A haunted life

by James Grant

There were tears in the man's eyes as he listened to her. She was pressing his hand kindly between hers, but there was a weary wistfulness in the gaze of Ida which bewildered him, and he thought how unlike was this sad love-making to that of the past time.

'Poor Jerry!' she resumed, after a long pause, 'I don't think I shall live very long; a little time, I fear, and I shall only be a dream to you, but a dream full of disappointment and pain.'

'Do not say so, Ida—my own beloved Ida!' he exclaimed, as the last vestige of mistrust in her was forgotten, and sorrow, love, and perplexity took its place. 'Ida,' he continued, in a voice that was touching, passionate, and appealing, 'young, beautiful, and rich, you shall yet be well and strong; your own gay spirit will return with the renewed health which we shall find you in another and a sunnier land than ours. Oh, for the love I bear you, darling, do thrust aside these thoughts of gloom and death!'

But she answered him slowly and deliberately, in a voice that was without tremor, though her eyes were full of melancholy, and with something of love, too, but not earthly loving, for that passion had long since departed.

'The thoughts of gloom come over me unsought, and will not be thrust aside; and to dread or avoid death is folly, and to fear it is also folly; for that which is so universal must be for our general good; hence, to fear that which we cannot understand, and is for our good, is greater folly. Moreover, it puts an end to all earthly suffering and to all earthly sorrow. But leave me, dear Jerry, now; I am weary—so weary.'

Then Vane, with his eyes full of tears, pressed his lips to her pale forehead as she sank back in her chair and closed her eyes as if to court sleep; and he left her slowly and reluctantly, and with a heart torn by many emotions, and not the least of these was the aching and clamorous sense of a coming calamity.

It was Christmas-tide, when, from all parts of the British Isles, the trains are pouring London-ward, laden with turkeys, game, and geese, and all manner of good things; when the post-bags are filled with dainty Christmas cards that express good and kind thoughts; when the warmest wishes of the jocund season are exchanged by all who meet, even to those whose hands they do not clasp, though eye looks kindly to eye; when the sparrows, finches, and robins flock about the farmyards, and the poor little blue tomtits feel cold and hungry in the leafless woods and orchards; Christmas Eve—'whose red signal fires shall glow through gloom and darkness till all the years be done'—the season of plum-pudding and holly, mistletoe and carolling, and of kind-hearted generosity, when the traditional stocking is filled, and the green branches of the festive tree are loaded with every species of 'goodies,' for excited and expectant little folks; and 'once a year,' the eve that, of all others, makes the place of those whom death has taken seem doubly vacant, and when the baby that came since last Christmas is hailed with a new joy; the eve that is distinguished by the solemnity of the mighty mission with which if is associated; and when over all God's Christian world, the bells ring out the chimes in memory of the star that shone over Bethlehem; and even now they were jingling merrily in the old square English tower of Collingwood church, from whence the cadence of the sweet even-song, in which the voices of Clare and Violet mingled with others, came on the clear frosty breeze to the old Court, the painted oriels of which were all aflame with ruddy light, that fell far in flakes across the snow-covered chase.

One voice alone was wanting there—the soft and tender one of Ida, who was unable to leave the house and face the keen, cold winter air.

She alone, of all the gay party assembled at the Court, remained behind.

Anxious to rejoin her, the moment the service was over in the little village church—the altar and pillars of which Clare and her friends, with the assistance of the gardener, had elaborately decorated: with bays and glistening hollies—Jerry Vane slipped out of his pew and hastened away through the snow-covered fields to where the picturesque masses of the ancient Court, with all its traceried and tinted windows gaily lighted up, stood darkly against the starry sky.