Christian Melville

by Mrs. Oliphant

Infortunate, Is so my fate
That wote ye what, Out of mesure
My life I hate; Thus desperate
In such pore estate, Doe I endure.—Chaucer.

few weeks have passed away since that terrible night, and we are again in Christian Melville’s quiet home. It is on the eve of the new year, but how different is the appearance of those assembled within this still cheerful room from the mirth and happiness which made their faces shine one short twelvemonth since. Our Christian is here, sitting with her head bent down, and her hands clasped together with convulsive firmness. Here is little Mary drooping by her side like a stricken flower, while the only other person in the apartment sits sulkily beside them with a discontented, ill-humoured look upon her pretty features, which contrasts strangely, and not at all agreeably, with the pale and anxious faces of her companions—her sisters—for this unhappy looking, discontented woman is James Melville’s wife. Strange and terrifying news of Halbert have reached them, “that he has fallen into errors most fatal and hazardous to his future prospects, and all unlike as of his proposed vocation so of his former character, that he had become acquainted and been seen publicly with most unfit and dangerous companions,” writes a kind and prudent Professor, who has from the first seen and appreciated the opening promise of Halbert’s mind. Two or three days ago James, his brother, has set off to see if these things be true or no, and to bring, if possible and if needful, the wandering erring spirit—we cannot call him prodigal yet—home. The spirit of Christian, the guardian sister, had sunk within her at these terrible tidings; was she not to blame—had she done her part as she ought to have done—had she not been careless—is she guiltless of this sad catastrophe? She remembered Halbert’s letter of the past new year—she remembered how studiously he had kept from home all this weary year—she remembered how, save for one hurried visit, he had stayed at a distance from them all, pleading engagements with his friend, that friend that had now proved so deadly a foe. A thousand things, unheeded at the time, sprung up in Christian’s memory in lines of fire. The friend of Halbert, free-thinking at the first, what was he? the unwonted restraint of the young brother’s correspondence, the studied omission of all reference to sacred things, or to his own prospective avocations in his letters, which in former times used to be the chief subjects of his glowing and hopeful anticipations, the bitterness of tone which had crept into his once playful irony, all these which had only caused a momentary uneasiness, because of her dependence on Halbert’s steadfast settled principles, flashed back with almost intolerable distinctness now. Alas! for Christian’s recollections—“I am to blame; yes, I ought to have warned him, even gone to him,” she thinks; “was he not left me as a precious treasure, to be guarded, to be warned, to be shielded from ill? Oh! that he was home once more.” Alas! for Christian’s recollections, we say again; the iron fingers of Time measure out the moments of that last lingering hour; again light hearts wait breathless for its pealing signal, as they did of old, but these silent watchers here have no ear for any sounds within their own sorrowful dwelling, though there is not a passing footstep on the street without that does not ring upon their anxious ears in echoing agony; there is not a sound of distant wheels bearing, mayhap, some reveller to and fro, which does not bring an alternate throb and chill to their painful beating hearts. This stillness is past all bearing, it is painfully unendurable, and Christian springs to the door and gazes out upon the cold and cheerless street, and as she does so a thoughtless passenger wishes her a “happy new year.” Alas! to speak of happiness, a happy new year to her in such a moment as this!

Mrs. James Melville is astonished at all this grief; she cannot understand nor fathom it. Suppose Halbert has been foolish, and behaved ill, what then? Why should her husband have gone off so suddenly, and her sister-in-law be in such a state? She was sure she could not comprehend it, and would have been very foolish to have done such foolish things for all the brothers in the universe. Young men will be young men, and they should be left to come to themselves, instead of all this to-do being made about them; it was preposterous and absurd, and put her in a very ridiculous position; and so Mrs. James pouted and sulked and played with her chains and her rings, stopping now and then in her agreeable relaxation to cast a glance of contemptuous scorn at restless, excited, anxious Christian, and drooping, fragile Mary. A nice way this to bring in the new year, the first anniversary of her married life, the first return of the day of her wedding; a nice state James would be in for her party of to-morrow evening; and Mrs. James, by way of venting her ill-humour, shoved away with her slippered foot, a little dog which was sleeping before the cheerful fire. How Christian starts as it cries and creeps to her feet: it is Halbert’s dog, and as her eye falls on it, its youthful owner seems to stand before her, so young, so frank, so innocent! now gay as a child, making the walls echo with his overflowing mirth; now grave and serious, like the dead mother whose latest breath had committed him as a precious jewel to her, and bidden her watch over him and guard him with her life. Oh, had she neglected her charge! Was this fault, this apparent wreck hers?

The passing footsteps grew less and less frequent; what can detain them? Old Mr. Melville and his son Robert have gone to meet James and—Halbert—if Halbert be only with him, and Christian trembles as she repeats that pregnant if. Her heart will break if they come not soon: she cannot bear this burden of anxiety much longer. Hush! there are footsteps, and they pause at the door. Sick at heart, Christian rushes to it again with little Mary by her side; there at the threshold are her father, James, Robert; she counts them painfully, one by one; but where is Halbert? where is her boy? The long-cherished expectation is at once put to flight; the artificial strength of excitement has gone, and Christian would have fallen to the ground, but for James’s supporting arm.

“Christian,” he whispered, as he led her back to her seat in the parlour again, “I know you can command yourself, and you must try to do so now, for you will need all your strength to-night.”

James’s voice was hoarse, and his eyes bloodshot. Where is—what has become of Halbert? The story is soon told. When James reached Edinburgh, he had gone straight to Halbert’s lodging, and found when he arrived at it, that his brother had disappeared, gone away, whither the people knew not; his fellow-students and professors were equally ignorant; and all that he could clearly ascertain was, that the reports they had been grieved so much with were too true; that one night some weeks before the day that James went to the lodgings, Halbert had gone out, been seen in several places of the worst character, with men known as profligates, and abandoned, and had come home very late. That since then he had been like a man in despair—mad—his simple landlady said; and she pointed to the books he had left, crowding the shelves and littering the floor of her little room; that two nights before James had arrived—having been shut up all the day—he had gone suddenly out, telling her to send a parcel lying on his table as directed, the next morning. On his mantel-piece was a letter, apparently forgotten, for Christian. “Here it is,” said James in conclusion, handing it to her, “would that it could comfort you!”

Christian broke the seal with eager, trembling fingers; perhaps, after all, there might be some comfort here:

“Christian,

“Do not hate me! do not forsake me!” (thus did it begin; and it seemed as if the paper was blistered with tears, so that the words were almost illegible; and thus went on the trembling words of poor Halbert’s almost incoherent letter). “I am still your brother; but they will tell you how I have fallen; they will tell you of my guilt—but none—none can tell, can comprehend my misery. I dare not come near you. I dare not return home to pollute the air you breathe with my presence. I feel myself a Cain or a Judas, branded and marked, that all men may shrink from me as from a pestilence; and I must rush out from their sight afar, and from their contact. It is enough that I feel the eye of God upon me—of that God whom I have denied and contemned, whose throne I strove to overturn with my single arm, feeble and frail as it is—continually upon me, on my secret heart burning in on the quivering spirit, my sentence of hopeless, helpless condemnation! They will tell you that I am mad. Oh, that I were, and had been so for these last months, that now I might lose the sense of my sin and of the hopeless despair which haunts me night and day! Christian, I am no infidel, or as the tempters called it, spiritualist now. I shrink and tremble just the same while alone, and when among the crowd, from that terrible Spirit that pursues and searches me out everywhere—terrible in holiness; inexorable in justice, and I cannot pray, ‘Be merciful, O thou holy and eternal One.’