Richard Vandermarck Part 25

"What would be the use of going to him for anything else?" I said. "It is the only thing that can give me any comfort."

"All people do not feel so, Pauline."

"But you feel so, dear Sister Madeline, do you not? You can understand how I am burdened, and how I long to have the bands undone?"

"Yes, Pauline, I can understand."

I am not inclined to give much weight to my own opinions, and as for my feelings, I know they were, then, those of a child, and in many ways will always be. I can only say what comforted me, and what I longed for.

There had always been great force to me, in the Scripture that says, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained," even before I felt the burden of my sins.

I had once seen the ordination of a priest, and I suppose that added to the weight of the words ever after in my mind. I never had any doubt of the power then conferred, and I no sooner felt the guilt and stain of sin upon my soul, than I yearned to hear the pardon spoken, that Heaven offered to the penitent. I had been tangibly smitten; I longed to be tangibly healed.

Whatever shame and pain there was about laying bare my soul before another, I gladly embraced it, as one poor means at my command of showing to Him whom I had offended, that my repentance was actual, that I stopped at no humiliation.

It may very well be that these feelings would find no place in larger, grander, more self-reliant natures; that what healed my soul would only wound another. I am not prepared to think that one remedy is cure for all diseases, but I know what cured mine. I bless G.o.d for "the soothing hand that Love on Conscience laid." I mark that hour as the beginning of a fresh and favored life; the dawning of a hope that has not yet lost its power

"to tame The haughty brow, to curb the unchastened eye, And shape to deeds of good each wavering aim."

CHAPTER XX.

THE HOUR OF DAWN.

Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn, Not sunshine, to my night; A new, more spiritual thing, An advent of pure light.

All grief has its limits, all chastenings their pause; Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two laws.

The winter that followed seemed very long and uneventful. After Sister Madeline went away, my days settled themselves into the routine in which they continued to revolve for many months. I was as lonely as formerly, save for the companionship of well-chosen books, and for the direction of another mind, which I felt to be the truest support and guidance. I was taught to bend to my uncle's wishes, and to give up constant church-going, and visiting among the poor, which would have been such a resource and occupation to me. And so my life, outwardly, was very little changed from former years--years that I had found almost insupportable, without any sorrow; and yet, strange to say, I was not unhappy.

My hours were full of little duties, little rules. (I suppose my heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers. This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind. I was thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the instructions given me. Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard to flesh and blood as this. And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom of them all, as I have worked out the problem of my correction.

Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my strength.

I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed one in the house. There was something in the rage without that disturbed me; I wandered about the house, and found myself unable to settle to any task.

Some one to speak to! Oh, it was so dreary to be alone. I went into my uncle's room where there were many books. Among those that were there I found one in French, (I have no idea how it came there, I am sure my uncle had never read it.) I carelessly turned it over, and finally became absorbed in it. I came upon this pa.s.sage:

Quel plus noir abime d'angoisse y a-t-il an monde que le coeur d'un suicide? Quand le malheur d'un homme est du a quelque circonstance de sa vie, on pent esperer de l'en voir delivrer par un changement qui pent survenir dans sa position. Mais lorsque ce malheur a sa source en lui; quand c'est l'ame elle-meme qui est le tourment de l'ame; la vie elle-meme qui est le fardeau de la vie; que faire, que de reconnaitre en gemissant qu'il n'y a rien a faire--rien, selon le monde; et qu'un tel homme, plus a plaindre que ce prisonnier que l'histoire nous peint dans les angoisses de la faim, se repaissant de sa propre chair, est reduit a devorer la substance meme de son ame dans les horreurs de son desespoir. Et qu'imagine-t-il done pour echapper a lui-meme, comme a son plus cruel ennemi? Je ne dis pas: 'Ou ira-t-il loin de l'esprit de Dieu? ou fuira-t-il loin de sa face?' Je demande, ou ira-t-il loin de son propre esprit? ou fuira-t-il loin de sa propre face? Ou descendra-t-il qu'il ne s'y suive lui-meme; ou se cachera-t-il qu'il ne s'y trouve encore?

Insense, dont la folie egale la misere, quand tu te seras tue, on dira: 'Il est mort;' mais ce sont les autres qui le diront; ce ne sera pas toi-meme. Tu seras mort pour ton pays, mort pour ta ville, mort pour ta famille; mais pour toi-meme, pour ce qui pense en toi, helas! pour ce qui souffre en toi, tu vivras toujours.

Et comment ne sens-tu pas, que pour cesser d'etre malheureux, ce n'est pas ta place qu'il faut changer, c'est ton coeur.

Que tu disparaisses sous les flots, qu'un plomb meurtrier brise ta tete, ou qu'un poison subtil glace tes veines; quoi que tu fa.s.ses, et ou que tu ailles, tu n'y peux aller qu'avec toi-meme, qu'avec ton coeur, qu'avec ta misere! Que dis-je?

Tu y vas avec un compte de plus a rendre, a la rencontre du grand Dieu qui doit te juger; tu y vas avec l'eternite de plus pour souffrir, et le temps de moins pour te repentir!

A moins que tu ne penses peut-etre, parceque l'oeil de l'homme n'a rien vu au-dela de la tombe, que cette vie n'ait pas de suite. Mais non, tu ne saurais le croire! Quand tous les autres le penseraient, toi, tu ne le pourrais pas. Tu as une preuve d'immortalite qui t'appartient en propre. Cette tristesse qui te consume, est quelque chose de trop intime et de trop profond pour se dissoudre avec tes organes, et ce qui est capable de tant souffrir ne pent pas s'aller perdre dans la terre. Les vers heriteront de la poussiere de ton corps, mais l'amertume de ton ame, qui en heritera? Ces extases sublimes, ces tourments affreux; ces hauteurs des cieux, ces profondeurs des abimes; qu'y a-t-il d'a.s.sez grand ou d'a.s.sez abaisse, d'a.s.sez eleve ou d'a.s.sez avili pour les revetir en ta place? Non, tu ne saurais jamais croire que tout meurt avec le corps; ou si tu le pouvais tu n'en serais que plus insense, plus miserable encore.

It is proof how child-like I had been, how obedient in suppressing all forbidden thoughts, that these words smote me with such horror. I had indulged in no speculation; I had never thought of him as haunted by the self he fled; as still bound to an inexorable and inextinguishable life,

"With time and hope behind him cast, And all his work to do with palsied hands and cold."

The terrors I had had, had been vague. I had thought dimly of punishment, more keenly of separation. If I had a.n.a.lysed my thoughts, I suppose I should have found annihilation to have been my belief--death forever, loss eternal. But this--if this were truth--(and it smote me as the truth alone can smite), oh, it was maddening. To my knees! To my knees! Oh, that I might live long years to pray for him! Oh, that I might stretch out my hands to G.o.d for him, withered with age and shrunk with fasting, and strong but in faith and final perseverance! Oh, it could not be too late! What was prayer made for, but for a time like this? What was this little breath of time, compared with the Eternal Years, that we should only speak _now_ for each other to our merciful G.o.d, and never speak for each other afterward? Spirits are forever; and is prayer only for the days of the body?

It was well for me that none of the doubts that are so often expressed had found any lodgment in my brain; if I had not believed that I had a right to pray for him, and that my prayers might help him, I cannot understand how I could have lived through those nights and days of thought.

CHAPTER XXI.

APRSe PERDRE, PERD ON BIEN.

What to those who understand Are to-day's enjoyments narrow, Which to-morrow go again, Which are shared with evil men, And of which no man in his dying Taketh aught for softer lying?

It was now early spring: the days were lengthening and were growing soft. Lent (late that year) was nearly over. I had begun to think much about the summer, and to wonder if I were to pa.s.s it in the city. There was one thing that the winter had developed in me, and that was, a sort of affection for my uncle. I had learned that I owed him a duty, and had tried to find ways of fulfilling it; had taken a little interest in the house, and had tried to make him more comfortable. Also I had prayed very constantly for him, and perhaps there is no way more certain of establishing an affection, or at least a charity for another, than that.

In return, he had been a little more human to me than formerly, had shown some interest in my health, and continued appreciation of the fact that I was in the house. Once he had talked to me, for perhaps half an hour, about my mother, for which I was unspeakably grateful. Several times he had given me a good deal of money, which I had cared much less about. Latterly he had permitted me to go to church alone, which had seemed to me must be owing to Richard's intervention.

Richard had been almost as much as formerly at the house: my uncle was becoming more and more dependent on him. For myself, I did not see as much of him as the year before. We were always together at the table, of course. But the evenings that Richard was with my uncle, I thought it unnecessary for me to stay down-stairs. Besides, now, they almost always had writing or business affairs to occupy them.

It was natural that I should go away, and no one seemed to notice it.

Richard still brought me books, still arranged things for me with my uncle (as in the matter of going to church alone), but we had no more talks together by ourselves, and he never asked me to go anywhere with him. At Christmas he sent me beautiful flowers, and a picture for my room. Sophie I rarely saw, and only longed never to see Benny was permitted to come and spend a day with me, at great intervals, and I enjoyed him more than his mother or his uncle.

One day my uncle went down to his office in his usual health; at three o'clock he was brought home senseless, and only lived till midnight, dying without recovering speech or consciousness. It was a sudden seizure, but what everybody had expected; everybody was shocked for the moment, and then wondered that they were. It was very appalling to me; I was so unhappy, I almost believed I loved him, and I certainly mourned for him with simplicity and affection.

The preparations for the funeral were so frightful, and all the thoughts it brought so unnerving, that I was almost ill. A great deal came upon me, in trying to manage the wailing servants, and in helping Richard in arrangements.

It was the day after the funeral; I was tired, out, and had lain down on the sofa in the dining-room, partly because I hated to be alone up-stairs, and partly because it was not far from lunch-time, and I felt too weary to take any needless steps. I don't think ever in my life before I had lain down on that sofa, or had spent two hours except, at the table, in that room. It was a most cheerless room, and no one ever thought of sitting down in it, except at mealtime. I closed the shutters and darkened it to suit my eyes, which ached, and I think must have fallen asleep.

The parlor was the room which adjoined the dining-room (only two large rooms on one floor, as they used to build), and separated from it by heavy mahogany columns and sliding-doors. These doors were half-way open, and I was roused by voices in the parlor. As soon as I recovered myself from the sudden waking, I recognized Sophie's and then Richard's.

I wondered what Richard was doing up-town at that hour, and so Sophie did too, for she asked him very plainly.

"I thought I ought to come to see Pauline," she said, "but I did not suppose I should find you here in the middle of the day."

"There is something that I've got to see Pauline about at once," he said, "and so I was obliged to come up-town."

"Nothing has happened?" she said interrogatively.

"No," he answered, evasively.

But she went on: "I suppose it's something in relation to the will; I hope she's well provided for, poor thing."

"Sophie," said her brother, with a change of tone, "You'll have to hear it some time, and perhaps you may as well hear it now. It is that that I have come up-town about; there has been some strange mistake made; there is no will."

"No will!" echoed Sophie, "Why, you told me once--"

"That he had left her everything. So he told me twice last year; so I have always believed to be the case. Since the day he died, the most faithful search has been made; there is not a corner of his office, of his library, of his room, that I have not hunted through. He was so methodical in business matters, so exact in the care of his papers, that I had little hope, after I had gone through his desk. I cannot understand it. It is altogether dark to me."