CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"Hark! the word by Christmas spoken,
Let the sword of wrath be broken,
Let the wrath of battle cease,
Christmas hath no word but—Peace"
Christmas day was unusually gloomy at Mr Rayne's this year, but it was quite a voluntary stillness, that reigned there; no one felt gay, or happy, while the loved master of the house was so low. Jean d'Alberg stole around in velvet slippers, and the others scarcely moved at all, as for Honor, she lived in the boudoir below stairs lying awake on the cosy lounge, dreaming all sorts of day dreams, while she awaited the end of this painful interruption in their domestic happiness.
The sky was slightly overcast with soft, gray clouds, but the day was fine, and Honor watched the happier passers-by, through the large window opposite, with a lazy, aimless interest.
Vivian did not come at all, as might have been expected, in fact the day was one of the most unusual, that had ever been passed within the walls of this cheerful home.
Circumstances mould our lives so strangely and capriciously, that we are ever doing things, which in after moments surprise ourselves those unplanned, unplotted, spontaneous deeds of ours that spring from the natural source of action, directly as it is influenced by some passing circumstance of moment! These are where the true character is betrayed, and the mind and heart laid bare, in their most genuine state. Afterwards, when everything is past and done, we can judge of ourselves at will, we can regret the golden opportunities, we so foolishly squandered, or we can wonder at the strength and magnanimity, that we had unconsciously displayed in the hour of trial. Only, we know, that such little moments of an existence have but one passage through time, and their foot-prints are indelible, on that well-trodden shore, be they, then pleasant or bitter, to think upon, they must hold their place in our memory, but once, and forever, there is no going back over the mistaken path; the weak steps that have faltered and staggered where they should have been firm and strong, may act as melancholy guides, for the future, but their own deformity is as immortal as the spirit.
This period of Honor Edgeworth's life, fully exemplified these strange theories, as she lay, during the long, dreary hours of these anxious days, peering, with the eyes of her soul, into the dark and mystic realms of the unrealized. There are moments when we seem to coax stern destiny, into a lively confidence, and in one passing glimpse, she shows us many closely-written pages of the "to be."
Experience comes to us in a reverie, or in a dream, and we raise ourselves up from that couch, in a stupid wonder, but our hair has turned white, hard lines mark the once smooth features, we are sadder, wiser, more cautious men, but I doubt if it has made us any better. The halo of golden sunlight that hope sheds over the future, has a holier influence over our present life, than the shadows of suspicion and distrust, with which anticipations of evil and darkness, cloud the vista of coming years.
For a young girl, the possible phases that life may assume is one long mystery and dread. She knows that while she sits in patience and quietude, her destiny is being surely and irrevocably woven by other hands. She will have no bread to earn, no battle to brave, no struggle to conquer, the thorns and briars on the path far ahead are trampled by other feet, and plucked by other hands, and when the miles have been cleared and trodden, the unknown laborer comes forth from his obscurity, and humbly asks her to arise from her quiet nook, to shake off the inactivity of her maidenhood, and to tread the beaten path with him.
After this, if a stray obstacle comes in the way, there are two pairs of hands to gather, two pair of feet to trample whatever obstructs the smoothness of their onward path, each growing stronger and more willing for the others sake, 'till they reach the tedious journey's end, content and happy.
All this Honor tried to see clearly and impartially. It had pleased destiny to send back him whom she loved more than all the world besides, and to send him back unaltered, except that he was handsomer, truer, and more devoted than ever.
The precious secret, that she had guarded for so long, and with such a jealous care, had been coaxed from its hiding-place over the threshold of her lips, and henceforth life meant something vastly different from what it had hitherto been. She had died, as it were, to her old self, she would be re-created to that life of holy mysteries, henceforth a double mission awaited her, double hopes, double fears, those little untried hands—and she raised them before her—must work two shares in the task of life, but there was no discouragement in the thought. Those who have loved as earnestly as she did, will understand why, for there is a secret courage, and a secret strength, for those who have learned to cherish the image of another, and to work out another's welfare.
There is a fortitude born on the altar-step, whereon the wedded pair has knelt, to speak the marriage vows, that none but the wedded can know, that none but souls bound together in a holy wedlock can understand, the fortitude that endures in the breast of a woman, through all the fierce struggles of her married life, that dies only with the last long sigh of relief at the hour of physical death, that is unquenched by the ashes of misery and woe that fall on its flickering flame, from time to time, the fortitude that thrives on sacrifice and endurance, and which if governed by christian motives, becomes a pass-port for the tried soul, before Heaven's far-off gate.
Honor felt beforehand, that the active life which lay untouched in the future for her, was to be sweeter, and happier far, than the passive existence of her girlhood. Matrimony, in her eyes, was a state of such sublime responsibilities, that she could spare her thoughts to no other consideration during these dreary hours of anxious solitude.
She spent her whole days in sketching the hereafter, just as she would have it. Already she was planning her wifely duties, and asking herself how she should learn to be always as interesting and as dear to her husband as she was to her lover. She invented modes of amusement and distraction, that would make home cheerful and fascinating for him, resolving within herself, that, if it lay in woman's power, to attract and bind a man's heart to his fireside, in preference to the old haunts of his pleasures, she would do it.
Two days of close, concentrated, uninterrupted thought, did not leave Honor unchanged. Her face grew serious in its beauty, her step was slower, her conversation less gay, and the distraction of visiting a sick-room, caused no happy re-action to her pensiveness.
It was now the twenty-seventh of December, a wet, rainy, raw day, fine, straight lines of persistent rain fell with a dreary drip on the snow's hard crust, pedestrians with their frozen umbrellas, slipped and slid along in ill-humor; shop-girls and others, who were out from sheer necessity, sped along with smileless faces, and frozen ulster-tails, sulking as they jerked from one icy elevation to another in the flooded slippery walk, and raising their upper lips in ungraceful curves, as their straightened curls stood out in painful stiffness, or fell in wet, clinging bits over their eyes.
Honor shuddered, and shrugged her shoulders as she turned away from the window, and threw herself into a large chair beside the lounge whereon was the sleeping form of her invalid guardian. The girls' face wore a look of dread and anxiety, something of painful impatience hovered around her mouth, and her eyes looked tired and sad, as she laid her head languidly back among the cushions.
"How long he sleeps!" she murmured anxiously, "I don't like this listlessness that has come over him lately; he dozes now all the time." Then springing quietly up, she stole over to the low couch, and stooped down beside the sleeping figure, she rested her chin thoughtfully in her hand and looked earnestly and lovingly into his face. The eyes were only half closed, the breathing was loud and labored, now and then the lips moved convulsively, as if in an effort to speak. Something so unnatural and so forboding dwelt on his kind, dear features, that a racking pain seized the girl's heart as she looked, her throat filled up, and hot, blinding tears welled into her eyes.
What is there sadder or more painful, than the quiet, tearful vigils that some dear one keeps by the sick bed of the unconscious invalid. With scalding tears in her eyes, and a burning misery in her heart, the sorrowful mother stoops over the doomed form of her sleeping child, gently chafing the fevered hands, tenderly cooling the flushed and fevered brow; softly pressing the trembling lips on the clammy cheek of her darling, driving back her agony with a heroic cruelty, lest a sob or a sigh, or a falling tear disturb the quiet slumber of the little one she loves. A mother and her child, a wife and her husband are never drawn so closely together, one never seems so truly a part of the other, as during a moment like this. It seems her baby has never looked so fair, so faultless in its mother's eyes, as when 'tis viewed through the blinding tears, that its sufferings and illness have brought into those searching eyes. A husband's follies and trifling neglects are never so generously forgiven and forgotten, as when, on bended knee, the wife he has loved peers greedily, devouringly into the shadowy face, when clouded by suffering and pain and so it is through all the grades of binding love we never know how dear our parent, brother, sister, friend or lover is, until we have watched the weakened forms struggling with some dread disease, the filmy eyes are then so full of mute appeal, the faint accents of the poor weak voice thrill our hearts with sympathy and love, the pressure of the feeble hand is most powerful in drawing us back, soul to soul, and heart to heart, as though neither of us had ever done such a very human thing, as to wrong one another. Honor tried to think, while she watched through her tears, what it would be to live, without this precious friend forever nigh, to guide and comfort her. In all the days of their happiness together, they had never spoken of the time when a separation must come the farthest flight her fancy ever took, into the distant future, still found her existence blended with Henry Rayne's. To her, he was now no older, no weaker than he was that day, long ago, when first she laid her eyes upon him; and now the horrible possibility of a cruel separation, thrust itself between her tears and the quiet unconscious face before her.
While she watched, sunk in a melancholy reverie, the bell of the hall door gave a great ring, which startled her suddenly, it also awoke the sleeper who looked vacantly into the tear-stained face, and smiled sadly. Honor got on her knees, and looked anxiously at the worn features "How do you feel, my dearest?" she said with an effort to be calm, "Any better?"
"I shall soon be better than I ever was before," he answered quietly, but so seriously that Honor suspected the terrible meaning of his words.
"Don't you feel at all livelier or stronger?" she asked in a despairing tone. "You know you were so down-hearted yesterday. Do say you feel a little relieved?" But before he could answer, Fitts appeared in the doorway, with the letters and packages of the morning delivery. Two were for Honor, and all the rest were Henry Rayne's. She had only given a careless glance at hers, but that sufficed to make her heart beat a great deal faster, and her eyes to sparkle suspiciously. Stooping over the figure of the invalid, she kissed the heated brow gently, and went out, leaving him with his important correspondence. She stole down to the library and gathered herself into a great easy chair, and then, drawing her letters deliberately from her pocket, she broke their seals and straightened out their creases. One was a delicate little note from a girl-friend, which, at any other time, would have been a pleasant distraction, but which was now refolded and replaced in its dainty envelope, unappreciated and uncared for. The other—oh, the other! with its dear familiar outlines, looking almost lovingly into her eyes—"My darling Honor," just as his voice pronounced it. Her hands trembled slightly while they held the quivering sheet, from which she read in silent rapture. When she had finished, and looked at it, and examined it over and over again, she dropped her hands carelessly in her lap and said half aloud.
"What is the mystery in all this? I must write and tell him when we expect Vivian again. This is queer! but then Guy knows best—oh yes! Guy surely knows best."
Towards five o'clock of this same afternoon Vivian Standish was announced by Fitts. To every ones surprise, Mr. Rayne admitted him to his presence, though he was feeling more debilitated and ill than usual, and what was more astonishing still, they remained for upwards of two hours closeted in close conversation. They never raised their voices nor made themselves heard during the whole interview, but talked steadily and quietly all the while. Finally Madame d'Alberg, thinking the exertion too much for her patient, bustled into the room and intimated as much to Vivian in the mildest possible terms.
As she expected, Henry Rayne was much weakened by the effort and refused to speak or take any nourishment for the rest of the afternoon. He dozed lazily and languidly until nine o'clock, and then waking somewhat refreshed, he turned towards Jean d'Alberg, who sat knitting by his side, and smiled pleasantly.
"I hope I see you in a better humor than before, you dear old bear," she said quizzingly. "I thought you would eat me up a while ago for bringing you a bowl of rich broth"
"I suppose I do bore you at times, Jean," he said penitently.
"Well, I should say you did," she sighed in mock heroism, "why, you are the crossest, and crankiest and sulkiest patient it was ever a woman's misfortune to nurse. Come now—I am going to dose you with this beef tea, just for refusing me awhile ago." Her quick blustering way always amused and aroused him, and he yielded more easily to her than to the others, but her hand was somewhat nervous to-day as she administered the nourishing liquid. She, too, saw the ominous shadows of a serious change in the pale, wasted face.
"Why, you are as feeble almost as myself!" he tried to exclaim, "see how your hand shakes."
"It is that knitting," she answered distractedly, "but I must finish those silk stockings for Honor's New Year's gift, so I hurry them up while I can sit in here alone."
"For Honor, eh!" he said so pathetically, that the words moved her. "I believe you love her too, Jean?"
"Indeed I do, Henry, she is half my life to me now."
"Thank God," he said, falling back on the pillows, "she will not be so utterly alone when I—" but he turned his face to the wall and stifled the terrible word.
Jean shuddered. Suddenly he turned back again, and looking very earnestly at the motherly woman beside him, he began:
"You will be good and generous to her all her life, will you not, Jean? Spare her all the pain and care and trouble you can, poor little one, she cannot bear much, cherish her always as you do to-day and she will not be ungrateful. Remember that she was all I had in life: property, riches and fame were as naught to me, except inasmuch as they were conducive to her welfare. And now that I must give them all up—"
"Whatever can you mean, Henry Rayne, talking such nonsense; it is a shame, you are the very one will bury us all yet."
He shook his head feebly. "No Jean, I will never see the spring-time," he said sadly. "Life is dear to me," he continued, "I would not now renounce it if I need not, but there is an Almighty will to whose power the mightiest mortal must yield without complaint. I have tasted life's bitter and sweet for three-score years and more, and I must not grumble now when I am called to leave down my weapons and tools. Other hands must tackle the unfinished task, my share is completed."
"You are depressed in spirits to-day," said Jean d'Alberg consolingly, "the sun has gone down, and the darkness always makes you feel blue, but to-morrow you will have abandoned these gloomy reflections."
"I will never abandon them now, until they be realised facts to me," he interrupted wearily—then in a low soliloquy he rambled on, "oh, Honor, Honor! it is only you who beckon me back from the road to eternity, and poor weak mortal that I am, I sigh for you, in preference to the bright promises of a land, where I can benefit you more than I ever could here;" then addressing Jean again, he said, "will you tell Honor that I will speak a few serious words with her in the morning—you can tell her too, for fear she would be surprised, that Vivian will be present at the time."
"I will Henry," Jean d'Alberg answered quietly, rising to prepare the invalid's drinks. As the darkness crept down over the cold, dark streets, Mr Rayne swallowed his evening remedies and retired for the night.
As soon as her charge was snugly gathered into bed, Jean d'Alberg, leaving Fitts in his dressing-room, went quietly in search of Honor. She found her sitting on a low stool, before the grate in the sitting-room, with her elbows resting on her knees and her head buried in both hands. stealing behind her she drew back the bowed head, and looked into the girl's eyes.
"Tears!" she said in amazement, "why are you in tears, my darling?"
"Don't think me weak and foolish, dear aunt Jean," Honor said, trying to laugh it off, "but I was thinking if Mr. Rayne, as I sat here alone, and with the thoughts, the tears came."
Jean looked more serious, than Honor had hoped to see her as she said.
"Well, my dear, trouble comes to the best of us, some time in life. If you hadn't it now, you would have it later, and it makes a less painful and durable impression on the heart while it is young."
"But, dear aunt Jean," faltered the girl, looking imploringly into the elder woman's face, "do you really think that Mr. Rayne is seriously ill, I mean—" and as the tears flooded her eyes, Jean d'Alberg kissed her fondly and answered,
"My dear little girl, he is in God's hands, could he be in better? Whatever is best for him, that kind Father will give to him, let us hope and pray—I have just come to you with a message from him—"
"Oh! what is it?" Honor interrupted eagerly.
"He merely said, that he wanted to speak a few words to you in the morning," she said unpretendingly, then going towards the door, she looked over her shoulder, and added, in such an artful, careless tone, "and Vivian Standish will be there too, I understand."
The light in the room was dim and subdued, or Jean d'Alberg would have noticed a strange expression flit across Honor's face at the mention of this news, but the turned down light protected her.
Jean d'Alberg had undergone a wonderful transformation since the day on which she took up her residence in Henry Rayne's house. A little susceptibility was yet flickering, at that time, in the heart that had grown so hardened and selfish, and she had brought it to a spot, where such lingering propensities were easily fanned by every passing circumstance, fanned and fed, until the broad flame was forced to burst out afresh, and consume the harshness and bitterness that had once dwelt with them. Her former virtues budded now anew into a second childhood, adorning her advancing years with gentle, lovable, womanly attributes, that endeared her to every one she knew, and rendered her indispensable to Honor who had learned to find in her all the qualities of a kind, good mother.
Thinking this message that she had just brought Honor needed consideration, Aunt Jean very properly made a trifling excuse to leave the room, much to the distracted girl's relief and satisfaction.
"So—the hour has come," she thought bitterly, when she was left alone, "he has appealed to the only one for whose sake he knows I would lay down my very life" and out of this bitter reflection, the meaning of the strange interview she had held with her guardian so shortly before rushed upon her in an entirely new light. Now she knew what Mr Rayne meant by the "favor," which involved the sacrifice of personal feeling and inclination. Yes, now she recognized herself the dupe of the man she had so proudly rejected still, in all the bitterness of her reflection she had not felt one reproach against Henry Rayne suggest itself within her. She knew him too well now, to suspect anything else than that in some way he too was tangled in deceptive webs. If a promise from her lips was spoken at his request, she knew that the motive within his heart was nothing, if not her personal happiness, her future welfare, or her gratification for the moment. Still, all that could not cancel the obstinate fact now so bare before her, that in giving her word to her guardian at the time it was sought, she had given the lie to her own heart, and had signed the death warrant of her own most sanguine hopes. Now she must leave her destiny to chance. She would keep her promise—aye, to the very letter—if nothing happened before this terrible to-morrow, she would lay her life at the feet of her benefactor, to dispose of it as he deemed best. Guy Elersley was the man she loved, the only being in the whole wide world that influenced her life, but if it were her fate to be the victim of deception then with the mightiest strength of a womans will will she would cast his image out of her heart forever. She would live for the man she loathed, a life of voluntary martyrdom. The struggle would benefit her in any case. If it were too violent an exertion for her moral nature, it would, in its pitiless mercy relieve her of her burden of life, and fold her weak hands over her broken heart forever. If, on the contrary, her moral and physical strength held bravely out to the painful end, the struggle would cease after the crisis, and leave her unburdened, unfettered, hardened, cynical, cold, selfish, but unsusceptible, and incapable of ever being influenced again by any sentiment or passion, and this terrible experience promised, in any case to visit her but once in her whole lifetime.
While she thought, she remembered the little note Guy had written her that morning, telling her to let him know when her next meeting with Vivian Standish should take place. Instinctively she rose up, as if to leave the room. What could it matter now to either her or Guy whether they had ever loved each other or not? Was it not the only misery of her life that her love had come between her and the will of her kind guardian? Duty is such a sober piece of heroism when one's affections, one's very heart-core are not its sacrifice. The conscientious can go bravely forth to the stern call of duty, the obedient follow out unhesitatingly its command, the virtuous seek it out to accomplish it, but when apart from these moral qualities the heart stands out, a weak victim of passion, that passion that clings to the things it loves, that lives because they live, when a heart thus circumstanced is assailed on both sides, when love and duty put forth their respective claims, who sneers because the noblest, grandest heart gives itself up vith a groan of wretched resignation to the fascination of its love? Men may talk, pens may write, bards may sing of magnanimous deeds in the abstract. In theory we are most of us saints, if we had been our neighbors, we would never have had a fault, but being each one our own miserable, unfortunate self, we must fling ourselves into the open arms of temptation, at the same moment that contrition fills our heart for the rash deed.
Of Honor Edgeworth the reader might expect wonderful moral courage. May be, he too has faith in the fallacious doctrine of worldlings—that he believes good souls have not their struggles. The world generally shrugs its shoulders in the face of the virtuous, and declares that in the hearts of the good there is no moral struggle equal to that which quakes the breast of the evil-doer, but to assure itself of its terrible error, it must play the part of the publican and learn to subdue its passions under a mask.
Honor had determined upon doing the right thing, but she was not perfect enough to stifle the burning sensations that were caused by such a determination. She turned from where she stood and walked mechanically towards the window. The ceaseless drip, drip of the rain on the frozen ground had nothing in it to comfort her, it was pitch dark, and with a shrug and a shiver, she turned wearily away with a long, sobbing sigh and left the room. She crossed the hall into the library, which was quite deserted, though the gas burned, and a bright fire cast shadows on the ceiling and walls around. Throwing herself into an arm-chair before Henry Rayne's handsome ecritoire, she drew from a tiny drawer a delicate sheet of note paper, upon which her trembling hand, traced nervously—
"My DEAR GUY—"
Then without waiting or thinking a moment, she hastily wrote on—
"I have just received the intelligence that I am to be interviewed to-morrow morning by Mr Rayne and Vivian Standish. It may be rather late to tell you now, but I did not hear of it until a few moments ago. Mr Rayne never leaves his room before eleven, when he sometimes comes down for lunch—that will probably be the hour of the interview.
"I see no earthly use in sending you this information, except
that you have asked me to do so, and you know best.
Ever your devoted
HONOR."
She folded it, and sealed it in a dainty little envelope, then thrusting it into her pocket she went quietly into the kitchen and closed the door.
Mrs Potts, sitting artistically on the edge of a yellow-scoured kitchen table, opened her small eyes in blank astonishment at the unexpected visitor. She was surrounded by clippings and sheets of paper, which she scolloped quite tastily to fit the broad shelves of her tidy dresser. As soon, however, as Honor crossed the threshold of her sanctum, she skipped down with an agility that would have done credit to a woman twenty years her junior, and wiping the palms of her accommodating hands emphatically in her blue-check apron, she advanced to receive Honor's orders.
"Go upstairs like a good soul, Potts," said Honor, in a hushed voice, "and walk very quietly, and tell Fitts I want him in the library."
"I will, Miss," the old woman said respectfully, and as she stole up the back stairway on her errand, Honor returned as softly to the library, where she stood by the window awaiting Fitts.
In another moment, the door opened, and with his most respectful bow, the man-servant entered the room. Honor's face was serious, and her gaze searching as she asked:
"Fitts, will you do a little favor for me, without telling any one of it?"
"I'm sorry, ye'd think it needful to ask me, Miss Honor, I'd rather, ye'd kno right well, that I'm only too proud when you ordher me, let alone, axm' me, as if I as your equals," and the poor fellow, looking half sorry as he spoke, touched the girl's heart.
"Well, Fitts, I must first tell you a great secret, which I am sure you will be glad to hear," Honor said a little gaily Fitts scratched his ear and looked embarassed, "Mr. Elersley is back again in Ottawa."
"Och don't I hope, 'tis yerself is in airnist, Miss Honor," the old man answered between smiles and tears, "is this really the truth?"
"Without a doubt, Fitts, and to prove it for yourself, I am going to send you to him with this little note, he is staying at the 'Albion,' it is not far, see him yourself, it will please you both; I do not like to ask you to go out on such a dreadful night, but the message is important."
"It will be the powerful queer night, Miss Honor, when I'll not like to go out on your little errands, and more particular when it's to see Mr. Guy that I have loved since he was a lad."
"You are a good, devoted servant, Fitts," she answered, "go now, and don't be long, for you may be wanted."
The man looked proudly at himself as he thrust her dainty note carefully into his inside pocket, and without further ado left the room.