Janet's Love and Service Part 40

Graeme's first judgment of Allan Ruthven, had been, "how these ten years have changed him;" but she quite forgot the first judgment when she came to see him more, and meeting his kind eyes and listening to his kind voice, in the days that followed she said to herself, "he is the same, the very same."

But her first judgment was the true one. He was changed. It would have been strange if the wear and tear of commercial life for ten years had not changed him, and that not for the better.

In the renewal of intercourse with his old friends, and in the new acquaintance he made with his brother Charlie, he came to know himself that he had changed greatly. He remembered sadly enough, the aspirations that had died out of his heart since his youth, the temptations that he had struggled against always, but which, alas! he had not always withstood. He knew now that his faith had grown weak, that thoughts of the unseen and heavenly had been put far-away from him.

Yes; he was greatly changed since the night he had stood with the rest an the deck of the "Steadfast," watching the gleaming lights of a strange city. Standing now face to face with the awakened remembrance of his own ideal, he knew that he had fallen far short of its attainment; and reading in Graeme's truthful eye "the same, the very same," his own often fell with a sense of shame as though he were deceiving her.

He was changed, and yet the wonder was, that the influences of these ten years had not changed him more. The lonely life he had pictured to his friends, that last night on the "Steadfast," fell far short of the reality that awaited him. Removed from the kindly a.s.sociations of home, and the tranquil pursuits and pleasures of a country village, to the turmoil of a Western city, and the annoyance of a subordinate in a merchant's office, he shrunk, at first, in disgust from the life that seemed opening before him. His native place, humble as it was, had lived in song and story for many centuries; and in this city which had sprung up in a day, nothing seemed stable or secure. A few months ago the turf of the prairie had been undisturbed, where to-day its broad streets are trodden by the feet of thousands. Between gigantic blocks of buildings rising everywhere, strips of the prairie turf lay undisturbed still. The air of newness, of incompleteness, of insecurity that seemed to surround all things impressed him painfully; the sadden prosperity seemed unreal and unnatural, as well it might, to one brought up in a country where the first thought awakened by change or innovation is one of mistrust and doubt.

All his preconceived ideas of business and a business-life, availed him nothing in the new circ.u.mstances in which he found himself. If business men were guided in their mutual relations by any principle of faith or honour, he failed in the first bitterness of his disgust to see it.

Business-life seemed but a scramble, in which the most alert seized the greatest portion. The feverish activity and energy which were fast changing the prairie into a populous place seemed directed to one end-- the getting of wealth. Wealth must be gotten by fair means or foul, and it must be gotten suddenly. There was no respite, no repose. One must go onward or be pushed aside, or be trodden under foot. Fortune was daily tempted, and the daily result was success, or utter failure, till a new chance could be grasped at.

"Honest labour! Patient toil!" Allan wondered within himself if the words had ever reached the inward sense of these eager, anxious men, jostling each other in their never-ceasing struggle.

Allan watched, and wondered, and mused, trying to understand, and to make himself charitable over the evil, by calling it a national one, and telling himself that these men of the new world were not to be judged by old laws, or measured by old standards. But there were among the swiftest runners of the race for gold men from all lands, men whose boyish feet had wandered over English meadows, or trod the heather on Scottish hills. Men whose fathers had spent their lives content in mountain sheilings, with no wish beyond their flocks and their native glens; humble artisans, smiths, and masons, who had pa.s.sed in their own country for honest, patient, G.o.d-fearing men, grew as eager, as unscrupulous, as swift as the fleetest in the race. The very diggers of ditches, and breakers of stone on the highway, the hewers of wood and drawers of water; took with discontent that it was no more their daily wages, doubled or tripled to them, since they set foot on the soil of the new world.

That there might be another sort of life in the midst of this turmoil, he did not consider. He never could a.s.sociate the idea of home or comfort with those dingy brick structures, springing up in a day at every corner. He could not fancy those hard voices growing soft in the utterance of loving words, or those thin, compressed lips gladly meeting the smiling mouth of a little child. Home! Why, all the world seemed at home in those vast hotels; the men and women greeting each other coldly, in these great parlours, seemed to have no wants that a black man, coming at the sound of a bell, might not easily supply. Even the children seemed at ease and self-possessed in the midst of the crowd.

They troubled no one with noisy play or merry prattle, but sat on chairs with their elders, listening to, or joining in the conversation, with a coolness and appropriateness painfully suggestive of what their future might be. Looking at these embryo merchants and fine ladies, from whose pale little lips "dollar" and "change" fall more naturally than sweeter words, Ruthven ceased to wonder at the struggle around him. He fancied he could understand how these little people, strangers, as it seemed to him, to a home or even to a childhood, should become in time the eager, absorbed, unscrupulous runners and wrestlers, jostling each other in the daily strife.

Ruthven was very bitter and unjust in many of his judgments during the first part of his residence in C. He changed his opinions of many things afterwards, partly because he became wiser, partly because he became a little blind, and, especially, because he himself became changed at last. By and by his life was too busy to permit him to watch those about him, or to p.r.o.nounce judgment on their aims or character.

Uncongenial as he had at first found the employment which his uncle had provided for him, he pursued it with a patient steadiness, which made it first endurable, then pleasant to him. At first his duties were merely mechanical; so much writing, so much computing each day, and then his time was his own. But this did not continue long. Trusted always by the firm, he was soon placed in a position where he was able to do good service to his employers. His skill and will guided their affairs through more than one painful crisis. His integrity kept their good name unsullied at a time when too many yielding to what seemed necessity, were betaking themselves to doubtful means to preserve their credit. He thoroughly identified himself with the interests of the firm, even when his uncle was a comparative stranger to him. He did his duty in his service as he would have done it in the service of another, constantly and conscientiously, because it was right to do so. So pa.s.sed the first years of his commercial life.

In default of other interests, he gave himself wholly up to business pursuits, till no onlooker on the busy scene in which he was taking part would have thought of singling him out as in any respect different from those who were about him. Those who came into close contact with him called him honourable and upright, indeed, over scrupulous in many points; and he, standing apart from them, and in a certain sense above them, was willing so to be called. But as one cannot touch pitch without being defiled, so a man must yield in time to the influences in the midst of which he has voluntarily placed himself. So it came to pa.s.s that, as the years went on, Allan Ruthven was greatly changed.

It need not have been so. It doubtless was far otherwise with some who, in his pride and ignorance, he had called earth-worms and worshippers of gold; for though, in the first bitterness of his isolation, he was slow to discover it, there were in the midst of the turmoil and strife of that new city warm hearts and happy homes, and the blessed influence of the Christian faith and the Christian life. There were those over whom the gains-getting demon of the place had no power, because of a talisman they held, the "constraining love of Christ," in them. Those walked through the fire unscathed, and, in the midst of much that is defiling, kept their garments clean. But Ruthven was not one of them. He had the name of the talisman on his lips, but he had not its living power in his heart. He was a Christian only in name; and so, when the influence of early a.s.sociations began to grow weak, and he began to forget, as men will for a time, his mother's teachings "in the house, and by the way,"

at the "lying down and the rising up," no wonder that the questionable maxims heard daily from the lips of the worldly-wise should come to have weight with him at last.

Not that in those days he was, in any sense, a lover of gold for its own sake. He never sank so low as that. But in the eagerness with which he devoted himself to business, he left himself no time for the performance of other and higher duties, or for the cultivation of those principles and affections which can alone prevent the earnest business-man from degenerating into a character so despicable. If he was not swept away by the strong current of temptation, it was because of no wisdom or strength or foresight of his. Another ten years of such a life would have made him, as it has made many another, a man outwardly worthy of esteem, but inwardly selfish, sordid, worldly--all that in his youth he had most despised.

This may seem a hard judgment, but it is the judgement he pa.s.sed on himself, when there came a pause in his busy life, and he looked back over those years and felt that he did not hold the world loosely--that he could not open his hand and let it go. He had been pleasing himself all along with the thought that he was not like the men about him-- content with the winning of wealth and position in the world; but there came a time when it was brought sharply home to him that without these he could not be content. It was a great shock and surprise to him to be forced to realise how far he had drifted on with the current, and how impossible it had become to get back to the old starting-place again, and in the knowledge he did not spare himself, but used harder and sterner words of self-contempt than any that are written here.

Ruthven's intercourse with his uncle's family, though occurring at long intervals, had been of a very pleasant kind, for he was a great favourite with his aunt and his cousin Lilias, who was then a child.

Indeed, she was only a child when her mother died; and when there fell into his hands a letter written by his aunt to his mother, during one of his first visits to M, in which half seriously, half playfully, was expressed a wish that the cousins might one day stand in a nearer and dearer relation to one another, he was greatly surprised and amused. I am afraid it was only the thought that the hand that had penned the wish was cold in death, that kept him from shocking his mother by laughing outright at the idea. For what a child Lilias must have been when that was written, thought he! what a child she was still!

But the years went on, and the child grew into a beautiful woman, and the remembrance of his aunt's wish was pleasant to Allan Ruthven, because of his love and admiration for his cousin, and because of other things. He could not be blind to the advantages that such a connection would ensure to him. The new partnership was antic.i.p.ated and entered upon, on very different terms from those which might have been, but for the silent understanding with regard to Lilias that existed between the uncle and nephew. It was no small matter that the young merchant should find himself in a position to which the greater number attain only after half a lifetime of labour. He was at the head of a lucrative business, conscious of possessing skill and energy to conduct it well--conscious of youth and health and strength to enjoy the future opening before him.

Nor was there anything wrong in this appreciation of the advantages of his position. He knew that this wealth had not bought him. He loved his cousin Lilias, or he thought he loved her; and though up to this time, and after this time their intercourse was only after a cousinly sort, he believed she loved him. The thought _did_ come into his mind sometimes whether his cousin was all to him that a woman might be, but never painfully. He did not doubt that, as years went on, they would be very happy together after a quiet, rational fashion, and he smiled, now and then, at the fading remembrance of many a boyish dream as to how his wife was to be wooed and won.

He was happy--they were all happy; and the tide of events flowed quietly on the the night when Allan clasped the trembling hand of Graeme Elliott. Indeed, it flowed quietly on long after that, for in the charm that, night after night, drew him into the happy circle of the Elliotts, he recognised only the pleasure that the renewal of old friendships and the awakening of old a.s.sociations gave him. The pleasure which his cousin took in the society of these young people was scarcely less than his own. Around the heiress and only child of Mr Elphinstone there soon gathered a brilliant circle of admirers, the greater part of whom would hardly have recognised the Elliotts as worthy of sharing the honour with them. But there was to the young girl, who had neither brother nor sister, something better than brilliancy or fashion in Graeme's quiet parlour. The mutual love and confidence that made their home so happy, filled her with wonder and delight, and there were few days, for several pleasant months, in which they did not meet.

The pleasant intercourse was good for Lilias. She brightened under it wonderfully, and grew into a very different creature from the pale, quiet, little girl, who used to sit so gravely at her father's side.

Her father saw the change and rejoiced over it, and though at first he was not inclined to be pleased with the intimacy that had sprung up so suddenly, he could not but confess that the companionship of one like Rose Elliott must be good for her. Graeme he seldom saw. The long morning calls, and spending of days with her friend, which were Rosie's delight, Graeme seldom shared. But she was quite as much the friend of Lilias as was her livelier sister, and never did his cousin seem so beautiful to Allan, never was she so dear, as when, with pretty willfulness; she hung about Graeme, claiming a right to share with Rose the caresses or gentle reproofs of the elder sister. He did not think of danger to himself in the intercourse which Lilias shared so happily.

He was content with the present, and did not seek to look into the future.

But he was not quite free from troubled thoughts at this time. In the atmosphere in which he lived things wore a new aspect to him. Almost unconsciously to himself at first, he began to judge of men, and motives, and actions, by a new rule--or rather, he came back to the old rule, by which he had measured all things in his youthful days. These days did not seem so far removed from him now as they used to do, and sometimes he found himself looking back over the last ten years, with the clear truthful eyes of eighteen. It was not always a pleasant retrospect. There were some things covered up by that time, of which the review could not give unmingled pleasure. These were moments when he could not meet Graeme's truthful eyes, as with "Don't you remember?"

she recalled his own words, spoken long ago. He knew, though she did not, how his thoughts of all things had changed since then; and though the intervening years had made him a man of wealth and note, there came to him, at such moments, a sense of failure and regret, as though his manhood had belied the promise of his youth--a strong desire to begin anew--a longing after a better life than these ten years had witnessed.

But these pleasant days came to an end. Business called Allan, for a time, to his old home in C, and to his uncongenial life there. It was not pleasant business. There was a cry, louder than usual, of "hard times" through the country, and the failure of several houses, in which he had placed implicit confidence, threatened, not, indeed, to endanger the safety, but greatly to embarra.s.s the operations of the new firm.

Great losses were sustained, and complicated as their affairs at the West had become, Allan began to fear that his own presence there would for some time be necessary. He was surprised and startled at the pain which the prospect gave him, and before he had time to question himself as to why it should be so, the reason was made plain to him.

A letter written by his uncle immediately after a partial recovery from an illness, a return of which, his physicians a.s.sured him, must prove fatal, set the matter before him in its true light. The letter was brief. Knowing little of the disorder into which recent events had thrown their affairs, he entreated Allan's immediate return, for his sake, and for the sake of Lilias, whom it distressed him to think of leaving till he should see her safe with one who should have a husband's right to protect and console her. It was simply and frankly said, as one might speak of a matter fully understood and approved of by all concerned. But the words smote on Allan's heart with sharp and sudden pain, and he knew that something had come into his life, since the time when he had listened in complacent silence to Mr Elphinstone's half-expressed ideas, concerning Lilias and her future. There was pleasure in the pain, sharp and sweet while it lasted, for with the knowledge that came to him, that he loved Graeme Elliott, there came also the hope, that there was something more than gentle friendliness in the feelings with which she regarded him. But the pleasure pa.s.sed, and the pain remained, growing sharper and deeper as he looked the future in the face.

It was not a hopeful future. As for his cousin, there had pa.s.sed between them no words or tokens of affection, that cousins might not very well exchange; at least, he was willing to believe so now; and judging her feelings, partly by his own, and partly by the remembrance of many a chance word and action of the last few months, he said to himself, the happiness of her life would not be marred though they might never be more than cousins to each other. But this did not end his doubts as to the course that lay before him, and every day that he lingered in miserable indecision, made more evident to him the difficulties of his position. He knew it was a son's place that he had got in the firm. He could only claim it as a son. If his relations to Lilias and her father were changed, it seemed to him that he could not honourably claim a position which had been urged upon him, and which he had gladly accepted with a view to these relations. The past ten years must be as nothing to him, except for the experience they had given him, the good name they had won for him. He must begin life again a poor man.

But let me not be unjust to him. It was not this that made all the misery of his indecision. Had all this come in a time of prosperity, or when Mr Elphinstone had strength and courage to meet disaster unmoved, it would have been different. But now, when all things looked threatening, when certain loss--possible ruin--lay before them, when the misfortunes of some, and the treachery of others were making the very ground beneath their feet insecure, could he leave the feeble old man to struggle through these difficult and dangerous times alone? He knew his uncle too well to believe that he would willingly accept help from him, their relations being changed, and he knew that no skill and knowledge but his own, could conduct to a successful issue, enterprises undertaken under more favourable circ.u.mstances.

He was very wretched. He could not put away the discomfort of his indecision by permitting time and circ.u.mstances to decide in the course which he must take. Whatever was done must be done by him, and at once.

There was no respite of time or chance to fall back upon, in the strait in which he found himself. He did not hasten home. He had cause enough to excuse the delay to himself, and he threw himself into the increasingly painful details of business, with an energy that, for the time, left no room for painful thoughts. But it was only for the time.

He knew that his lingering was useless, in view of what the end must be, and he despised himself for his indecision.

If his choice had been altogether between poverty and wealth, it would have been easy to him, he thought, though it forced itself upon him with intense bitterness during these days, how the last ten years had changed the meaning of the word to him. But his honour was involved--his honour as a man, and as a merchant. He could not leave his uncle to struggle with misfortune in his old age. He could not let the name, so long honoured and trusted in the commercial world, be joined with the many which during the last few months had been coupled with ruin, and even with shame. He was responsible for the stability or the failure of the house, which for thirty years had never given cause for doubt or fear.

More than this. His own reputation as a wise and successful man of business, if not even his personal honour was at stake, to make it impossible for him to separate himself from the affairs of the firm at a juncture so perilous.

And then, Lilias. Nothing but her own spoken word could free him from the tacit engagement that existed between them. In honour he could never ask her to speak that word.

Through his long journey of days and nights he pondered it all, making no decision as to what was to be done or said, but growing gradually conscious as he drew near home, that the life of the last few months, was coming to seem more and more like a pleasant dream that must be forgotten in the future. He met his uncle's eager greeting with no word of change. His face was pale and very grave when he met his cousin, but not more so than hers. But that might very well be said each of the other. Lilias knew more of the losses which the firm had sustained than her father knew; and Allan might well look grave, she thought, and the watching and anxiety for her father's sake might well account to him for her sad looks. After the first clasp of their hands he knew that the vows. .h.i.therto unspoken, must now be fulfilled.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

Graeme did go to Mrs Roxbury's party, and it happened in this way. The invitations had been sent out before Mr Elphinstone's short, sharp illness, and Lilias had been made very useful by her aunt on the occasion. She had not been consulted about the sending of Graeme's invitation, or probably Rose would have had one too, but by good fortune, as she declared, Graeme's refusal came first to her hand, and the little lady did a most unprecedented thing. She put it quietly into her pocket, and going home that night by the Elliott's, ventured to expostulate.

"First, you must promise not to be vexed," and then she showed the note.

Graeme looked grave.

"Now you must not be angry with me. Rosie, tell her not to be vexed, because, you know you can write another refusal, if you are determined.

But I am sure you will not be so cruel. I can't tell you any reason, except that I have set my heart on your being there, and you'll come to please me, will you not?"

"To please you, ought to be sufficient reasons, I know," said Graeme, smiling. And Lilias knew she had prevailed with her friend. She saw the acceptance written, and carried it off to place it with dozens of others, in the hands of Mrs Roxbury. She did not say much to Graeme about it, but to Rosie, she triumphed.

"I want Aunt Roxbury to see Graeme looking her very best. Graeme will look like a queen among us. Aunt will see that Allan and I have good reasons for our admiration. Fancy any of these trumpery people patronising Graeme! But you are not to tell her what I say. You don't think she was really vexed with me, do you? And she must wear her new peach-blossom silk. I am so glad."

But poor little Lilias went through deep waters, before the peach-blossom silk was worn by Graeme. Mr Elphinstone was brought very near the gates of death, and anxious days and nights were pa.s.sed by his daughter at his bedside. Mrs Roxbury would have recalled her invitations, and Lilias' soul sickened at the thought of the entertainment; but when the immediate danger was over, events fell into their usual channel, and though she gave no more a.s.sistance, either by word or deed, her aunt counted on her presence on the occasion, and even her father insisted that it was right for her to go.

"And so, my love," said Mrs Roxbury, "as your father and I see no impropriety in your coming, there can be none, and you will enjoy it, indeed you will. You are tired now."

"Impropriety! it is not that I don't wish to go. I cannot bear the thought of going."

"Nonsense! you are overtired, that is all. And Mr Ruthven will be here by that time, and I depend on you to bring him."

But if Allan's presence had depended on Lilias, Mrs Roxbury would not have seen him in her splendid rooms that night. It was Mr Elphinstone that reminded her of the note that awaited the return of her cousin, and it was he who insisted that they should appear, for at least an hour or two, at the party. And they went together, a little constrained and uncomfortable, while they were alone, but to all appearance at their ease, and content with one another when they entered the room. Graeme saw them the moment they came in, and she saw, too, many a significant glance exchanged, as they made their way together to Mrs Roxbury.

Lilias saw Graeme almost as soon. She was standing near the folding-doors, seemingly much interested in what Mr Proudfute, her brother's friend, was saying to her.

"There, aunt," said Lilias, eagerly, when the greetings were over, "did I not tell you that my friend Miss Elliott would eclipse all here to-night? Look at her now."

"My dear," said her aunt, "she does better than that. She is very lovely and lady-like, and tries to eclipse no one, and so wins all hearts."