CHAPTER V.
THE DEATH-BED MESSAGE.
Isa awoke on the following morning with a feeling of oppression on her heart, a vague impression that something had been neglected which ought to have been done, and she connected that something with the lecture which she had heard on the preceding day. Several minutes passed, however, before she could trace back the links of thought to the actual cause of her uneasiness, as it lay out of the general course of reflection suggested by the subject of the lecture. Then Isa recalled the words which at the time that she heard them had painfully reminded her of a death-bed scene, perhaps the saddest recollection left on a mind which had had of late much experience of sorrow. “The Christian may be called to draw upon himself the anger of men by defending the truth, or upholding the cause of the oppressed.”
“It is more than two years,” reflected Isa, “since I received a sacred charge from the dying lips of my dear father; and that charge I have never obeyed. For more than two years may an orphan have been suffering wrong on account of my brother, and during all this time I have let the sin rest on his soul. I first put off an explanation till I should meet him; then, when we met, I shrank from doing my duty. I quieted conscience with every kind of frivolous excuse; he was too delicate, too sensitive, too busy, it would be better to delay speaking till we should be alone together in some peaceful home. We have been alone together, we have passed hours, days, weeks in each other’s society, with nothing to hinder me from speaking, except my own cowardly dislike of saying what might probably offend. Surely cowardice like this is another Midianite in possession, and I shall never know real peace till I have wrestled it down. Whenever the remembrance of that charge comes over my mind, it is like a cloud darkening the sunshine, and throwing a chill around. God help me to fulfil at length a neglected duty! I will speak to Gaspar before this day has passed over.”
To some strong natures there might have appeared little that was formidable in the task before her, but to Isa it was peculiarly painful. Brought up as an only daughter, tenderly nurtured from her cradle, she had hardly known what it was to have to encounter even a grave look or a hasty word,—Isa had never learned to endure hardness. Fond of pleasing, both from natural kindliness of heart and love of approbation, Isa never willingly gave offence; with her to inflict pain was to suffer it. Isa delighted in deeds of kindness and works of beneficence; to comfort the sorrowing, or rejoice with the happy was congenial to her womanly spirit; but to restrain, rebuke, oppose—the sterner duties which are sometimes assigned to the most gentle of the sex in the battle-field of life—cost Isa an effort which can only be appreciated by those of a disposition like her own.
Isa’s heart throbbed uneasily with the feeling that the explanation so long dreaded, so long put off, was at hand, as she sat in the apartment which she called her boudoir, but which was always used as a breakfast-room. The bronze urn was hissing on the table, on which was spread a somewhat meagre repast. Awaiting her brother, who was late, Isa placed herself by the window, and gazed forth on the prospect before her. There was little to charm in that prospect, even on a bright spring day. A tract of common spread in front, dotted with golden patches of blossoming furze; but the picturesqueness of heath land was marred by the low-lying hamlet which was the foreground of the landscape. The cottages, or rather hovels of Wildwaste, wore an appearance of squalor and decay, which was not softened by the charm which moss and lichen and clustering ivy can throw around even ruins. They appeared rather falling to pieces because originally ill-built, than because they were ancient. The only tenement at Wildwaste which looked in perfect repair, and with some pretension to beauty, was the neat little school-house, erected by a Madden, but not, as Isa had soon learned from Lottie, either by Lionel or by Cora. “How pleasant,” mused Isa, as she watched the little clusters of cottage children entering the low-browed porch—“how pleasant to leave behind such a memorial of a passing visit to a place as that young Arthur has left!” and as she thought of her brother, with his ample means yet penurious disposition, she felt painfully how far better it is to possess the heart to give than the money.
The soap manufactory, lying a little to the right of the prospect, a huge unsightly square-windowed pile of brick and mortar, was a yet more conspicuous object than the hamlet of Wildwaste. It stood not two hundred yards from Isa’s home, so that when the wind blew from that quarter she dared not open the windows to let in the breezes, so polluted were they by smoke and evil scent. The only redeeming feature in the landscape seen from the lodge was the park which skirted the road beyond the common, the beautiful park above whose light leafy screen rose the gray turrets of Castle Lestrange. There, indeed, beauty and peace might dwell; thence no ruder sound would be heard than the cuckoo’s note or the nightingale’s song. Isa’s eyes, overlooking nearer and less pleasing objects, constantly wandered to those verdant woods, those lofty picturesque towers.