A Christmas Memory.
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil
To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns
All thy tears over like pure crystallines
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets.
E. B. Browning.
No more brilliant party ever assembled for Christmas festivities in Northern Vermont than that which met on such an occasion, very early in this century, at the home of a young lawyer in the beautiful little village of Sheldon, since widely renowned for the efficacy of its healing waters.
The host and hostess were from families who came among the first settlers to Vermont. The company was gathered from all parts of the new and sparsely settled state, with a sprinkling of students who were completing their legal course at the famous law-school of Judge Reeves, in Litchfield, Conn.—of which their host was a graduate—and of young ladies and gentlemen from different places in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Several of these young ladies were passing the winter with acquaintances in Sheldon, and the whole country from the “Province Line” (and even beyond it) to St. Alban's was made merry with a succession of gay parties, sleigh-rides, dinners, suppers, and dances given in their honor. Even the sequestered hamlets of Richford and Montgomery, nestled among their own green hills, did not escape the general hilarity, but were startled from their quiet decorum, and resounded with a merriment which awakened unwonted echoes in their peaceful valleys.
Among the guests at this Christmas festival was a young lady of Vermont, Miss Fanny A——, whose fair form rises before us as we write from the dim mists of childhood's earliest memories—a vision of gentle dignity and youthful loveliness which time has no power to efface.
Though some years younger than the lady of the house, she was her very dear and intimate friend, and was now passing a few weeks with her. Her queenly manners, the silver ripple of her low, sweet voice in the flow of a conversation which held her listeners spell-bound, as it were, by its clear and impressive utterances, bore witness to her familiarity with the most refined circles of city and country society, and the high culture of her splendid intellect.
Other circumstances, as will be seen, combined with her personal charms at this time to make her the centre of interest and attraction wherever she appeared.
She was the youngest daughter of a Green Mountain hero whom Vermont most delights to honor. Her father died when she was too young to realize her loss. Some years later, her mother—from whom she inherited her remarkable beauty and graceful dignity—married a most amiable man, who was capable of appreciating the rich treasure she committed to his charge in the person of her young daughter. Every advantage the country offered was secured to develop and polish the gem of which he was inexpressibly proud, and over [pg 503] which he watched with a solicitude as tender as her own father could have exercised.
At that time, the gay society in New England was strongly tinctured with the species of infidelity introduced and fostered by the writings of Thomas Paine and his disciples, among whom Fanny's father had been conspicuous. Her step-father was not of that school, but he detested the cant and Puritanism of the only religious people he had ever known—regarding them as pretensions of which even those who adopted them were often the unconscious dupes. He had never been drawn within reach of better influences, then exercised only by the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vermont, to rescue intelligent thinkers from the grasp of infidelity. He conducted the education of his gifted daughter, therefore, with the most scrupulous care to avoid entirely all considerations of religion in any form. When her active and earnest mind would peer beyond the veil he had so carefully drawn between its pursuits and the interests of eternity, and send her to startle him with some question touching those interests which he could only answer by evasive ridicule, or an emphatic request that she would refrain from troubling her head about such matters, she would retire to ponder within herself, even while striving to obey her earthly father, the higher obligations imposed by One in heaven. Light and wisdom from above soon illuminated the soul that surrendered itself a willing victim before the altar of eternal truth. She was led by a divine hand, through paths she knew not, to a temple of which she had scarcely heard, and, while still living among those to whom the Catholic religion was entirely unknown, entered its portals to find herself—scarcely less to her own astonishment than to the amazement and horror of her devoted parents—a Catholic, as firmly established and steadfastly resolved as if she had been born and educated in the faith!
The grief and indignation of her parents knew no bounds. They looked upon it as a most disgraceful infatuation. Peremptorily imposing silence upon her in relation to the subject, they determined to suppress it, if possible, until every means had been used to divert her mind from the fatal delusion.
All the wiles and artifices of the gayest and most fashionable circles in various American cities to which she was taken, were exhausted in vain to captivate her youthful fancy and deliver her soul from its mysterious thraldom. In vain the ardent addresses of devoted admirers—who were destined in the near future to be the brightest ornaments the bench and bar of their state could boast—were laid at her feet. In vain were all those worldly allurements, generally so irresistible to the young, spread before her. Her soul turned steadfastly away from each bewitching enticement, to solace itself with thoughts of the humble sanctuary in Montreal, where the weary bird had found a place in which she might build her nest, even within the tabernacle of thy house, O Lord of hosts!
In the autumn preceding the Christmas festival of which I write, the ramblers had returned from their fruitless wanderings. Fanny's parents, discouraged and discomfited, resolved at this crisis to enlist the zeal of a few very intimate friends in their cause, by disclosing to them the great and unaccountable calamity which had befallen their child.
Among those whom they earnestly entreated to aid them in efforts to extricate her from the grasp of the [pg 504] great deceiver, was the lady with whom she was now passing the weeks of the early winter. A Connecticut Episcopalian of the High-Church stamp, she occupied what they playfully called a “half-way house,” at which they hoped she would be able to persuade Fanny to stop. She invited several gay young ladies to meet and enliven Fanny's visit, but took the greatest pains to conceal from them the religious tendencies of her beautiful guest. She entered with great zeal upon every scheme for winter pastimes, in the hope of diverting the mind of her young friend from its absorbing theme. In their private conversations, she exhausted every argument to convince Fanny that the Episcopal Church offered all the consolations for which her soul was yearning. In vain, in vain! She who had been called to drink from the fountain-head could not slake her thirst with draughts from scattered pools, which brought no refreshment to her fainting spirit. Vain also were the precautions used for concealment. Suspicions soon arose among her young companions that there was something wrong with Fanny. A rosary had been partially revealed as she drew her kerchief from her pocket. Worse still, a crucifix had been discovered under her pillow! Here were proofs of superstition indeed, of rank idolatry in unmistakable form, and no one knows to what unimaginable extent! Then it began to be whispered around the admiring and compassionate circle that she had not only taken the first step on the downward road, but was even now contemplating the still more fatal and final one of religious immolation!
It was their apprehension of this direful result which imparted a new and melancholy interest in their eyes to all her words and actions. Though she maintained a modest reserve upon the subjects dearest to her heart, they thought they could discover some mysterious connection with these in every expression she uttered.
On several occasions, the most adventurous of her companions endeavored to penetrate the silence that sealed her lips in regard to her religious convictions, by direct questions, and, when these failed, by ridicule of such “absurd superstitions”; but to no purpose. Her nearest approach to any satisfactory remark was in reply to one of these questions: “It is impossible to convey any clear idea to your mind, in its present state, concerning these matters. Your opinions are founded upon prejudice, and your prejudices are the result of your entire ignorance in relation to them. If you really desire to be better informed, you need, first of all, to pray with humility for light and guidance, and then seek for knowledge. If you do this with sincerity, you will surely be instructed, and ‘know of the doctrine’; but, if you refuse to take this first step, all the teaching in the world will be of no avail. ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one should come to them from the dead.’ ”
She rebuked ridicule with such calm dignity that it was soon abandoned, one of her assailants, a very lively young lady, remarking one day: “It is astonishing to see how terribly in earnest Fanny is! She certainly believes in the Catholic religion with all her heart, though how a person with her extensive information and splendid talents can receive such absurdities is a puzzle to common sense!”
But her severe trials were in her home. Her parents were unutterably grieved when she persisted in accepting the Catholic faith. This further determination to forsake those who had so fondly loved and tenderly cherished her, and who were so justly proud of the use she had made of the opportunities for improvement which their solicitude had secured for her, was beyond all human endurance.
If she had been the victim of adversity or of disappointed hopes, there might have been some excuse; but that the idol of doting parents should abandon her elegant home to the desolation in which her departure would enshroud it, and turn from all the advantages that wealth, position, and the homage of society could offer—dashing to the ground on the very threshold of life the brilliant prospects which were opening before her—was worse than madness! They complained bitterly to her of her ingratitude and heartless disregard of their feelings and wishes; poured unmeasured and contemptuous reproaches upon her for stifling the modest womanly instincts of her refined and delicate nature, to strike out boldly upon a new road hitherto untrodden by any woman of New England. Remonstrances, pleading, reproaches, and contempt were alike unavailing. Listening only to the persuasions of that “invisible Lover” whose voice had called her to relinquish the seductive charms which surrounded her worldly course, she turned away from them steadfastly to follow him and carry his cross up the steep and thorny paths of penance and self-abnegation, offering herself entirely to him on the Calvary made glorious to her by his precious blood.
Not “immediately,” however, like those whom he called of old, did she “leave the ship and her father, to follow him.” Weary years of waiting and yearning, far from the tabernacles where her soul had chosen its home, did she accord in tender regard for the feelings of those, so truly and deeply beloved, who could not give her up, and who had no clue by which to trace the course her spirit was taking, or power even to conjecture the motives that actuated her.
When at length the time arrived to which they had consented to limit her stay with them, who shall describe the pangs that rent her heart in a parting so full of grief; in severing these nearest and dearest ties, and in witnessing the anguish which overwhelmed those around whom her tenderest earthly affections were entwined?
Alone, but full of peace, “leaning on the arm of her Beloved,” did she tread the painful path. Her parents could not accompany her to witness the sacrifice which prostrated their fondest hopes, nor could they ever bring themselves to visit her in the sanctuary she had chosen.
Her Sheldon friend did so repeatedly, and was amazed to find her radiant with a joy which her countenance had never before revealed—happy in the peaceful home that offered only poverty and an unceasing round of labors in the service of the sick and suffering, with a happiness which the splendors of her worldly one could never impart.
Multitudes of New England people visiting Montreal flocked to the convent, begging to see the lovely young nun of the Hôtel Dieu, who was the first daughter New England had given to the sacred enclosure, and whom they claimed as belonging especially to them through her connection with their favorite Revolutionary hero.
So continual were these interruptions that she was driven at length to obtain the permission of the mother-superior absolutely to decline appearing in answer to such calls, except when they were made by the friends of former days, for whom she still preserved and cherished the liveliest affection.
By a singular coincidence—or rather, let us say, through tender memories of the gentle nun long since departed from the Hôtel Dieu, and the prevailing efficacy of her prayers—a large proportion of those who were present at the Christmas party at Sheldon, including the mistress of the feast and many of her family, were, from time to time as years flew by, received into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church.
And so does our gracious and mighty Mother, “ever ancient, ever new,” win her triumphs, one by one, perpetually through all the ages—wins them often in the face, nay, even perforce, of circumstances apparently the most directly opposed to her influence; accomplishes them by means so weak and simple as would seem, according to all human reasoning, utterly inadequate. In countries far remote from her gentle influence, one is called—we hardly know how or why—in this place, another in that, as if the words of our divine Lord found their fulfilment even in this: “Two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.”
And every soul thus called to launch its eternal interests upon the ocean of infinite truth must encounter much the same appalling trials, be haunted by the same startling doubts and dark forebodings. Over the sunken rocks of heresy and unbelief along this coast the billows break with a force that affrights the stoutest heart, and many a would-be voyager shrinks back dismayed before their power; but once pluck up heart of grace to pass the foaming barrier, in the mid-ocean all is “peace, and joy unspeakable, and full of glory.”
We cannot more fitly conclude this little sketch of a real event than by a quotation from Montalembert's closing chapter on the “Anglo-Saxon Nuns”:
“Is this a dream, the page of a romance? Is it only history—the history of a past for ever ended? No; once more it is what we behold and what happens amongst us every day.... Who, then, is this invisible Lover, dead upon a cross eighteen hundred years ago, who thus attracts to him youth, beauty, and love?—who appears to them clothed with a glory and a charm which they cannot withstand?—who seizes on the living flesh of our flesh, and drains the purest blood of our blood? Is it a man? No; it is God. There lies the secret, there the key of this sublime and sad mystery. God alone could win such victories and deserve such sacrifices. Jesus, whose godhead is amongst us daily insulted or denied, proves it daily, with a thousand other proofs, by those miracles of self-denial and self-devotion which are called vocations. Young and innocent hearts give themselves to him, to reward him for the gift he has given us of himself; and this sacrifice by which we are crucified is but the answer of human love to the love of that God who was crucified for us.”
The House That Jack Built.
By The Author Of “The House Of Yorke.”
In Two Parts.
PART II.
Concluded.
Late in the afternoon, Bessie went down and leaned on the bars again, looking up and down the road, looking at the tracks left by Father Conners' carriage-wheels—the smooth curve of their turning; looking to see the shadows creep across the road as the sun went down. The sadness of a lonely evening was upon her, and, though she had not lost her morning resolution, she had lost the joyous hopefulness with which those resolutions were made.
At her left, and quite near, a fringe of young cedars made a screen between the ground that belonged to her house and the farmer next to it, where her uncle Dennis had lived when John Maynard had wooed and won her.
Pain came with that recollection, and almost the old bitterness. “I must go home again, and put my resolutions in practice right away, or I shall lose them,” she said to herself. “It won't do for me to stay here and brood over my troubles. I cannot bear loneliness; and how terribly lonely it is here! I wish I had some one to speak to besides poor Aunt Nancy.”
She started, hearing a soft, clear whistling not far away. The strain was familiar, not to this region, but to her city life. While she listened, the sound ceased, or rather broke off suddenly.
Bessie's eyes were wide open, her face flushed. Was there more than one person who could whistle so marvellously clearly and sweetly?
Some one began to sing then more sweetly still, and coming nearer while he sang words written by the most melodious of poets:
“Hark! a lover, binding sheaves,
To his maiden sings;
Flutter, flutter go the leaves,
Larks drop their wings.
Little brooks, for all their mirth,
Are not blithe as he!
‘Tell me what the love is worth
That I give thee.’
“Speech that cannot be forborne
Tells the story through:
‘I sowed my love in with the corn,
And they both grew.
Count the world full wide of girth,
And hived honey sweet;
But count the love of more worth
Laid at thy feet.
“ ‘Money's worth is house and land,
Velvet coat and vest!
Work's worth is bread in hand,
Ay, and sweet rest.
Wilt thou learn what love is worth?
Ah! she sits above,
Sighing, 'Weigh me not with earth.
Love's worth is love!’ ”
The singer had come yet more near, and would have been visible to her had not Bessie Maynard's looks been downcast and her head drooping low. When the song ended, and the step paused, she lifted her eyes, and saw James Keene standing before her smiling and waiting for the greeting she was so slow to give.
Surprise, and perhaps fear, deprived Bessie for a moment of her [pg 508] self-possession. “What! you here!” she exclaimed, without the least sign of courtesy; and with that exclamation broke down the barrier of silence that had existed between them.
“Why should I not be here?” he asked quietly. “May not I also have memories connected with this place? It was here I recovered health, after an illness that nearly cost me my life. It was here I shot my first bear. And it was here I first saw you.”
Bessie perceived at once that, if the old reserve was to be maintained, she must immediately assume an air of decisive politeness. For an instant she wavered. Silence may be best for those who are doubtful of themselves, and, not willing to commit any flagrant wrong, are still not resolved to be absolutely honest. But when we are strong in the determination to be sincere, and to let the light of day shine not only on our actions, but on our inmost thoughts, then, perhaps, by speech we may most nobly and effectually establish our position.
Bessie Maynard, therefore, waited for the words which would give her an opportunity to put an end to the tacit and vague understanding existing between them.
He read her silence rightly; it was a command for him to speak; and he obeyed it, though the pale face and large, downcast lids gave little hope of any such answer as he might wish to receive.
“In those old days, so long ago, when I came here to try what a half-savage life would do for me, and was astonished to find a delicate human flower in the wilderness, I was a prophet.”
He leaned on the cedar bar that separated them, and looked dreamily off toward the woods. He would not surprise in her face any involuntary expression she might wish to conceal from him; he would take advantage of no impulse. If she came to him, she must come deliberately. For, setting aside Christianity—and he did not pretend to believe in it—James Keene had an exceptionally honorable nature. He would gladly have taken this woman away from a husband who, he believed, knew not how to value her, and who made her miserable by his neglect, but he held that it would be no wrong for him to do so.
“Yes, I was a prophet,” he continued; “for I believed then, what I am sure of now, that your marriage was a most unwise one. Give me credit, Bessie, for having been sincerely pained to see that, as years passed away, you had reason to come to the same conclusion. Whatever selfish wishes I may have had, I would at any time have renounced them could I have seen you happy with the man you chose to marry, knowing no other.”
Bessie lifted her eyes, and looked at him with a steady, tearful gaze. “People might say that you are wicked to speak so to me,” she said; “but I think that, according to your belief, you are very good; only you have no faith in religion. I esteem you so highly that I am going to make a confession which, perhaps, you may think I ought not to make. There have been times during these last few years when, if I had not had some little lingering faith, I would have welcomed from you an affection which I have no right to receive. There have been times when you might have spoken as lovingly as you could, and I should not have been angry. I tell you this partly because you must have at least suspected that it was so. And more than this. If I had seen you here a few days ago, my impulse would have been to [pg 509] welcome you more ardently than I ever yet welcomed any friend. You can understand how it all has been, without my explaining. I was so lonely, so neglected! I was so lonely!”
She had spoken with a sad earnestness, and there was something touchingly humble yet dignified in her manner; but, at the last words, her voice trembled and failed.
He was looking at her now. Excitement and suspense showed in the sparkling of his clear blue eyes, in the slight flush that colored his usually pale face, in the lips firmly compressed.
“All is changed now,” she went on. “I have been recalled to my religion, to my duty. I do not think that you should any more show me that sympathy which you have shown, and I do not think that you should see me frequently. I thank you for your kindness toward me. It has often been a comfort. But I am a wife”—she lifted herself with a stately gesture, and for the first time a wave of proud color swept over her face—“and the sadness which my husband may cause me no other man may ever again soothe.”
There was silence for a moment. The gentleman's face had grown pale. There was a boundless tenderness in his heart for this fair and sorrowful woman, and he was about to lose the power to offer her even the slightest comfort, while at the same time he must still retain the knowledge of her suffering.
“I shall respect your wish and your decision,” he said, with emotion. “Forgive me if I have trespassed too much in the past. It seemed to me very little; for, Bessie, if I had not known that you had a religious feeling which would have held you back, or would have made you miserable in yielding, I should long ago have held out my hand to you, and asked you to come to me. If I had felt sure of being able to convince you beyond the possibility of subsequent regret, I should not have kept silence so long. But I respect your conscience. I should esteem myself a criminal if I could ask you to do what you believe to be wrong.”
Bessie Maynard's face was covered with a blush of shame. Her thought had never gone consciously beyond the length of tender, brotherly kindness, and it was cruelly humiliating to see in its true light the position in which she had really stood. At that moment, too, she first perceived what a gulf lay between her soul and that of the man who had seemed always so dangerously harmonious with her. In principle, in all that firmly underlies the changeful tide of feeling, they were antagonistic; for he could speak calmly and with dignity of a possibility from which she shrank with a protesting tremor in every fibre of her being.
“I am going back to my husband,” she said, “and I shall never again forget that his honor and dignity are mine. I have been weak and childish, and more wicked than I knew or meant, and it all came because I loved my husband too much and God too little. But I trust”—she clasped her hands, and lifted her eyes—“I trust that I shall have strength to begin now a new life, and correct the mistakes of the past.”
She forgot for a moment that she was not alone, and stood looking away, as if there stretched before her gaze the new and loftier pathway in which she was to tread. Her companion gazed at her unchecked, with searching, melancholy eyes, not more because she was dearer to him in her impregnable fortress of Christian will than she ever had been in her human [pg 510] weakness, than because there rose from the depths of his restless soul a cry of longing for that firm foundation and trust which can hold a man in the place where conscience sets him, no matter how the tempests of passion may beat upon his trembling heart.
“There is, then, nothing left me but to say farewell.”
The poignant regret his voice betrayed recalled her attention.
“It has come to that,” she said gently. “But if you could know all I mean in saying farewell to you, it would not seem an idle word; for I hope and pray that you may fare so well as to come before long into the church. It is a refuge from every danger and every trouble, and I have only just found it out! Good-by.”
She gave him her hand, and they separated without another word. But Bessie did not stop to look after this visitor. Whatever regret she might otherwise have felt was swallowed up in the one thought—it had seemed to him possible that she might leave, not only her husband, but her sacred, sainted babes, and go to him! To what a depth had she fallen!
When she had disappeared in the house, he strolled slowly down the road. Unless you had looked in his face, you would have taken him for a man who was calmly enjoying the contemplation of nature in that forest solitude. But from his face looked forth a spirit weary and hopeless that hastened not, because it beheld nowhere a place worth making haste to reach. Once only the gloom of his countenance lifted, and then it was with no cheering brightness, but as the cloud is momentarily illuminated by angry lightning.
A man was coming up the road, not such a man as one usually sees in these wild places, but one who bore the marks of city training and habits. The uniform gray clothing, the wide Panama hat, even the unobtrusive necktie, belonged to the city. This man was taller and broader-shouldered than he whose eyes flashed out so scornfully at sight of him. His face was dark, vivid, and clean-shaven, the forehead was wide, the dark-brown hair closely cut, the gray eyes clear and penetrating. It was a face fitter to carve in stone than to paint, for its color and expression were less noticeable than its fine, strong outlines.
Yet now there shone a soft and eager light over that granite strength. There was a look of glad surprise, mingled with a certain amused self-chiding, as though of one who comes back from a long and gloomy abstraction, and finds a half-forgotten delight still waiting at his side.
At sight of this man, James Keene's first emotion had been one of anger, his first impulse to meet him boldly and with scorn. But scarcely had he taken one quickened step before he stopped, with a revulsion of feeling as unsuspected as it was confounding. Reason as he might, emancipate himself as he might from what he considered the superstitions of religion, he found himself now overwhelmed with confusion. He strove to call up to his mind all those arguments on which he had founded himself, but they fell dead. Whether it was the instinct of a noble heart that would not betray even an enemy, or an irradicable root of that religious faith which had been implanted in his childhood, or the strangeness of one who for the first time acts on principles long maintained in theory, or only a sensitive perception of the esteem in which the faithful world would hold his action, he could not have told. He only knew that, instead [pg 511] of standing, lofty and serene, in the dawn of this new light before which superstition and oppression were to pass away, he felt as if he were surrounded by a baleful glare from the nether fires. Sudden and scathing, it caught him, and burned his courage out like chaff.
In his eagerness and preoccupation, John Maynard had scarcely observed the person who approached; and, when the stranger turned aside into a wood-path, he gave him no further thought.
There was the little crooked house squinting at him out of its two windows, with the boards he had nailed, the chimney he had built, the door he had hung; there was the whole wild, rude place, with everything askew, that had once seemed a paradise—that had been a paradise—to him. With his hands and eyes educated, as they were now, to the utmost precision of outline and balance, the sight made him laugh out; and yet the laugh expressed as much pleasure as mockery.
He was taking his first holiday since he had left this house, and everything was delightfully fresh and novel yet familiar to him. He did not see the beauty that a poet or a painter would have found in that unpruned rusticity, for he was an artist of the exact; but the wabbly frame-house, the reeling fences, the road that wound irregularly, the straggling trees that leaned away from the northwest, made a good background against which to contemplate the trim and shining creatures of his hands, regular to a hair's breadth, unvarying and direct.
Coming to the bars, he threw himself over instead of letting them down, and found that he had grown heavier and less lithe than he was when last he performed that feat. He walked up the rocky path, his heart beating fast as he thought of the old time, and of the slim, bright-faced girl he had brought there as a bride. If she could stand in the doorway now, as she was then, and smile at him coming home, he felt that he could be the old lover again. He had a vague idea that Bessie had grown older, and sober, and pale. Come to think of it, he hadn't known much of her lately, and she had been dissatisfied about something. Why had she allowed him to get his eyes and ears so full of machinery? Surely he had lost and overlooked much. He had a mind to complain of her, only that he felt so good-natured.
At sound of a step, Aunt Nancy went to the door; but at that sound Bessie took her sewing, and bent over it. Had James Keene repented their hasty parting?
“Does Miss Bessie Ware live here?” asked the gentleman, with immense dignity.
“Bessie Ware?” repeated Aunt Nancy, in bewilderment; then, as the recollection of Bessie's confessions flashed into her mind, she stiffened herself up, and answered severely: “No, sir, she does not!”
“The idea of his refusing to give her her husband's name!” she thought indignantly.
“Why, John!” exclaimed Bessie, over the old lady's shoulder.
Aunt Nancy gave a cry of delight. She would at any time have welcomed John rapturously; but his coming now made her twice glad. Of course he and Bessie would make it all up.
The exuberance of her welcome covered, at first, the wife's deficiency. But when the excitement was over, and they had gone into the house, Bessie's coldness and embarrassment became evident.
“I am very much surprised to see you here,” she said, when her husband [pg 512] looked at her. She did not pretend to be glad.
“Are you sorry?” he asked, with a laugh.
“I am too much astonished to be anything else,” she replied quietly. “What made you come?”
John Maynard was disappointed and mortified. That for years he had met his wife's affectionate advances as coldly he did not seem aware. Other things had occupied his thoughts. He did not recollect, as he had not noticed at the time, that her manner was now just what it had long been.
Supper was over, eaten in an absent way by the husband, who glanced every moment at his wife. He found her very lovely, though different enough from the glad, girlish bride who had once brightened this humble room for him. He could not understand her. Had she no recollection of those days?
She did not seem to have, indeed, for she made no reference to them by look nor speech, but talked rapidly, and with an air of constraint, of things nearer in time, and listened with affected interest while he told the latest city news, and the latest news of his own work; how high the engine spouted; of the tiny model locomotive he had built, all silver, and gold, and fine steel; of the money he expected to make by his new patent; of an accident that had happened in his shop—a German organist, with two or three others, had come to look at his machinery, and got his hand crushed in it, which would put a stop to his playing.
Bessie looked up with an expression of pain. “Poor man!” she murmured. “How miserable he must be!”
“Yes; I was sorry for him,” the husband replied. “They say he cared for nothing but music. His name is Verheyden.”
“Poor man!” Bessie sighed again, looking down. “Those machines are always hurting some one.”
“It was his own fault,” the machinist said hastily. “Did he suppose that the engine was going to stop when he put his forefinger on it? Why, that machine would grind up an elephant, and never mismake its face. But it is the first time any one was ever hurt by a machine of mine.”
He did not understand the glance she gave him. It was not pleasant, but what it meant he knew not. She was thinking: “It is not the first time one has been hurt so.”
Aunt Nancy found business elsewhere, and left the couple to themselves.
“I forgot you were coming away that day, Bessie,” her husband said hastily, the moment they were alone. “I never thought of it till I was five miles off, and then I concluded that you must have changed your mind, or you would have told me not to go.”
“You know I never tell you not to go anywhere,” she replied coldly.
He colored. “But you know that I didn't mean to have you go to the depot alone. When I read what you wrote to Jamie, I felt sorry enough.”
In all the long years that were past, how generously would she have met an apology like this! How quickly would she have disclaimed all sense of injury, and even have tried to find some fault in herself! But now her heart, with all its impulses, seemed frozen. She only gave him a glance of surprise, and a quiet word. “There was no need of company, I knew the way.”
There was silence. Gradually, through the deep unconsciousness [pg 513] and abstraction of the man, came out incident after incident of their late life, slight, but significant. Each had seemed a detached trifle at the time, but now as he sat there, abashed and ill at ease, they began to show a connection and to grow in importance. It was as when, in a thick fog, the sailor sees dimly a black speck that may be only a floating stick, and another, and another, till, looking sharply, as the mist grows thinner, he finds himself caught among rocks at low tide.
John Maynard tried to throw off with a laugh the weight that oppressed him. “Come, Bessie, let the late past go, and remember only the life we lived here. Let's be young people again.”
He went to her side, bent down, and would have kissed her, had she not evaded his touch, not shyly, but with a crimson blush and a quick flash of the eyes.
“Don't talk nonsense, John!” she said, in a low voice that did not hide a haughty aversion. “Let us speak of something sensible. I have been thinking that some of our ways should be changed at home. I shall begin with myself, and attend strictly to my religion. Besides, I am not doing rightly in allowing James to grow up without any discipline, and I think he should be placed in a Catholic school, where he will be taught his duty. He is quite beyond my control.”
Her morbid humility and diffidence were gone. The feeling that had made her give up all rights rather than ask for them did not outlive the moment of her reconciliation with the church.
“I am willing he should go to any school you choose,” her husband replied gravely, impressed by the change. “I suppose the boy is going on rather too much as he likes. Do whatever you think best about it, and I will see that he obeys.”
She thanked him gently, and continued: “I shall go to High Mass after this, and I should be glad to have you go with me, if you are willing. It would be a better example for James than to see you go to the shop on Sundays. He is becoming quite lawless. We have no right to give our children a bad example. I would be glad to have you go with me, if you will.”
John Maynard's face was glowing red. He felt, gently as she spoke, as if he were having the law read to him. “I am willing to go with you, Bessie,” he said. “I am not a Catholic, but I am not anything else.”
She thanked him again, earnestly this time, for it was a favor he had granted her, and she knew that he would keep his word. “You are good to promise that,” she said.
He laughed uneasily. “Have you anything else to ask?”
“I do not think of anything,” she replied, and there was silence.
The husband got up, and went to the door. The sun was sinking down the west. He looked at the glow it made, and remembered how he had seen it there in the days that were past, how quiet and peaceful his life had been, how much happier, had he but known it, than in the turmoil of later years. Then the days had been full of healthful employment, the nights of rest and refreshment, untroubled by the feverish dreams that now swarmed in his sleeping hours. And what was it that had made his life so happy? What had been the motive, the delight of everything? Nothing but Bessie, always Bessie, his help and his reward.
He turned his face, and saw her still sitting there, her head drooping, her hands folded in her lap. Those [pg 514] hands caught his glance. They were pale and thin. They looked as though she had suffered.
He went to her impulsively as his heart stirred, and put his arm about her shoulder. “Bessie, forget the last years, and let's be as we were in the happy old time.”
She did not look angry; but she withdrew herself gently from him.
“John,” she said, “that is too much to expect at once. Years of pain cannot be forgotten in a moment. When you came to-day, you asked if Bessie Ware lived here. She does not. The Bessie Ware you married is dead. I scarcely know yet who or what I am. I only know that I shall try to do my duty by you, and repair some of the faults and mistakes of the past. But, John, I must warn you that it is harder to reconcile an estranged wife than to win a bride.”
One piercing glance, angry and disappointed, shot from his eyes; then he went to the outer door. He stood a moment on the threshold, then stepped on to the greensward. Another pause, and he walked slowly back through the garden, seeming not to know whither he went.
Aunt Nancy, anxiously awaiting signs of reconciliation, saw him wander about aimlessly, then go and lean on a fence next the woods, his back to the house.
She went into the front room at once. She was on John's side now.
“Bessie,” she said decidedly, “you mustn't stand too much on your dignity with John. Men are stupid creatures, and do a good many hard things without meaning or knowing; and, if they come round, it isn't wise to keep them waiting too long for a kind word.”
Bessie Maynard laid down the work she was pretending to do, and her hands trembled. “I am not acting a part, Aunt Nancy,” she said, “and I cannot be a hypocrite. I feel cold toward John. And I feel displeased when he comes and kisses me, as if he were conferring a favor, and expects me to be happy for that. I could not give up if I would, I ought not if I could. There is something more required than a little sweet talk.”
A half hour passed, and still John Maynard stood motionless, with his elbows leaning on the fence, and his head bowed. If Bessie had seen his face, it would have reminded her of the time when he first studied mechanics, and became so absorbed in the one subject as to be dead to all else. But there was the difference that he studied then with a vivid interest, and now with gloomy intentness.
An hour passed, and still he stood there; and the sun was down, and the moon beginning to show its pearly light through the fading richness of the gloaming. The birds had ceased singing, and there was no voice of wild creatures in the woods. It was the hour for prayer and peace-making.
John Maynard started from his abstraction, hearing his name spoken by some one. “John!” said Bessie. She had been watching him for some time from the door, and had approached slowly, step by step, unheard by him.
He turned toward her a pale, unsmiling face. “How late it is!” he said. “I must make haste.”
She spoke hesitatingly, something doubtful and wistful in her face. “I have been thinking that I might have received you better, when you came on this long journey. Won't you come in now and rest? I didn't mean to turn you out of the house that you made—for me.”
He turned his eyes away. “And I've been thinking, Bessie, that I'd better go right back again; I can go down to the post-office to-night, and take the stage to-morrow morning.”
“You will not go!” she said.
“I should only spoil your visit,” he went on. “I don't want you to begin to ‘do your duty’ by me just now. I know, Bessie, that you had a good deal to complain of; but I swear to you that I did not mean to be hard. You know I had twenty-five years to make up; and I was always looking for better times. I was so blind that I was fool enough to think you would be glad to see me here, and that we could begin over again where we began first.”
She did not answer a word. There is something confounding in the sudden humiliation of a man who has always been almost contemptuously dominant.
He looked at his watch. “I must make haste, or they will be in bed,” he said. “Make some sort of an excuse to Aunt Nancy for me. And when you want to come back, let me know, and I will meet you at the depot or come after you.”
He started, and she walked beside him down the path to the road. He seemed hardly able to hold his head up.
She walked nearer, and slipped her hand in his arm, speaking softly: “I said a little while ago that the pain of years cannot be forgotten in a moment. But I was wrong. I think it may.”
He looked at her quickly, but said nothing, and they reached the bars. Neither made any motion to let down the pole. They leaned on it a minute in silence.
“The fact is, Bessie,” the husband burst forth, “I've been like a man possessed by an evil spirit. I'm sorry, and that is all I can say.”
“No matter, Jack! Let it all go!” his wife exclaimed, clasping her hands on his arm, and holding it close to him. “You weren't to blame!” (Oh! wonderful feminine consistency!) “Let's forget everything unpleasant, and remember only the good. How you have had to work and study, poor, dear Jack! You must rest now, and never get into the old drudging way again.”
Aunt Nancy raked up the fire, and put down the window, looking out now and then at the couple who leaned on the bar below. Each time she looked, their forms were less distinct in the twilight. “That's just the way they used to do fifteen years ago,” she muttered contentedly.
She sat a few minutes waiting, but they did not come in. Aunt Nancy sighed and laughed too. “It beats all how women do change their minds,” she said. “I did think that Bessie would hold out longer. Well, I may as well go to bed.”
By-and-by she heard them come into the kitchen.
“Now, I shut the doors and windows, and you rake up the fire,” Bessie said. “Do you remember it was always so, Jack?”
“Of course I do, little one,” was the answer. “But Aunt Nancy has got the start of us to-night.”
“Aunt Nancy!” repeated Bessie, in a lower voice. “I declare, Jack, I forgot all about her.”
“I'll warrant you did!” says Aunt Nancy to herself, rather grimly, perhaps.
“We will be sure to keep all our good resolutions, won't we?” Bessie said.
“All right!” says John.
The door shut softly behind them, and there were silence, and peace, and hope in the house that Jack built.