CHAPTER XII. HER STORY.
Max says I am to write an end to my journal, tie it up with his letters and mine, fasten a stone to it, and drop it over the ship's bulwarks into this blue, blue sea.—That is, either he threatened me or I him—I forget which, with such a solemn termination; but I doubt if we shall ever have courage to do it. It would feel something like dropping a little child into this “wild and wandering grave,” as a poor mother on board had to do yesterday.
“But I shall see him again,” she sobbed, as I was helping her to sew the little white body up in its hammock. “The good God will take care of him and let me find him again, even out of the deep sea. I cannot lose him; I loved him so.”
And thus, I believe, no perfect love, or the record of it, in heart or in word, can ever be lost. So it is of small matter to Max and me, whether this, our true love's history, sinks down into the bottom of the ocean; to sleep there—as we almost expected we should do yesterday, there was such a storm; or is sealed up and preserved for the benefit of—of our great-grandchildren.
Ah! that poor mother and her dead child!
—Max here crept down into the berth to look for me—and I returned with him and left him resting comfortably on the quarter-deck, promising not to stir for a whole hour. I have to take care of him still; but, as I told him, the sea winds are bringing; some of its natural brownness back to his dear old face:—and I shall not consider him “interesting” any more.
During the three months that Max was in prison, I never saw him. Indeed, we never once met from the day we said good-bye in my father's presence, till the day that——But I will continue my story systematically.
All those three months Max was ill; not dangerously—for he said so, and I could believe him. It would have gone very hard with me if I could not have relied on him in this, as in everything. Nevertheless, it was a bitter time, and now I almost wonder how I bore it. Now, when I am ready and willing for everything, except the one thing, which, thank God, I shall never have to bear again—separation.
The day before he came out of prison, Max wrote to me a long and serious letter. Hitherto, both our letters had been filled up with trivialities, such as might amuse him and cheer me, we deferred all plans till he was better. My private thoughts, if I had any, were not clear even to myself, until Max's letter.
It was a very sad letter. Three months' confinement in one cell, with one hour's daily walk round a circle in a walled yard—prisoner's labour, for he took to making mats, saying it amused him; prisoner's rules and fare—no wonder that towards the end even his brave heart gave way.
He broke down utterly. Otherwise he never would have written to me as he did—bidding me farewell, me! At first I was startled and shocked; then I laid down the letter and smiled—a very sad sort of smile of course, but still it was a smile. The idea that Max and I could part, or desire to do so, under any human circumstances, seemed one of those amusingly impossible things that one would never stop to argue in the least, either with one's self or any other person. That we loved one another, and therefore some day should probably be married, but that anyhow we belonged to one another till death, were facts at once as simple, natural, and immutable, as that the sun stood in the heavens or that the grass was green.
I wrote back to Max that night.
Not that I did it in any hurry, or impulse of sudden feeling. I took many hours to consider both what I should say, and in what form I should put it. Also, I had doubts whether it would not be best for him, if he accepted the generous offer of Mr. Thorley's son-in-law, made with full knowledge of all circumstances, to go first to America alone. But, think how I would, my thoughts all returned and settled in the same track, in which was written one clear truth; that after God and the right—which means all claims of justice and conscience—the first duty of any two who love truly is towards one another.
I have thought since, that if this truth were plainer seen and more firmly held, by those whom it concerns—many false notions about honour, pride, self-respect, would slip off; many uneasy doubts and divided duties would be set at rest; there would be less fear of the world and more of God, the only righteous fear. People would believe more simply in His ordinance, instituted “from the beginning”—not the mere outward ceremony of a wedding; but the love which draws together man and woman, until it makes them complete in one another, in the mystical marriage union, which, once perfect, should never he disannulled. And if this union begins, as I think it does, from the very hour each feels certain of the other's love—surely, as I said to Max—to talk about giving one another up, whether from poverty, delay, altered circumstances, or compulsion of friends, anything in short except changed love, or lost honour—like poor Penelope and Francis—was about as foolish and wrong as attempting to annul a marriage. Indeed, I have seen many a marriage that might have been broken with far less unholiness than a real troth plight, such as was this of ours.
After a little more “preaching,” (a bad habit that I fear is growing upon me, save that Max merely laughs at it, or when he does not laugh he actually listens!) I ended my letter by the-earnest advice, that he should go and settle in Canada, and go at once; but that he must remember he had to take with him one trifling incumbrance—me.
When the words were written, the deed done, I was a little startled at myself. It looked so exceedingly like my making him an offer of marriage! But then—good-bye, foolish doubt! good-bye contemptible, shame! Those few tears that burnt my cheeks after the letter was gone, were the only tears of the sort that I ever shed—that Max will ever suffer me to shed. Max loves me!
His letter in reply I shall not give—not a line of it. It was only for me.
So that being settled, the next thing to consider was how matters could be brought about, without delay either. For, with Max's letter, I got one from his good friend Mrs. Ansdell, at whose house in London he had gone to lodge. Her son had followed his two sisters—they were a consumptive family—leaving her a poor old childless widow now. She was very fond of my dear Max, which made her quick-sighted concerning him, and so she wrote as she did, delicately, but sufficiently plainly, to me, whom she said he had told her was, in case of any sudden calamity, to be sent for as “his dearest friend.”
My dear Max! Now, we smile at these sad forebodings; we believe we shall both live to see a good old age. But if I had known that we should only be married a year, a month, a week,—if I had been certain he would die in my arms the very same day—I should still have done exactly what I did.
In one sense, his illness made my path easier. He had need of me, vital, instant need, and no one else had. Also, he was so weak that even his will had left him; he could neither reason nor resist. He just wrote, “You are my conscience; do as you will, only do right.” And then, as Mrs. Ansdell afterwards told me, he lay for days and days, calm, patient; waiting, he says, for another angel than Theodora.
Well—we smile now, at these days, as I said; thank God, we can smile; but it would not do to live them over again.
Max refused to let me come to see him at Mrs. Ansdell's, until my father had been informed of all our plans. But papa went on in his daily life, now so active and cheerful; he did not seem to remember anything concerning Doctor Urquhart and me. For two whole days did I follow him about, watching an opportunity, but it never came. The first person who learnt my secret was Penelope.
How many a time, in these strange summers to come, shall I call to mind that soft English summer night, under the honeysuckle-bush,—Penelope and I sitting at our work; she talking the while of Lisabel's new hope, and considering which of us two should best be spared to go and take care of her in her trial.
“Or, indeed, papa might almost be left alone, for a week or two. He would hardly miss us—he is so well. I should not wonder, if, like grandfather, whom you don't remember, Dora,—he lived to be ninety years old.”
“I hope he may; I hope he may!”
And I burst out sobbing; then, hanging about my sister's neck, I told her all.
“Oh!” I cried, for my tongue seemed unloosed, and I was not afraid of speaking to her, nor even of hurting her—if now she could be hurt by the personal sorrows that mine recalled to her mind. “Oh, Penelope, don't you think it would be right? Papa does not want me—nobody wants me. Or if they did—”
I stopped. Penelope said, meditatively:—“A man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave unto his wife.”
“And equally, a woman ought to cleave unto her husband. I mean to ask my father's consent to my going with Max to Canada.”
“Ah! that's sudden, child.” And by her start of pain I felt how untruly I had spoken, and how keenly I must have wounded my sister in saying, “Nobody wanted me” at home.
Home, where I lived for nearly twenty-seven years, all of which now seem such happy years. “God do so unto me and more also,” as the old Hebrews used to say, if ever I forget Rockmount, my peaceful maiden-home!
It looked so pretty that night, with the sunset colouring its old walls, and its terrace-walk, where papa was walking to and fro, bareheaded, the rosy light falling like a glory upon his long white hair. To think of him thus pacing his garden, year after year, each year growing older and feebler, and I never seeing him, perhaps never hearing from him; either not coming back at all, or returning after a lapse of years to find nothing left to me but my father's grave!
The conflict was very terrible; nor would Max himself have wished it less. They who do not love their own flesh and blood, with whom they have lived ever since they were born, how can they know what any love is?
We heard papa call us:—“Come in, you girls! The sun is down, and the dews are falling.” Penelope put her hand softly on my head. “Hush, child, hush! Steal into your own room, and quiet yourself. I will go and explain things to your father.”
I was sure she must have done it in the best and gentlest way; Penelope does everything so wisely and gently now; but when she came to look for me, I knew, before she said a word, that it had been done in vain.
“Dora, you must go yourself and reason with him. But take heed what you say and what you do. There is hardly a man on this earth for whom it is worth forsaking a happy home and a good father.”
And truly, if I had ever had the least doubt of Max, or of our love for one another; if I had not felt as it were already married to him, who had no tie in the whole wide world but me—I never could have nerved myself to say what I did say to my father. If, in the lightest word, it was unjust, unloving or undutiful—may God forgive me, for I never meant it! My heart was breaking almost—but I only wanted to hold fast to the right, as I saw it, and as, so seeing it, I could not but act.
“So, I understand you wish to leave your father?”
“Papa!—papa!”
“Do not argue the point. I thought that folly was all over now. It must be over. Be a good girl, and forget it. There!”
I suppose I must have turned very white, for I felt him take hold of me, and press me into a chair beside him. But it would not do to let my strength go.
“Papa, I want your consent to my marriage with Dr. Urquhart. He would come and ask you himself; but he is too ill. We have waited a long time, and suffered much. He is not young, and I feel old—quite old myself, sometimes. Do not part us any more.”
This was, as near as I can recollect, what I said—said very quietly and humbly, I know it was; for my father seemed neither surprised nor angry; but he sat there as hard as a stone, repeating only, “It must be over.”
“Why?”
He answered by one word:—“Harry”
“No other reason?”
“None.”
Then I dared to speak out plain, even to my father. “Papa, you said, publicly, you had forgiven him for the death of Harry.”
“But I never said I should forget.”
“Ay, there it is!” I cried out bitterly. “People say they forgive, but they cannot forget. It would go hard with some of us if the just God dealt with us in like manner.”
“You are profane.”
“No! only I am not afraid to bring God's truth into all the circumstances of life, and to judge them by it. I believe,—if Christ came into the world to forgive sinners, we ought to forgive them too.”
Thus far I said—not thinking it just towards Max that I should plead merely for pity to be shewn to him or to me who loved him; but because it was the right and the truth, and as such, both for Max's honour and mine, I strove to put it clearly before my father. And then I gave way, pleading only as a daughter with her father, that he should blot out the past, and not for the sake of one long dead and gone break the heart of his living child.
“Harry would not wish it—I am sure he would not. If Harry has gone where he, too, may find mercy for his many sins, I know that he has long ago forgiven my dear Max.” My father, muttering something about “strange theology,” sat thoughtful. It was some time before he spoke again.
“There is one point of the subject you omit entirely. What will the world say? I, a clergyman, to sanction the marriage of my daughter with the man who took the life of my son? It is not possible.”
Then I grew bold:—“So, it is not the law of God, or justice, or nature, that keeps us asunder—but the world? Father, you have no right to part Max and me for fear of the world.”
When it was said, I repented myself of this. But it was too late. All his former hardness returned as he said:—
“I am aware that I have no legal right to forbid your marriage. You are of age: you may act, as you have all along acted, in defiance of your father.”
Never in defiance, nor even in secret disobedience and I reminded him how all things had been carried on—open and plain—from first to last; how patiently we had waited, and how, if Max were well and prosperous, I might still have said, “We will wait a little longer. Now—”
“Well, and now?”
I went down on my very knees, and with tears and sobs besought my father to let me be Max's wife.
It was in vain.
“Good night: go to your bed, Dora, and weary me no more.”
I rose, certain now that the time was come when I must choose between two duties—between father and husband; the one to whom I owed existence, the other to whose influence I owed everything that had made me a girl worth living, or worth loving. Such crises do come to poor souls!—God guide them, for He only can.
“Good night, father”—my lips felt dry and stiff—it was scarcely my own voice that I heard, “I will wait—there are still a few days.”
He turned suddenly upon me. “What are you planning? Tell the truth.”
“I meant to do so.” And then, briefly,—for each word came out with pain, as if it were a last breath,—I explained that Dr. Urquhart would have to leave for Canada in a month—that, if we had gained my father's consent, we intended to be married in three weeks, remain a week in England, and then sail.
“And what if I do not give my consent?”
I stopped a moment, and then strength came.
“I must be Max's wife still. God gave us to one another, and God only shall put us asunder.”
After that, I remember nothing till I found myself lying in my own bed with Penelope beside me.
No words can tell how good my sister Penelope was to me in the three weeks that followed. She helped me in all my marriage preparations; few and small, for I had little or no money except what I might have asked papa for, and I would not have done that—not for worlds! Max's wife would have come to him almost as poor as Griseldis, had not Penelope one day taken me to those locked-up drawers of hers.
“Are you afraid of ill-luck with these things? No? Then choose whatever you want, and may you have health and happiness to wear them, my dear.”
And so—with a little more stitching—for I had a sort of superstition that I should like to be married in one new white gown, which my sister and I made between us—we finished and packed the small wardrobe which was all the marriage portion poor Theodora Johnston could bring to her husband.
My father must have been well aware of our preparations, for we did not attempt to hide them; the household knew only that Miss Dora, was “going a journey,” but he knew better—that she was going to leave him and her old home, perhaps for evermore. Yet he said nothing. Sometimes I caught him looking earnestly at me—at the poor face which I saw in the looking-glass—growing daily more white and heavy-eyed—yet he said nothing.
Penelope told me when, hearing me fall, she had run into the library that night, he bade her “take the child away, and say she must not speak to him on this subject any more.” I obeyed. I behaved all through those three weeks as if each day had been like the innumerable other days that I had sat at my father's table, walked and talked by his side, if not the best loved, at least as well loved as any of his daughters. But it was an ordeal such as even to remember gives one a shiver of pain, wondering how one bore it.
During the day-time I was quiet enough, being so busy, and, as I said, Penelope was very good to me; but at night I used to lie awake, seeing, with open eyes, strange figures about the room—especially my mother, or some one I fancied was she. I would often talk to her, asking her if I were acting right or wrong, and whether all that I did for Max she would not have once done for my father? then rouse myself with a start, and a dread that my wits were going, or that some heavy illness was approaching me, and if so, what would become of Max?
At length arrived the last day—the day before my marriage. It was not to be here, of course; but in some London church, near Mrs. Ansdell's, who was to meet me herself at the railway-station early the same morning, and remain with me till I was Dr. Urquhart's wife. I could have no other friend; Penelope and I agreed that it was best not to risk my father's displeasure by asking for her to go to my marriage. So, without sister or father, or any of my own kin, I was to start on my sad wedding-morning—quite alone.
During the week, I had taken an opportunity to drive over to the Cedars, shake hands with Colin and his wife, and give his dear old mother one long kiss, which she did not know was a good-bye. Otherwise I bade farewell to no one. My last walk through the village was amidst a deluge of August rain, in which my moorlands vanished, all mist and gloom. A heavy, heavy night: it will be long before the weight of it is lifted off my remembrance.
And yet I knew I was doing right, and, if needed, would do it all over again. Every human love has its sacrifices and its anguishes, as well as its joys—the one great love of life has often most of all. Therefore, let those beware who enter upon it lightly, or selfishly, or without having counted its full cost.
“I do not know if we shall be happy,” said I to Penelope, when she was cheering me with a future that may never come—“I only know that Max and I have cast our lots together, and that we shall love one another to the end.”
And in that strong love armed, I lived—otherwise, many times that day, it would have seemed easier to have died.
When I went, as usual, to bid papa goodnight, I could hardly stand. He looked at me suspiciously.
“Good night, my dear. By-the-by, Dora, I shall want you to drive me to the Cedars tomorrow.”
“I—I—Penelope will do it.” And I fell on his breast with a pitiful cry. “Only bid me good-bye! Only say 'God bless you,' just once, father.”
He breathed hard. “I thought so. Is it to be to-morrow?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I told him.
For a few minutes papa let me lie where I was; patting my shoulder softly, as one does a sobbing child—then, still gently, he put me away from him.
“We had better end this, Dora; I cannot bear it. Kiss me. Good-bye.”
“And not one blessing? Papa, papa!”
My father rose, and laid his hand solemnly on my head:—“You have been a dutiful girl to me, in all things save this, and a good daughter makes a good wife. Farewell—wherever you go,—God bless you!”
And as he closed the library-door upon me I thought I had taken my last look of my dear father.
It was only six o'clock in the morning when Penelope took me to the station. Nobody saw us—nobody knew. The man at the railway stopped us, and talked to Penelope for full two minutes about his wife's illness—two whole minutes out of our last five.
—My sister would not bid me good-bye—being determined, she said, to see me again, either in London or Liverpool, before we sailed. She had kept me up wonderfully, and her last kiss was almost cheerful, or she made it seem so. I can still see her—very pale, for she had been up since daylight, but otherwise quiet and tearless, pacing the solitary platform—our two long shadows gliding together before us, in the early morning sun. And I see her, even to the last minute, standing with her hand on the carriage-door—smiling.
“Give Doctor Urquhart my love—tell him, I know he will take care of you. And child”—turning round once again with her “practical” look that I knew so well, “Remember, I have written 'Miss Johnston,' on your boxes. Afterwards, be sure that you alter the name. Good-bye,—nonsense, it is not really goodbye.”
Ay, but it was. For how many, many years?
In that dark, gloomy, London church, which a thundery mist made darker and stiller—I first saw again my dear Max.
Mrs. Ansdell said, lest I should be startled and shocked, that it was only the sight of me which overcame him; that he was really better. And so when, after the first few minutes, he asked me, hesitatingly, “if I did not find him much altered?” I answered boldly, “No! that I should soon get accustomed to his grey hair; besides, I never remembered him either particularly handsome or particularly young.” At which he smiled—and then I knew again my own Max! and all things ceased to feel so mournfully strange.
We went into one of the far pews, and Max tried on my ring. How his hands shook! so much that all my trembling passed away, and a great calm came over me. Yes—I had done right. He had nobody but me.
So we sat, side by side, neither of us speaking a word, until the pew-opener came to say the clergyman was ready.
There were several other couples waiting to be married at the same time—who had bridesmaids, and friends, and fathers. We three walked up and took our places—there was no one to pay heed to us. I saw the verger whisper something to Max—to which he answered “Yes,” and the old man came and stood behind Mrs. Ansdell and me. A few other folk were dotted about in the pews, but I only noticed them as moving figures, and distinguished none.
The service began—which I—indeed we both—had last heard at Lisabel's wedding—in our pretty church, all flower-adorned, she looking so handsome and happy, with her sisters near her, and her father to give her away. For a moment I felt very desolate: and hearing a pew-door open and a footstep come slowly up the aisle, I trembled with a vague fear that something might happen, something which even at the last moment might part Max and me.
But it did not; I heard him repeat the solemn promises—how dare any one make them lightly, or break them afterwards! to “love, comfort, honor and keep me, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all other, keep me only unto him, so long as we both should live” And I felt that I also, out of the entire trust I had in him, and the great love I bore him, could cheerfully forsake all other, father, sisters, kindred, and friends, for him. They were very dear to me, and would be always: but he was part of myself,—my husband.
And here let me relate a strange thing—so unexpected that Max and I shall always feel it as a special blessing from heaven to crown all our pain and send us forth on our new life in peace and joy. When in the service came the question:—“Who giveth this woman, &c”—there was no answer, and the silence went like a stab to my heart. The minister, thinking there was some mistake, repeated it again:—“Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
“I do.”
It was not a stranger's voice, but my dear father's.
My husband had asked me where I should best like to go for our marriage journey. I said, to St. Andrews. Max grew much better there. He seemed better from the very hour, when, papa having remained with us till our train started, we were for the first time left alone by our two selves. An expression ungrammatical enough to be quite worthy, Max would say, of his little lady, but people who are married will understand what it means.—We did, I think, as we sat still, my head on his shoulder and my hand between both his, watching the fields, trees, hills, and dales, fly past like changing shadows; never talking at all, nor thinking much, except—the glad thought came in spite of all the bitterness of of these good-byes—that there was one goodbye which never need be said again. We were married.
I was delighted with St. Andrews. We shall always talk of our four days there, so dream-like at the time, yet afterwards become clear in remembrance down to the minutest particulars. The sweetness of them will last us through many a working hour, many an hour of care—such as we know must come, in ours as in all human lives. We are not afraid: we are together.
Our last day in St. Andrews was Sunday, and Max took me to his own Presbyterian church, in which he and his brother were brought up, and of which Dallas was to have been a minister. From his many wanderings it so happened that my husband had not heard the Scotch service for many years, and he was much affected by it. I too—when, reading together the psalms at the end of his Bible, he shewed me, silently, the name written in it—Dallas Urquhart..
The psalm—I shall long remember it, with the tune it was sung to—which was strange to me, but Max knew it well of old, and it had been a particular favourite with Dallas. Surely if spirit, freed from flesh, be everywhere, or, if permitted, can go anywhere that it desires,—not very far from us two, as we sat singing that Sunday, must have been our brother Dallas.
“How lovely is thy dwelling place
O Lord of hosts, to me!—
The tabernacles of thy grace
How pleasant, Lord, they be!
My thirsty soul longs vehemently
Yea, faints, thy courts to see:
My very heart and flesh cry out
O living God, for thee.. . .
Blest are they, in thy house who dwell,
Who ever give thee praise;
Blest is the man whose strength thou art
In whose heart are thy ways:
Who, passing thorough Baca's vale,
Therein do dig up wells:
Also the rain that falleth down
The pools with water fills.
Thus they from strength unwearied go
Still forward unto strength:
Until in Zion they appear
Before the Lord at length.
Amen! So, when this life is ended, may we appear, even there still together,—my husband and I!
Contrary to our plans, we did not see Rockmount again, nor Penelope, nor my dear father. It was thought best not. Especially as in a few years at latest, we hope, God willing, to visit them all again, or perhaps even to settle in England.
After a single day spent at Treherne Court, Augustus went with us one sunshiny morning on board the American steamer, which lay so peacefully in the middle of the Mersey—just as if she were to lie there for ever, instead of sailing, and we with her—in one little half hour. Sailing far away, far away to a home we knew not, leaving the old familiar faces and the old familiar land.
It seemed doubly precious now, and beautiful; even the sandy flats, that Max had so often told me about, along the Mersey shore. I saw him look thoughtfully towards them, after pointing out to me the places he knew, and where his former work had lain.
“That is all over now,” he said, half sadly. “Nothing has happened as I planned, or hoped, or—”
“Or feared.”
“No. My dear wife, no! Yet all has been for good. All is very good. I shall find new work in a new country.”
“And I too?”
Max smiled. “Yes, she too. We'll work together, my little lady!”
The half hour was soon over—the few last words soon said. But I did not at all realize that we were away, till I saw Augustus wave us good-bye, and heard the sudden boom of our farewell gun as the Europa slipped off her mail-tender, and went steaming seaward alone—fast, oh! so fast.
The sound of that gun, it must have nearly broken many a heart, many a time! I think it would have broken mine, had I not, standing, close-clasped, by my husband's side, looked up in his dear face, and read, as he in mine, that to us thus together, everywhere was Home.