All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 18

There was very little more for me to do, and the day threatened to be sixty hours long. So about noon I resolved to take a walk up Argyle Street, go through the Arcade to Buchanan, and get my luncheon at McLaren's. It was to be a kind of farewell walk over the well known pavements and I thought if I saw a pretty brooch or bracelet made of Scotch pebbles, I would buy it as a memorial of the happy days, I had spent in Glasgow. The unhappy ones, I was determined to forget. I went into a jeweler's on Buchanan Street, and turned over a lot of those queer ornaments made of various colored agates set in silver. They were all heavy and ungraceful, but I paid a pound for a pair of bracelets, and I wonder even today what made me do it. I have no love for what is called jewelry, it always looks barbaric to me, and this Scotch jewelry is neither pretty nor rare, nor had I ever before thought of buying it. We do queer things in those hours of anxious suspense, that can find no natural outlet or relief.

As I came out of the jeweler's with my purchase in my hand, I met Mrs.

McIntosh face to face. She smiled, and put out her hand, and I could have cried with pleasure:

"Oh, how glad, how glad I am to see you!" I exclaimed. "Let us go into McLaren's, and have a hot pie and a cup of tea, and talk about old times."

So we did, and I told her how I had fretted over their desertion, and how pleasantly I remembered the dances with both old and young Peter, and that I never, never, had such happy evenings in any other house in Glasgow. We laughed, talked, recalled this and that, and ate our pies and drank our tea to delightful memories, that neither of us had forgotten. More than thirty-five years after this happy lunch, I was in Glasgow again, and I had a call from Mrs. McIntosh's grandson, and an invitation from his family to come down to their seaside home to spend a few days with them. For an unavoidable reason I could not accept the invitation, but I was glad to think they had remembered me so long, because they were still young and fresh in my memory, and never will be old.

My meeting with Mrs. McIntosh made me very happy, and the day got over better than I expected, although Robert was half an hour later than usual. Every wife knows what that unusual half-hour means. It is as long as half a dozen hours; it is filled with fears and shadows of fears, about accidents possible and impossible. For it is not the troubles we are fighting, that weary and depress us; it is the ills we fear, and that never come, that give us our worst hours--the ills that have no message for us, that are pa.s.sing by our dwelling even while we wait for them. I doubt if there lives a man or a woman who cannot say,

"Oh, the anxious hours I've spent, For ills that never came!"

Indeed when Robert did come he was more cheerful than I expected, and after dinner he told me that he had sold the furniture just as it stood to the man who made it, adding, "he will not remove it until Monday, the twenty-second."

I smiled faintly, but could not speak, and there was a little silence.

Then Robert said, "Sing us a song, Milly."

"I can not sing tonight, Robert."

"Try 'The Kail Brose of Old Scotland.'"

"No," I answered, "there is only one song that fits tonight--'Lochaber No More.'"

"Sing it then."

I shook my head, saying, "It's overwhelming sadness, would be intolerable. You must be happy, if you dare to sing 'Lochaber No More.' If you are not, its broken-hearted melody will haunt you for weeks."

Then we were silent again, until I suddenly looked up, and found Robert regarding me with eyes so full of love and pity, that I dropped my crochet and covered my face with my hands. I could not bear it. He tenderly took my hands in his, and with kisses and affectionate words, told me that he was not insensible to the generous manner with which I had surrendered all his gifts to me.

"Let the gifts go," I answered; "I have you."

"My darling!" he said, "let us take a last walk through the rooms, and bid them farewell. We will fix every item in our memories, and I promise you an American home far more beautiful than this."

I believed him. Without doubt he would keep his word. So I was comforted; and we went together into every room, recalling how we had decided on the creton and papering for one room in the Windermere woods, and for another, sitting on the gra.s.sy slope of Kendal Castle.

There was some incident of our love, or home, connected with every picture, with every bronze, with every chair and table. We smiled and wept together. Yes, we both wept, and I am not ashamed of the fact. Of course it was intensely sentimental, but in that quality lay our salvation. If we could have gone through those rooms at this farewell hour, without tears and reminiscent smiles, ours would have been a hopeless case; for it is the men and women who are steeped in sentiment and religion, that _do_ things. They are the high-hearted and hopeful, they can face every emergency, and conquer every situation. It is the materialist and the atheist, who flinch and fail, and who never succeed, because they have lost the Great Companion who alone could give permanence and value to whatever they have done.

The next morning we were up with the dawn, and after a leisurely breakfast reached the Caledonian Line in good time. Here we dismissed Kitty, and Robert stayed with me, until the train was ready to start.

"You need not be anxious about your trunk, Milly," he said. "I will speak to the guard about it, and also about your dinner at Carlisle."

Very soon I saw him talking to that official, as if they were old friends, and the two men came to the carriage door together. Then Robert bid me good-bye, and with a bright smile promised to see me in Kendal Wednesday or Thursday. The next moment the door was locked, and the comfortable English guard cry, "_All's Right!_" ran along the line until it reached the engineer, who answered it at once by starting the train.

The journey was an easy and pleasant one. I was well cared for, the children were quiet and sleepy, and I found Mother and Alethia waiting for me. About this my last visit to my home, I shall say little. A mult.i.tude of words could not reach the heart of it, and indeed we were all less disposed to talk than usual. I was exceedingly anxious. I had a fear of Robert's mother, and while I was taking a walk the next day with Father, I told him a good deal about her. I thought he did not listen with his usual sympathy, and I asked "if he thought we had done wrong to come away without her knowledge?"

"Was it your doing, Milly?" he asked.

"Partly," I answered. "Yes, Father, it was mainly my doing."

"I don't approve it, Milly," he said. "A mother is a sacred relation.

It is a kind of sacrilege to wound her feelings. You would need good reasons to excuse it."

"We had good reasons, Father. Ask Robert when he comes tomorrow."

"Yes, I will." Then he gave me some personal advice, not necessary to write here, but which I hold in everlasting remembrance.

That night when all the house was asleep, and I was sitting with Mother, I told her Father's opinion about our deceiving Robert's mother. She was quietly angry.

"Do not mind what he said on that subject, Milly," she said. "Your father thinks a deal more of mothers than he does of wives. Ever since we were married, he has gone into mourning about his mother on certain days, and he wanted the whole house to mourn and fast with him. I would not hear of such nonsense. We none of us knew the woman. Ann Oddy flatly refused; she was well aware I would stand by her. As for you children, I told your father plainly, you would, if you lived, have plenty of live troubles to fret you without mourning for a dead one, you knew nothing about. But all the same he never forgets certain days--you remember?"

"Yes, Mother, I remember very well."

"I hope none of you will keep my birthday, or death day, in any such sorrowful way. Try to make happiness out of it, and if you can not, let it be forgotten."

As we sat talking very softly at the open window of the dark room there was a knock at the door. I hoped it was Robert, and I waited breathlessly for his voice and step. But it was not Robert.

"It is a man from The King's Arms. He has brought a letter. I think it is for you, Milly," said Mother.

She was striking a light as she spoke, and I took the letter from her hand.

"It is from Robert," I said. "He is at the King's Arms. He would not disturb us so late tonight, but he will be with us after breakfast tomorrow morning."

"That was thoughtful and kind all round," answered Mother, and she continued, "we had better try to sleep, Milly. There are three hard days before you." Then she suddenly turned to me, and said in a little eager way, "O Milly, I do want to go to Liverpool with you! I do want to go so much! Do you think Father will spare me?"

"Mother, dear Mother! He must spare you! I will ask him in the morning."

In the morning Robert came in like sunshine, just as we were finishing breakfast, and in the pleasant stir of his advent, I asked Father for Mother's company to Liverpool. "We shall be off before noon, Sat.u.r.day," I said, "and she can return to Manchester, stay with Jane over Sunday, and go to Kendal on Monday. Let her go with us, Father."

Father was easily entreated, and then Mother was as excited as a little child. She wanted new strings to her best bonnet, fresh laces for her gray bombazine dress, and there was a b.u.t.ton off her best gloves. So in these and kindred duties for the children, the day pa.s.sed. We smiled and made believe we were pleasantly occupied, but Father knew, and I knew, it was the last day we should ever spend together. The heart-breaking pathos of those three words--_the last day_, lay underneath all our pleasant words and smiles. We were really dying to each other every hour of that last day. In after years when the fire of life has cooled down, we wonder why we felt so keenly, and how we endured it!

Fortunately the strain was in a measure lifted early the next morning.

We were to leave at nine o'clock and every one was busy dressing or breakfasting. When the carriage was at the door, and I had kissed my sisters, I looked around for Father. "He is in his room," said Alethia, and as she spoke, I heard him walking about. I went to him, and when he saw me enter, he knew the parting moment had come. He stood still and stretched out his arms, and I clung to him whispering "Father! My Father! I must go!"

Tenderly he stooped and kissed me, saying, "Dear, my dear! My Milly! I know not where you are going, and Robert could not tell me. But this I know, wherever your lot may be cast, '_your bread shall be given, and your water sure_.'"

Then Mother called us, and we went down together. Mother and the children were in the carriage. Robert was waiting for me. Without a word Father kissed us both, and the carriage went hurriedly away but I watched as far as I could, the white lifted head, and eager eyes of the dear soul I was never to see again in this world. He lived about nine years after our parting, and died as he wished to die--"on a Sabbath morning, when the bells are ringing for church." Perhaps he had some primitive idea of the glory of the Church Celestial, and some hope that he might serve in it. Only to be a doorkeeper in His House, would be heaven to his adoring love.

"O Strong Soul, by what sh.o.r.e Tarriest thou now? In some far shining sphere, Conscious or not of the past, Still thou performest the Word Of the Spirit, in whom thou didst live."

We reached Manchester in the afternoon, and Robert went to see some old business friends to bid them good-bye, while Mother, I, and the children were thankful to lie down and sleep a little for we expected Jane to dinner, and I was anxious to have a pleasant evening with her.

I had not seen her since her marriage, and I wondered what change it had made.

She was the same quiet, authoritative woman I remembered so well, and it being a warm evening she was dressed in a lilac muslin, which was very becoming to her. Her plentiful pale brown hair was neatly arranged; I am sure there was not one hair out of its proper place. I was glad she was not changed; above all I relished the rather advisory manner of "eldest sister" which she still retained. I would have been disappointed if Jane had not found something to counsel, or censure, or warn me about. She looked into my face with the kindest blue eyes, and remarked,

"You are still very pretty, Amelia, and quite young in appearance, too; almost too girlish for a married woman."

I laughed a little and asked, "Did you expect marriage to make me ugly and old, Jane?"

"I have known it to do so."