“The future,” said Lord Kysington, “at my age, is all in the passing hour. If I am to act, there is no time for delay—the present moment is my only certainty.”
“Do as you will,” Eva replied. “I will return to the house where I was happy with my husband. I will remain there with your grandson, Lord William Kysington; this name, his only heritage, he shall retain; and though the world may never know it till it is inscribed on his tomb, nevertheless your name is that of my son.”
Eight days from this time Eva Meredith descended the staircase, still holding her son by the hand as when she first entered that fatal house. Lady Mary was behind, a few steps higher up, and numerous domestics gathered together in melancholy silence, were looking on, and regretting that mild mistress driven from her paternal roof.
In quitting this house, Eva left the only beings whom she knew on earth, the only ones from whom she had the right to claim pity; the world was before her, boundless and void—it was Hagar departing for the desert.
“This is dreadful, doctor!” exclaimed the village doctor’s auditors. “Are there, then, lives so completely miserable—and you too have witnessed them?”
“I did witness all,” said Doctor Barnabé; “but I have not yet told you all, allow me to finish.”
Soon after the departure of Eva Meredith, Lord Kysington started for London. Finding myself once more at liberty, I renounced all desire of improving myself—I possessed enough skill for my native village, and I returned to it immediately.
And again we stood in that little white house, reunited as before this two years’ absence; but the time which had passed had augmented the heaviness of misfortune. We neither of us dared to speak of the future, that unknown time of which we have all so much need, and without which the present moment, if it is joyous, passes by with a transient happiness, if sad, with indelible sorrow.
I have never looked on a grief more noble in its simplicity, more calm in its strength, than that of Eva Meredith. She still implored the God who had stricken her. God was for her the unseen Being who could work impossibilities, near whom we commence to hope once more, when the hopes of earth are fled. Her look, that look replete with faith, which had already attracted my attention so forcibly, was riveted on the brow of her boy, as if awaiting the coming of the soul she so fervently prayed for. I cannot describe to you the courageous patience of that mother, speaking to her son, who heard but understood not. I could tell you all the treasures of love, the thoughts, the ingenious tales she endeavored to instill into that benighted mind, which repeated like an echo the last words of the sweet language spoken to him. She told him of heaven, and God, and of his angels; she joined his hands together that he might pray, but she could never make him raise his eyes to heaven.
She attempted in every possible form the first lessons of childhood; she read to her son, spoke to him, tried to divert him with pictures, and sought from music sounds which, differing from the voice, might attract his attention.