Effie Ogilvie: the story of a young life (Complete)

by Mrs. Oliphant

So far as this went, Effie knew what to say, her heart was full of eloquence and fervour. The intermediate steps were difficult, but that was easy. She had been shy with him and reticent, receiving what he gave, listening to what he said, of herself giving little. But now a new impulse possessed her. She would throw herself heart and soul into his fortunes. She would help him now that he needed her. She would be true, ah! more than that as she had said—she could not be false—it was an impossibility. Now that he was in need she was all his to work or watch, to console or to cheer as might be most needful—his by the securest, most urgent of bonds, by right of his necessities.

The enthusiasm which she had never felt for Fred came now at the thought of his poverty and loss. She could smile in the force of her resolution at the folly of the woman who thought this would break the tie between them; break it! when it made it like steel.

This fire in her heart kept Effie warm, and glowed about her with a semblance of passion; but first there was a difficult moment which she did not know how to pass. Had the train gone at once all would have been easy; but it would not go yet for hours, and she could not pass the time standing on the damp grass, her feet getting wet, her damp skirts clinging about her, the wintry dews dropping upon her, under those trees. She began to think and ask herself where she would go to wait and get a little warm before it should be time for the train.

To Rosebank? but they were on the other side she reflected, with a vague pang and misty passing realization of all that the other side meant. She had been on the other side herself, against her will, till to-day; but not now, oh, not now! She felt the pang, like a cutting asunder, a tearing away; but would not dwell upon it, felt it only in passing. No, she would not go into the atmosphere of the other side.

And how could she go to the manse where Uncle John would beg and pray to go instead of her, which was so very different; for Effie required not only to demonstrate her strong faithfulness, but to keep it up, to keep it in the state of passion.

Then there suddenly came upon her a gleam of illumination. Yes! that was the only place to go. To whom but to those who would suffer with him, who would have need also of strengthening and encouragement, who had such a change before them, and so much occasion for the support of their friends—could Effie betake herself? It did not occur to her that Doris and Phyllis, under the influence of depression and loss, were almost inconceivable, and that to cheer them by the sympathy and backing up of a little girl like herself, was something which the imagination failed to grasp. Not that thought, but the difficulties of the way chilled her a little. The dark, dark road over the brae which reached the waterside close to the churchyard, the little path by the river, the wide, silent, solitary park—all this made her shiver a little.

But she said to herself with a forlorn rallying of her forces that such trifles mattered nothing, that she was beyond thinking of anything so unimportant, that there was the place for her, that she must go to his sisters to give them confidence, to comfort them on Fred’s account, to say, “I am going to him, to stand by him.” They who knew him so well, would know that when she said that, all was said, and Fred’s strength and endurance secured.

This decision was made very rapidly, the mental processes being so much quicker than anything that is physical, so that the sound of the door closing upon Mr. Ogilvie and Mr. Moubray had scarcely died out of the echoes before she set forth. She walked very quickly and firmly so long as it was the highroad, where there were cottage lights shining here and there and an occasional passer-by, though she shrank from sight or speech of any; but when she came to the darker by-way over the hill, it was all Effie’s courage could do to keep her going.

There was light in the sky, the soft glimmer of stars, but it did not seem to get so far as the head of the brae, and still less down the other side, where it descended towards the water. Down below at the bottom of the ravine the water itself, indeed, was doubly clear; the sky reflected in it with a wildness and pale light which was of itself enough to frighten any one; but the descending path seemed to change and waver in the great darkness of the world around, so that sometimes it appeared to sink under Effie’s feet, receding and falling into an abyss immeasurable, which re-acted upon the gloom, and made the descent seem as steep as a precipice.

Her little figure, not distinguishable in the darkness, stumbling downwards, not seeing the stones and bushes that came in her way, seemed a hundred times as if about to fall down, down, into the depths, into that dark clearness, the cold gulf of the stream. Sometimes she slid downward a little, and then thought for a dizzy moment that all was over—sometimes stumbled and felt that she was going down headlong, always feeling herself alone, entirely alone, between the clear stars overhead and the line of keen light below.