More Bywords Part 25

MRS. H. Fashion and imitation, my dear Mary; it will pa.s.s away.

Now, you are not to talk any more.

MRS. M. I can't-- (A SPASM COMES ON.)

X. AUNT AND NEPHEW

SCENE.--SIX MONTHS LATER, DARKGLADE VICARAGE, A DARKENED ROOM. MRS.

HOLLAND AND LUCIUS.

MRS. H. Yes, Lucius, we have all much to reproach ourselves with; even poor grandpapa is heart-broken at having been too much absorbed to perceive how your dear mother was overtasked.

L. You did all you could, aunt; you took home one child, and caused the other to be sent to school.

MRS. H. Yes, too late to be of any use.

L. And after all, I don't think it was overwork that broke the poor dear one down, so much as grief at that wretched sister of mine.

MRS. H. Don't speak of her in that way, Lucius.

L. How can I help it? I could say worse!

MRS. H. She is broken-hearted, poor thing.

L. Well she may be.

MRS. H. Ah, the special point of sorrow to your dear mother was that she blamed herself, for--

L. How could she? How can you say so, aunt?

MRS. H. Wait a moment, Lucius. What grieved her was the giving in to Cissy's determination, seeing with her eyes, and not allowing herself to perceive that what she wished might not be good for her.

L. Cissy always did domineer over mother.

MRS. H. Yes; and your mother was so used to thinking Cissy's judgment right that she never could or would see when it was time to make a stand, and prevent her own first impressions from being talked down as old-fashioned,--letting her eyes be bandaged, in fact.

L. So she vexed herself over Cissy's fault; but did not you try to make Cissy see what she was about?

MRS. H. True; but if love had blinded my dear sister, Cissy was doubly blinded--

L. By conceit and self-will.

MRS. H. Poor girl, I am too sorry for her now to use those hard words, but I am afraid it is true. First she could or would not see either that her companions might be undesirable guides, or that her duty lay here, and then nothing would show her that her mother's health was failing. Indeed, by that time the sort of blindness had come upon her which really broke your mother's heart.

L. You mean her unbelief, agnosticism, or whatever she chooses to call it. I thought at least women were safe from that style of thing. It is all fashion and bad company, I suppose?

MRS. H. I hope and pray that it may be so; but I am afraid that it goes deeper than you imagine. Still, I see hope in her extreme unhappiness, and in the remembrance of your dear mother's last words and prayers.

XI. GRANDFATHER AND GRAND-DAUGHTER

A MONTH LATER. MR. AVELAND AND CECILIA.

MR. A. My dear child, I wish I could do anything for you.

C. You had better let me go back to London, grandpapa.

MR. A. Do you really wish it?

C. I don't know. I hate it all; but if I were in the midst of everything again, it might stifle the pain a little.

MR. A. I am afraid that is not the right way of curing it.

C. Oh, I suppose it will wear down in time.

MR. A. Is that well?

C. I don't know. It is only unbearable as it is; and yet when I think of my life in town, the din and the chatter and the bustle, and the n.o.body caring, seem doubly intolerable; but I shall work off that. You had better let me go, grandpapa. The sight of me can be nothing but a grief and pain to you.

MR. A. No; it gives me hope.

C. Hope of what?

MR. A. That away from the whirl you will find your way to peace.

C. I don't see how. Quiet only makes me more miserable.

MR. A. My poor child, if you can speak out and tell me exactly how it is with you, I think it might be comfortable to you. If it is the missing your mother, and blaming yourself for having allowed her to overdo herself, I may well share with you in that. I feel most grievously that I never perceived how much she was undertaking, nor how she flagged under it. Unselfish people want others to think for them, and I did not.

C. Dear grandpapa, it would not have been too much if I had come and helped. I know that; but it is not the worst. You can't feel as I do--that if my desertion led to her overworking herself, Aunt Phrasie and Lucius say that what really broke her down was the opinions I cannot help having. Say it was not, grandpapa.

MR. A. I wish I could, my dear; but I cannot conceal that unhappiness about you, and regret for having let you expose yourself to those unfortunate arguments, broke her spirits so that her energies were unequal to the strain that I allowed to be laid on her.

C. Poor dear mother! And you and she can feel in that way about the importance of what to me seems--pardon me, grandpapa--utterly unproved.

MR. A. You hold everything unproved that you cannot work out like a mathematical demonstration.

C. I can't help it, grandpapa. I read and read, till all the premises become lost in the cloud of myths that belong to all nations. I don't want to think such things. I saw dear mother rest on her belief, and grow peaceful. They were perfect realities to her; but I cannot unthink. I would give anything to think that she is in perfect happiness now, and that we shall meet again; but nothing seems certain to me. All is extinguished.

MR. A. How do you mean?

C. They--Betty and her set, I mean--laughed at and argued one thing after another, till they showed me that there were no positive grounds to go on.

MR. A. No material grounds.

C. And what else is certain?