L'Arrabiata and Other Tales Part 12

"He has taken much away from her!"

"He has, but not all--not for ever, at least. Now she seems to have lost the faculty of loving; of holding all things as nothing, compared to the love of G.o.d and of His creatures. And this faculty only returns to us when we return to G.o.d. As she now is, she does not wish to return to Him--her grievances and her discontent are still too dear to her; but the tone of her mind is too healthy to harbour these sad companions long. Sometime, when her heart is feeling most forlorn, G.o.d will take possession of it again, and love and charity will resume their former places, and then there will be light within her, even though it be dark before her eyes."

"G.o.d grant it! yet the thought of her future life distresses me."

"She is safe if she does nothing to lose herself. And even if all those who now love and cherish her should be taken from her, charity never dies. And if she take heed to the guiding of the Lord, and the ways it pleaseth Him to lead her, she may yet learn to bless the blindness, that from her infancy has separated her from the shadow, and given her the reality and truth."

Clement interrupted their discourse. "You cannot think how lovely it is to-night!" he cried from the threshold where he stood. "I would gladly give one eye if I could give it to Marlene, that she might see the splendour of the stars. I hope the noise of the waterfall may not prevent her sleeping. I can never forgive myself for having left her to sit out there in the cold."

"Dear boy, speak lower," said his mother; "she is asleep close by. The best thing you can do, I think, would be to go to sleep yourself." And the boy whispered his good-night.

When his mother went to Marlene's room, she found her quiet and apparently asleep--that troubled look had given place to an expression of peace and gentleness.

The tempest was overpast, and had destroyed no vital part. Even remorse and shame were slightly felt. So absolute was the victory of that joyful peace that had been preached in the room beside her. Slowly, and by side-paths, does the principle of evil steal over us, and a.s.sume its sway--good a.s.serts its victory at once.

CHAPTER V.

Next morning her friends noticed with astonishment the change that had come over her. The vicar's wife could only explain it by supposing Marlene to have overheard their conversation of the night before. "So much the better," said the vicar. "If she has heard it, I have nothing more to say."

After this, the young girl's gentle tenderness towards Clement and his parents, was touching to behold. She only wished to be considered as belonging to them. Any proof of their affection she received with glad surprise; as more than she expected or deserved. She did not talk much, but what she said was gay and animated. In her whole manner there was a softness, an abnegation of herself, that seemed meant for a mute apology. In their wanderings she again took Clement's arm, but she often begged to be allowed to sit down and rest. Not that she was tired; she only wished to give the boy his freedom to climb about whenever he saw anything to tempt him. And when he came back to tell her what he had seen, she would welcome him with a smile. Her jealousy was gone, now that she desired nothing for herself but the pleasure of seeing him pleased.

Thus strengthened and raised to better feelings, she came to the end of her excursion--and the strengthening had come when it was needed. She found her mother laid low by a dangerous disease, which carried off the delicate woman in a day or two. And after the first few weeks of mourning, she found that her sadly altered life exacted duties of her, for which before she hardly would have been fitted. She busied herself about the household, late and early. She found her way, in spite of her infirmity, into every nook and corner of their small home; and though there were many things she was unable to do herself, she shewed both cleverness and foresight in her arrangements, and in her watchful care that her afflicted father should want for nothing.

She soon acquired a remarkable degree of firmness and quiet dignity.

Where formerly repeated admonitions had been necessary, she ruled the men and maids with a gentle word. And if ever any serious instance did occur, of neglect or real ill-will, one earnest look of those large blind eyes would melt the coa.r.s.est nature.

Since she had understood that there was work for her to do--that the moulding of their daily life was entirely in her hands, and that it was her duty to be cheerful for her father's sake, she had much less time to feel the pain of Clement's absence; and when he was sent to school in town, she was able to bid him a more composed farewell than any of the others. For some weeks, it is true, she went about the house as though she were in a dream--as though she had been severed from her happier self. But she soon grew gay again, jesting with her father to win him to a laugh, and singing to herself her favourite songs. When the vicar's wife would come with letters, and read the news and messages from Clement, her heart would beat quick in secret; and that night perhaps, she lay awake for a longer time than usual; but in the morning she would rise serene as ever.

When Clement came home for the holidays, his first steps were to the s.e.xton's house--and his step Marlene knew,--ever so far off. She stood still, and listened whether it was for her he asked; then with her slim hands, she hastily smoothed back her hair, that still hung in its heavy plaits upon her slender neck; then rose and left her work; and by the time he had crossed the threshold, there was not a trace of agitation on her features. Gaily she offered him her hand, and begged him to come in and sit down beside her, and tell her what he had been doing. There he would often forget the hours, and his mother would come after him, for she began to grudge any of his time she lost. He very rarely stayed all his holidays in the village; he would go rambling about the mountains, absorbed by his growing love of nature and of its history.

And so the years rolled on, in monotonous rotation. The old were fading gradually, and the young growing fast in bloom and strength.

Once when Clement came home at Easter, and saw Marlene, as, rising from her spinning-wheel she came to meet him, he was struck with the progress of her loveliness since autumn. "You are quite a grown-up young lady now," he said; "and I too have done with boyhood--only feel my beard, how it has grown over my winter studies." She blushed a little as he took her hand, and pa.s.sed it across his chin to make her feel the down upon it. And he had more to talk of than he used to have.

The master with whom he boarded had daughters, and these daughters had young companions. She made him describe them to her. "I don't care for girls," he said; "they are so silly, and talk such nonsense. There is only one, Cecilia, whom I don't dislike, because she does not chatter and make those faces the others do to beautify themselves--and what are they all to me? The other evening when I came home, and went into my room, I found a bunch of flowers on the table; I let it lie, and did not even put it in water, though I was sorry for the flowers--but it provoked me, and next day there was such a whispering and t.i.ttering amongst the girls!--I felt so cross, I would not speak a word to them.

Why can't they let me alone?--I have no time for their nonsense."

When he talked so, Marlene would hang upon his lips, and treasuring up his words, would interweave them with an endless web of her own strange fancies. She might perhaps have been in danger of wasting her youth in fruitless reveries, but she was saved from this by serious sorrows, and cares that were very real. Her father, who had long fulfilled with difficulty the duties of his place, was now struck with paralysis, and lay entirely helpless for one whole year, when his sufferings were put an end to by a second stroke. She never left him for an hour. Even in the holidays which brought Clement, she would not spare the time to talk to him, save when he would come to spend ten minutes in the sick-room.

Thus concentrating her life, she grew more self-denying. She complained to no one, and would have needed no one, had not her blindness prevented her doing everything herself. Her misfortune had been a secret discipline to her, and had taught many a humble household virtue, that those who see neglect. She kept everything committed to her care in the most scrupulous order. Her neatness was exaggerated, for she had no eyes to see when she had done enough.

Clement was deeply moved when he first saw her trying to wash and dress her helpless father, and carefully combing his thin grey hair. If in that sick-room, her cheek grew somewhat paler, there was a deeper radiance in her large dark eyes, and to her natural distinction, those lowly labours were, in fact, a foil.

The old man died. His successor came to take possession of the house, and at the Vicarage Marlene found a kind and hospitable home.

Clement only heard this by letters rarely written, and still more rarely answered. He had gone to a more distant university, and was no longer able to spend all his holidays at home. Now and then he would enclose a few lines to Marlene, in which, contrary to his former custom, he would address her as a child, in a joking tone, that made his father serious and silent, and his mother shake her head. Marlene would have these notes read aloud to her, and listening to them gravely, would carefully keep them. When her father died, he wrote to her a short agitated letter, neither attempting to console her, nor expressing any sorrow; containing only a few earnest entreaties to be careful of her health, to be calm, and to let him know exactly how she was, and what she felt.

At Easter he had, been expected, but he did not come; he only wrote that he had found an opportunity, too good to be lost, of accompanying one of the professors on a botanical tour. His father had been satisfied, and Marlene at last successful in pacifying his mother.

He came unannounced at Whitsuntide, on foot, with glowing cheeks, unwearied by a long march before break of day--a fine-grown young man.

He stepped into the silent house, where his mother was alone and busy, for it was the eve of a great holiday. Surprised, with a cry of joy, she threw herself upon his neck. "You!" she exclaimed, as soon as she had recovered herself, drawing back to gaze upon him, the long absent one, with all her love for him in her eyes. "You forgetful boy, are you come at last? You can find the way back, I see, to your old father and mother! I began to think you only meant to return to us as a full-fledged professor, and who knows whether my poor eyes would have been left open long enough to behold that pleasant sight on earth? But I must not scold you now that you are my own good boy, and are come to bring us a pleasanter Whitsuntide than I have known for years--me, your father, and all of us!" "Mother," he said, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to be at home again. I could not hold out any longer. I don't know how it happened. I had not resolved to come--I only felt I must. One fine morning, instead of going up to college, I found myself without the gates, walking for very life--such journeys in a day as I never took before, though I was always a good pedestrian. Where is my father, and Marlene?"

"Don't you hear him?" said his mother; "he is upstairs in his study."

And in fact they heard the old man's heavy tread walking up and down.

"It is just as it used to be--that has been his Sat.u.r.day's walk all these twenty years I have known him. Marlene is with the labourers in the hayfield--I sent her away that I might be left to do my work in peace. When she is in the house, she would always have me sitting idle in the corner with my hands before me. She must needs do everything herself. We have new men just now, and I am glad that she should look after them a little, until they get accustomed to their work. Won't she be surprised to find you here? Now come, we must go upstairs to father, and let him have a look at you. It will be midday directly.

Come along--he won't be angry at your disturbing him."

She led her son after her, still keeping hold of his hand while she slipped up the narrow staircase before him; then softly opening the door, with a sign to Clement, she pushed him forwards while she stepped back. "Here he is at last!" she said; "there you have him!" "Whom?"

cried the old man angrily, and started from his meditations; and then he saw his son's bright face beside him radiant in the morning sunshine. He held out his hand: "Clement!" he cried, between surprise and joy, "You here!" "I was homesick, father," said his son, with a warm grasp of the proffered hand. "I am come to stay over the holidays, if there be room for me now that you have Marlene here." "How you talk!" eagerly broke in his mother; "If I had seven sons, I know I should find room for them. But I will leave you to your father now; I have to go about the kitchen, and I must rifle our vegetable-beds, for in town, I doubt they have been spoiling you."

And with that she went, leaving father and son still standing silently face to face. "I have disturbed you," at length said Clement; "you are in the middle of your sermon." "You can't disturb a man who has already disturbed himself. I have been going about all the morning, turning over my text in my mind, but the seed would not spring up. I have had strange ideas; misgivings I could not master."

He went to the little window that looked upon the church. The way thither was through the churchyard. It lay peacefully before them, with its flowers and its many crosses glittering in the noonday sun. "Come hither, Clement," said the old vicar gently; "come and stand here beside me. Do you see that grave to the left, with the primroses and monthly roses? It is one you never saw before. Do you know who it is sleeps there? It is my dear old friend; our Marlene's father."

He left his son standing at the window, and began pacing up and down the room again; in their silence they only heard his even tread crunching the sand upon the wooden floor; "No one ever knew him as I did;" he said, drawing a deep breath--"n.o.body lost so much, in losing him; for he was to no one else what he was to me. What did he know of the world and the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness in the sight of G.o.d! What science he possessed was revealed to him--by scripture or by suffering. I know he is blessed now, for he was already blessed on Earth."

After a pause he went on; "Whom have I now to put me to shame, when I have been puffed up?--to save me, when my faith is wavering--to unravel the vexed thoughts that by turns accuse and excuse each other! This world is growing so terribly wise! What I hear is more than I can understand--what I read my soul rejects, lest it should lead it to perdition. Many there be who lift up their voices, and dream they have the gift of tongues; and behold, it is nought but idle lip-work, and the scorners listen, and rejoice. Ah! my dear old friend, would I were safe, where you are now!"

Clement turned to look at him. He had never so heard his father speak, in the anguish of his soul. He went up to him, trying to find the right words to say. "Don't, my son;" said his father, deprecatingly, "there is nothing you can say to me, that saints have not said better. Do you know, one day, just after his death, I had fallen asleep, here in this very room; night had come with a tempest that awoke me; my heart was heavy, even unto death, when suddenly I saw him--a great light was shining round him, but he appeared in the clothes he usually wore, just as if he were alive. He did not speak, but remained standing at the foot of my bed, calmly looking down upon me. At first it agitated me terribly, I was not worthy of the grace vouchsafed me; of beholding a sainted face.--Only the day after, I felt the peace it had left behind.

He did not come again until last night--I had been reading one of those books, written to seduce Man from G.o.d, and from the word of G.o.d, and had gone to bed in grief and anger, when soon after twelve o'clock, I woke up again, and saw him standing as before, holding an open bible in his hand, printed in golden letters. He pointed to them with his finger; but so great a radiance was streaming from the pages, that I strained my dazzled eyes in vain; I could not read a line.--I sat up, and bent nearer to him. He stood still, with a look of love and pity in his face; which presently changed to anxiety when he saw that I was trying to read, and could not. Then, blinded by the brightness, my eyes ran over, and he vanished slowly, leaving me in tears."--

He went to the window again, and Clement saw him shudder. "Father!" he said, and took his hand as it hung down limply by his side--he found it cold and damp--"dear Father, you distress me! You are ill--you should send for a doctor."

"A Doctor?" cried his father, almost violently, drawing himself up to his full height--"I am well, and that is the worst of it. My soul feels, longs for, approaching death, while my body is still obstinately rebellious."

"These dreams are destroying you, father."

"Dreams! I tell you, I was as wide awake as I am now."

"I do not doubt it, father; you were awake, and that is just what makes me so uneasy. It is fever that given you those waking dreams, the very memory of which distresses you enough to quicken your pulse and make you ill. I need not be a doctor to know that last night you were in a fever, as you are now."

"To know! and what do you think you know, poor mortal that you are! Oh admirable wisdom!--Grace-giving science!--but after all, whom do I accuse? What do I deserve?--for babbling of G.o.d's most precious mysteries, and baring my aching heart as a mark for scorners. Are these the fruits of all your studies? What grapes do you hope to gather from thorns like these? I know you well, poor vain creatures that you are, who would set up new G.o.ds for others, while in your hearts you worship no G.o.ds but yourselves; I tell you, your days are numbered."--His bald brow was flushed crimson as he turned to go, without one look at Clement, who stood shocked and silent, his eyes fixed on the floor.

Suddenly he felt his father's hand upon his shoulder:

"Speak truth, my son; do you really hold to those of whose opinions I have read with horror? Are you among those bright votaries of matter, who jest at miracles; to whom the Spirit is as a fable which nature tells, and man listens to with scorn. If your youth could not choke these weeds, was the seed of grat.i.tude sown by the Lord in your heart in vain?"

"Father," said the young man after some consideration, "how shall I answer you? I am ready to stake my life on the solution of these questions--I have heard them answered in so many different ways by men I love and honor. Some of my dearest friends profess the opinions you condemn: I listen and learn, and have not yet ventured to decide."

"He who is not with me, is against me, saith the Lord--"

"No, I could not be against Him--I could not strive against the Spirit.

Who does deny the Spirit? even among those who would bind it to the laws of matter?--Are not its miracles the same, even if they be no more than nature's fairest blossoms? Is a n.o.ble image to be scorned, for only being of stone?"

"You talk as they all do; your heads are darkened by your own dim metaphors--you are so deafened with the sound of your empty words, that the small voice within you speaks unheard--and is it thus you come to celebrate our Whitsuntide?"