But when he spoke after this pause, I saw clearly enough that my words had not escaped him; he did not entreat any longer; he saw it was vain; but the kindness of his tone was undiminished. I fancied I could perceive the resolution he had taken now; that he had made up his mind not to strive with me, but to leave me to myself. I would rather he had persecuted me with the most violent and perpetual persecution; that I could have met with courage; but I knew what a longing, yearning, remorseful misery would come upon me when I was left to the sole company of my own heart.
“I will wait till you come to think of something else than justice,” he said kindly, but sadly. “To have my rights yielded to me only because they are rights, will never satisfy me, Hester. I warn you of this now; you are not doing justice. I know that you can have no doubt what are my feelings to you; you know what my love is, but not how much it can bear, and you treat me with cruel injustice, Hester. Enough of this. I will plead my own cause no more. I will leave everything to yourself. By-and-bye, I do not doubt you will see myrightsin a different aspect; but I will not be content with my rights,” he continued, growing unconsciously vehement; “when you are willing to do me justice, I will still be dissatisfied. It is not justice I want from you, and the time of our reunion will never come till you reject justice as I do. I know that I am right.”
“It will never come,” said I, under my breath.
“The most wretched criminal has hope, Hester,” he said, rising with impatience which he could not control, and coming to the window, “and I am not so much wiser than my kind as to be able to live without it. I have read of humility and patience, I grant you, and these are difficult qualities; but I will quarrel no more on my own account, and it is hard to maintain a feud on one side only, Hester? Will you permit me to live near you, since you insist on leaving me? Will you let me seeyou now and then? will you let me be near at hand, if by any chance you should relent and wish for me? In your present circumstances, this is no great boon to yield to your husband, Hester?”
“What end would it answer?” I said, though my heart leaped with a strange mixture of joy and pain at his words; “I am sure we are better quite apart.”
“Be it so,” he said, and then he came forward to me very gravely; “I wait your time, Hester,” he said, taking my hand once more, with a face of serious and compassionate kindness, “we have, both of us, much grief to go through yet, but I will wait and be patient; I consent to what you say; I will not intrude into your presence again till you bid me come—you smile—you will never bid me come? that is in God’s hands, Hester, and so are you, my bride, my solitary suffering wife. I leave you to Him who will support you better than I could. Farewell. It is a bitter word to say, but I obey you. Hester—Hester—not a word for me! farewell.”
He stooped over me, kissed my forehead, wrung my hand, and then he was gone.
He was gone;—I gazed with aching eyes into the place where he had been; here this moment; gone perhaps for ever; I cried aloud in wild anguish; I thought my heart would burst; it required no long process, no time nor thought to change my mad rebellious heart again; I could struggle with him, resist him, use him cruelly while he was here before me; but when he was gone; oh, when he was gone!
When Alice came in I was sobbing aloud and convulsively; I had no power of self-restraint; all my pride and strength were broken down. “He is gone,” I repeated to myself; “he is gone!” I could think of nothing else. Alice spoke to me, but I did not hear; she tried to lift me from the sofa, where I lay burying my face in my hands, but I would not let her touch me; no one had ever seen such violence and such a wild outbreak of passion and misery in me before.
It was all my own doing, there was the sting of it. I could ask sympathy from no one, confess my distress to no one. My own heart stung me, upbraided me, made malicious thrusts and wounds at my weakness. I had done it all myself—what did I think of my miserable handiwork? I had made my own life, and this was the result of it. I had cast him away—cast him away! I could not tell why, I could remember nothing cruel thathehad ever done to me, and he would come back no more.
“Miss Hester, you will kill yourself,” cried Alice indignantly. I heard these words as if they were the first she had said, and with an immediate and powerful effort I controlled myself. No, I would not endanger the future, I would not lose everything. I raised myself up and returned to my work; I tried to forget what had happened,—that he had actually stood there before me, that this little room had held him, that his voice was still ringing in the dim subdued atmosphere. Every time I thought of it I trembled with agitation. The day was the same, yet it was different; the hours went on as usual, yet how totally changed they were. It was over,—the event I had been unconsciously, involuntarily, looking forward to. This dimmed, dulled life was to go on now with no new expectation in it, it was all over; he had promised to let me alone.
And there was Alice, looking at me with eager, solicitous, inquiring eyes, anxious to know what had been said, what had happened, wondering at my strange mood, trying to find out, with her own thoughts and looks, how I felt. Alice could not comprehend me. When her first belief, that I did not care for him, was shaken, she could find no reason for my conduct, no cause for all I had done; she did not understand my perversity; in the motives of her own simple Christian heart she found no clue to the problem of mine. She put no questions to me, but sat, wherehehad been sitting, sad, disapproving, full of wonder; her hope disappointed and her love grieved, aware I was wrong, yet so reluctant to think so. Poor Alice! I was a great chargeto her, and a perplexing one; she did not know how to deal with me.
When I was able to command my voice, I spoke to her. “Alice, Mr. Southcote has been here,” I said; “but he has promised not to come back again. He will never intrude into my presence again, he says, till I call him, and I am not likely to do that. When anything happens, Alice—I intended to have said so before—you will write to him without delay; remember, I told you so; he has a right to that.”
The words struck me strangely as I repeated them. Had I already begun, according to his own proposing, to calculate what hisrightswere? but he had warned me that he would find no satisfaction in that.
“And is this all, Miss Hester?” said Alice, looking at me wistfully; “oh, darling, well you know I’ve never said a word. I’ve never dared to take part with him that never should have needed help from a poor woman like me, but I can’t keep silent—Miss Hester—I can’t now; what’s in my heart I must say, for you’re my own dear child. Miss Hester, dear, I can’t help if you’re angry. But what do you think a true friend can pray for you? one that loves you dear above all the world; what do you think she would be obliged to pray, the first thing of all that was in her heart?”
I was much startled by the question, for it was at once perfectly unexpected, and very solemnly and seriously put. I did not answer, but looked at her with earnestness as great as her own.
“First of all, before even the safety, and the blessing, and the joy, oh, Miss Hester,” cried Alice, with strange emotion, “that you may be made to see which is good and which is evil, and to choose the right way. I dare not ask the blessing first, darling, I dare not! I’d lay down my life for an hour’s comfort to you, Miss Hester; you know it’s not boasting, you know it’s true; but you’re following a wrong way, and sorrow is the right thing to come to that rather than joy. I cannot help it—I cannothelp it—you may put me away from you, as you’ve put a better love than mine, but I must say what is in my heart.”
I could not be angry, I could not be indignant; I could not meet Alice’s unexpected severity as she thought I would. I was no heroine, I was only a woman, a poor, young, foolish, solitary woman. I cried: it was all I could do. I was almost glad she reproved me—glad that she thought God must punish and forsake me for my sin. I could not excuse or justify myself. I had no heart to say anything; all my powers were exhausted. I could only lie upon my sofa, silent, not venturing to look at Alice, and doing what I could to restrain my tears. But they would not be restrained; gentler and gentler, yet more abundant they fell from under the cover of my clasped hands, and, little as I intended it, this was indeed the only way in which I could have vanquished Alice. She kept her own place for a few moments, trembling and irresolute, and then she came humbly towards me and drew my head to her bosom. “Oh, darling, forgive me, forgive me,” cried Alice, and her tears fell as fast as mine.
When I found that I could not put an end to my own weeping-fit, Alice grew very much alarmed. She brought an armful of pillows, and arranged them on the sofa, and made me lie down to sleep. I obeyed her like a child. I took some wine when she gave it me, and closed my eyes at her bidding. She sat by my side watching me, and when my eyelids unclosed a little, I saw her soft white apron close by my cheek, and almost thought I was sleeping with my head on her knee as I used to do when I was a little girl. At last I did fall asleep, but I never was conscious that I had done so. I did not change the scene in my dreams. I was still here, still in this room, and he was beside me again, but we did not speak of parting now, all that was over;thatwas the dream, and it was past. I do not recollect that there were any words to make our reunion sure, but there did not need any, for I was completely persuaded of it in that strange real dream. When I woke, Alice was still sitting by me, and there was the strangest ease and satisfaction in myheart. I looked past her eagerly, and round the room, and asked, “Where is he? where is he?” she did not speak, and then I knew it was all a dream.
But I would not break down again. I sat erect and took up my work, and told her I was quite well now, but my head was aching violently, and my heart sank with such a dreary heaviness. A cup of tea would do me good, Alice said, and she left me to prepare it. When I was alone I went to the window and opened it to let in the fresh sweet air upon my hot brow. Yes, it was the happiness and the reconciliation that were a dream; the wretched solitude, the remorse, the hopelessness were real things; and what was the future? I could not help a shudder of expectation and terror. My truest, dearest, most indulgent friend Alice herself was almost afraid to ask a blessing for me. Hitherto I had always asked it myself, but her words arrested me; I only wondered what kind of judgment God would send to mark my sin—would it be only death? and once more a few tears fell from my eyes; I began to think of the letter I would write to my husband to be given him when I was gone away for ever; of perhaps the precious legacy I would leave him; the gift that would pay him tenfold for all his grief and trouble with me. These thoughts soothed me. When Alice returned, I withdrew from the window, and came to the table and took the tea she poured out for me. I was subdued and exhausted. I was not now so miserable as I had been. I pleased myself with the idea of making this last atonement, of putting an end to the misery of our wedded life, and to the problem which I did not know how to solve otherwise, by the early death which every one would shed a natural tear for. Once more I wiped a few tears from my own cheek, and then I went up-stairs very quietly in my exhaustion to prepare for our walk.
When we went out, I was less composed. I remembered then that he had trod this same path only a few hours ago; that, perhaps, he still was here. I hurried Alice on, I looked backand around with a stealthy eagerness, my heart began to beat and my breath to fail as this occurred to me. He might be here, he might even see me now with my lingering feeble footsteps, and read in my face traces of the wild and strong emotion which had visited me since he came. I drew my veil over my face, I hastened to the very margin of the water where no one could see me closely. Wherever I turned I was possessed with the idea that from some eminence—some visionary height—he was watching me, and interpreting my very movements. I did not desire to escape. I hurried about restlessly, but I did not wish to go in again; and it was only when the darkness fell that Alice persuaded me to go home. Alice did not know what was passing in my vexed and troubled mind. I think now my physical weakness must have had a great deal to do with it—what a dreadful chaos it was!
ALITTLElow cry—what was it?—I never heard it before, yet it went to my heart almost with a pang of delight. Alice, bring it—bring it. I cannot wait for all those snowy robes, and all the joyful, tearful importance of my dear, dear, kind nurse, my almost mother. Here in its little flannel wrapper—a little moving bundle, thrusting about its little limbs, turning round its little downy head with the first instincts of life to that kind bosom, crying its little wailing cry—oh, kindest heaven!—oh, God most wonderful!—it is mine, mine, my own child!
I felt neither pain nor weakness. I consented to lie still, because they said I must, and because I was happy beyond expression, and neither rebellion nor disobedience was in me. I lay quite still, pulling back the curtains to look at Alice as she put on those dainty little garments, one by one—to look at the moving thing upon her knee, the little hand thrust up into the air, the vigorous kicks and thrusts with which it struggled.It!a spark of sudden anger woke in me when some one saidit—that was correct enough half an hour ago—but this was he, an individual being, my baby, my own, mine! I cannot tell to any one the rapture in which I lay watching Alice as she put upon him his first little robes. I was in a woman’s paradise—a moment which can come but once in a lifetime. What mother does not remember, after all her dread, her awe, her suffering, the heavenly rest in which she lay looking at her firstborn? I think there is no such ecstasy either before or after—it is all over—all over—the ordeal which frame and spirit have been trembling at, is past like a dream, and who remembers it?—and in that strange delicious luxury of ease and weakness,there seems no longer anything to desire. I do not know,—perhaps it is not an elevated idea at all,—but my best realization of unspeakable happiness was in that hour after my little boy was born.
When that most important toilet was finished, Alice brought him to me in the long white robe, rich with my own needlework, and the pretty close cap covering his little downy head. She laid him down on my arm, and drew a step apart, and looked at us both, crying for joy. “Bless you, my darling!” cried Alice, and then she fairly ran away with her bright glistening face, and I knew very well it was to relieve her full heart, and spend her tears.
And I lay here with my baby on my arm alone. He did not mind who watched him, as he knitted his baby brows, and twisted his baby mouth, and clenched his harmless fists, till I laughed and cried together in indescribable delight. Then a change came over me. I wanted some one to share my happiness—to show my treasure to. Some one—oh, what cold words these were! I wanted one—only one—to make my joy perfect. My heart expanded over my baby, with such a sense of want, of incompleteness. I cried aloud, “Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!” Where was the father to see and bless this child? This blessing which every other mother had, I had cast away from me.
I could not put his infant into his arms—I could not watch the joy on his face to brighten the light upon my own. I wept now after another fashion. I turned my head aside that my tears might not fall upon my baby. “Oh, Harry, Harry!” I was content you should be away from me in the evil time, but it broke my heart to be alone in my deep great joy.
Alice could not see how I had been moved when she returned. I took care to conceal my tearful eyes from her, and indeed it was not hard to return to gladness, looking upon the face of my child. She brought me a cup of tea, and pretended she had only gone away to fetch it. “I did, indeed, Miss Hester,” she said, with a tearful smile that belied her; “though, to tell thetruth, Ihada good cry when I got down-stairs. Dear, do but look at him, with his sweet little fist doubled. Will you beat your mamma already, baby boy, and a son too? Darling, I’m sure you don’t know what to say for joy.”
“Oh, Alice, it is all beyond saying,” said I; “I don’t know why this should have come to me, when even you yourself—you who are always kindest, did not dare to ask a blessing for me; and after you said that, Alice, I never dared to ask one for myself.”
“I never meant that, Miss Hester,” said Alice, humbly; “Ididcrave for the blessing night and day, and here it is, bless his dear little heart; the sight of him brings back my pleasant days to me, dear. A woman never has such a joy as a baby. Do you shake your head at that, Miss Hester? My darling, you’ll come to know.”
“I do know, Alice,” I said under my breath; “I never was so happy before, nor so thankful, nor—so sad. If I do not die he will have nobody but me, and what can I do for him? Alice, did you think of what I told you to do? Do you remember, you were to write when all was over? I thought then I was sure to die.”
“Every one does, dear,” said Alice, cheerfully; “but there’s nothing about dying now, darling. We can’t have that, and, Miss Hester, have you ever thought what was to be the baby’s name?” Once more I was taken by surprise. Once more I turned my face away from him, that his sweet cheek might not be fretted by tears. I could say only one word—“Harry”—but that was enough for Alice. Her face brightened again, and she stooped over baby to give me time to recover myself. Alice was a wise nurse, and would not even notice my agitation; so I made an effort to subdue it, and was calm once more.
“Alice, you will be sure to write,” I whispered; “and—well,youhave seen other babies—do you really think he is very pretty, or is it only because he is our own?”
Alice satisfied me by a great many assurances. “Babies arenot always pretty, darling,” said the impartial Alice; “I have seen the oddest little things, though their mothers were always pleased; but Master Harry is a noble boy! Look how big he is; why he’s quite a weight to lift already, and such a head of hair,” she continued, gently pushing back his cap to show the silky down beneath; “and look here, Miss Hester, what arms, he might be a month old, bless him, instead of half a day. Do I really think it? My darling, I never, all my days, was called a flatterer before.”
Nor had I the least inclination to call Alice a flatterer now, for, without any partiality, he really was a very beautiful boy, though he lay there winking, frowning, and making such pugilistic use of his little hands. I thought they were miracles, these little hands, when it pleased him to unfold them; such beautiful little miniatures, with their delicious soft touch, and tapered tender little fingers. I bent down my cheek to put it into the way of those natural weapons of his as he fenced about with them. I could have cried again with delight at those small blows. Then Alice pretended he was too much for me, and that she could not permit me to get excited; but I knew very well this was only an excuse to get him into her own arms; but I was as glad of Alice’s joy as of my own. I had given her much to grieve her kind faithful heart, it was time I gave her something to make her glad; and what could do that so well as my baby boy? I watched her walking softly up and down the room, holding him so daintily, so prettily upon both her hands, and then she removed him to one arm, and made a reclining couch of it, when he seemed to lie so easy, so securely with his head upon her bosom. I looked, and wondered, and envied. Only study and experience could give that facility, and I had a strong impression that I would be afraid to handle that little precious frame as Alice did. Somehow or other it seemed to complete Alice, and make her a perfect picture. The baby, with its long streaming white robes, nestled so sweetly into her breast, looked a necessary adjunct to her now. I wondered how Ishould never have perceived the want of it before. I called her to me, and told her what I thought. Alice smiled with real gratification. “I was thinking so myself, dear,” she said; “I am ten years younger since this morning. But it goes to my heart, Miss Hester, for it reminds me of old times.”
She put up her hand to her eyes softly, though she still smiled; but those sweet tears of Alice’s would never have chafed a baby’s cheek. Sweet resignation, pure love, the breath of a subdued and chastened heart was in them. She was thinking of those whom God had taken away, whom God would one day restore her to—they were different tears from mine.
When he fell asleep Alice brought him back to me, and laid him down upon my arm once more. I watched for a while his sweet breath, his closed eyes, his baby face in its first repose, and then a drowsiness crept over me, and I, too, fell asleep—it was such a sleep as I had slept once before, the day when my husband came. I knew I was lying here with my baby in my arms. I realized all the joy that was in my heart, but I dreamed that I was presenting his child to Harry, that I was telling him how I had named the baby already, that I was pouring out all my thoughts and all my desires into the only ear in the world that could hear everything that was in my heart, and there was not a care or a cloud upon me. Again they seemed only dreams. And this happiness was the truth.
When I awoke it was with a slight start, and I was strangely bewildered to see that Alice had lifted baby from my arms, had wrapped him in a great shawl, and was carrying him away. “Where, where are you going, Alice?” I cried in alarm. She was confused when she saw me awake, and hesitated for a moment. “My darling, I am only going to let little Master see the house he has come home to,” she said, with an attempt to be playful, which only called my attention to the tremble in her voice; “we’ll come back again this moment, dear,” and she carried him away down stairs. A suspicion of what it was came to me, and I listened eagerly. I heard her slow careful stepdescending; then I heard a suppressed exclamation. Neither my prudence nor my regard for my own health could restrain me; I was not able to subdue the wild beating of my heart, my breathless agitation. Did they think they could deceive me?—did they think his voice or his step could be in the house and I not know it? I raised myself up a little, and listened with my whole heart and might. Yes, he had come to see his child, and it was Alice who showed my beautiful boy to him—it was notI. I could hear his whisper; I thought myself that I could have heard and known it at any distance. I could imagine the scene; I could imagine his silent delight, his thanksgiving, his words of joy. I could almost fancy myself a clandestine spectator, a stealthy looker-on, beholding from behind a curtain the joy in which I had no share. Oh, it was bitter! dreadful!—he rejoicing over our baby below—I lying alone in my misery and weakness here. I did not think of him watching without the door, shut out from the house, whileIwas tasting first this exquisite and sacred joy. I thought but of myself, deserted, desolate, no one approving of me, no one commending me, my own very heart rising up in judgment, my every thought an accuser, alone and solitary, my husband only caring to know that I was safe, and desiring nothing more. I think I had such anguish in that moment as only comes to many, diluted through a whole life. How breathlessly I watched and listened—how conscious I seemed to be of every movement and every word; how I started at the faint sound of Baby’s voice, and had almost sprung from my bed to snatch him at least to my arms. I who was the only one who could still him, his mother, his nurse, the being upon whom his little life depended by nature. Why, even for a moment, did they take him away from me?
When Alice returned I did not say a word of my suspicions or discoveries. My heart sank when I heard the door close upon my husband, when I heard the step whose faintest echo I knew so well passing through the gravel path of our little garden. Till then I still retained an involuntary hope that at leasthe would request to see me. But he did not; he was gone, and his steps rang upon my heart with a dull echo as he passed out of hearing. I felt like one suddenly struck dumb—I could not speak, I could not shake off the weight and oppression upon my brain, and the bitter pang in my spirit. Already I felt a fever growing on me, but I did not complain of it. My lips were sealed; I could not say I was ill—I could not speak a word. The little one was laid in my bosom once more, and I held him with passionate tenderness; but even while I did so, I felt the sickness at my heart, and the cold dew on my forehead, and the fainting, failing sensation over all my frame. I did not speak; I seemed to be bound up within myself with a strange, terrible wakefulness and consciousness, like one in a nightmare. I felt as one might feel who saw a murderer slowly advancing towards him when there was help at hand, yet who was paralysed, and could neither move nor cry for deliverance. I held my baby close, till he cried and struggled, then I suffered Alice to take him away. I heard her questioning and calling me; she came and wiped my forehead, and stooped down to me, and begged me to speak to her. “Are you ill, darling? are you ill?” cried Alice. At last I said faintly, “I suppose so;” and she rang the bell in great haste to summon a woman who waited below, and send her for the doctor. I was growing almost unconscious; the only clear thing I recollect in the chaos of indefinite pain and trouble which overwhelmed me, was Baby’s little plaintive cry, and my anxiety to get him back into my arms. Faintly and dimly I could perceive Alice feeding him; and I did not feel quite sure whether my husband was or was not in the room in my strange, half-delirious state. I was not sure of anything; I heard strange noises in my ears—sometimes I thought I was lying in some danger, and something from which I could not escape was hurrying upon me to crush me to atoms; and then again I was at Cottiswoode—yet always here, always conscious of Baby and of Alice. Hitherto the many and great agitations to which I had been subject, or which I had brought upon myself,had done me no harm. As safely as though I had been living the most placid life had this great trial been surmounted; but it was different now. The cause was different; always before my husband had been but too anxious to change my mind towards him himself. It was a new and dreadful experience, this leaving me alone; and I was exhausted and weak, though I had not expected it; the long arrears of past suffering came back upon me now.
I suppose I must have been very ill for a few hours. I cannot tell; I remember only a vague and feverish wretchedness, an aching, longing desire to complain to some one, and a burning consciousness that I had no one on earth to complain to; I saw visions, too, in my illness; unhappy momentary dreams; glimpses of my husband rejoicing with strangers; placing my baby in the arms of another; always deserting and forsaking me. My heart was shocked and wounded; it was not an ordinary stroke, but a blow unexpected, which struck beyond all my poor defences, and laid me prostrate. Yet I could not have been long thus, for when I came to myself it was still the twilight of the same day. The room was darkened, and the candle burned faintly on the table at the extreme end of the little apartment, and there was a faint perfume in the room of some essence they had been using for me. It was June, a soft mild summer night, yet a little fire was burning in the grate, for baby’s sake, and by it sat the woman who had come to assist Alice, holding my child in her lap. The first sign I perceived in myself of recovery was the indignant start with which I observed that this woman, I suppose overcome by the heat and doing nothing, was nodding and dozing at her post. I was not aware at the moment of having had anything the matter with me. I looked up with a startled, indignant glance at Alice, who was bending over me anxiously. “Bring him to me, Alice,” I cried eagerly; “or, if I must not have my baby, do you keep him at least. She is a stranger; she does not care for him. Look, look, she has fallen asleep!” I saw the woman start andopen her eyes with a guilty look as I spoke, and Alice said, “Yes, darling, yes,” as she bent over me and continued bathing my forehead. I put away her hand impatiently. “Take him yourself, Alice, or bring him to me,” I cried again. I had a shuddering which I could not restrain at my seeing him in the stranger’s arms.
“Do what she tells you,” said the doctor, who was standing by the side of Alice, in a low tone of authority; “she is better, bring the child to her, she will be well now, if she can sleep.”
Then Alice brought my baby and laid him in my arms; my dear, sweet, innocent, sleeping child! what horrible desert had I been wandering in since he was taken from my arms? He was sleeping so quietly, so softly, nothing knew he of the subdued, yet still existing pain, in the bosom his little head was pillowed on. “Sleeping like a child!” I knew now what the common saying meant. My cap and nightdress were wet with the perfumed cool waters Alice had been bathing my brow with, and I had a confused pain and ringing in my head, and the most complete exhaustion over me; but I was better, and felt almost easy in my weakness in mind as well as in body. When the doctor had given me a draught, I suppose to make me sleep, he went away, and I was so much disturbed by the stranger in the room, that Alice sent her downstairs, and herself began to prepare for the night. I remember now, like a picture, the aspect of that little dim room; the single candle burning faintly far away from me; the summer night, scarcely dark; the pale, blue sky, looking in at the edge of the narrow blind; the bright sparkle of the little fire midway in the room, burning with a subdued, quiet glee, as if in triumph over the summer warmth which needed this auxiliary. Beside me was a large, old-fashioned elbow-chair, in which Alice was to watch, or sleep, as she said, and a round table with some eau-de-cologne and phials of medicine, a small flower vase containing some roses, and a book. It was deep twilight here in this corner, but my eyes were accustomed to it, and I could see everything; most clearly of all, I could seemy baby’s sweet, slumbering face, and feel his breath like balm, rising and falling upon my cheek.
And then my eye, I cannot tell how, was caught by the book upon the table; when Alice came to her chair beside me, I told her to read me something. Alice was very tremulous and afraid, and feared I could not bear it, but I knew better; as she brought the candle nearer and began to read some chapters from the Gospel of John, I cannot tell how it was that after that terrible fit of illness and anguish I should, have felt my mind so clear and so much at leisure, it was like the fresh dewy interval after a thunderstorm when the air is lightened and the earth refreshed. As Alice read, I lay perfectly calm, holding my child in my arms, grave, composed, thoughtful, as if I had reached a new stage in my life. There seemed a certain novelty and freshness in these divine words; I was not listening to them mechanically, my imagination went back to the speaker, and realized what individual voice this was, addressing me as it addressed all the world. What wonderful words these were, what strange meanings: Justice, justice, God’s meaning of the word, not man’s; that He should bear it Himself,—the grand original, universal penalty. He, the offended one; no, not a weak, poor, benevolent forgiveness, not that, but justice, justice; divinest word! Justice, which blinds the very eyes of this poor humanity with that glorious interpretation which only the Lord could give, that he should bear the punishment, and not the criminal. Strange, strange, most strange! the word read differently when men translated it, but this was how God declared the unchangeable might and power it had, to a wavering, disquieted human heart, straggling with its poor wrongs and injuries, rejecting pity, demanding justice; how wonderful was all this! Alice stopped in her reading after a while, but my thoughts did not pause. I lay quite still, quite still, looking with my open eyes into the dim atmosphere with its faint rays of light, and fainter perfume. How my coward fancies slunk and stole away out of sight, out of hearing, of Him who spoke. My justice and His justice, howdifferent they are; did the same name belong to them? I was not excited, I was not afraid; I thought of it all with a strange composure, an extraordinary calm conviction. I had no desire to sleep, yet I was quite at rest, I did not even feel guilty, only dolefully mistaken, wrong, as unlike Him as anything could be, and only able to wonder at His sublime and wonderful justice, and at the arrogant, presumptuous offence, which had taken the place of justice with me.
And then at last, I fancy I must have fallen asleep, for I had strange sights of bars and judgment-seats, of criminals receiving sentence, and a terrible impression on my mind that I was the next who should be condemned, but that always a bright figure stepped in before me, and the Judge perceived me not. When I woke again it was deep in the night,—Alice was lulling baby, the moon was shining into the room, and I was lying as quiet and as easy as if no such thing as pain had been in the world.
“You are better, dear?” said Alice in a whisper of hesitating joy, as she came to me with some cool pleasant drink she had made. My heart was light; I was almost playful. “I think I am quite well,” I said. “I ought to get up, and let you lie down, Alice; have you had a great deal of trouble with me to-day?”
“Hush, darling, no trouble,” said Alice, hurriedly, “but you’ve had a bad turn; go to sleep, dear, go to sleep.”
I said “Yes, Alice,” as a child might have said it, and I clasped my hands and said the same prayers I had said on the morning of my wedding day. I fell asleep in the middle of them, and ended this day in the deepest peacefulness,—I knew not why.
IWASnow quite well, and it was July, the very flush and prime of summer. After that first day I had progressed steadily and was well, before I had any right to be well, according to the established order of things—for though I was not robust, my health was of the strongest, and I had a vigorous elastic frame, which never long succumbed. I would not listen to Alice’s proposal to have a nurse for baby. As soon as I was able I took entire possession of him myself, and did everything for my boy. I had no other cares or occupations; he was my sole business, and he filled all my time with his requirements. What a happiness it was! If I had been at Cottiswoode, and had a proper, well-appointed nursery, how much of the purest delight, how many of the sweetest influences I must have lost! He was very rarely out of my arms, except when he slept through the day, in the luxurious, beautiful cradle—an odd contrast to the other equipments of the house—which we had got for him. I often smile at my own wilful, voluntary poverty now. We had by no means changed the simplicity of our living, and I was my baby’s sole attendant, and was perfectly contented with this little, mean, limited house; but I sent Alice to London with the widest license to buy the prettiest baby’s cloak, the richest robes, the most delicate equipments for little Harry; and Alice, nothing loath, came back again with a wardrobe fit for a young prince. Sitting by the morsel of fire in the small bed-room up-stairs, with its white dimity hangings, and its clean scanty furniture, I dressed my baby in embroidered robes more costly than a month’s housekeeping, and wrapping his rich cloak about him, and tying on, over his rich laced cap, the soft luxurious hat ofquilted white satin which Alice had chosen to declare to every chance spectator the proud pre-eminence of his sex—a boy! I put on my own simple straw bonnet and went out with him, straying along the quiet roads, up and down the bank of the river, perfectly indifferent of what all the world might think, and smiling when I passed some genteel young mother of the village, with her little maid trudging behind, carrying her baby. I trust my precious Harry in indifferent hands!—No—I only laughed at Alice’s oratory as to what became my station. I had no station here, and wanted none. The curate’s wife might lose caste if she wandered about, a volunteer nursemaid, with her child—but I was entirely free to follow my own will, and follow it I did, as, alas! I had always done all my days.
I do not wonder that the people were bewildered what to think of me, and that gossip almost came to an end out of sheer amazement. I was always dressed with the most extreme simplicity and plainness, but I always wore upon my finger that splendid hereditary diamond which was the curse of our house. It was to be supposed that I could not afford a nurse, yet there never had been seen such a magnificent baby wardrobe—very strange, nobody could make it out; and even the rector’s wife, who paid me the extraordinary honor of a visit, after baby’s baptism—though why she came I could not conceive, for she was a great lady, and chary of her patronage—looked round with an odd, amused, bewildered smile at the luxurious cradle, standing beside the hard hair-cloth sofa, and seemed slightly disposed to speak to me as she might have spoken to a capricious child; but I was wonderfully little moved by anything said to me, or of me; I went upon my own way undisturbed. All those bright summer forenoons I walked about with my baby watching my sweet flowers grow and flourish in the sunshine, myself enjoying the glory and the beauty of those summer days, as I never had enjoyed them before; sometimes I sat down upon a sunny bank near the river, when little Harry was asleep, and watched the ecstasy and rapture of the ships, as they flowed down entrancedtowards the struggles and tempests of the sea. I never wearied of my sweet burden, though I was so proud to say he grew heavier every day, and made boastful complaints of his weight, as mothers use. Often my thoughts were grave enough; sometimes I wept over my beautiful boy, but I could not resist the influences round me, the supreme delight of looking at his slumbering face—the sweet air that refreshed my own—the beautiful scene that still had power to charm me out of my heavy thoughts. Many doubts and many questions had agitated my mind since the day of my baby’s birth, that day so full of joy, yet of humiliation and anguish. I had never recovered entirely from the depression which my husband’s stolen visit to see his child had occasioned me. At the very time my heart was softening to former yearning for him, at that very time it seemed his heart was closed against me. I had never since mentioned him to Alice. I did not pretend to ask her if she had written, nor to take any notice of his visit; and amid all the happiness I had with my child in my own heart, there was the most dreary doubtfulness as to what I should do. My heart was not sufficiently humbled to forget entirely its former mood. I could not subdue myself to call him back, even if I had not had so clear in my remembrance that last visit of his, which was not to me. It seemed a strange dreary retribution for all my offences against him, that now he himself was content to let me alone—that he had granted at last, when I no longer desired it, my often-repeated request, and left me unmolested; was it at peace? Alas, at peace was a very different matter! sometimes the words, “’Tis better in pure hate to let her have her will,” came over me with almost a ludicrous sense of my downfall and humiliation, but the smile was very bitter and tremulous with which I acknowledged the caricature and satire on myself.
So here I was content to stay, unsettled, doubtful, knowing nothing of what my life, or more than my life, my boy’s, was to be, waiting if perhaps he would come or send, or make some appeal to me. Perhaps, I cannot tell—perhaps if he had, myold perversity might have still returned, and I rejected it; but he did not try me, and I could form neither plan nor purpose for the vague, dim future. I persuaded myself that I left it in God’s hands, but I was searching its dull horizon with my wistful eyes, day by day.
And then another thing, a fanciful yet not light dread, weighed upon me. When I sat in the sunshine on the bank of the river adjusting my baby’s veil, laying it back from his sweet face, as he lay sleeping on my knee, with my ungloved hand, I shuddered at the sinister gleam of the diamond upon his innocent brow. My imagination was excited and restless; it did seem a sinister gleam as it flashed upon the innocent sleeper, and all the curse of the story returned to my mind, no more as a mere visionary legend, or a tale half believed, half smiled at, but as a real hereditary curse. Suppose I should die, and my husband marry some sweet loving wife, who would make up to him for all he had suffered with me—once I used to persuade myself that I would be glad of that—and my boy should have another brother, who was not his mother’s son? When I took this possibility into my mind and pondered it, I almost thought, like the unhappy lady to whom it came first, that this fatal jewel blazed at me with malignant splendor like the eye of an evil spirit. No reasonings of mine could shake my terror of it. I was not wise enough, nor sufficiently courageous to banish this fanciful apprehension from my mind, and I trembled, and a cold dew of pain came upon my face as I thought of the lifelong enmity and strife which might be perpetuated in this child, doubly a Southcote as he was, and born in an atmosphere disturbed and clouded by the ceaseless discord of this race.
This day I was seated at my usual post on a grassy bank near the river. Baby lay in my lap asleep, his rich veil laid back round the edge of his hat, showing his sweet innocent face in a nest of lace and ribbons, warm with the subdued sunshine which fell intensely on his white cloak and robes and upon me, but which I carefully held a little parasol to shield from his head.There was a slight fantastic breeze about, crisping the water, and blowing in small warm capricious gusts, now from one quarter, now from another. As usual, the river was bright with many passengers, and some pleasure-boats were setting out from our little bay, for there were now some London people in the village, which was a tiny watering-place in its quiet way. I had newly taken my seat, after a considerable walk, and was just drawing my glove from my hand to put back a stray morsel of the down which we called hair from baby’s forehead. My hands were still thin, and my ring had always been loose on my finger; this time, as it happened, it came off with the glove, and a little gust of wind coming at the moment, my glove blew away from me as I pulled it off, and the ring fell and rolled glistening down over the knoll to the edge of the beach, where it lay among the pebbles, gleaming and sparkling like a living thing.
I never paused to lift my glove. I snatched up my baby hurriedly and almost ran away. I would not look back, lest I should see some one find it, and be obliged to acknowledge it as mine. I hastened along as if I had been stealing instead of only losing this precious ornament. I am sure I felt as guilty, for this was not an innocent andbonâ-fideloss, and I trembled between hope and terror. I had been out for some time, and, truth to speak, Master Harry had momentarily fatigued the arms of his mamma. Then the capricious wind chose this time of all others to loose my hair from under my bonnet, and catch a wild half-curled lock to sport with, and I had no glove upon my right hand; the only one which baby’s ample vestments permitted to be visible. In this case I hurried on, meeting a London nursemaid with some wild pretty children, who drew herself up in conscious superiority; meeting the Rector’s pony carriage, with Mrs. Rector in it, who nodded to me with her usual amused disapproving look, and, I was very certain, laughed when I was past. Somehow or other, I almost enjoyed these interruptions, and hastened homeward with my gloveless hand and my face flushed with haste and exercise. I certainly could not havelooked much like a miserable forsaken wife, or a self-consuming passionate misanthrope, when I reached our cottage door.
The brightest face in the world was looking out for me at the window—Flora! Flora Ennerdale! what could bring her here? But I had scarcely time to ask the question when she ran out to meet me, as eager and joyful as her sweet, affectionate nature could be. Flora seized upon my ungloved hand, and stood looking at me in her pretty shy way to see if I would kiss her. I did, this time, with real love and pleasure; and Baby!—she took him, though I only half consented, out of my arms, with a natural instinct for it, yet not with the perfect skill which I flattered myself I had attained to, and insisted upon carrying him in, very proud and delighted, to the little parlor, where she had already made herself quite at home, but where her mother’s elderly maid, who had come with her, sat very dainty and frigid, much more disgusted with our penurious appointments than Flora was. For the first moment I was conscious of nothing but pleasure in seeing her, but now I began to inquire within myself and to wonder—who had told her? who had sent her? was she the investigating dove, the messenger to tell if the floods had abated?—a momentary pang of pique and jealous pride made me look gravely at Flora; but it was impossible to look at her sweet, innocent face, and think of any hidden design. No, she would tell me honestly why she came—I was sure of that.
When Alice came in, Flora’s respectable attendant condescended to withdraw with her, and we were left alone. Flora had thrown down her bonnet and shawl upon the haircloth sofa, where she now hastily placed mine, after disrobing me with her own hands. I took my low nursing-chair, for I had now regained Baby, but Flora was standing before the window in her wide floating, pretty muslin gown, so summerlike and girl-like; she was not disposed even to stand still, much less to sit down for a reasonable conference, and all this while was running on with her pleasant voice and happy words, as light of heart as ever.
“Oh, cousin Hester, how beautiful it is,” she cried; “howdid you find out such a lovely quiet place? and such ships? I have heard the boys speak of ships, but I thought there was always something nasty and noisy about where they are. I could look at these all day—how they float! what beautiful round sails—is that the wind in them that fills them out so?—and how they seem to enjoy it, cousin Hester!”
“How did you find me out, Flora?” I asked.
Flora hesitated for a moment, and then suddenly came and knelt down beside me. “Dear cousin Hester, Mr. Southcote came and told Mamma all about it. You will not be angry, cousin? Mamma thought it was not right of you, and Mr. Southcote came and explained it to her, and said it was he that had been wrong, and that you had a right to be angry with him. Then he let us know when Baby was born—oh, what a sweet rogue he is, cousin Hester!—do you think there ever was such a pretty baby? and then we had to come to London—about—about—some business, and I teased Mamma till she let me come to see you. I did so want to see you, and I had something to tell you too.”
“What had you to tell me, Flora?” I asked, stiffening into pride again. This of course was some message from my husband, and I could not explain why I felt aggrieved that he should choose her for his messenger.
Flora looked up wistfully into my face—“Have I said anything wrong—are you angry, cousin?”
“No, no; why should I be angry?” I answered, almost with impatience. “Tell me what message you have.”
“Message! It is no message,” said Flora, her whole pretty face waking into blushes and dimples; “it was all about myself, cousin Hester—I am so selfish; it was something that happened to me.”
I saw how it was at once, and was relieved. “Well, tell me what has happened, Flora,” I said.
But Flora buried her pretty face and her fair curls in Baby’s long robes, and laughed a little tremulous laugh, and made me no answer.
“Must I guess?” I asked, smiling at the girlish, sweet confusion. “I suppose, as people say, somebody has fallen in love with you: is that what has happened?”
She looked up for a moment with a glance of delighted astonishment—“How could you find it out, cousin Hester?” said Flora; “it looks very vain even to believe it; but, indeed—indeed, he says so, and I think it is the strangest thing in the world.”
Her innocent surprise and joy brought tears to my eyes. I remembered myself the humility of a young heart wondering, wondering if this strange gift of gifts, the love of romance and poetry, could really have fallen to its own share; yet Flora was so unlike me—and my eyes, worn with tears and watching, were they disenchanted now?
I stooped to kiss her sweet blushing cheek. “I must hear who he is now, and all that you have to tell me,” said I. “Are they pleased at home, and is he a hero and a paladin? It was very good of you to come and tell me, Flora.”
“No, he is not a hero,” said Flora, and then she paused and looked up in my face, and made a breathless appeal to me, clasping baby’s little soft hand within both her own; “Oh, cousin Hester, will you come home? it must be so dreadful to be parted; I can understand it now,” said Flora, with her sweet blush. “Please, cousin Hester, dear cousin, what matter is it if Mr. Southcote was wrong, he is so fond of you, he thinks there is no one like you; oh, will you come home?”
I was taken by surprise. I could not help crying as the eager young face looked up in mine. I was not in the least angry; but alas! she did not know,—how could she know?
“Hush, Flora, hush,” I said, when I could speak; “hush, hush;” I could not find another word to say.
“You would be a great deal happier, cousin Hester,” said Flora, kissing my hand, and clasping it with baby’s between her own.
I only repeated that one word “Hush.” If my child himselfhad appealed to me, I do not think I could have been more strangely moved.
She said no more, but sighed as she gave up her guileless endeavor; and now again the smiles and blushes came beaming back, and she told me of her own happiness.Hewas a young landed gentleman in their immediate neighborhood, only five miles from Ennerdale, and if neither a hero nor a paladin, had managed to make Flora very well contented with him, that was certain. And everything was so suitable, she said, and mamma and papa were so much pleased, and the boys were wild about it, and they had come up to London to supply the bride’s wardrobe, and it was from this delightful occupation that Flora had spared a day to visit me.
“And he has three sisters, cousin Hester,” said Flora, “such pretty, good, nice girls, and they all live at the hall; and we have always beensuchfriends, especially Mary and I, and they will be such pleasant company. Oh! if you were only at Cottiswoode, I think I should have nothing more to wish for; I can see mamma almost every day, and Annie is almost old enough to take my place, and when Gus and the rest of the boys come home for the holidays, of course they will be as much at the hall as they are at Ennerdale, andheis as fond of them all as I am, and if you were at home, cousin Hester, I think I should be almost too happy.”
The only thing I could do was to draw my hand caressingly over this happy, pretty head before me. Flora could go on in her pleasant talk without any help from me.
“So that will be one thing to hope for,” said Flora; “you might come and seeme, cousin Hester. Mamma is so busy getting everything, that she could not come down with me to-day; such quantities of things, I cannot think what I shall do with them, and you know I never had a great many dresses before; just look what a child I am,” cried Flora, springing up with a burst of laughter at herself and opening a dainty little basket on the table, to bring out sundry bits of bright richglistening silk. “I brought them to show them to you, cousin; I know you don’t care for such things, but—but—you were always so kind to me.”
I was not so philosophical as Flora supposed. I think myself that however universal the feminine love of dress may be, it is never so perfectly developed as in a happy young wife who has her babies to adorn and decorate as well as herself. Though I was far from happy, I felt the germ of this within me, and was not at all indifferent to Flora’s pretty specimens. We were soon deep in a discussion of laces and satins, and modes, matters in which Flora was so delighted to have my advice, and I so willing to give it; the forenoon went on very pleasantly while we were thus occupied. I was pleased and drawn out of myself, and I had always been very fond of Flora; the sight of her happiness was quite a delight to me.
When baby had takenhisrefreshment and been laid to sleep in his cradle—he was not much more than a month old, and slept a great deal, as I suppose healthy, vigorous children generally do—Flora went up to my room with me, for I wanted to give her some little present, such as I had; Flora was somewhat amused at the bare little room, the scanty white dimity hangings, and clean poverty of everything, and at baby’s little bath, and the pretty basket which at present held his night things only. “Do you do everything for him yourself?” she asked, wonderingly. “Do you know, cousin Hester, I should think that was so very pleasant, and to carry him about out of doors, as you were doing; oh, I should so like to be your nursemaid, cousin!”
“Well, Flora?” I said, inquiringly, for she had stopped with hesitation, as if she wanted to ask something of me.
“Perhaps you would not like it, dear,” said Flora, in her caressing way; “but I should not be at all hurt if you said so. Oh, I should like so much to come here for a few days. Cousin Hester, I could sleep on the sofa, I could help Alice, I always was handy, and I know you would let me carry baby sometimeswhen you went out. Will you write to mamma now, and ask her to let me come? Oh, cousin Hester, do!”
“But, Flora, your mamma does not approve of me,” said I, with an involuntary blush.
Her countenance fell a little. “Indeed I did not say so, cousin Hester,” she explained, though with an embarrassment which made it very evident to me that I was right. “She thought it wrong of you to go away, but it was different after Mr. Southcote told her, and she is so very sorry for you, dear cousin, and says she is sure you are not happy. Oh, indeed it was not at all hard to persuade her to let me come to-day. I am very bold to beg so for an invitation, but I do so wish to come, cousin; you will write?”
“It would do me good to have you with me, Flora,” I said, sadly; “but I think I have grown very foolish and nervous. I am almost afraid to write to your mamma. I fancyshecannot see anything to excuse me. Happy people are sometimes not the best judges, Flora, and she has never been very wretched, I am sure. And then, what wouldhesay? Nobody can think well of me in Cambridgeshire; andhewould not like to have his young bride staying with me. I am sure he would not, Flora.”
“Say you would rather I did not come, cousin Hester,” said Flora, who was nearly crying; “don’t say such cruel things asthat.”
“Yet they are true,” I said; “I know what I have lost, and that few people can think well of me. It will be better not, dear Flora, though it would be a great happiness to me. Now, come here. This was my mother’s, and I have sometimes worn it myself. You like to be called like her, Flora. Will you wear it for her sake?”
As I spoke I clasped upon her pretty neck the little gold chain, with its diamond pendant, which I had been so proud to wear on that first fated night when I met Harry. She had not yet dried her few bright tears of disappointment and sympathy, and one fell upon the gems, making them all the brighter. She stillcried a little as she thanked me. I knew it was a gift to please her greatly, for pretty as it was itself, and valuable, it had an additional charm to her affectionate heart.
“And for your sake, cousin—am I not to like it for your sake?” cried Flora; “I love to hear of her—but I love you, your very own self—may I wear it for your sake?”
I answered her gratefully, as I felt; but as I opened the case which held my mother’s jewels, the same case which my father had given me in Cambridge, and which I had always carried about with me since my eye fell upon Mr. Osborne’s present, the little chain with my mother’s miniature, my heart was softened; I was a mother myself, and knew now the love above all loves which a mother bears to her child, and I was terribly shaken on my own original standing-ground, and at the bottom of my heart knew myself bitterly, cruelly wrong. My father, it was possible to fancy, might have been even more wrong than I was; and Flora’s sweet face, like hers, yet wanting something of the perfect repose and sweetness which this little picture showed, was the last touch that softened me. When I put my mother’s diamond ornament on Flora’s neck, I clasped the miniature on my own. With my plain dress and total want of ornament—for I had not even a ring except my wedding-ring—the simple little chain and the circle of pearls round the miniature, made a great show. Flora came eagerly to look at it, I had never shown it to her before; she thought it so beautiful—so sweet—she never could be so vain as to let any one say she was like my mother after seeing that.
And then we returned downstairs to the early homely dinner which Alice had been at considerable trouble with. Alice was much disturbed and humbled by the invasion of these visitors; she did not like the idea of any one finding us in our new circumstances, and Flora’s maid was a great affliction to Alice. “She could have borne the young lady,” she said, “but all the servants at Ennerdale and all the servants at Cottiswoode, everybody would know that Mrs. Southcote kept no nurse for her baby, and livedin a house of four apartments, and waited on herself.” It was very galling to Alice, but she forgot it in the secret glow of delight with which she observed the miniature I wore.
Flora did not leave me till it was quite evening, and even then not without another petition that I would “ask Mamma” to let her come for a longer visit. It was a great piece of self-denial, but I steadily resisted her entreaties. I knew Mrs. Ennerdale—a placid, unawakened woman, who knew nothing of me nor of my struggles—could have no sympathy for me, and I rather would want the solace of Flora’s company than expose her to her mother’s disapprobation. I had voluntarily left my husband and my own house, perhaps with no sufficient cause, and I sternly doomed myself to a recluse’s life, and determined to involve no one in any blame that belonged to me.
In the early evening, when the sun had just set—baby, by this time, having had his full share of attendance, and Flora herself, by especial favor, having been permitted to place him in his cradle—I set out with her to the railway, which was at a considerable distance from the village. But when we were ready to go, I suddenly remembered I had but one glove, and Alice as suddenly perceived the want upon my finger. “Do you not wear your ring to-day, dear?” whispered Alice, looking at me anxiously as she put my shawl round me. In the same whispering tone, but with guilt at heart, I answered, “I lost it by the waterside this morning,” and Alice uttered a subdued cry of joy. I had happily forgotten it all this day, but when it occurred to me I felt considerably disturbed and timid. I could not persuade myself I had lost it honestly. I fancied I could still see it gleaming among the pebbles at the water’s edge when I could so easily have picked it up, and if it did come back to me after this, I fancied I would, more than ever, think it a fate.
We had a long pleasant walk in the peaceful sweet evening. Flora’s influence over me had always been good; to-night she made me almost as light of heart as herself, and we parted with a great many hopes on her part of seeing me again before sheleft London, and with a good deal of sadness on mine. When I turned back alone, I found even a tear hanging upon my eye-lash. Her young, sweet, unshadowed hope was a great contrast to mine, but that was not what made me sad; I liked Flora, she seemed to connect me at once with the bright girlhood and young womanhood of which, in my solitary life, I had known so little, and it grieved me to think that for a long time, perhaps for ever, I might not see her again. Natural likings and desires came upon me so strangely in that unnatural position: I should have liked to go to Flora’s marriage, to help her in her preparations, to do all which young people, friends to each other, delight to do on such occasions; and the thought that her mother now, and, most likely, her husband hereafter, would rather discourage Flora’s affection for me, was rather a hard thought. As I turned my face homeward, the peaceful evening light was falling into shadow over these quiet houses; from the church there once again came that faint inarticulate sound of music, solitary chords, struck at intervals, vibrating through the lonely building, and through the harmonious quiet of the air, and everything, except the passing ships, was at rest and at home. I turned my wistful eyes to them, perpetual voyagers! my overladen heart followed them as they glided out to the sea—distance, space, blank, and void and far. I thought of the wilds of my own country, and of the endless, breathless travel, the constant journey on and on to the very end of the world, which my girlish fancies had thought upon so often. It seemed for a moment as though that, and that only, could ease the restless disquiet in my breast.
“Mrs. Southcote, I beg your pardon for interrupting you so abruptly,” said our village doctor, coming up hastily to me, and perceiving how I started at the sound of his voice recalling me to myself, “but did you lose a ring to-day? My wife picked up this on the beach. It is yours, I think.”
I looked at him with blank dismay, though I did not look at the glittering jewel in his hand; of course I knew at once that it was mine—that it must be mine—and that malicious fate returnedthe curse to me. It was no use trying to deny or disown this fatal gem. Malicious fate! What words these were! I sickened at the passion and rebellious force that still was in my heart.
“Yes,” I said, almost with resentment; “yes, thank you, it is mine,” but I did not hold out my hand for it. The doctor looked amazed, almost distrustful of me. I was not comprehensible to him.
“It seems of great value,” he said, with a slight, half-indignant emphasis; “and even in the village, I dare say, it might have fallen into hands less safe than my wife’s. The river would have made small account of your diamond had the water come an inch or two higher. Ladies are seldom so careless of their pretty things, Mrs. Southcote.”
He was an old man, and had been very kind to me. I did not wish to offend him now that I recollected myself. “It has very unpleasant recollections to me, doctor,” I said, as I put it on my finger; “I almost was glad to think I had lost it: but I thank you very much for taking the trouble, and will you thank Mrs. Lister for me; it was very kind of her to pick it up.”
The old doctor left me, more than ever bewildered as to my true character and position. I heard afterwards from the rector’s wife, who was not above caricaturing and observing the village oddities, that he went home to the little house, which had been cast into great excitement half the day by finding this prize, completely dismayed by my indifference. “I was almost glad to think I had lost it!” Who could I be who thought so little of such a valuable ornament? The doctor and his household could not understand what it meant.
As for me, when I left him, my impulse was to tear it from my finger, and fling it with all my force into the middle of the river. To what purpose? it would not be safe, I believed, even there. Wilful losing would not do, as I had experienced already. With secret passion I pressed it upon my finger, as if extra precautions to secure it might, perhaps, answer my purpose. Whata fiendish, malignant glare it had to my excited eyes as I looked at it in the soft twilight: it seemed to gather the lingering light into itself, and turn upon me with a glow of defiance. When I reached home, where Alice had already lighted candles and put our little parlor in order, I held it up to her as I entered. I believe I was quite pale with fright and passion. “See, it has come back to me,” I said; “it will not be lost.”
Alice was not so much dismayed as I was. “I feared it would be found,” she said; “but patience, dear; there is but one heir to Cottiswoode, and it’s worn on a woman’s hand.”
I had to content myself, of course; but I scarcely liked to put up my hand, with that ring upon it, to my neck, where hung my mother’s miniature. Alice’s eye followed me, as I did it once, and her face lighted up. “If the ring is the sign of strife, the picture is peace itself, Miss Hester,” she said with a faltering voice. I almost thought so myself. How strange it was to wear these two things together!
MYbaby was very ill. He had been seized a week before, but we had not apprehended anything. Now we were closely shut up in my bed-room, trying to shield every breath of air from him; keeping up the fire though it was only September, while I sat by the fireside holding him on my knee, watching the changes of his face, his breathing, his movements, with frightful anxiety, and reproaching myself, oh, so bitterly, for that one last walk, which had brought this illness upon him. He had taken a violent cold, and I could not but see, by the anxiety of the doctor, by the gravity of Alice, and the pitying tender look which she cast upon me, how they thought it would end. When I awoke from my security to think of this, I dare not describe the misery that came upon me. Oh, I had talked of misery and hopelessness before, but what were all the griefs in the world to this one! To look at him, and think he might be taken from me—to look upon those sweet features, which might be by-and-by removed from my eyes for ever; oh, heaven, that agony! that was the bitterness of death.
He had rallied two or three times and relapsed again, so that we were even afraid to trust the appearance of recovery when such appeared, but there was no sign of recovery now. It was just dawn, very early in the morning, and we had been watching all night. I had made Alice lie down, and baby was in a disturbed and painful slumber. As I sat watching him, restraining my very breath lest it should make him uneasy as he lay upon my lap, my eye wandered to the cold gray sky, over which the morning light was flushing faintly, and it came to my mind how I had watched the dawn upon this day twelvemonth, mywedding-day. The sweet serenity of that morning came back to my recollection, the agitation of my own mind, which, great as it was, was happy agitation still, and my trust, my hope unbounded; my perfect confidence in Harry, my fearlessness of any evil—yet, that was the beginning of sorrows; now the fear in my heart shook the very foundations of the earth; if such a calamity came, there was no light, no hope beyond it. I had come to love life for my baby’s sake, and even now I know I made a great painful effort to say I would be resigned and content with God’s will, whatever it—but I felt in my heart that life would be only a loathing and disgust to me; oh, heaven have pity upon me! What would I have in all the world if my baby were taken away!
Every fleeting change that there was—every momentary alteration, I wanted to have the doctor, or to call Alice, to ask what they thought now. Then I remembered vaguely the name, the Great Physician—and that however far others might be, he was near at all times; oh, if I only could have got to his feet, as they did in Palestine in those blessed days when He was there, if I could but have thrown myself on the earth before him, and cried, “my child! my child!” I said, as in my prayer, from my very despair, I caught boldness. I cried with my heart, till it was bursting with that agony of asking,—praying for your child’s life, do you know what it is?
There was no difference, no difference! and the pallid light was growing on the sky, and the first sounds of life began to break upon the stillness; then I was stayed in my prayers as by an invisible hand. I cannot tell how or why these words came to my mind, but they came with a terrible force, making me silent, shutting my mouth in an instant: “If I regard sin in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” I was appalled by the sudden sentence; was there no hope, then? No hope? Did I not even dare to appeal to Him who never before cast any applicant away?
I was struck dumb; I sat still in a breathless, hopeless pauseof dismay, my heart suddenly yielding to this dreary calamity. In a moment there came upon me a fearful vision of what might be my life bereaved, my hope lost. Heaven and the ear of God shut upon me; I knew what was right, and I had not done it. I was self-convicted of wrong, but I did not change my course. I was crying wildly to God for the blessing which he alone could grant, but I was still regarding sin in my heart.
At this moment Alice woke and hastily rose; she saw no change in baby, he was just the same, just the same; oh, these dreadful hopeless words! But I consented she should take him upon her lap, and myself went downstairs, though not to rest myself, as she said; I went with a faint desperate hope that perhaps if I were absent a few minutes I might perceive a favorable change when I returned. I went into the cold deserted parlor, which already looked so uninhabited, so miserable, and where baby’s unused cradle stood in the chill morning light, reminding me, if I had needed to be reminded, of the sweet days that were past, and of the frightful shadow which was upon us now. I knelt down upon the floor beside it. I did more than kneel; I bent down my very head upon the ground. I could not find a position low enough, humble enough. I tried to persuade myself that He was here indeed, that I was at His feet, where the woman which was a sinner came; but my cry was balked and my words stayed by that great unchangeable barrier; ah, the woman which was a sinner was not then regarding sin in her heart.
I could not bear this intolerable oppression; my prayers and cries must have outlet one way or another. I raised up my head, almost as if I was addressing some mortal enemy who had whispered these words into my mind. “I will go home—I will humble myself to my husband,” I cried aloud. “I do not care for pride—I will humble myself—I will humble myself!” While I was speaking my tears came in a flood, my troubled brain was lightened, and when I laid down my head again and covered my face with my hands, I felt at least that I could pray.
I am not sure that I could have been five minutes absent altogether, but when I went back I was sick with the eager breathless hope which had risen in my mind. There was no ground for it; he was no better; but I took him in my lap again with patience, trying to put the dreadful shadow off from me. The dawn brightened into the full morning; then came the dreadful noon with all its brightness; the doctor came and went; the hours passed on, and the baby lived—that was all.
And now I could not pray any longer; my mind had sunk into a feverish stupidity; I was alive to nothing but the looks of my child; yes, and to one thing besides. I had a strange, helpless feeling of clinging to “the Great Physician;” the name was in my mind, if nothing more; it was not prayer, it was not faith; I could not say it was anything natural or spiritual at all; I rather felt as if something held me, as if I were clinging to a cord or to the skirts of a robe; as if I was only thus prevented from plunging into some dreadful abyss of despair and ruin, and my dumb, strange, almost stupid dependence was upon Him solely—only upon Him.
I was waiting, waiting; I did not dare to say to myself that baby lay more quietly; I dared not look up at Alice, or ask her what she thought; but when the doctor came again it was nearly evening, and as I watched his face my heart grew sick. Oh, yes, it was hope—hope! I scarcely could bear it; and when the old man said real words—real true words, not fancies, that he was a great deal better, I think I had very nearly fainted.
But it was quite true; he improved gradually all that afternoon; he began to look like himself again; rapidly as he had grown ill, he grew better; I suppose it always is so with young children; and when I sat by the fire in the evening with him, he put up his dear little hand again to catch at my mother’s miniature, as he had done before his illness. “Oh, my darling, give God thanks,” said Alice, as she sat on a stool by me, not able to control her tears. I had, indeed, an unspeakable thankfulnessin my heart, but I could not give expression to it—words would not come. “Lips say God be pitiful, that ne’er said God be praised!” Is that true, I wonder; I was very, very grateful, but I could not find words as I did in the agony of my prayers.
And now I returned to the resolution I had come to when baby fell asleep. Oh, that sweet, hopeful sleep; it was delight enough to look at it! I sat over the fire pondering on what I had to do. Then it occurred to me how unjust I had been. This dear, precious child, without whom my life would be a blank and hateful; this little creature, who had been to me a fountain of every sweet and tender influence; who had made my days joyful, burdened though they were,—was my husband’s child, and by as close and dear a tie as he was mine. I had no right to keep for myself, and for my own enjoyment, this sweetest gift of Providence, which was not bestowed on one of us more than another, but which was given to both. If he had wronged me, he had not wronged his child; and I bowed my head in shame to think how I had broken even my own rules of justice—how I could restore my husband to his rights. Without being conscious that this was still another salve to my own pride, I took up eagerly this view of the matter. I would humble myself to say that I was wrong—to return to Cottiswoode—to acknowledge how unjust I had been, and to share with my husband the care of our child; and then, when my heart ached with thinking that right and wrong were not the only things to build household peace upon, imagination came in to charm me with dreams of what he would do and say. How he would once more seek the heart which once was given to him so freely; how he would come to my feet again as he had done a year ago. Ah, this was our very marriage-day!