Hubert's Wife Part 7

"Bear with me now, Duncan; the darkness in my soul is deep and terrible to-night; death and the grave seem the only sure certainties we have in this world. Morning may bring me right again, if another morning remain for me. Let us sleep--and good night!"

The friends separated--and Duncan pondered on the missionary's last words. They seemed prophetic; and he almost expected, when he sent Grandison to his room on the following morning, to see that servant return with direful news. Not so. Philip appeared about ten o'clock, declaring he had slept well, and felt much refreshed. He remained for several days at Kennons, during which time the grave of Ellice was opened, and a tiny coffin let down upon her own; mother and child were re-united; and as Philip offered a prayer over the fresh-thrown earth, a ray of stronger faith enkindled his heart. Philip talked of his own little girl to Duncan Lisle:

"I had intended leaving her with my sister Estelle, who was my favorite.

She was much attached to Della," said Philip; "But I found Estelle's husband does not like children; besides, she has three of her own, the eldest but a baby, and twins younger. Leonora is well married, but devoted to society, has no children of her own, and no idea of being troubled with other people's. I could not leave her with my mother, even though she had not been an invalid. My only resource was to entrust her with Juliet, who was but recently married, and who, with her husband, received the child delightedly. I do not feel at all satisfied with the arrangement, but it was the best I could do. Juliet is good-hearted, over-affectionate, and will be kind to the child; but she is rather simple-minded, frivolous, and variable. Her husband is a kind, sensible man, but he was raised a Roman Catholic. Juliet tells me that he is not much of anything now; but I doubt it, for he insisted on being married by the priest, before the ceremony at St. Mark's; and then again, the idea of one who has been raised a Catholic ever being anything else _but_ a Catholic. It is preposterous. I have charged Juliet to see that no influence is ever brought to bear upon the mind of my child as she advances in years--but I have still grave fears. Possibly the time may come when you can remove her to Kennons, say, for a year or so, at a time; it would be a source of pleasure to me to have Althea beneath the roof under which her excellent mother was reared."

Duncan but too gladly promised to keep an oversight of the child; he would occasionally visit her during her infancy, and his home should ever be open to her; had Ellice lived she should have known no other.

The friends, newly attached, took sad leave of each other. Duncan leaned upon the gate, and watched the other as he rode slowly through the lane.

Had the feet of the horse been mounting stairs that led upward to the skies, Duncan would not have felt more sure that Philip was pa.s.sing forever from his view.

"Traveling, he one way, I another, yet both to the same goal--eternity,"

mused Duncan.

As he spoke, a carriage came in view, hiding the retreating traveler. He discerned at a glance that the carriage, drawn by fiery, coal-black steeds, was that of Mrs. Rush, He remained by the gate until the driver drew rein, and the bright, glowing face of the lady put itself out of the window.

"So, Mr. Lisle, your friend has already gone. I had no idea he was going so soon. I am so sorry. I was going to have had you over to dinner to-day. As it is, you can come, Mr. Lisle,--you and Hubert."

Duncan Lisle pleaded indisposition, and politely declined.

"But what are you going to do? House yourself up and mope yourself to death?" persevered the handsome widow. "I know how it is, and that you must feel a disinclination to society; but one must make an effort, you know. Come, I will take you right over in my carriage; there is plenty of room. Come, Hubert, come, jump in;" and the little boy, very willing, sprang up to the side of the carriage. His father went to a.s.sist him.

"Hubert may go, but, really, I cannot, Mrs. Rush. You must excuse me.

Another time, perhaps."

"But I don't excuse you, Mr. Lisle. I am so disappointed You know what a splendid cook my Dinah is, and I ordered her to do her best. But then I suppose if you won't, you won't, and there's an end of it; is that so?"

"That is so, Madam," and touching his hat gracefully, he bade her an inaudible "good-morning," and turned away.

Mrs. Rush ordered Washington, her coachman, to drive home. She was disappointed and chagrined, but not discouraged. She was vain as a peac.o.c.k or Queen Elizabeth. Like another _Dorcasina_, she fancied every man to be her _inamorata_. She had never abandoned the idea that Duncan Lisle had been once in love with her. She had been encouraged in this delusion by the duplicity of her servants, who, to propitiate her favor, had been in the habit of repeating false expressions of his admiration and regard.

"If all reports are true, he thinks more of you this day than he does of Miss Ellice," said one.

"Everybody knows that Duncan Lisle worships the ground you tread on, and always did. Miss Ellice happened to come along and just inveigled him, that is all; he is sorry enough, you may 'pend," falsified another.

"He always _was_ talking about how mighty han'some you was, and what beautiful eyes you had," declared a third, and so it went, and credulous Mrs. Rush laid the flattering unction to her soul that she was the one woman in the world for Duncan Lisle.

"It is only for looks' sake; he wanted to come bad enough, you may bet on that," said Dinah to her mistress, when informed that she had got up her great dinner for n.o.body but little Master Hubert.

As to Hubert, after he was through with his good dinner, he had anything but a pleasant visit. Thornton Rush--his name was Jude Thornton Rush--was a few months older than Hubert, He possessed the beauty of his mother, with the dark, hidden nature of his father. He was stubborn, morose, and quarrelsome. He abounded in bad qualities, but if there was one which excelled another, it was cunning and duplicity. These were so combined as really to form but one. Had he been a man and termed _Jesuitical_, in the Protestant sense, that term would have aptly described him. Now Hubert was not perfect more than other children, but, compared to Thornton Rush, he was a little saint. His organ of combativeness frequently waged stern conflicts with his b.u.mp of reverence. His sense of right was keen as his sensitiveness against wrong and falsehood. He was, like his mother, frank and open as the day, generous, disinterested, and unselfish.

What should happen, then, when these two natures came together? What but thunder and lightning, as when two clouds meet?

Duncan Lisle thought about this as he saw his boy borne away from him, and he resolved to go over for him very soon after dinner. He arrived just in time to rescue him, bruised and bleeding, from the fists and fury of Thornton Rush. The quarrel had commenced in this way: Thornton had a.s.serted that everything at Thornton Hall was his; Hubert had nothing. Hubert admitted as much, insisting, however, that all at Kennons was his.

"No such thing," denied Thornton. "Everything at Kennons is your father's; you have nothing."

"Well," said the other, "so everything at Thornton Hall is your mother's, and not yours."

"No such thing. I am the master of Thornton Hall. My father is dead, sir."

"Yes, I know that."

"You know that! And is that all you can say? Say that I am master of Thornton Hall, and that you are n.o.body but Hubert Lisle," said Thornton, intent upon a quarrel.

"I shall say no such thing."

"But you will, sir, and I can make you. I am stronger than you are, and I have bigger fists. Look here, aren't you afraid?" shaking his clenched fist in the other's face.

"No, I am _not_ afraid," spoke Hubert boldly, striving to grapple with his stronger foe.

So engaged were the boys, they heard not the approach of Mr. Lisle, till, having dismounted from his horse, he seized Thornton by the collar and flung him afar, as he would have done a wild cat.

Mrs. Rush, who had seen the whole from the window, and enjoyed it immensely, now thought it worth while to come upon the scene.

"What does all this mean?" as if just surprised. "Thornton Rush, you will be punished for this. Have you no better manners than to treat your young visitor in that way? Really, Mr. Lisle, I am truly distressed, and offer you a thousand apologies. Please do not take Hubert home in that condition; bring him to the kitchen and let Dinah bathe his face and hands. How unfortunate this should have occurred!"

Mr. Lisle complied, and waited until his boy was brought to him in a more presentable condition; then he went away, very wroth indeed in heart, but outwardly calm and composed.

CHAPTER X.

"A DREAM WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM."

As the missionary journeyed northward, his mind emerged from the gloom of the last few days. It naturally turned upon the young girl who was so soon to become his bride, and in this connection life began again to a.s.sume its rose-tints of old, and he was led to wonder how it was he had so given way to grief and sadness. In recalling the trials and disadvantages to which his young bride would be exposed at the mission, a bright thought occurred to him. An American housekeeper would be invaluable, and Miss Toothaker arose before him. She would no doubt prove an excellent manager, and she was so unprepossessing in every way, she would be unlikely to be appropriated by any widowed missionary. It has been seen already that for Philip St. Leger to think and to act were but quick, consecutive steps; it was so in this case. Upon his return to Troy he called upon Madame X---- and explained his wishes. Miss Toothaker was consulted, and accepted his proposition at once; she would be on missionary ground at all events. True, she was conditionally engaged to marry a Mr. Freeman Clarke, who was an itinerant preacher.

She had insisted that he should become a missionary. He had consented to go as missionary to the Western frontiers. This did not meet Miss Toothaker's views; foreign missionary or nothing. Mr. Clarke's conscience did not send him to any Booriooboolah Gha, he said.

The engagement had been for some time in this state of contention, when the proposal of going to Turkey as "a.s.sistant" put an end to it.

Miss Arethusa retired to her room triumphantly, and exultingly wrote to her lover the facts in the case--except that she left him to infer that she was going to Turkey, as she had always wished, a missionary's wife.

Now that Mr. Freeman Clarke's "blessing had taken its flight," it all at once a.s.sumed that brightness of which the poet speaks. He would have argued and urged, even consented to have gone to the ends of the earth, but he saw from his lady's letter it was too late. He solaced himself somewhat by replying to her dolorously, hoping that she might perceive his heart was broken and be sorry. He closed loftily by saying: "You advise me, my dear Arethusa--allow me to call you thus for the last time--to find a heart worthier and better. It was unkind in you to urge upon me an impossibility. None but Napoleon ever scorned the word impossible."

Whether Mr. Freeman Clarke derived his inspiration for the itineracy from his lady-love is not for us to decide; this much is certain: from the day the "Atlantic" sailed for the Old World with Miss Toothaker on board his zeal flagged, and soon gave out altogether. His love for souls settled down upon one Annette Jones, the plain daughter of a plain farmer, whom he married, and lived happily enough with upon a small, rocky farm in the State of Vermont. In times of "revival," he became an "exhorter," and very fervent in prayer. Upon one occasion he soared to such a pitch as to cry out frantically: "O Lord, come down upon us now, come down now through the roof, _and I will pay for the shingles_."[A]

There were two or three people present who thought such an address to the Supreme Being blasphemous and frightful, but the rest of the crowd cried, "Amen."

In due time our missionaries found themselves at the house of Dr. Adams.

The doctor was rejoiced to have back Minerva again, for he declared nothing had gone on rightly since her departure.

Although Philip was well pleased with his second wife, he forgot not his first. On the evening of his arrival he went out to visit her grave. As he stood there mournful and silent, a light step approached, and Emily's hand clasped his own.

"Is it _her_ grave?" she asked softly.

"Yes. You would not have me quite forget Della, would you?" he asked, doubtfully.