CROSSING THE RIVER
Max waited for me to speak, but I had no words ready for the occasion. My silence seemed to perplex him.
'You have heard everything now, Ursula.'
'Yes, I suppose so. I am very sorry for you, Max; you have suffered cruelly. And this only happened last year?'
'Last February.'
'It is very strange,—very mysterious. I do not seem to understand it. I cannot find the clue to all this.'
'There is no clue needed,' he returned impatiently. 'Miss Hamilton is in love with her cousin, and is sorry for my disappointment.'
'I do not believe it,' I replied bluntly. And yet, as I said this, Gladys's conduct seemed to me perfectly inexplicable. It was just possible that Max's statement, after all, might be correct,—that she did not love him well enough to marry him: and this would account for her nervousness and constraint in his presence: a sensitive girl like Gladys would never be at her ease under such circumstances. But she had promised not to withdraw her friendship: why had she then given up her work and made herself a stranger to his dearest interest? I had seen her struggle with herself when he had begged her to resume her class. A brightness had come to her eyes, her manner had become warm and animated, as though the stirring of new life were in her veins, and then she had refused him very gently, and a certain dimness and blight had crept over her. I had wondered then at her.
No, I could not bring myself to believe that she was indifferent to Max. He was so good, so worthy of her. And yet—and yet, do we women always choose the best? Perhaps, as Max said, she knew him too well for him to influence her fancy. Captain Hamilton's scars and medals might cast a glamour over her. Gladys was very impulsive and enthusiastic; perhaps Max was too quiet and gentle to take her heart by storm.
I had plenty of time for these reflections, for Max sat moodily silent after my blunt remark, but at last he said,—
'I am afraid I believe it, Ursula, and that is more to the purpose. Miss Darrell has dispelled my last hope.'
'You mean that Captain Hamilton's return speaks badly for your chances?'
'I have no chances,' very gloomily. 'I am out of the running. Miss Hamilton's message—for I suppose it was a message—was my final answer. She did not wish me to speak to her again.'
'Are you sure that she sent that message?'
'Am I sure that I am sitting here?' he answered, rather irritably. 'What have you got in your head, Ursula, my dear? You must not let personal dislike influence your better judgment. Perhaps Miss Darrell is not to my taste; I think her sometimes officious and wanting in delicacy; but I do not doubt her for a moment.'
'That is a pity,' I returned drily, 'for she is certainly not true; but all you men swear by her.' For I felt—heaven forgive me!—almost a hatred of this woman, unreasonable as it seemed; but women have these instincts sometimes, and Max had warned me against Miss Darrell from the first.
'I will be frank with you,' I continued, more quietly. 'I do not read between the lines: in other words, I do not understand Gladys's behaviour. It may be as you say; I do not wish to delude you with false hopes, my poor Max; Gladys may care more for Captain Hamilton than she does for you; but it seems to me that you acted wrongly on one point; you meant it for the best; but you ought to have spoken to Gladys yourself.'
'I wonder that you should say that, Ursula,' he returned, in rather a hurt voice. 'I may be weak about Miss Hamilton, but I am hardly as weak as that. Do you think me capable of persecuting the woman I love?'
'It would not be persecution,' I replied firmly, for I was determined to speak my mind on this point. 'Miss Darrell may have misconstrued her meaning: the truth loses by repetition: she may have added to or diminished her words. A third person should never be mixed up in a love affair: trouble always comes of it. I think you were wrong, Max: you let yourself be managed by Miss Darrell. She has nothing to do with you or Gladys.'
'I could not help it if she came to me.'
'True, she thrust herself in between you. Well, it is too late to speak of that now. If you will take my advice, Max,' for the thought had come upon me like a flash of inspiration, 'you will go down to Bournemouth and speak to Gladys, keeping your own counsel and telling no one of your intention.'
I saw Max stare at me as though he thought I had lost my senses, and then a sudden light came into his eyes.
'You will go down to Bournemouth,' I went on, 'and the Maberleys will be glad to see you; you are an old friend, and they will ask no questions and think no ill. You will have no difficulty in seeing Gladys alone. Speak to her promptly and frankly; ask her what her behaviour has meant, and if she really prefers her cousin. If you must know the worst, it will be better to know it now, and from her own lips. Do go, Max, like a brave man.' But even before I finished speaking, the light had died out of his eyes, and his manner had resumed its old sadness.
'No, Ursula; you mean well, but it will not do. I cannot persecute her in this way. Captain Hamilton is coming home in July: she has given him permission to come. I will wait for that. I shall very soon see how matters stand between them. I shall only need to see her with him; probably I shall not speak to her at all.'
I could have wrung my hands over Max's obstinacy and quixotism: he carried his generosity to a fault. Few men would be so patient and forbearing.
How could he stand aside hopelessly and let another man win his prize? But perhaps he considered it was already won. I pleaded with him again. I even went so far as to contradict my theory about a third person, and offered to sound Gladys about her cousin; but he silenced me peremptorily.
'Promise me that you will do nothing of the kind; give me your word of honour, Ursula, that you will respect my confidence. Good heavens! if I thought that you would betray me, and to her of all people, I should indeed bitterly repent my trust in you.'
Max was so agitated, he spoke so angrily, that I hastened to soothe him. Of course his confidence was sacred; how could he think such things of me? I was not like Miss—. But here I pulled myself up. He might be as blind and foolish as he liked, he might commit suicide and I would not hinder him; he should enjoy his misery in his own way. And more to that effect.
'Now I have made you cross, little she-bear,' he said, laying his hand on mine, 'and you have been so patient and have given my woes such a comfortable hearing. You frightened me for a moment, for I know how quick and impulsive you can be. No, no, my dear. I hold you to your own words: a third person must not be mixed up in a love affair; it only brings trouble.'
'You have proved the truth of my words,' I remarked coolly. 'Very well, I suppose I must forgive you; only never do it again, on your peril: you know I am to be trusted.'
'To be sure; you are as true as steel, Ursula.'
'Very well, then: in that case you have nothing to fear. I will be wise and wary for your sake, and guard your honour sacredly as my own; if I can give you a gleam of hope, I will. Anyhow, I shall watch.'
'Thank you, dear. And now we will not talk any more about it; now you know why I wanted you to be her friend. I am glad to think she is so fond of you.' But I would not let him change the subject just yet.
'Max,' I said, detaining him, for he rose to go, 'all this is dreadfully hard for you. Shall you go away—if—if—this happens?'
'No,' he returned quietly; 'it is they who will go away. Captain Hamilton cannot leave his regiment: he is far too fond of an active life. It will be dreary enough, God knows, but it will not be harder than the life I have led these twelve months, trying to win her back to her work and to put myself in the background. It has worn me out, Ursula. I could not stand that sort of thing much longer. It is a relief to me that she is away.'
'Yes, I can understand this.'
'It makes one think, after all, that the extreme party have something in their argument in favour of the celibacy of the clergy. Not that I hold with them, for all that; but all this sort of thing takes the heart out of a man, and comes between him and his work. I should be a better priest if I were a happier man, Ursula.'
'I doubt that, Max.' And the tears rose to my eyes, for I knew how good he was, and what a friend to his people.
'My dear, I differ from you. I believe there is no work like happy work,—work done by a heart at leisure from itself; but of course we clergy and laity must take what heaven sends us.' And then he held out his hands to me, and I suppose he saw how unhappy I was for his sake.
'Don't fret about me, my dear little Ursula,' he said kindly. 'The back gets fitted for the burden, and by this time I have grown accustomed to my pain; it will all be right some day: I shall not be blamed up there for loving her.' And he left me with a smile.
I passed a miserable evening thinking of Max. Next to Charlie, he had been my closest friend from girlhood; I had been accustomed to look to him for advice in all my difficulties, to rely upon his counsel. I knew that people who were comparatively strangers to him thought he was almost too easy-going, and a little weak from excess of good-nature. He was too tolerant of other folk's failings; they said he preached mercy where severity would be more bracing and wholesome; and no doubt they thought that he judged himself as leniently; but they did not know Max.
I never knew a man harder to himself. Charitable to others, he had no self-pity; selfish aims were impossible to him. He who could not endure to witness even a child or an animal suffer, would have plucked out his right eye or parted with his right hand, in gospel phrase, if by doing so he could witness to the truth or spare pain to a weaker human being. It was this knowledge of his inner life that made Max so priestly in my eyes. I knew he was pure enough and strong enough to meet even Gladys's demands. Nothing but a modern Bayard would ever satisfy her fastidious taste; she would not look on a man's stature, or on his outward beauty; such things would seem paltry to her; but he who aspired to be her lord and master must be worthy of all reverence and must have won his spurs: so much had I learnt from my friendship with Gladys.
I pondered over Max's words, and tried to piece the fragments of our conversation with recollections of my talks with Gladys. I recalled much that had passed. I endeavoured to find the clue to her downcast, troubled looks, her quenched and listless manner. I felt dimly that some strange misunderstanding wrapped these two in a close fog. What had brought about this chill, murky atmosphere, in which they failed to recognise each other's meaning? This was the mystery: lives had often been shipwrecked from these miserable misunderstandings, for want of a word. I felt completely baffled, and before the evening was over I could have cried with the sense of utter failure and bewilderment. If Max's chivalrous scruples had not tied my hands, I would have gone to Gladys boldly and asked her what it all meant; I would have challenged her truth; I would have compelled her to answer me; but I dared not break my promise. By letter and in the spirit I would respect Max's wishes.
But I resolved to watch: no eyes should be so vigilant as mine. I was determined, that nothing should escape my scrutiny; at least I was in possession of certain facts that would help me in finding the clue I wanted. I knew now that Max loved Gladys and had tried to win her: that he had nearly done so was also evident. What had wrought that sudden change? Had Captain Hamilton's brilliant successes really dazzled her fancy and blinded her to Max's quiet unobtrusive virtues? Did she really and truly prefer her cousin? This was what I had to find out, and here Max could not help me.
There was one thing I was glad to know,—that Mr. Hamilton favoured Max's suit. At least I should not be working against him. I do not know why, but the thought of doing so would have pained me: I no longer wished to array myself for war against Mr. Hamilton; my enmity had died a natural death for want of fuel.
I felt grateful to him for his kindness to Max; no doubt he had a fellow-feeling with him. That dear old gossip, Mrs. Maberley, had told me something about Mr. Hamilton on my second visit that had made me feel very sorry for him. Max knew about it, of course; he had said a word to me once on the subject, but it was not Max's way to gossip about his neighbours; he once said, laughing, that he left all the choice bits of scandal to his good old friend at Maplehurst.
It was from Mrs. Maberley that I heard all about Mr. Hamilton's disappointment, and why he had not married. When he was about eight-and-twenty he had been engaged to a young widow.
'She was a beautiful creature, my dear,' observed the old lady; 'the colonel said he had never seen a handsomer woman. She was an Irish beauty, and had those wonderful gray eyes and dark eyelashes that make you wonder what colour they are, and she had the sweetest smile possible; any man would have been bewitched by it. I never saw a young man more in love than Giles: when he came here he could talk of nothing but Mrs. Carrick: her name was Ella, I remember. Well, it went on for some months, and he was preparing for the wedding,—there was to be a nursery got ready, for she had one little boy, and Giles already doted on the child,—when all at once there came a letter from his lady-love; and a very pretty letter it was. Giles must forgive her, it said, she was utterly wretched at the thought of the pain she was giving him, but she was mistaken in the strength of her attachment. She had come to the conclusion that they would not be happy together, that in fact she preferred some one else.
'She did not mention that this other lover was richer than Giles and had a title, but of course he found out that this was the case. The fickle Irish beauty had caught the fancy of an elderly English nobleman with a large family of grown-up sons and daughters. My dear, it was a very heartless piece of work: it changed Giles completely. He never spoke about it to any one, but if ever a man was heart-broken, Giles was: he was never the same after that; it made him hard and bitter; he is always railing against women, or saying disagreeable home-truths about them. And of course Mrs. Carrick, or rather Lady Howe, is to blame for that. Oh, my dear, she may deck herself with diamonds, as they say she does, and call herself happy,—which she is not, with a gouty, ill-tempered old husband who is jealous of her,—but I'll be bound she thinks of Giles sometimes with regret, and scorns herself for her folly.'
Poor Mr. Hamilton! And this had all happened about six or seven years ago. No wonder he looked stern and said bitter things. He was not naturally sweet-tempered, like Max; such a misfortune would sour him.
'All well,' I said to myself, as I went up to bed, 'it is perfectly true what Longfellow says, "Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary"; but it is strange that they both have suffered. It is a good thing, perhaps, that such an experience is never likely to happen to me. There is some consolation to be deduced even from my want of beauty: no man will fall in love with me and then play me false.' And with that a curious feeling came over me, a sudden inexplicable sense of want and loneliness, something I could not define, that took no definite shape and had no similitude, and yet haunted me with a sense of ill; but the next moment I was struggling fiercely with the unknown and unwelcome guest.
'For shame!' I said to myself; 'this is weakness and pure selfishness, mere sentimental feverishness; this is not like the strong-minded young person Miss Darrell calls me. What if loneliness be appointed me?—we must each have our cross. Perhaps, as life goes on and I grow older, it may be a little hard to bear at times, but my loneliness would be better than the sort of pain Mr. Hamilton and Max have endured.' And as I thought this, a sudden conviction came to me that I could not have borne a like fate, a dim instinct that told me that I should suffer keenly and long,—that it would be better, far better, that the deepest instincts of my woman's nature should never be roused than be kindled only to die away into ashes, as many women's affections have been suffered to die. 'Anything but that,' I said to myself, with a sudden thrill of pain that surprised me with its intensity.
All this time through the long cold weeks Elspeth had been slowly dying. Quietly and gradually the blind woman's strength had ebbed and lessened, until early in March we knew she could not last much longer.
She suffered no pain, and uttered no complaint. She lay peacefully propped up with pillows on the bed where Mary Marshall had breathed her last, and her pale wrinkled face grew almost as white as the cap-border that encircled it.
At the commencement of her illness I was unable to be much with her. Susan and Phoebe Locke had thoroughly engrossed me, and a hurried visit morning and evening to give Peggy orders was all that was possible under the circumstances; but I saw that she was well cared for and comfortable, and Peggy was very good to her and kept the children out of the room.
'Ah, my bairn, I am dying like a lady,' she said to me one day, 'and it is good to be here on poor Mary's bed. See the fine clean sheets that Peggy has put me on, and the grand quilt that keeps my feet warm! Sometimes I could cry with the comfort of it all; and there is the broth and the jelly always ready; and what can a poor old body want more?'
When Susan was convalescent I spent more time with Elspeth. I knew she loved to have me beside her, and to listen to the chapters and Psalms I read to her. She would ask me to sing sometimes, and often we would sit and talk of the days that seemed so 'few and evil' in the light of advancing immortality.
'Ay, dearie,' she would say, 'it is not much to look back upon except in an angel's sight,—a poor old woman's life, who worked and struggled to keep her master and children from clemming. I used to think it hard sometimes that I could not get to church on Sunday morning,—for I was aye a woman for church,—but I had to stand at my wash-tub often until late on Saturday night. "After a day's charing, rinsing out the children's bits of things, and ironing them too, how is a poor tired body like me to get religion?" I would say sometimes when I was fairly moithered with it all. But, Miss Garston, my dear, I'm glad, as I lie here, to know that I never neglected the children God had given me; and so He took care of all that; He knew when I was too tired to put up a prayer that it was not for the want of loving Him.'
'No, indeed, Elspeth. I often think we ought not to be too hard on poor people.'
'That's true,' brightening up visibly. 'He is no severe taskmaster demanding bricks out of stubble; He knows poor labouring people are often tired, and out of heart. I used to say to my master sometimes, "Ah well, we must leave all that for heaven; we shall have a fine rest there, and plenty of time to sing our hymns and talk to the Lord Jesus. He was a labouring man too, and He will know all about it." I often comforted my master like that.'
Elspeth's quaint talk interested me greatly. I grew to love her dearly, and I liked to feel that she was fond of me in return. I could have sat by her contentedly for hours, holding her hard work-worn hand and listening to her gentle flow of talk with its Scriptural phrases and simple realistic thoughts. It was like washing some pilgrim's feet at a feast to listen to Elspeth.
One evening she told me that she had been thinking of me.
'I wanted to know what you were like, my bairn,' she said, with her pretty Scotch accent; 'and the doctor came in as I was turning it over in my mind, so I made bold to ask him to describe you. I thought he was a long time answering, and at last he said, "What put that into your head, granny?" as if he were a little bit taken aback by the question.
'"Well, doctor," I returned, "we all of us like to see the faces of those we love; and I am all in the dark. That dear young lady is doing the Lord's work with all her might, and she has a voice that makes me think of heaven, and the choirs of angels, and the golden harps, and maybe her face is as beautiful as her voice."
'"Oh no," he says quite sharply to that, "she is not beautiful at all: indeed, I am not sure that most people would not think her plain."
'I suppose I was an old ninny, but I did not like to hear him say this, my bairn, for I knew it could not be the truth; but he went on after a minute,—
'"It is not easy to describe the face of a person one knows so well. I find it difficult to answer your question. Miss Garston has such a true face, one seems to trust it in a minute: it is the face of an honest kindly woman who will never do you any harm;" and then I saw what he meant. Why, bairn, the angels have this sort of beauty, and it lasts the longest; that is the sort of face they have there.'
I heard all this silently, and was thankful that Elspeth's blind eyes could not see the burning flush of mortification that rose to my face. The dear garrulous old body, how could she have put such a question to Mr. Hamilton? and yet how kindly he had answered! A sudden recollection of Irish dark-gray eyes with black lashes came to my mind; I knew Mr. Hamilton was a connoisseur of beauty. I had often heard him describe people, and point out their physical defects with the keenest criticism; he was singularly fastidious on this point; but, in spite of my humiliation, I was glad to know that he had spoken so gently. He had told the truth simply, that was all: at least he had owned I was true; I must content myself with this tribute to my honesty.
But it was some days before I could recall Elspeth's words without a sensation of prickly heat: it is strange how painfully these little pin-pricks to our vanity affect us. I was angry with myself for remembering them, and yet they rankled, in spite of Elspeth's quaint and homely consolation. Alas! I was not better than my fellows: Ursula Garston was not the strong-minded woman that Miss Darrell called her.
But when I next met Mr. Hamilton I had other thoughts to engross me, for Elspeth was dying, and we were standing together by her bedside. I had not sent for Mr. Hamilton, for I knew that he could do nothing more for her; but he had met one of the children in the village, and on hearing the end was approaching had come at once to render me any help in his power. Perhaps he thought I should like to have him there.
Elspeth's pinched wrinkled face brightened as she heard his voice. 'Ay, doctor, I am glad to know you are there; you have been naught but kind to me all these years, and now, thanks to this bairn, I am dying like a lady. The Lord bless you both! and He will,—He will!' with feeble earnestness.
I bent down and kissed her cold cheek. 'Never mind us, Elspeth: only tell us that all is well with you. You are not afraid, dear granny?'
'What's to fear, my bairn, with the Lord holding my hand?—and He will not let go; ah no, He will never let go! Ay, I have come to the dark river, but it will not do more than wet my feet. I'll be carried over, for I am old and weak,—old and weak, my dearie.' These were her last words, and half an hour afterwards the change came, and Elspeth's sightless eyes were opened to the light of immortality.
That night I took up a little worn copy of the Pilgrim's Progress that I had had from childhood, and opened it at a favourite passage, where Christian and his companion are talking with the shining ones as they went up towards the Celestial city, and I thought of Elspeth as I read it. 'You are going now,' said they, 'to the paradise of God, wherein you shall see the Tree of Life, and eat of the never-failing fruit thereof; and when you come there you shall have white robes given you, and your walk and talk shall be every day with the King, even all the days of eternity. There you shall not see again such things as you saw when you were in the lower regions, upon the earth, to wit, sorrow, sickness, and death, for the former things are passed away....
'And the men asked, "What must we do in that holy place?" To whom it was answered, "You must then receive the comfort of your toil, and have joy for all your sorrow."' I thought of Elspeth's last words, 'Old and weak,—old and weak, my dearie.' Surely they had come true: those aged feet had barely touched the cold water. Gently and tenderly she had been carried across to the green pastures and still waters in the paradise of God.