CHAPTER III. HER STORY.
Finished to-morrow.” What a life-time seems to have elapsed since I wrote that line!
A month and four days ago, I sat here, waiting for papa and Penelope to come home from their dinner party. Trying to be cheerful—wondering why I was not so: yet with my heart as heavy as lead all the time.
I think it will never be quite so heavy any more. Never weighed down by imaginary wrongs and ideal woes. It has known real anguish and been taught wisdom.
We have been very near losing our beloved father. Humanly speaking, we should have lost him but for Doctor Urquhart, to whose great skill and unremitting care, Doctor Black himself confessed yesterday, papa has, under God, owed his life.
It is impossible for me to write down here the particulars of dear papa's accident, and the illness which followed, every day of which seems at once so vivid and so unreal. I shall never forget it while I live, and yet, even now, am afraid to recall it. Though at the time I seemed afraid of nothing—strong enough for everything. I felt—or it now appears as though I must have done so—as I did on one sunshiny afternoon, at a pic-nic, about a dozen years ago—when I, following Colin Granton, walked round the top of a circular rock, on a ledge two feet wide, a sloping ledge of short slippery grass, where, if we had slipped, it was about ninety perpendicular feet to fall.
I shudder to think of that feat, even now; and telling it to Doctor Urquhart in illustration of what I am here mentioning, namely, the quiet unconsciousness with which one sometimes passes through exceeding great danger, he too shuddered, turned deadly white. I never saw a strong man lose colour so suddenly and completely as he does, at times.
Can he be really strong? Those nights of watching must have told upon his health; which is so valuable. Doubly valuable to one in his profession. We must try to make him take care of himself, and allow us—Rockmount generally—to take care of him. Though, since his night-watchings ceased, he has not given us much opportunity, having only paid his due medical visit once a-day, and scarcely stayed ten minutes afterwards,—until to-day, when by papa's express desire, Augustus drove over and fetched him to dinner.
It is pleasant to be able to write down here, how very much better I like my brother-in-law. His thorough goodness of nature, his kindly cheering ways, and his unaffected, if rather obstreperous love for his wife, which is reflected, as it should be, upon every creature belonging to her, make it impossible not to like him. I am heartily glad he has sold out, so that even if war breaks out again, there will be no chance of his being ordered off on foreign service. Though in that case, he declares he should feel himself in honour bound to volunteer. But Lisabel only laughs; she knows better.
Still, I trust there may be no occasion. War, viewed in the abstract, is sufficiently terrible; but when it comes home, when one's self, and one's own, are bound up in the chances of it, the case is altogether changed. Some misfortunes contemplated as personal possibilities, seem more than human nature could bear. How the mothers, sisters, wives, have borne them all through this war is—
My head turned dizzy here, and I was obliged to leave off writing, and lie down. I have not felt very strong lately—that is, not bodily strong. In my heart I have—thoroughly calm, happy, and thankful—as God knows we have all need to be, since he has spared our dear father, never loved so dearly as now. But physically, I am rather tired and weak, as if I would fain rest my head somewhere and be taken care of. If there were anybody to do it, which there is not. Since I can remember, nobody ever took care of me.
While writing this last line, old Mrs. Cartwright came up to bring me some arrowroot with wine in it, for my supper, entreating me to to go to bed “like a good child.” She said “the Doctor” told her to look after me; but she should have done it herself, anyhow. She is a good old body—I wish we could find out anything about her poor lost daughter.
What was I writing about? Oh, the history of to-day: where I take up the thread of my journal, leaving the whole interval between, a blank. I could not write about it if I would.
I did not go to church with them this morning, feeling sure I could not walk so far, and some one ought to stay with papa. So the girls went, and Doctor Urquhart also, at which papa seemed just a little disappointed, he having counted on a long morning's chat.
I never knew papa attach himself to any man before, or take such exceeding delight in any one's company. He said the other day, when Augustus annoyed him about some trifle or other, that “he wished he might have chosen his own son-in-law—Lisabel had far better have married Doctor Urquhart.”
Our Lisabel and Doctor Urquhart! I could not help laughing. Day and night—fire and water, would have best described their union.
Penelope now, though she has abused him so much—but that was Francis's fault,—would have suited him a deal better. They are more friendly than they used to be—indeed he is on good terms with all Rockmount. We feel, every one of us, I trust, that our obligations to him are of a kind of which we never can acquit ourselves while we live.
This great grief has been in many ways, like most afflictions, “a blessing in disguise.” It has drawn us altogether, as nothing but trouble ever does, as I did not think anything ever would, so queer a family are we. But we are improving. We do not now shut ourselves up in our rooms, hiding each in her hole like a selfish bear until feeding time—we assemble in the parlor—we sit and talk round papa's study-chair. There, this morning after church, we held a convocation and confabulation before papa came down.
And, strange to say—almost the first time such a thing ever happened in ours, though a clergyman's family—we talked about church and the sermon.
It was preached by the young man whom papa has been obliged to take as curate, and who, Penelope said, she feared would never suit, if he took such eccentric texts, and preached such out-of-the-way sermons as the one this morning. I asked what it was about, and was answered, “the cities of refuge.”
I fear I do not know my Bible—the historic portion of it—so well as I might; for I scandalized Penelope exceedingly by inquiring what were “the cities of refuge.” She declared any child in her school would have been better acquainted with the Old Testament, and I had it at my tongue's end to say that a good many of her children seemed far too glibly and irreverently acquainted with the Old Testament, for I once overheard a knot of them doing the little drama of Elijah, the mocking children, and the bears in the wood, to the confusion of our poor bald-headed organist, and their own uproarious delight, especially the two boys who enacted the bears. But 'tis wicked to teaze our good Penelope—at least I think it wicked now.
So I said nothing; but after the sermon had been well talked over as “extraordinary,” “unheard of in our church,” “such a mixing of politics and religion, and bringing up everyday subjects into the pulpit,”—for it seems he had alluded to some question of capital punishment, which now fills the newspapers—I took an opportunity of asking Doctor Urquhart what the sermon really had been about. I can often speak to him of things which I never should dream of discussing with my sisters, or even papa. For, whatever the subject is, he will always listen, answer, explain; either laughing away my follies, or talking to me seriously and kindly.
This time, though, he was not so patient; asked me abruptly, “Why I wanted to know?”
“About the sermon? From harmless curiosity. Or rather,”—for I would not wish him to think that in any religious matter I was guided by no higher motive than curiosity, “because I doubt Penelope's judgment of the curate. She is rather harsh sometimes.”
“Is she?”
“Will you find for me,”—and I took out of my pocket my little Bible, which I had been reading in the garden,—“about the cities of refuge? That is, unless you dislike to talk on the subject.”
“Who—I—what made you suppose so?”
I replied candidly, his own manner, while they were arguing it.
“You must not mind my manner—it is not kind—it is not friendly.” And then he begged my pardon, saying he knew he often spoke more rudely to me than to anyone else.
If he does it harms me not. He must have so many causes of anxiety and irritation, which escape by expression. I wish he would express them a little more, indeed. One could bear to be really scolded, if it did him any good. But, of course, I should have let the theological question slip by, had he not, some minutes after, referred to it himself. We were standing outside the window; there was no one within hearing; indeed, he rarely talks very seriously unless he and I happen to be alone.
“Did you think as they do—your sisters, I mean—that the Mosaic law is still our law—an eye for an eye—a tooth for a tooth—a life for a life—and so on?”
I said I did not quite understand him.
“It was the subject of the sermon. Whether he who takes life forfeits his own. The law of Moses enacted this. Even the chance murderer, the man guilty of manslaughter, as we should term it now, was not safe out of the bounds of the three cities of refuge. The avenger of blood finding him, might slay him.”
I asked, what he thought was meant by “the avenger of blood.” Was it divine or human retribution?
“I cannot tell. How should I know? Why do you question me?”
I might have said, because I liked to talk to him, and hear him talk; because, in many a perplexed subject over which I had been wearying myself, his opinion had guided me and set me right. I did hint something of the kind, but he seemed not to hear or heed it, and continued:—
“Do you think, with the minister of this morning, that, except in very rare cases, we—we Christians, have no right to exact a life for a life? Or do you believe, on religious as well as rational grounds, that every man-slayer, should inevitably be hanged?”
I have often puzzled over that question, which Doctor Urquhart evidently felt as much as I did. Truly, many a time have I turned sick at the hangings which I have had to read to papa in the newspapers—have wakened at seven in the morning, and counted, minute by minute some wretched convict's last hour—till the whole scene grew so vivid that the execution seemed more of a murder than the original crime of which it was the expiation. But still, to say that there ought to be no capital punishments? I could not tell. I only repeated softly, words that came into my mind at that instant.
“For we know that no murderer hath eternal life in him?
“But if he were not a wilful murderer?—if life were taken—let us suppose such a case—in violent passion, or under circumstances which made the man not himself?—if his crime were repented of and atoned for in every possible way—the lost life re-purchased by his own—not by dying, but by the long torment of living?”
“Yes,” I said, “I could well imagine a convict's existence, or that of one convicted in his own conscience—a duellist, for instance—far more terrible than death upon the scaffold.”
“You are right; I have seen such cases.”
No doubt he has, since, as an officer once told me, the army still holds duelling to be the necessary defence of a gentleman's “honor.” The recollections aroused were apparently very sore; so much so that I suggested our changing the subject, which seemed both painful and unprofitable.
“Not quite. Besides, would you quit a truth because it happened to be painful? That is not like you.”
“I hope not.”
After a few minutes' silence, he continued:—“This is a question I have thought over deeply. I have my own opinion concerning it, and I know that of most men; but I should like to hear a woman's—a Christian woman's. Tell me, do you believe the avenger of blood walks through the Christian world, as through the land of Israel, requiring retribution; that for blood-shedding as for all other crimes, there is, in this world, whatever there may be in another, expiation, but no pardon. Think well, answer slowly, for it is a momentous question.”
“I know that—the one question of our times.”
Doctor Urquhart bent his head without replying. He hardly could speak; I never saw him so terribly in earnest. His agitation roused me from the natural shyness I have in lifting up my own voice and setting forth my own girlish opinion on topics of which every one has a right to think, but very few to speak.
“I believe that in the Almighty's gradual teaching of His creatures, a Diviner than Moses brought to us a higher law—in which the sole expiation required is penitence, with obedience: “Repent ye? “Go and sin no more? It appears to me, so far as I can judge and read here”—my Bible was still in my hand—“that throughout the New, and in many parts of the Old Testament, runs one clear doctrine, namely, that any sin, however great, being repented of and forsaken, is by God, and ought to be by man, altogether pardoned, blotted out and done away.”
“God bless you!”
For the second time he said to me those words—said them twice over, and left me.
Rather abruptly; but he is sometimes abrupt when thinking deeply of anything.
Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand—even such an ultra-reasonable man as Doctor Urquhart. Papa said once, that she was “taking too great liberty of speech with our good friend, the Doctor”—that foolish little Dora but foolish little Dora knows well enough what she is about—when to be silly and when to be wise. She believes in her heart that there are some people to whom it does great good to be dragged down from their heights of wisdom, and forced to talk and smile, until the clouds wears off, and the smile becomes permanent—grows into a sunshine that warms every one else all through. Oh, if he had had a happy life—if Dallas had lived—this Dallas, whom I often think about, and seem to know quite well—what a cheerful blithe nature his would have been!
Just before tea, when papa was taking his sleep, Doctor Urquhart proposed that we should all go for a walk. Penelope excused herself; besides, she thinks it wrong to walk out on a Sunday; but Lisabel and Augustus were very glad to go. So was I, having never been beyond the garden since papa's illness.
If I try to remember all the trivial incidents of to-day, at full length, it is because it has been such an exceedingly happy day: to preserve which from the chances of this mortal life, “the sundry and manifold changes of this world,” as the prayer says, I here write them down.
How vague, how incompatible with the humdrum tenor of our quiet days at Rockmount that collect used to sound!
“That amidst the sundry and manifold changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to le found, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” Now, as if newly understanding it, I also repeat, “Amen.”
We started, Lisabel, Augustus, Doctor Urquhart, and I. We went through the village, down the moorland-road, to the ponds, which Augustus wanted to examine, with a view to wild-duck shooting, next, or, rather, I might say, this winter, for Christmas is coming close upon us, though the weather is still so mild.
Lisa and her husband walked on first, and quickly left us far behind; for, not having been out for so long, except the daily stroll round the garden, which Doctor Urquhart had insisted upon, the fresh air seemed to turn me dizzy. I managed to stumble on through the village, keeping up talk, too, for Doctor Urquhart hardly said anything, until we came out upon the open moor, bright, breezy, sunshiny. Then I felt a choking—a longing to cry out or sob—my head swam round and round.
“Are you wearied?—you look as if you were.”
“Will you like to take my arm?”
“Sit down—sit down on this stone—my child!”
I heard these sentences distinctly, one after the other, but could not answer. I felt my bonnet-strings untied, and the wind blowing on my face—then all grew light again, and I looked round.
“Do not be frightened; you will be well in a minute or two. I only wonder that you have kept up so bravely, and are so strong.”
This I heard too—in a cheerful kind voice—and soon after I became quite myself, but ready to cry with vexation, or something, I don't know what.
“You will not tell anybody?” I entreated.
“No, not anybody,” said he, smiling, “if turning faint was such a crime. Now, you can walk? Only not alone, just at present, if you please.”
I do not marvel at the almost unlimited power which, Augustus says, Doctor Urquhart has over his patients. A true physician—not only of bodies, but souls.
We walked on, I holding his arm. For a moment, I was half afraid of Lisabel's laugh, and the silly etiquette of our neighbourhood; which holds that if a lady and gentleman walk arm-in-arm they must be going to be married. Then I forgot both, and only thought what a comfort it was in one's weakness to have an arm to lean on, and one that you knew, you felt, was not unwilling to have you resting there.
I have never said, but I will say it here, that I know Doctor Urquhart likes me—better than any other of my family; better, perhaps, than any friend he has, for he has not many. He is a man of great kindliness of nature, but few personal attachments. I have heard him say “that though he liked a great many people, only one or two were absolutely necessary to him.” Dallas might have been, had he lived. He told me, one day, there was a certain look in me which occasionally reminded him of Dallas. It is by these little things that I guess he likes me—at least, enough to make me feel, when with him, that rest and content that I never feel with those who do not care for me.
I made him laugh, and he made me laugh, several times, about trifles that, now I call them to mind, were not funny at all. Yet “it takes a wise man to make a fool, and none but a fool is always wise.”
With which sapient saying we consoled ourselves, standing at the edge of the larger pool, watching the other couple strolling along, doubtless very busy over the wild-duck affair.
“Your sister and Treherne seem to suit one another remarkably well. I doubted once if they would.”
“So did I. It ought to be a warning to us against hasty judgments. Especially here.” Mischief prompted the latter suggestion, for Doctor Urquhart must have recollected, as well as I did, the last and only time he and I had walked across this moorland-road, when we had such a serious quarrel, and I was more passionate and rude to him than I ever was to anybody—out of my own family. I hope he has forgiven me. Yet he was a little wrong too.
“Yes, especially here,” he repeated, smiling—so I have no doubt he did remember.
Just then, Lisabel's laugh, and her husband's with it, rang distantly across the pool.
“They seem very happy, those two.”
I said, I felt sure they were, and that it was a blessed thing to find, the older one grew, how very much of happiness there is in life.
“Do you think so?”
“Do you not think so?”
“I do; but not in your sense exactly. Remember, Miss Theodora, people see life in a different aspect at twenty-five and at—”
“Forty. I know that.”
“That I am forty? Which I am not quite, by the bye. No doubt it seems to you a most awful age.”
I said, it was perhaps for a woman, but for a man no more than the prime of life, with many years before him in which both to work and enjoy.
“Yes, for work is enjoyment, the only enjoyment that ever satisfies.”
He stood gazing across the moorland, my moorland, which put on its best smile for us to-day. Ay, though the heather was brown, and the furze-bushes had lost their gold. But so long as there is free air, sunshine, and sky, the beauty never can vanish from my beloved moor. I wondered how anyone could look at it and not enjoy it; could stand here as we stood and not be satisfied.
Perhaps in some slight way I hinted this, at least, so far as concerned myself, to whom everything seemed so delicious, after this month of sorrow.
“Ah, yes, I understand,” said Doctor Urquhart, “and so it should be with me also. So it is, I trust. This is a lovely day, lovely to its very close, you see.”
For the sun was sinking westward, and the clouds robing themselves for one of those infinitely varied late autumn sunsets, of the glory of which no human eye can ever tire.
“You never saw a tropical sunset? I have, many. I wonder if I shall ever see another.” After a little hesitation, I asked if he thought it likely? Did he wish to go abroad again?
“For some reasons, yes!” Then speaking forcibly:—“Do not think me morbid; of all things, morbid, cowardly sentimentality is my abhorrence—but I am not naturally a cheerful-minded man. That is, I believe I was, but circumstances have been stronger than nature; and it now costs me an effort to attain what I think every man ought to have, if he is not absolutely a wicked man.”
“You mean an even, happy temper, that tries to make the best of all things, which I am sure you do.”
“An idle life,” he went on, unheeding, “is of all things the very worst for me. Unless I have as much work as ever I can do, I am never happy.”
This was comprehensible in degree. Though one thing surprised and pained me, that even Doctor Urquhart was not “happy.” Is anybody “happy?”
“Do not misunderstand me.” (I had not spoken, but he often guesses my thoughts in a way that makes me thankful I have nothing to hide). “There are as many degrees of happiness as of goodness, and the perfection of either is impossible. But I have my share. Yes, truly, I have my share.”
“Of both?”
“Don't—don't!”
Nor ought I to have jested when he was in such heavy earnest.
And then for some time we were so still, that I remember hearing a large bee, deluded by the mild weather, come swinging and singing over the moor, and stop at the last, the very last, blue-bell—I dared not call it a hare-bell with Doctor Urquhart by—of the year, for his honey-supper. While he was eating it, I picked one of the flower-stalks, and stroked it softly over his great brown back and wings.
“What a child you are still!”
(But for once Doctor Urquhart was mistaken.)
“How quiet everything is here!” he added.
“Yes, that wavy purple line always reminded me of the hills in the 'Happy Valley' of Prince Kasselas. Beyond them lies the world.”
“If you knew what 'the world' is, as you must one day. But I hope you will only see the best half of it. I hope you will have a happy life.”
I was silent.
“This picture; the moorland, hills, and lake,—your pond is as wide and bright as a lake—will always put me in mind of Rasselas, but one cannot live for ever in our 'Happy Valley,' nor in our lazy camp either. I often wish I had more work to do.”
“How—and where?”
As soon as I had put it I blushed at the intrusiveness of this question. In all he tells me of his affairs I listen, but never dare to enquire, aware that I have no right to ask of him more than he chooses to reveal.
Right or not, he was not offended; he replied to me fully and long; talking more as if I had been a man and his confidential friend, than only a simple girl, who has in this at least some sense, that she feels she can understand him.
It appears, that in peace-time, the duties of a regimental surgeon are almost nothing, except in circumstances where they become as hopeless as they are heavy; such as the cases of unhealthy barracks, and other avoidable causes of mortality, which Doctor Urquhart and Augustus discussed, and which he has since occasionally referred to, when talking to papa and me. He told me with what anxiety he had tried to set on foot reforms in these matters; how all his plans had been frustrated, by the tardiness of Government; and how he was hopeless of ever attaining his end. Indeed he showed me an official letter, received that morning, finally dismissing the question.
“You see, Miss Theodora,
'To mend the world's a vast design.'
too vast for my poor powers.”
“Are you discouraged?”
“No. But I suspect I began at the wrong end; that I attempted too much, and gave myself credit for more influence than I possessed. It does not do to depend upon other people; much safer is that amount of work which a man can do with his own two hands and head. I should be far freer, and therefore more useful, if I left the army altogether, and set up practice on my own account.
“That is, if you settled somewhere as a consulting physician, like Doctor Black?”
“No,” he smiled—“not exactly like Doctor Black. Mine would be a much humbler position. You know, I have no income except my pay.”
I confessed that I had never given a thought to his income, and again smiling, he answered—“No, he was sure of that.”
He then went on to explain that he believed moral and physical evil to be so bound up together, that it was idle to attack one without trying to cure the other. He thought, better than all building of gaols and reformatories, or even of churches—since the Word can be spread abroad without need of bricks and mortar—would be the establishing of sanitary improvements in our great towns, and trying to teach the poor, not how to be taken care of in workhouses, prisons, and hospitals, but how to take care of themselves, in their own homes. And then, in answer to my questions, he told me many things about the life, say rather existence, of the working-classes in most large towns, which made me turn sick at heart; marvelling how, with all this going on around me, I could ever sit dreamily gazing over my moorland, and play childish tricks with bees!
Yes, something ought to be done. I was glad, I was proud, that it had come into his mind to do it. Better far to labour thus in his own country than to follow an idle regiment into foreign parts, or even a fighting regiment into the terrible campaign. I said so. “Ah—you 'hate soldiers' still.”
I did not answer, but met his eyes. I know mine were full—I know my lips were quivering. Horribly painful it was to be jested with just then.
Doctor Urquhart said gravely; “I was not in earnest; I beg your pardon.”
We then returned to the discussion of his plans and intentions. I asked him how he meant to begin his labors?
“From a very simple starting-point. 'The doctor' has, of all persons, the greatest influence among the poor—if only he cares to use it. As a commencement, and also because I must earn salt to my porridge, you know, my best course would be to obtain the situation of surgeon to some dispensary, workhouse, hospital, or even gaol. Thence, I could widen my field of work at pleasure, so far as time and money were forthcoming.”
“If some one could only give you a fortune now!”
“I do not believe in fortunes. A man's best wealth consists of his personal labors, personal life. 'Silver and gold have I none'—but wherever I am, I can give myself, my labors, and my life.”
I said something about that being a great gift—many men would call it a great sacrifice.
“Less to me than to most men—since, as you know, I have no relatives; nor is it likely I shall ever marry.”
I believed so. Not constantly; but at intervals. Something in his manner and mode of thought fixed the conviction in my mind, from our earliest acquaintance.
Of course, I merely made some silent assent to this confidence. What was there to say? Perhaps he expected something—for as we turned to walk home, the sun having set, he remained a long time silent. But I could not speak. In truth, nothing came into my head to say.
At last I lifted my eyes from the ground, and saw the mist beginning to rise over my moorland—my grey, soft, dreamy moorland. Ay, dreamy, it was, and belonging only to dreams. But the world beyond—the struggling suffering, sinning world of which he had told me—that was a reality.
I said to my friend who walked beside me, feeling keenly that he was my friend, and that I had a right to look up into his good noble face, wherein all his life was written as clearly as on a book—thinking too what a comfort and privilege it was to have more than any one else had the reading of that book—I said to Doctor Urquhart—my old hesitation having somehow altogether vanished—that I wished to know all he could possibly tell me of his plans and projects: that I liked to listen to them, and would fain do more than listen—help.
He thanked me. “Listening is helping. I hope you will not refuse sometimes to help me in that way—it is a great comfort to me. But the labor I hope for is exclusively a man's—if any woman could give aid you could, for you are the bravest woman I ever knew.”
“And do you think I never can help you?”
“No.”
So our walk ended.
I say “ended,” because, though there was a great deal of laughing with Augustus and Lisabel—who had pushed one another ancle-deep into the pond, and behaved exactly like a couple of school-children out on a holiday, and though, they, hurrying home, Doctor Urquhart and I afterwards followed leisurely, walking together slowly, along the moor-land road—we did not renew our conversation. We scarcely exchanged more than a few words;—but walking thus arm-in-arm we did not feel—that is, I did not feel, either apart, or unfriendly, or sad.
There is more in life than mere happiness—even as there are more things in the world than mere marrying and giving in marriage. If, from circumstances, he has taken that resolution, he is perfectly justified in having done so, and in keeping to it. I would do exactly the same. The character of a man who marries himself to a cause, or a duty—has always been an ideal of mine—like my Max—Max and Thekla.—But they were lovers, betrothed lovers; free to say “I love you” with eyes and lips—just once, for a day or two—a little hour or two.—Would this have made parting less bitter or more? I cannot tell; I do not know. I shall never know aught about these things. So I will not think of them.
When we came home—Doctor Urquhart and myself—I left him at the door, and went up into my own room.
In the parlour I found Colin Granton come to tea—he had missed me at church, he said, and was afraid I had made myself ill; so walked over to Rockmount to see. It was very kind—though, while acknowledging, it he seemed half ashamed of the kindness.
He and Augustus, now on the best of terms, kept us alive all the evening with their talking and laughing. They planned all sorts of excursions—hunting, shooting, and what not—to take place during the grand Christmas gathering which is to be at Treherne Court. Doctor Urquhart—one of the invited guests, listened to all, with a look of amused content.
Yes—he is content. More than once, as I caught his eye following me about the room, we exchanged a smile—friendly, even affectionate.—Ay, he does like me. If I were a little younger—if I were a little girl in curls, I should say he is “fond” of me.—“Fond of”—what an idle phrase!—such as one would use towards a dog, or cat, or bird. What a difference between that and the holy words, “I love”—not as silly young folks say, I am “in love”—but “I love;” with all my reason, will, and strength; with all the tenderness of my heart, all the reverence of my soul.
Be quiet, heart—be silent, soul! I have, as I said before—nought to do with these things.
The evening passed pleasantly and calmly enough, all parties seeming to enjoy themselves: even poor Colin coming out his brilliantest and best; and making himself quite at home with us. Though he got into a little disgrace before going away, by saying something which irritated papa; and which made me glad that the little conversation this morning between Doctor Urquhart and myself had been not in family conclave, but private.
Colin was speaking of the sermon, and how “shocked” his mother had been at its pleading against capital punishment.
“Against capital punishment, did you say?”—cried papa. “Did my curate bring this disgraceful subject into my pulpit in order to speak against the law of the land—the law of God?—Girls, why did you not tell me. Dora, remind me I must see the young man to-morrow.”
I was mortally afraid this would end in the poor young man's summary dismissal; for papa never allows any “new-fangled notions” in his curates; they must think and preach as he does—or quit. I pleaded a little for this one, who has a brother and sister dependent on him, lodging in the village; and, as far as I dared and could, I pleaded for his sermon. Colin tried to aid me, honest fellow, backing my words, every one, with the most eager asseverations—well-meant, though they did not exactly help the argument.
“Dora,” cried papa, in utmost astonishment, “what do you mean?”
“Miss Dora's quite right: she always is,”—said Colin, stoutly. “I don't think anybody ever ought to be hanged; least of all a poor fellow who, like—” he mentioned the name, but I forget it—it was the case that has been so much in the newspapers—“killed another fellow out of jealousy—or in a passion—or being drunk—which was it? I say, Urquhart—Treherne—won't you bear me out?”
“In what?” asked Augustus, laughing. “That many a man has sometimes felt inclined to commit murder?—I have myself—ha! ha!—and many a poor devil is kicked out of the world dancing upon nothing, who isn't a bit worse, may be better, than a great many young scoundrels who die unhung. That's truth, Mr. Johnston, though I say it.”
“Sir,” said papa, turning white with anger, “you are at perfect liberty to say exactly what you please—provided it is not in my presence. No one, before me, shall so insult my cloth, and blaspheme my Maker, as to deny His law set down here,” dropping his hand over our great Family Bible, which he allows no one but himself to touch, because, as we know, there is the fly-leaf pasted down, not to be read by any one, nor written on again during poor papa's life-time. “God's law is blood for blood. 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed! That law, sir, my church believes never has been—never will be—annulled. And though your maudlin, loose charity may sympathize with hanged murderers, uphold duellists, and exalt into heroes cowardly man-slayers, I say that I will no more have in my house the defenders of such, than I would, under any pretext, grasp in mine the hand of a man who had taken the life of another.”
To see papa so excited, alarmed us all. Colin, greatly distressed, begged his pardon and retracted everything—but the mischief was done. Though we anticipate no serious results, indeed he has been now for some hours calmly asleep in his bed, still he was made much worse by this unfortunate dispute.
Doctor Urquhart stayed, at our earnest wish, till midnight, though he did not go into papa's room. When I asked him what was to be done in case of papa's head suffering for this excitement—if we should send to the camp for him—he said, “No, he would rather we sent for Doctor Black.”
Yet he was anxious, I know; for after Colin left, he sat by himself in the study, saying he had a letter to write and post, but would come upstairs to papa if we sent for him. And when, satisfied that the danger was past and papa asleep, he prepared to leave—I never, in all the time of our acquaintance, saw him looking so exceedingly pale and weary.
I wanted him to take something—wine or food; or at least to have one of our ponies saddled that he might ride instead of walking home. But he would not.
We were standing at the hall—only he and I—the others having gone to bed. He took both my hands, and looked long and steadily in my face as he said good-bye.
“Keep up heart. I do not think any harm will come to your father.”
“I hope not. Dear, dear papa—it would indeed be terrible.”
“It would. Nothing must be allowed to grieve him in any way—as long as he lives.”
“No.”
Doctor Urquhart was not more explicit than this; but I am sure he wished me to understand that in any of those points discussed today, wherein he and I agreed, and both differed from my father—it was our duty henceforth, as much as possible, to preserve a respectful silence. And I thanked him in my heart—and with my eyes too, I know—for this, and for his forbearance in not having contradicted papa, even when most violent and unjust.
“When shall you be coming again, Doctor Urquhart?”
“Some day—some day.”
“Do not let it be very long first. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
And here befell a thing so strange—so unexpected, that if I think of it, it seems as if I must have been dreaming; as if, while all the rest of the events of to-day, which I have so quietly written down, were perfectly natural, real, and probable—this alone were something unreal, and impossible to tell—hardly right to tell.
And yet—oh me! it is not wrong—though it makes my cheek burn and my hand tremble—this poor little hand.
I thought he had gone—and was standing on the door-step, preparing to lock up—when Doctor Urquhart came back again along the walk. It was he—though in manner and voice so unlike himself—that even now I can hardly believe the whole is not a delusion.
“For God's sake—for pity's sake—do not utterly forget me, Theodora.”
And then—then—
He said once, that every man ought to hold every woman sacred; that, if not of her own kindred, he had no right, except as the merest salutation, even to press her hand. Unless—unless he loved her.
Then, why—
No: I ought not to write it, and I will not. It is—if it is anything—something sacred between him and me—something in which no one else has any part—which may not be told to anyone—except in my prayers.
My heart is so full. I will close this and say my prayers.