By The Author Of “The House of Yorke.”
One of the greatest severities in the imprisonment of a criminal is, probably, that he can no longer see the wide earth nor the free skies, so that not only is his body cramped, but his mind is thrown back on itself, and forbidden to send out those long tendrils which can sometimes shoot through the eyes, and fasten on distant objects, when those near by are repelling. Moreover, the universe itself becomes to him like another prisoner, and he can scarcely believe that the large, smooth creation sails uninterruptedly on its way when he sees of it but one little spot for ever shut in by the bars of his cell.
Mr. Schöninger's window in the jail had been low, giving him a sight of the street not far away; but his cell in the prison was higher up, and separated from the window by a passage. Sitting or lying down, therefore, he saw only a small square of sky; and standing, the topmost line of a blue hill became visible. Only one other earthly object was in sight; and as time passed by that became still less and less of earth, and assumed a variable but always supernatural character: it was the stone Christ that stood on the church not far away. He could see all of it but the lowest hem of the robe; and as it stood there, surrounded by air alone, above the narrow line of the distant hill, it seemed an awful colossal being walking in over the edge of a submerged world. At morning, when the sky was bright behind it, it darkened, the lineaments of the face were lost in a shadow that was like a frown, and its garments and its hands were full of gloom. At one season there were a few days when the risen sun at a certain hour surrounded the head with an intolerable splendor, and then it was an image of wrath and judgment. It wore quite another character on bright evenings, when, the setting sun shining in its face, it came, white and glowing, down the hillside, with arms outstretched, full of irresistible love and invitation. To see this image, he had to stand at the grated door of his cell. When sitting or lying down, there was no view for the prisoner but a square of sky barred off by iron rods; and as the earth rolled, his view travelled with it, day after day going over the same track in the terrestrial sphere. At evening a few pale stars went by, afar off, and so unaware of him that they were like distant sails to the shipwrecked mariner, hovering on the horizon and disappearing, each failure a new shipwreck to him.
One morning, when he opened his eyes just as day was beginning to flicker in the east, he saw a large, full star, so brilliant that it trembled in the silvery sky, as if about to spill its brimming gold. It was so alive, so intelligent, so joyous, that he raised himself and looked at it [pg 248] as he would have looked at a fair and joyful face appearing at the door of his cell. Surely it was like good tidings, that glad star in the east! He got up, and, as he rose, there rose up whitely against the sky the Christ of the Immaculate Conception, seeming almost transparent in that pure light.
The prisoner knelt on the stone floor of his cell, and lifted his hands. “God of my fathers,” he said, “deliver me! for I am turned in my anguish whilst the thorn is fastened!”
It was the first prayer he had uttered since the night of his arrest, except those outcries which were more the expression of anger and a devouring impatience than of petition. Having uttered it, he lay down again, and tried to sleep. He dreaded the thronging thoughts and tormenting pains of the day, and there was a tender sweetness in this new mood which he would fain have kept and carried off into sleep. To keep it by him, he called up that story suggested by what he had just seen, the star in the east and the Christ. He did not believe it, but he found it soothing. It came to him like David's song to Saul, and, though but a mythical story, as that was but a song, it kept down the tigers of anger and despair which threatened to rise and tear him.
It was his own Judæa, which he had never seen, indeed, but which was to him what the fountain is to the stream—the source of his being. How fair and peaceful was that silent night that overhung, unbarred by iron bolts, free from horizon to horizon! The holy city was sleeping, and by its side slept Bethlehem. Within a stable a fair young matron had just laid her newly-born child on its bed of straw, while Joseph, his Jewish brother, ministered to both, feeling sad and troubled, it must be, that those so dear to him were so illy cared for at such a time. The ox and the ass looked on with large, mild eyes, and warmed the air with their breath. It was poor, but how peaceful, how tender, how free! The open door and windows of that poor stable were to him more beautiful than the barred and guarded portal of a Herod or a Cæsar.
Yet with what a blaze of glory the Christian church had surrounded this simple human picture! The poor man who had been able to give his family no better shelter than a stable was held by them more honored than Herod or Cæsar; and cherubim, bright and warm from heaven, like coals just from a fire, drew near to gaze with him, and burned with a still white light above his head. They called this matron a miraculous mother, they showered titles over her like flowers and gems, they placed the moon beneath her feet, and wreathed the stars of heaven into a garland for her head.
How terrible and how beautiful was this Christian legend! The Jew had abhorred it as a blasphemy, and his blood chilled as he suffered his thought to touch one instant the awful centre of this strange group—the Babe to whose small hand these idolaters gave the power to crush the universe, on whose tiny head they placed the crown of omnipotence. It was useless to try to sleep. The soothing human picture had blazed out with such an awakening supernatural glory that he could not even lie still. He rose again, and stood at the door of his cell. The star had melted from sight, the peaceful, [pg 249] cloudless morning was spreading over the sky, and where the feet of the Christ stood on the hill-top the beams of the sun were sparkling. Beautiful upon the mountains were the feet of Him who brought good tidings.
“A Christian would call it miraculous,” he muttered, looking at that light; and he shuddered as he spoke. But that shudder did not come from the depths of his soul, where a new light and peace were brooding. It was like the clamor and confusion outside the doors of the temple when the Lord had driven forth the money-changers, and was less an expression of abhorrence than a casting out of abhorrence.
The Jew did not know that, however, nor guess nor inquire what had happened in his soul. He scarcely thought at all, but stood there and let the light steep him through. Some dim sense of harmony stole over him, as if he heard a smooth and noble strain of music, and for the first time since his imprisonment he remembered his loved profession, and longed to feel the keys of a piano or an organ beneath his hand. His fingers unconsciously played on the iron bars, and he hummed a tune lowly to himself, without knowing what it was.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!”
Then, catching himself idle and dreaming, he turned away from the grating, took a book from the table, and began to read.
This book had been to Mr. Schöninger an intellectual substitute for that spiritual consolation which he had not. Finding early in his imprisonment that his mind was working itself into a frenzy over the horrors of his position, and injuring him physically more even than confinement did, he had begun the study of a language with which he was entirely unacquainted, and, whenever he found his thoughts accomplishing nothing profitable, he turned them resolutely to this study, and bent them, with the whole force of his will, to learning dry rules and regulations. The discipline had saved him much, but it had not prevented his growing thin and haggard, and loathing food, and almost forgetting how to sleep.
But on this morning study did not seem so much a refuge as a task. The prisoner lifted his eyes now and then from the book, and looked outward to the sky, and then dropped them again, still in a dream, and wondering at himself. So might the sea have wondered when its waves sank to rest beneath the divine feet of the Lord passing over.
How many times during those terrible months he had striven to produce a perfect calm in his own soul by calling up stoical thoughts, and all in vain; or, if not in vain, the only effect had been a temporary and enforced calm.
Nor was it unworthy a manly and reasonable character that such an effect as he now experienced should be produced by something which, apparently, appealed only to the artistic or the marvellous. Every soul has its beautiful gate; and if truth, walking about outside, should choose to enter by that vine-wreathed portal, and reach the citadel by way of gardens and labyrinths, instead of approaching by the broad avenue of reason, who shall say that it is not as well? Besides, in the artist, that gate stands always open.
[pg 250]It was those same sunbeams, shining on the hill-top, and speaking to the lonely prisoner of a dawn of hope and joy, which to Annette Gerald's eyes had flashed like the two-edged sword by whose lightnings the first sinners in the world had fled out into the desert. But this sorrowful daughter of Eve missed one of the consolations of our first mother; for Eve could lament aloud, and call on all creation to weep with her; but this later exile must take up her misery as if it were a delight.
She went about smilingly, making preparations for this little journey she had announced her intention of taking.
“But you needn't put everything in order, just as if you were never coming back again,” her mother said. “I'll see to things.”
She was sitting in Annette's chamber, and watching her at work.
“Well, mamma, just as you please,” the daughter answered gently, and touched her mother caressingly on the shoulder in passing.
A lock of Mrs. Ferrier's dark hair had fallen from the comb, and was hanging down her back. Annette paused to fasten it up, and, as she did so, caught quickly a pair of scissors near, and severed a little tress.
“What in the world are you cutting my hair for?” exclaimed Mrs. Ferrier, who had witnessed the operation in a looking-glass opposite.
Annette laughed and blushed. She had not meant to be detected. “I'll tell you when I come back, mamma. You shall see what I am going to have made. It will be something very wonderful.”
She turned quickly away, and bit her lip hard to keep down some rising emotion. She had seen a single thread of silver in that dark-brown tress, and the sight, touching at all times—the mother's first gray hair—brought with it the poignant thought that white hairs would come fast and thick when her mother should know what this journey meant.
“What are you taking all those common dresses for?” Mrs. Ferrier asked. “They are hardly fit to go to the mountains with.”
“Oh! we do not mean to be gay and fashionable,” was the light reply. “We want to have a quiet time by ourselves.”
“But you have got your jewel-case,” the mother persisted. “I don't see what you want of diamonds with a shabby black silk gown.”
In spite of the almost intolerable thought that after these few hours she would probably never see her mother again, Annette found this oversight irritating. Yet not for anything would she have spoken one word that was not dictated by respect and affection. The only way was to escape now, and make her preparations afterward, and for that she had an excuse.
“By the way, mamma,” she said, “I want to see F. Chevreuse, and this is just the hour to catch him at home. Won't you take your drive now, and leave me at his house? Wouldn't you just as lief go out before lunch as after? You and I haven't had a drive together for a long time.”
And then, when she was alone, she made haste to put into her trunks all those common, useful articles which fitted her present needs, and the few souvenirs too dear to leave behind, and the valuables, which might some day be [pg 251] sold, if money should fail them. She had scarcely turned the key on them, when her mother came in again, pulling on her gloves. “I want to speak to F. Chevreuse myself,” she remarked, “and I will go in with you.”
Annette said nothing, but dressed herself hastily. It really seemed as though every obstacle were being placed in her way; yet how could she be impatient with her poor mother, whose heart was so soon to be smitten, through her, by a terrible grief, and who would soon recall in bitterness of soul every word and act of this their last day together? And, after all, she had no desire to talk with the priest. What could she say to him? All that was necessary was written, and she could not ask his blessing nor any service from him, nor even his forgiveness. The one thing he could do for them was to denounce them, set the officers of justice on their track, and make their lot worse than that of Cain, since the earth was no longer wide and wild, but close and full of watching eyes and prating tongues. The world seemed to her, indeed, oppressively small, having no least nook where the restless, curious traveller did not penetrate with his merciless pen, for ever ready to sketch all he heard and saw to gratify the equally restless and curious people at home.
“Is it a confession you have to make?” Mrs Ferrier asked, as they approached the priest's house.
They had been driving along in silence, and at this question Annette started and blushed violently. “Dear me, mamma!” she said, in answer to her mother's look of astonishment, “I was off a thousand miles, and you gave me such a start when you spoke. Yes, it is a confession. You can see F. Chevreuse first, and I will go in after. You need not wait for me. I am going to walk out to the convent to Sister Cecilia a few minutes. The walk will do me good; and afterward I would like to have you send the carriage there for me.”
The excitement under which she was laboring led her unconsciously to assume a decided and almost commanding tone, and her mother submitted without any opposition. Annette certainly did not look well, she thought; and, besides, she was going away. This last consideration was one of great weight with Mrs. Ferrier, for she looked on railroads and steam-boats as infernal contrivances expressly intended to destroy human life, and never saw persons in whom she was interested commit themselves to the mercies of these inventions without entertaining mournful apprehensions as to the probable result. Moreover, Annette had been very sweet and fond with her all day, and was looking very beautiful, with that wide-awake glance of her bright eyes, and the crimson color flickering like a flame in her cheeks.
“I think, dear, on the whole, I won't go in to-day,” she said. “It might take too long; for this is his busy time of day. To-morrow will do as well.”
Annette only nodded, unable to speak; but in stepping from the carriage, she laid her small hand on Mrs. Ferrier's, and gave it a gentle pressure.
“That girl grows prettier and sweeter every day,” said the mother to herself, as her daughter disappeared within the doorway. “And how black velvet does become her!”
[pg 252]Father Chevreuse knew well that no ordinary errand could have brought Annette Gerald to his house, and it was impossible for him to meet her with the ordinary forms of civility. Scarcely any greeting passed between them, as he rose hastily at her entrance, and waited for her first word. She was, perhaps, more collected than he.
“Are you quite alone here?” she asked.
He led her to the inner sitting-room, and closed the door after them, and even then did not think to offer her a chair any more than she thought of taking one.
“We have told mamma that we are going away this evening for a little journey, and she expects us to return in four weeks. John knows all about our affairs. At the end of four weeks, he will say something to you, or you to him, whichever you please, and at that time you will open and use this packet.” She gave him an envelope carefully sealed, with the date at which it was to be opened written on the outside. “If anything should happen to you in the meantime, some one else must open it; but care must be used not to have it read before the time.” She paused for an answer.
“You need not fear,” the priest said, taking the packet and looking it over. He thought a moment. “I will write also on this that, in the event of my death, it is to be opened by F. O'Donovan or by the bishop of the diocese.”
He went to a table, wrote the directions, and then gave them to Annette to read.
“It is a private paper of mine,” she said, after reading and giving it back; “and I have the right to say when it shall be read. I give it into your hands only on the condition that my directions shall be complied with.”
He bowed, understanding perfectly that the words were intended as a future shield for him.
“At the same time, you will open this also, which is yours,” she added, and gave him a paper roll sealed and tied, but without any direction.
F. Chevreuse shrank a little, took the roll, then let it drop from his trembling hand. The cold and business-like manner of his visitor and his sympathy for her had kept his thoughts fixed on her; but here was something which brought his mother's image up before him with a terrible distinctness. It was impossible for him not to know that this little package was what she had died in trying to save. Tears blinded his eyes. The last evening he had spent with her came back like a vision; he saw her face, heard her voice, saw her kneeling before him for his blessing.
Making an effort to control and hide his emotion, he stooped to take up the package he had dropped; and when he looked up again, his visitor had left the room, and was walking quickly to the street door. For one moment he stood irresolute; then he hurried after her. But she had already gone out, and either did not or would not hear him call her back.
The sight of her going away so, wrung all thought of selfish grief out of his mind. He went back into the room, and watched her as she walked swiftly up the street. So innocent, so generous, so brave as she was, yet of all the sufferers by this miserable tragedy, with one exception, the most unhappy! The grief that must fall upon the mother of the guilty one no one could [pg 253] fathom; but the mother of a criminal can never hold herself surely innocent of his crimes, since a greater holiness in her own life, a wiser care in his training, and a more constant prayerfulness in his behalf might have saved him; but the young wife was, of all people in the world, the most innocent and the most wronged.
How light and graceful her step was. Who would not think that it betokened a light heart? She met an acquaintance, and stopped for a word of greeting, and the friend came along afterward smiling, as though at some merry jest. Passing the house of another friend, she nodded and kissed her hand to a child in the window, with how bright a face the priest, who had seen her self-control, could well guess.
“Is there nothing I can do, nothing I can say, to help her?” he asked himself, turning away from the window. “It is cruel that one so young should bear alone such a burden! What can I do? What can I do?”
He searched in vain for some means of help. There was none. For what she should do her own wit or the advice of others must suffice; and for words of comfort, they were not for him to speak to her. Her manner had shown clearly the distance which she felt must lie between them, and there was no way but for him to accept that position. He could pray, and that was all.
By the time he had come to this conclusion, Annette Gerald had reached the convent, and was greeting Sister Cecilia.
“I have only two words to say to you, dear Sister,” she said, “and those may seem very childish, but are not so in reality. Lawrence and I are going to make a little journey, which may last about four weeks, and poor mamma will be lonely. Besides that, she will worry. She hates to have me go away from her. Will not you be very kind to her, if she should come to you? Oh! I know you always are that; but recollect, when you see her, that I am really all she has. A son does not count for much, you know, especially when he is a young man. Very few young men are much comfort to their mothers, I think. Tell F. Chevreuse the very first time you see him that I said this to you, but don't tell any one else. And now, dear Sister, I have but a little time, for we start this evening. If there is no one in the chapel, I would like to go in a while. People have got so in the habit of wandering into the Immaculate, and looking about carelessly, that it is no longer pleasant to go there.”
The same air, as of a person gentle, indeed, but not to be detained nor trifled with, which had impressed F. Chevreuse in his visitor, was felt by the Sister also. She rose at once, saying that there was no one in the chapel, and would not be for some time, all the Sisters being engaged, unless Anita should go in.
“Anita has not been well?” Mrs. Gerald remarked with absent courtesy.
“No; she has not been the same since that terrible trial,” the nun sighed.
Annette Gerald's face lost its absent expression, and took a somewhat haughty and unsympathizing look. “Is that all?” she inquired in a tone of surprise.
“But, you know,” expostulated the Sister, “Anita's testimony was of the greatest importance. Besides, [pg 254] the scene was a most painful one for her to be dragged into. She is such a tender, sensitive creature.”
Annette had paused just inside the parlor-door, and she had evidently no mind to let the subject drop indifferently.
“My dear Sister,” she said with decision, “I am truly sorry for your sweet little Anita; but I think it wrong to foster the idea that there are certain sensitive souls in the world who must be pitied if a breath blows on them, while others are supposed to be able to bear the hurricane without being hurt. A great deal of this shrinking delicacy comes from a selfish watching of one's own sensations, and forgetting those of others, and a great deal from being pampered by others. You remember, perhaps, an old myth, which I have half forgotten, of a Camilla who was fastened to a lance and shot across a stream. She was a woman soft and weak, perhaps, but she had to go. Now, in this world there is many a woman who has all the miserable sensitiveness and delicacy of her kind, but with that there is also a will, or an unselfishness, or a necessity which transfixes her like a spear, and carries her through all sorts of difficulties.” For one instant a flash of some passion, either of anger, impatience, or pain, or of all mingled, shot into the speaker's face, and seemed to thrill through all her nerves. “Oh! it is true in this world also,” she exclaimed, “that unto him that hath shall be given. The happy must be shielded from pain, and those who cry out at the prick of a pin must be tenderly handled; but the miserable may have yet more misery heaped on them, and the patient find no mercy.”
“My dear lady!” expostulated Sister Cecilia, when the other paused, quivering with excitement.
“Oh! I do not mean to speak harshly of your sweet little Anita,” interrupted Mrs. Gerald, recovering herself; “I was only reminded of others, that is all. But even to her I would recommend thinking more of the sufferings of others and less of her own.”
“It is precisely that which hurts her,” replied the Sister, a little displeased. “She thinks of the sufferings of others, and, fancying that she has caused them, breaks her heart about it.”
Annette made a motion to go, and had an air of thinking very slightingly of the young novice's troubles. “She merely did her duty, and has no responsibility whatever,” she said. “The child needs to be scolded, and set about some hard, wholesome work. It would do her good to work in the garden, and spend a good deal of time in the open air. A person who has been taken possession of by some morbid idea should never be shut up in a house.”
Sister Cecilia suffered her visitor to pass on without saying another word. She was surprised and deeply hurt at the little sympathy shown their household flower and pet, yet she could not but perceive that, in a general way, much that had been said was quite true.
Passing by the chapel-door shortly after, she saw Annette Gerald on her knees before the altar, with her head bowed forward and hidden in her hands. Half an hour afterwards, when Mrs. Ferrier's carriage came, she was still in the same position, and had to be spoken to twice before she was roused. Then she started and looked up in alarm.
[pg 255]“Your carriage has come,” whispered the Sister, and looked quickly away from the face turned toward her, it was so white and worn. In that half-hour she seemed to have grown ten years older.
“Must I go now?” she exclaimed, with an air of terror, and for a moment seemed not to know where she was. Then murmuring an excuse, she recalled herself, and, by some magic, threw off again the look of age and pain. “You need not call Sister Cecilia, only say good-by to her for me,” she said. “I have really not a moment to spare.”
This Sister was almost a stranger to Mrs. Annette Gerald, and was quite taken by surprise when the lady turned at the door, and, without a word of farewell, kissed her, and then hurried away.
“Drive to the office, John, for Mr. Gerald,” she said; and no one would have suspected from her manner that she trembled before the man to whom she gave that careless order.
Lawrence came running lightly down the stairs, having been on the watch for his wife, and John, holding the carriage-door open, winked with astonishment at sight of the bright greeting exchanged between the two. He could maintain a cold and stolid reserve, if he had anything to conceal; but this airy gayety on the brink of ruin was not only beyond his power, but beyond his comprehension.
Stealing a glance of scrutiny into the young man's face, he met a glance of defiant hauteur. “You need not go any further with us, John,” Lawrence said. “We shall not need you. Jack, drive round to Mrs. Gerald's.”
And John, with his coat down to his heels—a costume in which nothing would have induced him voluntarily to take a promenade—was forced to walk home, comforting himself with the assurance that it was the last order he should have to obey from that source. Perhaps, indeed, he would not have obeyed it now, had they not driven away and left him no choice.
The sun was declining toward the west, and touching everything with the tender glory of early spring, when they drew up at the cottage gate, the sound of their wheels bringing Mrs. Gerald and Honora to the window, and then to the door.
“We can't stop to come in, Mamma Gerald,” Annette called out. “We are going off on a little visit, and only come to say good-by. Isn't it beautiful this afternoon? The trees will soon begin to bud, if this weather continues.”
The two ladies came out to the carriage, and Mrs. Gerald caught sight of her son's face, which had been turned away. It had grown suddenly white. She exclaimed: “Why, Lawrence! what is the matter?”
“Oh! another of those faint turns,” interposed his wife quickly, laying her hand on his arm. “He has no appetite, and is really fainting from lack of nourishment. The journey will do him good, mamma. We are going entirely on his account.”
“Oh! yes, it's nothing but a turn that will soon pass away,” he added, and seemed, indeed, already better.
“Do come in and take something warm,” his mother said anxiously, her beautiful blue eyes fixed on his face. “There is some chocolate just made.”
“We have no time,” Annette began; but her husband immediately opened the carriage-door.
[pg 256]“Yes, mother,” he said. “I won't keep you waiting but a minute, Ninon.”
The mother put her hand in his arm, and still turned her anxious face toward him. “You mustn't go to-night, if you feel sick, my son,” she said. “You know what happened to you before.”
“But the journey is just what I need, mother,” he answered, trying to speak cheerfully. “Of course I won't go if I feel unwell; but this is really nothing. I have not quite got my strength up, and, as Annette says, I have eaten nothing to-day.”
Those little services of a mother, how tender and touching they are at any time! how terrible in their pathos when we know that they will soon be at an end for us for ever! How the hand trembles to take the cup, and the lip trembles to touch its brim, when we know that she would have filled it with her life-blood, if that could have been saving to us!
“Sit here by the fire, dear, while I get your chocolate,” Mrs. Gerald said, and pushed the chair close to the hearth. “There is really quite a chill in the air.”
She stirred the fire, and made the red coals glow warmly, then went out of the room.
He looked round after her the moment her back was turned, and watched her hastening through the entry. The temptation was strong to follow her, throw himself at her feet, and tell her all. He started up from the chair, and took a step, but came back again. It would kill her, and he could not see her die. He would let her live yet the four weeks left her. Perhaps she might die a natural death before that. He hoped she would. At that thought, a sudden flame of hope and of trust in God rose in his heart. He dropped on his knees. “O my God! take my mother home before she hears of this, and I will do any penance, bear anything!” he prayed, with vehement rapidity. “Be merciful to her, and take her!”
He heard her step returning, and hastily resumed his seat, and bent forward to the fire.
“You look better already,” she said, smiling. “You have a little color now. Here is your chocolate, and Annette is calling to you to make haste.”
She held the little tray for him, and he managed, strengthened by that desperate hope of his, to empty the cup, and even smile faintly in giving it back. And then he got up, put his arm around his mother's waist, in a boyish fashion he had sometimes with her, and went out to the door with her so. And there he kissed her, and jumped into the carriage, and was driven away. It never occurred to her, so sweetly obedient had he been to her requests, and so expressive had his looks and actions been, that he had not uttered a word while he was in the house nor when he drove away. He had accepted her little services with affection and gratitude, and he had been tender and caressing, and that was enough. Moreover, he had really looked better on leaving, which proved that her prescription had done him good.
How Annette Gerald got away from home she could not have told afterward. Her trunks were sent in advance, and she and her husband chose to walk to the station in the evening. Some way she succeeded in answering all her mother's charges and anxious forebodings. She promised to sit in a middle car, so as to be at the furthest point from a collision in front or rear, [pg 257] and to have the life-preservers all ready at hand in the steamer. She took the basket of luncheon her mother put up, and allowed her bonnet to be tied for her and her shawl pinned. And at last they were in the portico, and it was necessary to say good-by.
“My poor mamma! don't be too anxious about me, whatever happens,” Annette said. “Remember God takes care of us all. I hope he will take care of you. Whenever you feel disposed to worry about us, say a little prayer, and all will come right again.”
The darkness hid the tears that rolled down her cheeks as she ended, and in a few minutes all was over, and the two were walking arm-in-arm down the quiet street.
“This way!” Lawrence said when they came to the street where his mother lived.
It was out of their way, but they went down by the house, and paused in front of it. The windows of the sitting-room were brightly lighted, and they could see by the glow of the lamp that it stood on a table drawn before the fire. As they looked, a shadow leaned forward on the white curtain. Mrs. Gerald was leaning with her elbow on the table, and talking to some one. They saw the slender hand that supported her chin, and the coil of her heavy hair. They saw the slight movement with which she pushed back a lock of hair that had a way of falling on to her forehead.
Annette felt the arm she held tremble. She only pressed it the closer, that he might not forget that love still was near him, but did not speak. There was nothing for her to say.
“Let's go inside the gate to the window,” he whispered. “Perhaps I can hear her speak.”
She softly opened the gate, and entered with him. The moonless night was slightly overclouded, and the shadows of the trees hid them perfectly, as they stole close to the window like two thieves. Lawrence pressed his face to the sash, and listened breathlessly. There was a low murmur of voices inside, then a few words distinctly spoken. “And by the way, dear, I forgot to close the blinds. Oh! no, I will close them. Don't rise!”
Mrs. Gerald came to the window, opened it, and leaned out so close to her son that he heard the rustle of her dress and fancied that he felt her breath on his cheek. She was silent a moment, looking up at the sky. “The night is very soft and mild,” she said. “Those children will have a pleasant journey.” One instant longer she rested there, her hand half extended to the blind, then she sent upward a word of prayer, which brushed her son's cheek in passing. “O God! protect my son!” she said.
Then the blinds were drawn together, and the son was shut out from her sight and sound for ever.
“It is our signal to go,” Annette whispered to her husband. “Come! We have no time to lose.”
He held her by the arm a moment.
“Isn't it better, after all, to stay and have it out here?” he asked desperately. “I'd rather face danger than fly from it. Running away makes me seem worse than I am.”
“You have no longer the right to consider yourself,” she answered, with a certain sternness. “I will not submit to have a convict for a husband. I would rather see you dead. And your mother shall not visit you in a felon's cell. Besides, no one is to be profited by such a [pg 258] piece of folly, and you would yourself repent it when too late. Come!”
He said no more, but suffered himself to be drawn away. He could not complain that his wife treated his heroic impulses with a disrespect amounting almost to contempt, for he could not himself trust them.
After having closed the window, Mrs. Gerald returned to her place by the fire. A round table was drawn up there between two armchairs, in one of which Miss Pembroke sat, knitting a scarf of crimson wool. The shade over the lamp kept its strong light from her eyes, and threw a faint shadow on the upper part of her face; but her sweet and serious mouth, and the round chin, with its faint dent of a dimple, were illuminated, her brown dress had rich yellow lights on the folds, and the end of a straying curl on her shoulder almost sparkled with gold. Her eyes were downcast and fixed on her work, and crimson loop after loop dropped swiftly from the ivory needles scarcely whiter than her hands.
“As I was saying,” Mrs. Gerald resumed, “six months of the year they were to pass with Mrs. Ferrier have gone, and next fall they will have an establishment of their own. It will be better for both of them. I am sure Annette will make a good housekeeper. Besides, every married man should be the master of a house. It gives him a place in the world, and makes him feel his responsibilities and dignities more.”
“Yes, every one should have a home,” answered the young woman gravely. “It is a great safeguard.”
Mrs. Gerald leaned back in her chair, and gazed into the fire. There was a smile of contentment on her lips and an air of gentle pride in the carriage of her head. As she thought, or dreamed, she turned about the birth-day ring her son had given her, and, presently becoming aware of what she was doing, looked at it and smiled as if she were smiling in his face.
“I never before felt so well contented and satisfied with his situation,” she said, her happiness breaking into words. “His marriage has turned out well. They seem to be perfectly united, and Lawrence is really proud of his wife; and with reason. She is no more like what she was when I first knew her than a butterfly is like a grub. She has developed wonderfully.” She was silent a moment, then added: “I am very thankful.”
She drew a rosary from her pocket, and, leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed, began to whisper the prayers as the beads slipped through her fingers.
Miss Pembroke glanced at her, and smiled faintly. It was very pleasant to see this mother happy in her son, yet how trembling and precarious was her happiness! This woman's heart, which bruised itself in beating, was always ready to catch some fleeting glory on its springing tide; like the fountain, which holds the rainbow a moment among its chilly drops.
While one woman prayed, the other thought. She had often dwelt upon this subject of women's lives being wrecked from love of friend, husband, or child, and the sight of Mrs. Gerald had been to her a constant illustration of such a wreck. These thoughts had troubled her, for she was not one to judge hastily, and she did not know whether to pity or to blame so ruinous a devotion. Now again the question floated up, and with it the wish to decide once for all before [pg 259] life should thrust the problem on her, when she would be too confused to think rightly. She was like one who stands safe yet wistful on shore, looking off over troubled waters, and Mrs. Gerald and Annette seemed to her tossing far out on the waves. She even seemed to herself to have approached the brink so near that the salt tide had touched her feet, and to have drawn back only just in time.
Gradually, as her fair fingers wove the glowing web, a faint cloud came over her face, and, if it had been possible for her to frown, that deeper shadow between the brows might have been called a frown. Her thoughts were growing stern.
“Were we made upright, we women, only to bend like reeds to every wind?” she asked herself. “Can we not be gentle without being slavish, and kind and tender without pouring our hearts out like water? Cannot we reserve something to ourselves, even while giving all and even more than our friends deserve? Cannot we hold our peace and happiness so firmly in our own hands that no one shall have the power to destroy them?”
Each question as it came met with a prompt answer, and resolution followed swiftly: “Never will I suffer myself to be so enslaved by any affection as to lose my individuality and be merged and lost in another, or be made wretched by another, or to have my sense of justice and right confused by the desire to make excuses for one I love. Never will I suffer the name which I have kept stainless to be associated with the disgrace of another, and never will I leave the orderly and honorable ways of life, where I have walked so far, to follow any one into the by-ways, for any pretext. Each one is to save his own soul, and to help others only to a certain extent. I will keep my place!”
That resolute and almost haughty face seemed scarcely to be Honora Pembroke's; and she felt so surely that her expression would check and startle her companion that when she saw Mrs. Gerald drop the rosary from her fingers, and turn to speak to her, she quickly changed her position so as to hide her face a moment.
Mrs. Gerald's voice had changed while she prayed, and seemed weighted with a calm seriousness from her heavenly communion; and her first words jarred strangely with her young friend's thought.
“How uncalculating the saints were!” she said. “Our Lady was the only one, I think, who escaped personal contumely, and that was not because she risked nothing, but because God would not suffer contempt nor slander to touch her. He spared her no pang, save that of disgrace; yet she would have accepted that without a complaint. How tender he was of her! He gave her a nominal spouse to shield her motherhood; it was through her Son that her heart was pierced, and the grief of a mother is always sacred; and he gave her always loving and devoted women, who clustered about and made her little court. She was never alone. But she is an exception. The others were despised and maltreated, and they seemed to be perpetually throwing themselves away. I do not doubt that those saints who never suffered martyrdom nor persecution were still, in their day, laughed and mocked at by some more than they were honored by others. They never stopped to count the cost.”
Miss Pembroke felt at the first [pg 260] instant as though Mrs. Gerald must have read her thoughts, and her reply came like a retort. “It is true they did not count the costs,” she said; “but it was God whom they loved.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Gerald replied gently, “that was what I meant.”
She was too closely wrapped in contentment to perceive the coldness with which her companion spoke. It seemed to her that all her cares had floated away, and left only rest and sweetness behind. She no longer feared anything. There comes to every one some happy season in life, she thought; and hers had come.
When, the next day, she received a note from her son, which he had written from their first stopping-place, she was scarcely surprised, though it was an unusual attention.
It was but a hurried line, written with a pencil and posted in the station-house.
“My darling mother,” he wrote, “if you should find your violet-bed under the parlor window trampled, blame Larry for it. He saw his mother's shadow on the curtain when he was on his way to the station last night, and took a fancy to go nearer and peep through the window. But he didn't mean to do any harm then, nor at some other times, when he did enough indeed. Forgive him for everything.”
Mrs. Gerald immediately went out, letter in hand, to see what marks had been left of this nocturnal visit; and, sure enough, there, on the newly-turned mould, was the print of a boot—well she knew her son's neat foot—and, on the other side, a tiny and delicate track where Annette had stood! But not a leaf of the sprouting violets was crushed.
Miss Pembroke smiled to see the mother touch these tracks softly with her finger-tips, and glance about as if to assure herself that there was no danger of their being effaced.
“Such a freak of those children!” she said gaily. “Do you know what I am going to do, Honora? I mean to sow little pink quill daisies in those two foot-prints, and show them to Lawrence and Annette when they come back. It was a beautiful thought of them to come to the window, and it shall be commemorated in beauty. The ground is nearly warm enough here now for seeds. When they come back, the tracks will be green. I wish flowers would blossom in three weeks.”
Mrs. Ferrier also heard that day from the travellers.
“I have a particular reason for asking you to be very careful about my letters,” Annette wrote. “Don't let any one see or know of them. I will tell you why presently. We are very well. Write me a line as soon as you receive this, and direct to New York. We shall not stop there, but go right on out West, probably. And, by the way, if you should wish ever to hear from Mrs. Gerald's relations, seek in New York for a letter directed to Mrs. Julia Ward. Say nothing of this now. I will explain.”
“And why should I wish to hear from Mrs. Gerald's relations?” wondered Mrs. Ferrier. But she said nothing. The secret was safe with her.
Meanwhile, the travellers had lost no time on their way; and three days from their leaving Crichton, they were on the ocean. Every stateroom and cabin had been taken when “Mr. and Mrs. Ward” [pg 261] went to the office of the steamer; but the captain, seeing the lady in great distress on account of the sick friend she was crossing the ocean to see, kindly gave up his own stateroom to the travellers.
It was quite as well for him to do so, indeed; for the very day they started a storm started with them, and he was too faithful an officer to desert his post on deck. So all night long he watched, courageous and faithful, over the lives committed to his care, while underneath his two special guests lay helpless and miserable, counting his footsteps, as sleepless as he. The engine throbbed beside them, like a heavily-beating heart, the long waves lashed the deck, the wind sang and whistled through the ropes, the steamer creaked and groaned.
“I have brought bad luck to the ship, Annette,” said her husband. “If I were overboard, the storm would cease.”
“In the first place, my name is Julia,” was the answer from the lower berth. “In the next place, there is nothing mysterious in this storm; it is simply the equinoctial gale, which has been threatening for days. I knew we should have it. In the third place, your being overboard would make no difference whatever in the weather. Are you sick?”
Annette knew well that a little chilly breeze would best blow away her husband's vapors.
“I am sick of lying here,” he said impatiently. “The rain must be over, unless it is another flood. I wonder how it looks out?”
He drew aside the curtain, and opened the window. The rain had ceased, but the wind still blew, and a pale light was everywhere, shining up through the waves and down through the clouds. As the steamer rolled, Annette, lying in her lower berth, could see alternately the gray and tumbled clouds of air, and the gray and heaving sea, which was less like moving water than a ruined, quaking earth, so heavily it rose and fell.
Lawrence Gerald, closely wrapped in furs, knelt on the sofa, and looked out, humming a tune that seemed to be for ever on his lips since his wife had first sung it to him, so that she was sometimes half sorry for having suggested it to him. A few words broke out while she listened:
His thoughts seemed to be so haunted by the image of that cold and peaceful slumber that his wife trembled for him. He had not the enduring strength to bear a long trial, but he had that fitful strength which prompts to desperate deeds.
“I can see cities built and destroyed yonder,” he said. “There are white towns between dark mountains, and little hamlets up in the crevices; they grow, and then they are swallowed up. It is like a great earthquake. When the world is destroyed, it will perhaps look like that, pale and ashy.”
“Suppose we should go up on deck, and see what it looks like,” said Annette suddenly, anticipating the wish she knew he would have expressed. “It will be a change after our three days' imprisonment, and we may think the stateroom a pleasant refuge when we come back.”
They escaped the crest of a wave that leaped over the rail after them, and reached the wet and slippery deck.
“We mustn't speak to the officers,” [pg 262] Annette whispered, seeing the captain near them.
He passed them by without notice, and they hurried on to the shelter of the smoke-pipe, where the heat had dried the planks; and here, holding by ropes, they could look over the rail and see the long streaks of pale blue, where the foam slid under the surface of the water; see the gigantic struggle of the sea, and how the brave ship pushed through it all straight toward her unseen port.
Nothing is so perfect a figure of life as a ship on the sea, and one can hardly behold it without moralizing.
“Suppose that this ship had a soul of its own, instead of being guided by the will of other beings,” said Annette; “and suppose that, finding itself in such a woful case, it should say, ‘I see no port, no pole-star, no sun, nor moon, and I doubt if I shall ever see them again. I may as well stop trying, and go down here.’ Wouldn't that be a pity for itself and for others?”
“But suppose, on the other hand,” returned her husband, “that the ship had got a deadly thrust from some unseen rock, and the water was running in, and it could never gain the port. What would be the use of its striving and straining for a few leagues further?”
“We know not where the haven of a soul is set,” said Annette, dropping the figure. “God knows, for he has set it, near or far; and it may be nearer than we think. It is scarcely worth while for a man to lose his soul by jumping overboard at ten o'clock, when he may save it, and be drowned too, at eleven.”
Lawrence drew back as a great wave rose before them. He had only been playing at death; the reality was quite another thing. Chilled and drenched with spray, they hurried down to their stateroom.
It was a weary journey. After the storm came head-winds, and after the head-winds a fog, through which they crept, ringing the fog-bell, and stopping now and then.
Mr. and Mrs. Ward did not appear once among the passengers, even when everybody crowded up to catch the first glimpse of Ireland, and they were the last to appear when the passengers prepared to land at Liverpool. They had been a fortnight from home, the storm having delayed them two days, and they knew not what might have happened in that time. A telegram might have sped under the waves in an hour while they toiled over them, and just at the moment of escape their flight might be intercepted.
To Be Continued.