A Charming Fellow Volume Ii Part 19

In morals, as in thought, the Deductive and Inductive stand, like the ladders of Jacob's dream, reaching from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; and the angels of the Lord descend and ascend them continually.

Minnie was roused from a reverie by the entrance of the preacher's tall figure into the kitchen, where the fire was now beginning to throw ruddy lights and fantastic shadows on to the white-washed walls.

"Don't be startled, Mr. Powell," she said, in her clear, sweet tones.

"It is I--Minnie Bodkin. I thought I should like to see you, and to say a few words to you, quietly."

Powell advanced, and took her outstretched hand reverently in his hand.

"The blessing of our Father in Heaven be on you, lady," he said. "Your kind face is very welcome to me."

CHAPTER XV.

Mrs. Thimbleby set a cup full of hot tea and a slice of bread on the table, and glided out of the kitchen in a humble, noiseless way, as if she feared lest the mere sound of her footsteps should be deemed importunate.

"You have something to say to me?" asked Powell, still standing opposite to Minnie's chair.

"Yes; but first you must take some food. Please to sit down there at the table."

Powell shook his head. "Food disgusts me," he said. "I do not need it."

"That will pain your kind landlady," said Minnie, gently. "She has been so careful to get this refreshment ready for you."

Powell sat down. "I would not pain the good soul for any earthly consideration," he answered. "But if the burthen be laid on me, I must pain her."

"Come, Mr. Powell, no injunction can be laid on you to starve yourself, and grow ill, and be unable to fulfil your duties!"

After an instant's hesitation he swallowed some tea, and began to break off small fragments of the bread, which he soaked in the liquid, and ate slowly.

Minnie watched him attentively. The widow had lighted a candle, which, standing on the high mantel-shelf, shed down its pale rays on the preacher's head and face, the rest of his person being in shadow. Now and again, as he lifted a morsel of bread to his lips, one thin long hand, yellow-white as old ivory, came within the circle of light. His whole countenance appeared to Minnie to have undergone a change since she had seen him last. The features were sharper, the skin more sallow, the lines around the mouth deeper. But the greatest change was in the expression of the eyes. They were wonderfully l.u.s.trous, but not with the soft mild l.u.s.tre which formerly shone in them. They looked startlingly large and prominent; and at times seemed literally to blaze with an inward fire.

"He is ill and feverish," thought Minnie. And then, as she continued to watch him, there came over his face an expression so infinitely piteous, that the sympathetic tears sprang into her eyes when she saw it. It was a pathetic, questioning, bewildered look, like that of a little child that has lost its way, and is frightened.

When he had eaten a few mouthfuls, he asked, "Who told you that you would find me here?"

"Oh, it was not difficult to discover your whereabouts in Whitford, Mr.

Powell," answered Minnie, smiling with an effort to seem cheerful and at ease. "Your coming has been spoken of in our little town for weeks past."

"Has it so? Has it so? That is a good hearing. There must be souls ripe for conviction--anxious, inquiring souls."

There was a pause. Minnie had expected him to speak of their last interview. But as he made no allusion to it, she opened the subject herself.

"You remember, Mr. Powell, before you went away from Whitford, giving me a charge--a trust to fulfil for you?"

He looked at her inquiringly, but did not answer.

"There was a young member of your flock whose welfare you had greatly at heart. And you thought that I might be able to help her and show her some kindness. I--I have honestly tried to keep the promise I then made to you," persisted Minnie, on whom Powell's strange silence was producing an unpleasant impression. She could not understand it. "I fancied that you might still feel some anxiety about Rhoda's welfare----"

At the sound of that name, Powell seemed moved as if by an electric shock. The change in his face was as distinct, although as momentary, as the change made in a dark bank of cloud by a flicker of summer lightning.

"You know, of course," continued Minnie, "that the person whose influence you feared is married. And I a.s.sure you that, so far as my attentive judgment goes, Rhoda's peace of mind has not been fatally troubled. She fretted for a while, but is now rapidly regaining her cheerfulness. She even visits rather frequently at Mr. Errington's house, having, it seems, become a favourite with his wife."

David Powell's head had sunk down on to his breast. He held one hand across his eyes, resting his elbow on the table, and neither moving nor looking up. But it was evident that he was listening. Minnie went on to speak of Rhoda's improvement. She had always been pretty, but her beauty was now very striking. She had profited by the opportunities of instruction which her father afforded her. She was caressed by the worthiest people in her little world.

Minnie went bravely on--nerved by the sight of that bowed figure and emaciated hand, hiding the eyes--speaking the praises of the girl who had sent many a pang of jealousy into her heart--a jealousy none the less torturing because she knew it to be unreasonable. "He could never have thought of wretched, crippled me, if there had been no Rhoda Maxfield in the world!" she had told herself a hundred times. But she tried to fancy that the withering up of the secret romance of her life would have been less hard to bear, had the sacrifice been made in favour of a higher, n.o.bler woman than simple, shallow, slight-hearted Rhoda Maxfield.

Nevertheless, she spoke Rhoda's praises now ungrudgingly. Nay, more; she believed Powell to be capable of the highest self-sacrifice; she believed that he would welcome a prospect of happiness and security for Rhoda, even though it should shut the door for ever on any lingering hopes he might retain of winning her. So, bracing herself to a strong effort--which seemed to strain not only the nerves, but the very muscles, of her fragile frame as she sat almost upright, grasping the arms of her chair with both hands--she added, "And, as I know you have that rare gift of love which can rejoice in looking at a happiness it may never share, I will say to you in confidence that I believe Rhoda is honourably sought in marriage by a good man--a man who--it is not needful to speak at length of him"--indeed, her throat was dry, and her courage desperately at bay--"but he is a good, high-minded man; one who will value and respect his wife; one who admires and loves Rhoda very fervently."

It was magnanimously said. The words, as she uttered them, sounded the knell of her own youth and hope in her ears.

We believe that a beloved one is dead. We have kissed the cold lips. We have kissed the unresponsive hand. Yes; the beloved one is dead. We surely believe it.

But, no! The death-bell sounds, beating with chill, heavy fingers on our very heart-strings, and then we awake to a sudden confirmation of our grief. The bell sings its loud monotone, over roof-tree and grave-stone, piercing through the murmur of busy life in streets and homes, and then we know that we had not hitherto believed; that in some nook and secret fold of heart or brain a wild, formless hope had been lurking that all was not really over. Only the implacable mental clang carries conviction with its vibrations into the broad daylight and the common air, and the tears gush out as if our sorrow were born anew.

Even so felt Minnie Bodkin when she had put her secret thought into words. The speaking of the words could not hasten their fulfilment. But yet it seemed to her as if, in saying them, she had signed some bond--had formally renounced even the solace of a pa.s.sing fancy that might flit, fairy-bright, into the dimness of her life; had given up the object of her silent pa.s.sion by a covenant that was none the less stringent because its utterance was simple and commonplace. She was silent, breathing quickly, and lying back against the cushions after the short speech that had cost her so much.

Powell remained quite still for a few seconds. Then suddenly removing the screening hand, the almost intolerable l.u.s.tre of his eyes broke upon the startled woman opposite to him, as he said, with a strange smile, "She is safe. She is happy for Time and Eternity. She has been ransomed with a price."

"I knew that you would allow no selfish feeling to sway you," returned Minnie, after an instant's pause. "I was right in feeling sure that you would generously consider her happiness before your own."

But yet she was not satisfied with the result of her well-meant attempt to free Powell's mind from the anxiety concerning Rhoda, which she believed to have been preying on it. There was something strangely unexpected in his manner of receiving it. Presently Powell looked at her again with a sad, sweet smile. The wild blaze had gone out of his eyes.

They were soft and steady as they rested on her now.

"You are a just and benevolent woman," he said. "You have been faithful.

You came hither with the charitable wish to comfort me. I am not ungrateful. But the old trouble has long been dead. I did wrestle with a mighty temptation on her account. My heart burnt very hot within me; the fleshy heart, full of deceit and desperately wicked. But that human pa.s.sion fell away like a garment, shrivelled and consumed by the great fire of the wrath of G.o.d, that put it out as the sun puts out the flame of a taper at noonday. Neither," he went on, speaking rather to himself than to Minnie, "am I concerned for that young soul. No; it is safe. It has been ransomed. I have had answer to prayer, and heard voices that brought me sure tidings in the dimness of the early morning; but these things are hard to be understood. Sometimes, even yet, the old, foolish yearning of the heart seems to awake and stir blindly within me. When you named that name--no lips had uttered it to my ears for many months--there seemed to run a swift echo of it through all the secret places of my soul! But I heard as though one dead should hear the beat of a familiar footfall above his grave."

The dusk of evening, the low thrilling tones of the preacher's voice, the terrible pallor of his face, with its great glittering eyes shining in the feeble rays of the candle, contributed, not less than the strangeness of his words, to oppress Minnie with a sensation of nervous dread. She was not afraid of David Powell, nor of anything that she could see or touch. But vague terrors seemed to be floating in the air.

She started as her eye was caught by a deep, mysterious shadow on the wall. The fire had burnt low, and shed only a dull red glow upon the hearth. The ticking of the old clock appeared to grow louder with every beat, and to utter some ominous warning in an unknown tongue.

All at once a sound of voices and footsteps in the pa.s.sage broke the spell. The fire cast only commonplace and comprehensible shadows. The clock ticked with its ordinary indifferent tone. The preacher's pale face ceased to float in a mystical light against the dark background of the curtainless window. The everyday world entered in at the kitchen door in the shape of Mr. Diamond and Rhoda Maxfield.

Of the four persons thus unexpectedly a.s.sembled, Minnie was the first to speak.

"What, Rhoda!" she cried, in a quiet voice, which revealed much less surprise than she felt. "What brought you here at this hour?"

As she spoke she glanced anxiously at Powell, uneasy as to the effect on him of Rhoda's sudden appearance. But he remained curiously impa.s.sible, looking at those present as if they were objects dimly seen afar off.

"I was coming to drink tea with Mrs. Errington. Mr. Diamond overtook me and Sally in the street. I saw your carriage at the door, and looked in here, hoping that I should find both you and Mrs. Errington in this room, because I know you do not go upstairs."

Thus spoke Rhoda, in a soft, tremulous little voice, and with downcast eyes. Diamond came and shook hands with Minnie. He pressed the hand she gave him with unusual warmth and emphasis. His eyes were bright, and there was a glow of pleasure on his face. He believed that his suit was prospering, and he wished to convey some hint of his hopeful antic.i.p.ations to his sympathising friend Miss Bodkin. Then he turned to Powell, and touched him on the shoulder. "How are you to-night?" he asked, in a friendly tone, not without a kind of superior pity. "I am glad to see that you have been refreshing the inner man. Our friend is too careless of his health, Miss Bodkin. He fasts too long, and too often."

Powell smiled slightly, but neither looked at him nor answered him.

Going straight to Rhoda he laid his hand on her bright chestnut hair, from which the bonnet she wore had fallen backwards, and looked at her solemnly. Rhoda turned pale and gazed back at him, as if fascinated.

Neither of the others spoke or moved.