Heartsease; Or, The Brother's Wife Part 122

'We cannot pry into hidden things,' Percy answered. 'Watch his wife, and you will see that she is satisfied. You may trust him to her, and to Him in whose hands he is. Of this I am sure, that there is a patient consideration for others, and readiness to make sacrifices that are not like what he used to be. You are not satisfied? It is not as you would repent; but you must remember that Arthur's is after all a boy's character; he has felt his errors as acutely as I think he can feel them, and if he is turning from them, that is all we can justly expect.

They were more weakness than wilfulness.'

'Not like mine!' said Theodora; 'but one thing more, Percy--can it be right for him to see no clergyman?'

'Wait,' said Percy again. 'Violet can judge and influence him better than you or I. Depend upon it, she will do the right thing at the right time. Letting him alone to learn from his children seems to me the safest course.'

Theodora acquiesced, somewhat comforted by the conversation, though it was one of those matters in which the most loving heart must submit to uncertainty, in patient hope and prayer.

Just before Christmas, Theodora was summoned home; for her mother was too unwell and dispirited to do without her any longer. Her father offered to come and take her place, but Arthur and Violet decided that it would be a pity to unsettle him from home again. Arthur was now able to sit up for some hours each day, and Percy undertook to be always at hand. He was invited to Brogden for Christmas; but it was agreed between him and Theodora that they must deny themselves the pleasure of spending it together; they thought it unfit to leave Violet even for a few days entirely una.s.sisted.

Mr. Hugh Martindale came to fetch Theodora home. He brought a more satisfactory account of poor Emma, who had never forwarded the promised explanation to Theodora. Lady Elizabeth had applied to him to clear Emma's mind from some of the doubts and difficulties inspired by her friend, and at present, though her spirits were very low, they considered that one great step had been gained, for she had ceased every day to write to Miss Marstone.

Theodora had fixed many hopes on her cousin's interview with Arthur, but they only talked of Brogden news; however, she heard afterwards that Hugh was well satisfied with what he had seen of him, and that he thought Percy's view the safest. It was better to force nothing upon him. It was a sad struggle to resolve to depart, but it was made in thankfulness, when Theodora remembered the feelings with which she had entered that house. She went up in the early morning to wish Arthur good-bye. He raised himself and embraced her fondly.

'Thank you, Theodora,' he said; 'you have been a good sister to me.'

'Oh, Arthur, Arthur!' as the dark remembrance came, but he did not perceive it.

'I have been an ungrateful wretch, but I never understood it till lately,' said he again. 'The fire,--those children--'

'Hush, hush! you are hurting yourself,' for he was choked with excess of feeling.

'I can't say more;--but, oh! if I could help keeping you from happiness!' and he was here overpowered by cough and emotion so much as to alarm her, and she was forced to keep silence, and only kiss him again. He returned it with a squeeze of the hand and a look of affection. He had never given her such an one in the days when she deemed his love a thing exclusively her own, she had now gained something far better than his heart had then to offer. The best spot in it then had nothing half so deep, fond, and unselfish as what he gave her now.

She had ceased her wilful struggle, and besides all the rest, even this was added unto her.

CHAPTER 14

A calm stream flowing with a muddy one, Till, in its onward current, it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother, A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite.

Shadow forth thee; the world hath not another Of such refined and chastened purity.

--TENNYSON

Patience and prayer brought their fruit in due season.

'Violet, you will not be able to go to church on Christmas-day.'

'No, I am not strong enough, even if you could spare me.'

'Do you think Mr. Rivers could come to us?'

'O, thank you!'

Those were the words, but the flush that gave colour to Arthur's face showed the effort which they cost, and his wife's brief answer was cut short by the sweetest tears she had ever shed.

She wrote a note to the clergyman, which was answered by a call the same afternoon. It took Arthur by surprise; but his mind was made up, and colouring deeply, he desired that Mr. Rivers should be shown up. Violet left them alone together, her heart throbbing with grateful hope and supplication.

Arthur's honest though faltering avowal, 'I have never thought enough of these things,' was his whole history.

It had been grace missed and neglected, rather than wilfully abused.

There had of course been opportunities, but there had been little culture or guidance in his early days; his confirmation had taken place as a matter of form, and he had never been a communicant, withheld at once by ignorance and dread of strictness, as well as by a species of awe. Even his better and more conscientious feelings had been aroused merely by his affections instead of by the higher sense of duty; and now it was through these that the true voice had at length reached him.

He had learnt more from his little boy's devotions than all the years of his life had taught him. The ever-present influence under which his wife and that child lived and acted, impressed itself on him as a truth and reality, and the consciousness of his full responsibility dawned upon him. In the early part of his illness, his despair had been at the thought of his failures as husband, father, and son. Now there came on him the perception that not merely in his human relations had he transgressed, but that far more had he slighted the Almighty and Long-suffering Father. He looked back on his life of disregard, his dire offences--

Thus awakened, he watched each word from his little unconscious teacher, to gather from them clearer hopes of mercy and pardon. Happily, Johnnie, in his daily lessons, was going through the ground-work, and those words of mighty signification conveyed meanings to the father, which the innocent child had as yet no need to unfold. The long silent hours gave time for thought, and often when the watchers deemed that the stifled groan or restless movement arose from pain or oppression, it was in fact drawn forth by the weight on his mind.

So it had gone on; while mingled feelings of shame, reserve, and reluctance to show himself in a new light, kept his lips closed, and days and weeks pa.s.sed before he brought himself to speak the word even to his wife. When it was spoken, her silent intense gladness was at once a reward and a rebuke. Though she scarcely spoke, he knew her well enough to perceive more perfect joy than even at the moment when she first made him smile on their first-born son.

He raised his eyes to meet that look again, when, after his interview with the clergyman, she came back to join in fixing the hour.

Contrition, dread, shame, penitence, all seemed to be soothed, and yet rendered deeper, by meeting those eyes of serene and perfect content and thankfulness.

That evening Johnnie was turning over prints by his side.

'There is the Good Shepherd, papa. Do you see the poor sheep, who wandered out of the fold, away into the wilderness among the rocks and deserts--that is doing wrong, you know, papa. And it lost its way, and the wolf was watching to tear it to pieces, that is Satan; but the Good Shepherd,' and the child bent his head reverently, 'He went after it.

Mamma said that means that He touches our hearts and makes us sorry, and it looked up and was ready--as we pray to be made good again. So then He laid it on His shoulders, and carried it safe home to be happy in the fold again. Is He not very good, papa? And only think! There is joy among the Holy Angels in Heaven when one sinner grieves and comes back.'

Johnnie was wont to go on in this dreamy way without expecting an answer; but he was startled to see his father's face hidden by the shadowy fingers that propped his forehead.

'Has it made your head ache, papa? Must I go away?'

'Say that again, Johnnie.'

'I cannot say it quite right,' answered the boy; 'I only know it says that the Angels in Heaven rejoice and are glad over one sinner that repenteth. I thought about it that night after I had been naughty.'

'You, Johnnie?' Arthur could hardly believe that child capable of a fault.

'Yes,' said Johnnie, with a trembling lip; 'I was cross at doing my lessons with Aunt Theodora instead of mamma, and I was so sorry. But at night, something seemed to bring that verse, and I thought the Angels must have faces like mamma.'

Certainly his father thought so too.

Theodora's Christmas morning was cheered by a letter from Percy, to tell her that he was to be with Arthur and Violet on this occasion. It was greater happiness to her than it would even have been to have had him at Brogden.

It was a very quiet day in Cadogan-place. The full freshness of awe and reverence was upon Arthur, and though he hardly spoke, and made almost no demonstration, the strength of his feeling was attested by the fatigue that ensued, partly, perhaps, from the unwonted effort of fixing his attention. All the rest of the day he lay on the sofa, silent and dozing, till in the evening, when left alone with Johnnie, he only roused himself to ask to have a Bible placed within his reach, and there losing his way in searching for the parable of the strayed sheep, he wandered about in the sayings of St. John's Gospel.

Johnnie's delight had been the dressing the cathedral cup with a spray of holly sent to him from Brogden by his aunt, and now he sat conning the hymns he had heard in church, and musing over his prints in silence, till his brow caught an expression that strangely blended with those dreamy impressions of his father.

'Poor children! they have had a dull Christmas-day!' said Arthur, as they came to bid him good night.

'No, no, papa; the owl-man has had such a game at play with us in the dining-room!' cried Helen.

'Yes,' said Johnnie; 'and you know, papa, I never said my hymn to you on a Christmas-day before. I like to-day the best of all I remember.'

The next day he was glad to find that Johnnie would, after all, have his share of the festivities of the season. Colonel Harrington came to see Arthur, and begged to have his little G.o.dson at a New Year's party at his house.