Beulah Part 42

"You are an admirable nurse, to go off and leave your sick friend."

Beulah threw down her bonnet and shawl, and, retreating to the hearth, began to warm her fingers, as she replied, with indifference:

"I have just left another of your patients. Cornelia Graham has been worse than usual for a day or two. Clara, I will put away my outdoor wrappings and be with you presently." She retired to her own room, and, leaning against the window, where the rain was now pattering drearily, she murmured faintly:

"Will he always treat me so? Have I lost my friend forever? Once he was so different; so kind, even in his sternness!" A tear hung upon her lash, and fell on her hand; she brushed it hastily away, and stood thinking over this alienation, so painful and unnatural, when she heard her guardian close Clara's door and walk across the hall to the head of the stairs. She waited a while, until she thought he had reached his buggy, and slowly proceeded to Clara's room. Her eyes were fixed on the floor and her hand was already on the bolt of the door, when a deep voice startled her.

"Beulah!"

She looked up at him proudly. Resentment had usurped the place of grief. But she could not bear the earnest eyes that looked into hers with such misty splendor; and, provoked at her own emotion, she asked coldly:

"What do you want, sir?"

He did not answer at once, but stood observing her closely. She felt the hot blood rush into her usually cold, pale face, and, despite her efforts to seem perfectly indifferent, her eyelids and lips would tremble. His hand rested lightly on her shoulder, and he spoke very gently.

"Child, have you been ill? You look wretched. What ails you, Beulah?"

"Nothing, sir."

"That will not answer. Tell me, child, tell me!"

"I tell you I am as well as usual," cried she impatiently, yet her voice faltered. She was struggling desperately with her own heart.

The return of his old manner, the winning tones of his voice, affected her more than she was willing he should see.

"Beulah, you used to be truthful and candid."

"I am so still," she returned stoutly, though tears began to gather in her eyes.

"No, child; already the world has changed you."

A shadow fell over his face, and the sad eyes were like clouded stars.

"You know better, sir! I am just what I always was! It is you who are so changed! Once you were my friend; my guardian! Once you were kind, and guided me; but now you are stern, and bitter, and tyrannical!" She spoke pa.s.sionately, and tears, which she bravely tried to force back, rolled swiftly down her cheeks. His light touch on her shoulder tightened until it seemed a hand of steel, and, with an expression which she never forgot, even in after years, he answered:

"Tyrannical! Not to you, child!"

"Yes, sir; tyrannical! cruelly tyrannical! Because I dared to think and act for myself, you have cast off--utterly! You try to see how cold and distant you can be; and show me that you don't care whether I live or die, so long as I choose to be independent of you. I did not believe that you could ever be so ungenerous!" She looked up at him with swimming eyes. He smiled down into her tearful face, and asked:

"Why did you defy me, child?"

"I did not, sir, until you treated me worse than the servants; worse than you did Charon even."

"How?"

"How, indeed! You left me in your own house without one word of good-by, when you expected to be absent an indefinite time. Did you suppose that I would remain there an hour after such treatment?"

He smiled again, and said in the low, musical tone which she had always found so difficult to resist.

"Come back, my child. Come back to me!"

"Never, sir! never!" answered she resolutely.

A stony hue settled on his face; the lips seemed instantly frozen, and, removing his hand from her shoulder, he said, as if talking to a perfect stranger: "See that Clara Sanders needs nothing; she is far from being well."

He left her; but her heart conquered for an instant, and she sprang down two steps and caught his hand. Pressing her face against his arm, she exclaimed brokenly:

"Oh, sir! do not cast me off entirely! My friend, my guardian, indeed I have not deserved this!"

He laid his hand on her bowed head, and said calmly:

"Fierce, proud spirit! Ah! it will take long years of trial and suffering to tame you. Go, Beulah! You have cast yourself off. It was no wish, no work of mine."

He lifted her head from his arm, gently unclasped her fingers, and walked away. Beulah dried the tears on her cheek, and, composing herself by a great effort, returned to Clara. The latter still sat in an easy-chair, and leaned back with closed eyes. Beulah made no effort to attract her attention, and sat down noiselessly to reflect upon her guardian's words and the separation which, she now clearly saw, he intended should be final. There, in the gathering gloom of twilight, sat Clara Sanders, nerving her heart for the dreary future; solemnly and silently burying the cherished hopes that had irised her path, and now, looking steadily forward to coming years, she said to her drooping spirit: "Be strong and bear this sorrow. I will conquer my own heart." How is it that, when the human soul is called to pa.s.s through a fierce ordeal, and numbing despair seizes the faculties and energies in her sepulchral grasp, how is it that superhuman strength is often suddenly infused into the sinking spirit? There is a mysterious yet resistless power given, which winds up and sets again in motion that marvelous bit of mechanism, the human will; that curiously intricate combination of wheels; that mainspring of action, which has baffled the ingenuity of philosophers, and remains yet undiscovered, behind the cloudy shrine of the unknown. Now, there are times when this human clock well-nigh runs down; when it seems that volition is dead; when the past is all gilded, the future all shrouded, and the soul grows pa.s.sive, hoping nothing, fearing nothing. Yet when the slowly swinging pendulum seems about to rest, even then an unseen hand touches the secret spring; and, as the curiously folded coil quivers on again, the resuscitated will is lifted triumphantly back to its throne. This newborn power is from G.o.d. But, ye wise ones of earth, tell us how, and by whom, is the key applied? Are ministering angels (our white- robed idols, our loved dead) ordained to keep watch over the machinery of the will and attend to the winding up? Or is this infusion of strength, whereby to continue its operations, a sudden tightening of those invisible cords which bind the All-Father to the spirits he has created? Truly, there is no Oedipus for this vexing riddle. Many luckless theories have been devoured by the Sphinx; when will metaphysicians solve it? One tells us vaguely enough, "Who knows the mysteries of will, with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death, utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." This pretty bubble of a "latent strength" has vanished; the power is from G.o.d; but who shall unfold the process? Clara felt that this precious help was given in her hour of need; and, looking up undauntedly to the clouds that darkened her sky, said to her hopeless heart: "I will live to do my duty, and G.o.d's work on eirth; I will go bravely forward in my path of labor, strewing flowers and sunshine. If G.o.d needs a lonely, chastened spirit to do his behests, oh! shall I murmur and die because I am chosen? What are the rushing, howling waves of life in comparison with the calm, sh.o.r.eless ocean of all eternity?"

The lamp was brought in and the fire renewed, and the two friends sat by the hearth, silent, quiet. Clara's face had a sweet, serene look: Beulah's was composed, so far as rigidity of features betokened; yet the firm curve of her full upper lip might have indexed somewhat of the confusion which reigned in her mind. Once a great, burning light flashed out from her eyes, then the lashes drooped a little and veiled the storm. After a time Clara lifted her eyes, and said gently:

"Will you read to me, Beulah?"

"Gladly, gladly; what shall it be?" She sprang up eagerly.

"Anything hopeful and strengthening. Anything but your study-books of philosophy and metaphysics. Anything but those, Beulah."

"And why not those?" asked the girl quickly.

"Because they always confuse and darken me."

"You do not understand them, perhaps?"

"I understand them sufficiently to know that they are not what I need."

"What do you need, Clara?"

"The calm content and courage to do my duty through life. I want to be patient and useful."

The gray eyes rested searchingly on the sweet face, and then, with a contracted brow, Beulah stepped to the window and looked out. The night was gusty, dark, and rainy; heavy drops pattered briskly down the panes. She turned away, and, standing on the hearth, with her hands behind her, slowly repeated the beautiful lines, beginning:

"'The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight.'"

Her voice was low and musical, and, as she concluded the short poem which seemed so singularly suited to Clara's wishes, the latter said earnestly:

"Yes, yes, Beulah,"

"'Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer.'"

"Let us obey the poet's injunction, and realize the closing lines:"

"'And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.'"