said, and I am sure she kept her word, that day and many others after it.
During my convalescence, which was slow, I had no other person near me, and wanted none. Uncle Leonard came in once a day, and spent a few minutes, much to his discomfort and my disadvantage. Richard I had not seen at all, and dreaded very much to meet. Ann Coddle fretted me, and was very little in the room.
Over these days there is a sort of peace. I was entering upon so much that was new and elevating, under the guidance of Sister Madeline, and was so entirely influenced by her, that I was brought out of my trouble wonderfully. Not out of it, of course, but from under its crushing weight. I know that I am rather easily influenced, and only too ready to follow those who have won my love. Therefore, I am in every way thankful that I came at such a time under the influence of a mind like that of Sister Madeline.
But the time was approaching for her to go away. I was well enough to do without her, and she had other duties. The sick-room peace and indulgence were over, and I must take up the burden of every-day life again. I was very unhappy, and felt as if I were without stay or guidance.
"To whom am I to go when I am in doubt?" I said; "you will be so far away."
"That is what I want to arrange: the next time you are able to go out, I want to take you to some one who can direct you much better than I."
"A priest?" I asked. "Tell me one thing: will he give me absolution?"
"I suppose he will, if he finds that you desire it."
"What would be the use of going to him for anything else?" I said. "It is the only thing that can give me any comfort."
"All people do not feel so, Pauline."
"But you feel so, dear Sister Madeline, do you not? You can understand how I am burdened, and how I long to have the bands undone?"
"Yes, Pauline, I can understand."
I am not inclined to give much weight to my own opinions, and as for my feelings, I know they were, then, those of a child, and in many ways will always be. I can only say what comforted me, and what I longed for. There had always been great force to me, in the Scripture that says, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained," even before I felt the burden of my sins.
I had once seen the ordination of a priest, and I suppose that added to the weight of the words ever after in my mind. I never had any doubt of the power then conferred, and I no sooner felt the guilt and stain of sin upon my soul, than I yearned to hear the pardon spoken, that Heaven offered to the penitent. I had been tangibly smitten; I longed to be tangibly healed.
Whatever shame and pain there was about laying bare my soul before another, I gladly embraced it, as one poor means at my command of showing to Him whom I had offended, that my repentance was actual, that I stopped at no humiliation.
It may very well be that these feelings would find no place in larger, grander, more self-reliant natures; that what healed my soul would only wound another. I am not prepared to think that one remedy is cure for all diseases, but I know what cured mine. I bless God for "the soothing hand that Love on Conscience laid." I mark that hour as the beginning of a fresh and favored life; the dawning of a hope that has not yet lost its power
"to tameThe haughty brow, to curb the unchastened eye,And shape to deeds of good each wavering aim."
Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn,Not sunshine, to my night;A new, more spiritual thing,An advent of pure light.All grief has its limits, all chastenings their pause;Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two laws.
The winter that followed seemed very long and uneventful. After Sister Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the routine in which they continued to revolve for many months. I was as lonely as formerly, save for the companionship of well-chosen books, and for the direction of another mind, which I felt to be the truest support and guidance. I was taught to bend to my uncle's wishes, and to give up constant church-going, and visiting among the poor, which would have been such a resource and occupation to me. And so my life, outwardly, was very little changed from former years--years that I had found almost insupportable, without any sorrow; and yet, strange to say, I was not unhappy.
My hours were full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind. I was thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the instructions given me. Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard to flesh and blood as this. And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom of them all, as I have worked out the problem of my correction.
Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my strength.
I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed one in the house. There was something in the rage without that disturbed me; I wandered about the house, and found myself unable to settle to any task. Some one to speak to! Oh, it was so dreary to be alone. I went into my uncle's room where there were many books. Among those that were there I found one in French, (I have no idea how it came there, I am sure my uncle had never read it.) I carelessly turned it over, and finally became absorbed in it. I came upon this passage:
Quel plus noir abîme d'angoisse y a-t-il an monde que le coeur d'un suicide? Quand le malheur d'un homme est dû à quelque circonstance de sa vie, on pent espérer de l'en voir délivrer par un changement qui pent survenir dans sa position. Mais lorsque ce malheur a sa source en lui; quand c'est l'âme elle-même qui est le tourment de l'âme; la vie elle-même qui est le fardeau de la vie; que faire, que de reconnaître en gémissant qu'il n'y a rien à faire--rien, selon le monde; et qu'un tel homme, plus à plaindre que ce prisonnier que l'histoire nous peint dans les angoisses de la faim, se repaissant de sa propre chair, est réduit à dévorer la substance même de son âme dans les horreurs de son désespoir. Et qu'imagine-t-il done pour échapper à lui-même, comme à son plus cruel ennemi? Je ne dis pas: 'Où ira-t-il loin de l'esprit de Dieu? où fuira-t-il loin de sa face?' Je demande, où ira-t-il loin de son propre esprit? où fuira-t-il loin de sa propre face? Où descendra-t-il qu'il ne s'y suive lui-même; où se cachera-t-il qu'il ne s'y trouve encore? Insensé, dont la folie égale la misère, quand tu te seras tué, on dira: 'Il est mort;' mais ce sont les autres qui le diront; ce ne sera pas toi-même. Tu seras mort pour ton pays, mort pour ta ville, mort pour ta famille; mais pour toi-même, pour ce qui pense en toi, hélas! pour ce qui souffre en toi, tu vivras toujours.Et comment ne sens-tu pas, que pour cesser d'être malheureux, ce n'est pas ta place qu'il faut changer, c'est ton coeur. Que tu disparaisses sous les flots, qu'un plomb meurtrier brise ta tête, ou qu'un poison subtil glace tes veines; quoi que tu fasses, et où que tu ailles, tu n'y peux aller qu'avec toi-même, qu'avec ton coeur, qu'avec ta misère! Que dis-je? Tu y vas avec un compte de plus à rendre, à la rencontre du grand Dieu qui doit te juger; tu y vas avec l'éternité de plus pour souffrir, et le temps de moins pour te repentir!A moins que tu ne penses peut-être, parceque l'oeil de l'homme n'a rien vu au-delà de la tombe, que cette vie n'ait pas de suite. Mais non, tu ne saurais le croire! Quand tous les autres le penseraient, toi, tu ne le pourrais pas. Tu as une preuve d'immortalité qui t'appartient en propre. Cette tristesse qui te consume, est quelque chose de trop intime et de trop profond pour se dissoudre avec tes organes, et ce qui est capable de tant souffrir ne pent pas s'aller perdre dans la terre. Les vers hériteront de la poussière de ton corps, mais l'amertume de ton âme, qui en héritera? Ces extases sublimes, ces tourments affreux; ces hauteurs des cieux, ces profondeurs des abîmes; qu'y a-t-il d'assez grand ou d'assez abaissé, d'assez élevé ou d'assez avili pour les revêtir en ta place? Non, tu ne saurais jamais croire que tout meurt avec le corps; ou si tu le pouvais tu n'en serais que plus insensé, plus misérable encore.
It is proof how child-like I had been, how obedient in suppressing all forbidden thoughts, that these words smote me with such horror. I had indulged in no speculation; I had never thought of him as haunted by the self he fled; as still bound to an inexorable and inextinguishable life,
"With time and hope behind him cast,And all his work to do with palsied hands and cold."
The terrors I had had, had been vague. I had thought dimly of punishment, more keenly of separation. If I had analysed my thoughts, I suppose I should have found annihilation to have been my belief--death forever, loss eternal. But this--if this were truth--(and it smote me as the truth alone can smite), oh, it was maddening. To my knees! To my knees! Oh, that I might live long years to pray for him! Oh, that I might stretch out my hands to God for him, withered with age and shrunk with fasting, and strong but in faith and final perseverance! Oh, it could not be too late! What was prayer made for, but for a time like this? What was this little breath of time, compared with the Eternal Years, that we should only speaknowfor each other to our merciful God, and never speak for each other afterward? Spirits are forever; and is prayer only for the days of the body?
It was well for me that none of the doubts that are so often expressed had found any lodgment in my brain; if I had not believed that I had a right to pray for him, and that my prayers might help him, I cannot understand how I could have lived through those nights and days of thought.
What to those who understandAre to-day's enjoyments narrow,Which to-morrow go again,Which are shared with evil men,And of which no man in his dyingTaketh aught for softer lying?
It was now early spring: the days were lengthening and were growing soft. Lent (late that year) was nearly over. I had begun to think much about the summer, and to wonder if I were to pass it in the city. There was one thing that the winter had developed in me, and that was, a sort of affection for my uncle. I had learned that I owed him a duty, and had tried to find ways of fulfilling it; had taken a little interest in the house, and had tried to make him more comfortable. Also I had prayed very constantly for him, and perhaps there is no way more certain of establishing an affection, or at least a charity for another, than that.
In return, he had been a little more human to me than formerly, had shown some interest in my health, and continued appreciation of the fact that I was in the house. Once he had talked to me, for perhaps half an hour, about my mother, for which I was unspeakably grateful. Several times he had given me a good deal of money, which I had cared much less about. Latterly he had permitted me to go to church alone, which had seemed to me must be owing to Richard's intervention.
Richard had been almost as much as formerly at the house: my uncle was becoming more and more dependent on him. For myself, I did not see as much of him as the year before. We were always together at the table, of course. But the evenings that Richard was with my uncle, I thought it unnecessary for me to stay down-stairs. Besides, now, they almost always had writing or business affairs to occupy them.
It was natural that I should go away, and no one seemed to notice it. Richard still brought me books, still arranged things for me with my uncle (as in the matter of going to church alone), but we had no more talks together by ourselves, and he never asked me to go anywhere with him. At Christmas he sent me beautiful flowers, and a picture for my room. Sophie I rarely saw, and only longed never to see Benny was permitted to come and spend a day with me, at great intervals, and I enjoyed him more than his mother or his uncle.
One day my uncle went down to his office in his usual health; at three o'clock he was brought home senseless, and only lived till midnight, dying without recovering speech or consciousness. It was a sudden seizure, but what everybody had expected; everybody was shocked for the moment, and then wondered that they were. It was very appalling to me; I was so unhappy, I almost believed I loved him, and I certainly mourned for him with simplicity and affection.
The preparations for the funeral were so frightful, and all the thoughts it brought so unnerving, that I was almost ill. A great deal came upon me, in trying to manage the wailing servants, and in helping Richard in arrangements.
It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain down on the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be alone up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time, and I felt too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever in my life before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two hours except, at the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless room, and no one ever thought of sitting down in it, except at mealtime. I closed the shutters and darkened it to suit my eyes, which ached, and I think must have fallen asleep.
The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two large rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated from it by heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors were half-way open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As soon as I recovered myself from the sudden waking, I recognized Sophie's and then Richard's. I wondered what Richard was doing up-town at that hour, and so Sophie did too, for she asked him very plainly.
"I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did not suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day."
"There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once," he said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town."
"Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively.
"No," he answered, evasively.
But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the will; I hope she's well provided for, poor thing."
"Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have to hear it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It is that that I have come up-town about; there has been some strange mistake made; there is no will."
"No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--"
"That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year; so I have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died, the most faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot understand it. It is altogether dark to me."
"What can have made him change his mind about it, Richard? Can he have heard anything about last summer?"
"Not from me, Sophie. But I have sometimes thought he knew, from allusions that he has made to her mother's marriage, more than once this winter."
"He was very angry about that, at the time, I suppose?"
"Yes, I imagine so. The man she married was poor, and a foreigner: two things he hated. I never heard there was anything against him but his poverty."
"How can he have heard about Mr. Langenau?" said Sophie, musingly.
"I think Pauline must have told him," said Richard.
"Pauline? never. She is much too clever; she never told him. You may be quite sure ofthat."
"Pauline clever! Poor Pauline!" said Richard, with a short, sarcastic laugh, which had the effect of making Sophie angry.
"I am willing," she said, "that she should be as stupid and as good as you can wish--. To whom does the money go?" she added, as if she had not patience for the other subject.
"To a brother, with whom he had a quarrel, and whom he had not seen for over sixteen years."
"Incredible!"
"But there had been some sort of a reconciliation, at least an exchange of letters, within these three months past."
"Ah!"
"And it is in consequence of hearing from him, and being pressed by his lawyer for an immediate settlement of the estate, that I have come up to tell Pauline, and to prepare her for her changed prospects."
"And what do you propose to advise?" asked Sophie, with a chilling voice.
"Heaven knows, Sophie," answered her brother, with a heavy sigh. "I see nothing ahead for the poor girl, but loneliness and trial. She is utterly unfit to struggle with the world. And she has not even a shelter for her head."
"Richard," interrupted his sister, with intensity of feeling in her voice, "I see what you are trying to persuade yourself: do not tell me, after what has passed, you still feel that you are bound to her--"
"Bound!" exclaimed Richard, with a vehemence most strange in him, as, pacing the room, he stood still before his sister. His back was toward me. She was so absorbed she did not see me as I darted past the folding-doors into the hall. As I flew panting up to my own room, I remember one feeling above all others, the first feeling of affection toward the house that I had ever had. It was mine no longer, my home never again; I had no right to stay in it a moment: my own room was not mine any more--the room where I had learned to pray, and to try to lead a good life--the room where I had lain when I was so near to death--the room where Sister Madeline had led me to such peaceful, quiet thoughts. I had but one wish now, not to see Richard, to escape Sophie, to get away forever from this house to which I had no right. I pulled down my hat and my street things, and dressed so quickly, that I had slipped down the stairs, and out into the street, before they had ceased talking in the parlor. I heard their voices, very low, as I passed through the hall. I fully meant never to come back to the house again--not to be turned out.
My heart swelled as the door closed behind me. It was dreadful not to have a home. I was so unused to being in the street alone, that I felt frightened when I reached the cars and stopped them.
I was going to Sister Madeline. She would take me, and keep me, and teach me where to live, and how. I was a little confused, and got out at the wrong street, and had to walk several blocks before I reached the house.
The servant at the door met me with an answer that made me wonder whether there were anything else to happen to me on that day.
Sister Madeline had been called away--had gone on a long journey--something about the illness of her brother; and I must not come inside the door, for a contagious disease was raging, and the orders were strict that no one be admitted. I had walked so fast, and in such excitement of feeling, that I was weak and faint when I turned to go down the steps. Where should I go? I walked on slowly now, and undecided, for I had no aim.
The clergyman to whom I had gone for direction in matters spiritual, was ill--for two weeks had given up even Lenten duties. Anything--but I could not go home, or rather where home had been. I walked and walked till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself. But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and frightened too, for people were beginning to look at me.
It began to force itself upon me that I must go back to Varick-street after all, and take a fresh start. Then I began to think how I should get back, on which side must I go to find the cars--where was I, literally. Then I sat down to wait, till I should see some policeman, or some kind-looking person, near me, to whom I could apply for this very necessary information. In the meantime I took out my purse to see if I had the proper change. Verily, not that, nor any change at all! My heart actually stood still. Yes, it was very true: I had given away, right and left, during this Lent: caring nothing for money, and being very sure of more when this was gone. I was literally penniless. I had not even the money to ride home in the cars.
Till a person has felt this sensation, he has not had one of the most remarkable experiences of life. To know where you can get money, to feel that there is somedernier ressorthowever hateful to you, is one thing; but toknowthat you have not a cent--not a prospect of getting one--not a hope of earning one--no means of living--this is suffocation. This is the stopping of that breath that keeps the world alive.
The bench on which I happened to be sitting was one of those pretty, little, covered seats, which jut out into the lake. I looked down into the water as I sat with my empty purse in my lap, and remembered vaguely the many narratives I had seen in the newspapers about unaccounted-for and unknown suicides. I could see how it might be inevitable--a sort of pressure, a fatality that might not be resisted. Even cowardice might be overcome when that pressure was put on.
It is a very amazing thing to feel that you have no money, nor any means of getting even eightpence: it chokes you: you feel as if the wheel had made its last revolution, and there was no power to make it turn again. It is not any question of pride, or of independence, when it comes suddenly; it is a feeling of the inevitable; you do not turn to others. You feel your individual failure, and you stand alone.
For myself, this was my reflection: I had not even a shelter for my head; Richard had said so. I had not a cent of money, and I had no means of earning any. The uncle who was coming to take possession of the house and furniture, was one whom I had been taught to distrust and dread. He would, perhaps, not even let me go into my room again, and would turn me out to-morrow, if he came: my clothes--weretheyeven mine, or would they be given to me, if they were? This uncle had reproached Uncle Leonard once for what he had done for me. I had even an idea that it was about my mother's marriage that the quarrel had occurred. And hard as I had regarded Uncle Leonard, he had been the soft-hearted one of the brothers, who had sheltered the little girl (after he had thrown off the mother, and broken her poor heart).
The house in Varick-street would be broken up. What would become of the cook, and Ann Coddle? It would be easier for them to live than for me.
They could get work to do, for they knew how to work, and people would employ them. I--I could do nothing, I had been taught to do nothing. I had never been directed how to hem a handkerchief. I had tried to dust my room one day, and the effort had tired me dreadfully, and did not look very well, as a result. I could not teach. I had been educated in a slipshod way, no one directing anything about it--just what it occurred to the person who had charge of me to put before me.
I had intended to throw myself upon Sister Madeline. But what then? What could she have done for me? I had asked her months before if I could not be a sister, and had been discouraged both by her and by my director. I believe they thought I was too young and too pretty, and, in fact, had no vocation. No doubt they thought I might soon look upon things differently, when my trouble was a little older.
And Richard--I did not give Richard many thoughts that day, for my heart was sore, when I remembered all his words. He had always thought that I was to be rich; perhaps that had made him so long patient with me. He had said I was not clever; he had seemed to be very sorry for me. He might well be. Sophie had asked him if he were still bound to me. I had not heard all his answer, but he had spoken in a tone of scorn. I did not want to think about him.
There was no whither to turn myself for help. And the clergyman, who had been more than kind to me, who had seemed to help me with words and counsel out of heaven,--he was cut off from my succor, and I stood alone--I, who was so dependent, so naturally timid, and so easily mistaken.
It was a dreary hour of my life, that hour that I sat looking over at the water of the pretty placid lake. I don't like to recall it. Some one passed by me, gave an exclamation of surprise, and came back hastily. It was Richard. He seemed so glad, and so relieved to see me--and to me it was like Heaven opening; notwithstanding my vindictive thoughts about him, I could have sprung into his arms; I felt protected, safe, the moment he was by me. I tried to speak, and then began to cry.
"I've been looking for you these last two hours," he said, sitting down beside me. "I came up-town to see you, and found you had gone out. I thought you would not be likely to go anywhere but to see Sister Madeline, and there the servant told me you had come this way. I could not find you here, and went back to Varick-street, then was frightened at hearing you had not come back, and returned again to look for you. What made you stay so long? Something has happened. Tell me what you are crying for."
I had no talent for acting, and not much discretion when I was excited; and he found out very soon that I knew what had befallen me. (I think he believed that Sophie had told me of it.)
"Were you very much surprised?" he said. "Had you supposed that you would be his heiress?"
"Why, no. I had not thought anything about it. I am afraid I have not thought much about anything this winter. I must have been very ungrateful, as well as childish, for I never have felt as if it were fortunate that I had a home, and as much money as I wanted. I did not care anything about being rich, you know--ever."
"No, I know you did not. I was sure you would have been satisfied with a very moderate provision."
"Oh, Richard," I cried, clasping my hands together, "if he had left me a little--just a little--just a few hundred dollars, when he had so much, to have kept me from having to work, when I don't know how to work, and am such a child."
"Work!" he exclaimed, looking down at me as if I were something so exquisite and so precious, that the very thought was profanation. "Work! no, Pauline, you shall not have to work."
"But what can I do?" I said, "I have nothing--and you know it; not a shelter; not the money to pay for my breakfast to-morrow morning. Not a person to whom I have a right to go for help; not a human being who is bound to care for me. Oh, I don't care what becomes of me; I wish that it were time for me to die."
Richard got up, and paced up and down the little platform with an absorbed look.
"It was so strange," I went on, "when he seemed this winter to take a little notice of me, and to want to have me near him. I really almost thought he cared for me. And when I was so ill last Fall, don't you remember how often he used to come up to my room?"
"I remember--yes. It is all very strange."
"And some days early in the winter, when I could scarcely speak at table, I was so unhappy, he would look at me so long, and seem to think. And then would be very kind and gentle afterward, and do something to show he liked me--give me money, you know, as he always did."
"Tell me, Pauline: did he ever ask you anything about last summer, or did you ever tell him?"
"No, Richard, I could never have spoken to him about it; and he never asked me. But I know he saw that I was not happy."
"Pauline," said Richard, after a pause, and as if forcing himself to speak, "there is no use in disguising from you what your position is: you know it yourself, enough of it, at least, to make you understand why I speak now. I don't know of any way out of it, but one; and I feel as if it were ungenerous to press that on you now, and, Heaven knows, I would not do it if I could think of anything else to offer to you. You know, Pauline, that if you will marry me, you will have everything that you need, as much as if your uncle had left you everything."
He did not look at me, but paced up and down the platform, and spoke with a thick, husky voice.
"You know it's been the object of my life, ever since I knew you, but I don't want that to influence you. I know it is too soon, a great deal too soon. And I would not have done it, if I could have seen anything else to do, or if you could have done without me."
I must have been deadly pale, for when at last he looked at me, he started.
"I don't know how it is," he said, with a groan, "I always have to give you pain, when, Heaven knows, I'd give my life to spare you every suffering. I can't see any other way to take care of you than the way I tell you of, and yet, I have no doubt you think me cruel, and selfish, to ask you to do it now. It does seem so, and yet it is not. If you knew how much it has cost me to speak, you would believe it."
"I do believe it," I said, trying to command my voice. "I think you have always been too good and kind to me. But I can't tell you how this makes me feel. Oh, Richard, isn't there any, any other way?"
"Perhaps there may be," he said, with a bitter and disappointed look, "but I do not know of it."
"Oh, Richard, do not be angry with me. Think how hard it is for me always to be disappointing you. I have a great deal of trouble!"
"Yes, Pauline, I know you have," he said, sitting down by me, and taking my hand in a repentant way. "You see I'm selfish, and only looked at my own disappointment just that minute. I thought I had not any hope that you might not mind the idea of marrying me; but you see, after all, I had. I believe I must have fancied that you were getting over your trouble: you have seemed so much brighter lately. But now I know the truth; and now I know that what I do is simply sacrifice and duty. A man must be a fool who looks for pleasure in marrying a woman who has no love for him. And I say now, in the face of it all, marry me, Pauline, if you can bring yourself to do it. I am the only approach to a friend that you have in the world. As your husband, I can care for you and protect you. You are young, your character is unformed, you are ignorant of the world. You have no home, no protection, literally none, and I am afraid to trust you. You need not be angry if I say so. I think I've earned the right to find some faults in you. I don't expect you to love me. I don't expect to be particularly happy; but there are a good many ways of serving God and doing one's duty; and if we try to serve him and to live for duty, it will all come out right at last. You will be a happier woman, Pauline, if you do it, than if you rebel against it, and try to find some other way, and put yourself in a subordinate place, or a place of dependence, and waste your life, and expose yourself to temptation. No, no, Pauline, I cannot see you do it. Heaven knows, I wish you had somebody else to direct you. But it has all come upon me, and I must do the best I can. I think any one else would advise the same, who had the same means of judging."
"I will do just what you think best," I said, almost in a whisper, getting up.
"That is right," he answered, in a husky voice, rising too, and putting my cloak about my shoulders, which had fallen off. "You will see it will be best."
But her sad eyes, still fastened on the ground,Are governed with a goodly modesty,That suffers not a look to glance away,Which may let in a little thought unsound.Spenser.Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule scienceQui nous met en repos.Malherbe.
Richard had obtained for me (with difficulty), from the lawyer of the new uncle who had arisen, the privilege of remaining in the house for another month, undisturbed in any way. At the end of those four weeks I was to be married to him, one day, quietly in church, and to go away. It was very hard to have to see Sophie, and be treated with ignominy, for doing what I did not want to do; it was very hard to make preparations to leave the only place I wanted to stay in now; it was very hard to be tranquil and even, while my heart was like lead. But I had begun to discover that that was the general order of things here below, and it did not amaze me as it had done at first. I was doing my duty, to the best of my discernment, and was not to be deterred by all the lead in the world.
It was very well for Richard to say, he did it for sacrifice and for duty. I have no doubt at first he did it greatly for those two things: but he grew happier every day, I could see. He was very considerate of my sadness, and always acted on the basis on which our engagement was begun, never keeping my hand in his, or kissing me, or asking any of the trifling favors of a lover.
He was grave and silent: but I could see the change in his face; I could see that he was more exacting of every moment that I spent away from him; he kept near me, and followed me with his eyes, and seemed never to be satisfied with his possession of me.
He bought me the most beautiful jewels, (he had made great strides toward fortune in the last six months, and was a rich man now in earnest,) and though he never clasped them on my throat or wrist, nor even fitted a ring on my finger, I could feel his eyes upon me, hungering for a smile, a word of gratitude.
And who would not have been grateful? But it was "too soon, a great deal too soon," as he had said himself. I was very grateful, but I would have been glad to die.
I have wondered whether he saw it or not, I rather think not. I was very submissive and gentle, and tried to be bright, and I think he was so absorbed in the satisfaction of my promise, so intent upon his plans for making me happy, and for making me love him, that he made himself believe there was no heart of lead below the tranquillity he saw.
It was the third week since my uncle's death. The next week was to come the marriage, on Wednesday, the 19th of May.
"Marriages in May are not happy," said Ann Coddle.
"I did not need you to tell me that," I thought.
It was on Thursday, the 13th; Richard had come up a little earlier, in the evening. It grew to be a little earlier every evening.
"By-and-by he will not go down-town at all, at this rate," I said to myself, when I heard his ring that night.
I was sitting by the parlor-lamp, with the evening paper in my lap, of which I had not read a word. He came and sat down by the table, and we talked a little while. I tried to find things to talk about, and wondered if it always would be so. I felt as if some day I should give out entirely, and have to go through bankruptcy. (And take a fresh start.)
He never seemed to feel the want of talking; I suppose he was quite satisfied with his thoughts, and with having me beside him.
By-and-by, he said he should have to go up to the library, and look over the last of some books of my uncle's, and finish an inventory that he had begun. Could I not bring my work and sit there by him? I felt a little selfish, for we were already on the last week, and I said I thought I would sit in the parlor. I had to write a letter to Sister Madeline. I had not heard a word from her yet, though I had written twice.
Why could not I write in the library?
I always liked to be alone when I wrote letters: I could not think, when any one was in the room. Besides, trying to smile, he would be sure to talk.
He looked disappointed, and lingered a good while before he went away. As he rose to go away he threw into my lap a little package, saying,
"There is some white lace for you. Can't you use it on some of your clothes? I don't know anything about such things: maybe it isn't pretty enough, but I thought perhaps it would do for that lilac silk you talked of."
I opened the package: it was exquisite, fit for a princess; and as I bent over it, I thought, how dead I must be, that it gave me no pleasure to know it was my own, for I had loved such baubles so, a year ago.
"What a mass of it!" I exclaimed, unfolding yard on yard.
"You must always wear lace," he said, throwing one end of it over my black dress around the shoulder. "I like you in it. I am tired of those stiff little linen collars."
The lace had given me a little compunction about not spending the evening with him: but as I had said so, I could not draw back; so I compromised the matter by going up to the library with him, to see that he was comfortable, before I came down to write my letter.
I brought the little student-lamp from my own room and lit it, and put it on the library-table, and brought him some fresh pens, and opened the inkstand for him, even pushed up the chair and put a little footstool by it. Though he was standing by the bookshelves, and seemed to be engrossed by them, I knew that he was watching me, filled with content and satisfaction.
"Do you remember where that box of cigars was put?" he said, turning to me as I paused. That was to keep me longer; for they were on the shelf, half a yard from where he stood.
I got the cigar-box and put it on the table.
"Now you will want some matches, and this stand is almost empty." So I took it away with me to my room, and came back with it filled.
"Is there anything else that I can do?" I said, pausing as I put it on the table.
"No, Pauline. I believe not. Thank you."
I think that moment Richard was nearer to happiness than he had ever been before. Poor fellow!
I went down-stairs, feeling quite easy in mind, and sat down to my letter. That threw me back into the past, for to Sister Madeline I poured out my heart. An hour went by, and I had forgotten Richard and the library. I was recalled to the present by hearing some books fall on the floor (the library was over the parlor); and by hearing Richard's step heavily crossing the room. I started up, pushed my letter into my portfolio, and wiped away my tears, quite frightened that Richard should see me crying. To my surprise, he came hurriedly down the stairs, passed the parlor-door, opened the hall-door, and shutting it heavily after him, was gone, without a word to me. This startled me for a moment, it was so unusual. But my heart was not enough engaged to be wounded by the slight, and I very soon returned to my letter and my other thoughts.
When I went up to bed, I stopped in the library, and found the lamp still burning, the pens unused, a cigar, which had been lighted, but unsmoked, lying on the table. A book was lying on the floor at the foot of the bookshelf, where I had left Richard standing. I picked it up. "This was the last book that Uncle Leonard ever read," I said to myself, turning its pages over. I remembered that he had it in his hand the last night of his life, when I bade him goodnight. I was not in the room the next day, till he was brought home in a dying state.
Ann had put the books in order, and arranged them, after he went down-town in the morning.
I wondered whether Richard knew that that was the last book he had been reading, and I put it by, to tell him of it in the morning when he came. But in the morning Richard did not come. Unusual again; and I was for an hour or two surprised. He always found some excuse for coming on his way down-town: and it was very odd that he should not want to explain his sudden going away last night. But, as before, my lack of love made the wound very slight, and in a little time I had forgotten all about it, and was only thinking that this was Friday--and that Wednesday was coming very near.