GOSSAMER.
Chaos is come again.--Othello.
That sleep was not unto death. When James and Mary came simultaneously
creeping to the door in the grey twilight of the morning, they heard
that there had been less pain and more rest, and gradually throughout
the day, there was a diminution of the dangerous symptoms, till the
trembling hope revived that the patient might be given back again to
life.
James was still sadly aggrieved at being forbidden the sick-room, and
exceedingly envied Lord Ormersfield's seat there. He declared, so that
Mary doubted whether it were jest or earnest, that the Earl only
remained there because society expected it from their relative
positions, and that it must retard poor Fitzjocelyn's recovery to be
perpetually basilisked by those cold grey eyes. Mary stood up
gallantly for the Earl, who had always been so kind to her, and, on her
mother's authority, vouched for his strong though hidden, feelings; to
which Jem replied, 'Aye! he was hiding a strong fear of being too late
for the beginning of the Session.'
'I do not think it right to impute motives,' said Mary.
'I would not, Mary, if I could help it,' said James, 'but through the
whole course of my life I have never seen a token that his lordship is
worthy of his son. If he were an ordinary, practical, common-place
block, apt to support his dignity, he might value him, but all the
grace, peculiarity, and conventionality is a mere burthen and vexation,
utterly wasted.'
Mary knew that she was a common-place block, and did not wonder at
herself for not agreeing with James, but cherishing a strong conviction
that the father and son would now leave off rubbing against each other;
since no unprejudiced person could doubt of the strong affection of the
father, nor of the warm gratitude of the son. In spite of the asperity
with which James spoke of the Earl, she was beginning to like him
almost as much as she esteemed him. This had not been the case in
their childhood, when he used to be praised by the elders for his
obedience to his grandmother and his progress in the Northwold Grammar
School; but was terribly overbearing with his juniors, and whether he
cuffed Louis or led him into mischief, equally distressed her. Grown
up, he was peculiarly vif, quick and ready, unselfish in all his ways,
and warmly affectionate--very agreeable companion where his
sensitiveness was not wounded, and meriting high honour by his deeper
qualities. Young as he was, he had already relieved his grandmother
from his own maintenance: he had turned to the utmost account his
education at the endowed school at Northwold; by sheer diligence, had
obtained, first a scholarship and then a fellowship at Oxford; and now,
by practising rigid economy, and spending his vacations in tuition, he
was enabled to send his sister to a boarding-school. He had stolen a
few days from his pupils on hearing of Fitzjocelyn's danger, but was
forced to return as soon as the improvement became confirmed. On the
previous day, he asked Mary to walk with him to the scene of the
accident, and they discussed the cause with more coolness than they
really felt, as they shuddered at the depth of the fall, and the size
of the stones.
James declared it all the fault of that runaway scamp, young Madison,
in whom Louis had always been deceived, and who had never been seen
since the night of his apparition in the garden.
'Poor boy! I suppose that was the reason he ran away,' said Mary.
'A very good thing, too. He would never have been anything but a
torment to Louis. I remember telling him he was setting the stones so
as to break the neck of some one!'
'I think it would be of more use to build them up than to settle how
they broke down,' said Mary. 'Do you think we could manage it safely?'
'A capital thought!' cried James, eagerly, and no sooner said than
done. The two cousins set to work--procured some cement from the
bricklayer in the village, and toiled at their masonry with right
good-will as long as light and time served them, then made an
appointment to meet at half-past six next morning, and finish their
work.
When the rendezvous took place, they were rejoicing over Mrs. Frost's
report of an excellent night, and over her own happy looks, from which
James prognosticated that all her fatigue and watching had done no harm
to her vigorous frame, for which gladness was always the best cordial.
It was a joyous beginning on that spring morning, and seemed to add
fresh sparkles to the dazzling dewdrops, and double merriment to the
blackbirds and thrushes answering each other far and wide, around, as
the sun drew up the grey veil of morning mist. 'They all seem holding a
feast for his recovery!' exclaimed Mary, warming for once into poetry,
as she trudged along, leaving green footmarks in the silver dew.
'Well they may,' said James; 'for who loves them better than he? I
grudge myself this lovely morning, when he is lying there, and my poor
Clara is caged up at that place--the two who would the most enjoy it.'
'Your going to see her will be as good as the spring morning.'
'Poor child! I dread it!' sighed Jem.
It was his first voluntary mention of his sister. He had always turned
the conversation when Mrs. Ponsonby or Mary had tried to inquire for
her, and Mary was glad to lead him on to say more.
'I remember her last when you were teaching her to run alone, and
letting none of us touch her, because you said she was your child, and
belonged to no one else.'
'I should not be so ungrateful, now that I am come to the sense of my
responsibility in teaching her to go alone.'
'But she has Aunt Catherine,' said Mary, thinking that he was putting
the natural guardian out of the question as much now as in the days
referred to.
'My grandmother never had to do with any girl before, and does not
profess to understand them. She let Clara be regularly a boy in
school, at first learning the same lessons, and then teaching; and
whatever I tried to impress in the feminine line, naturally, all went
for nothing. She is as wild as a hare, and has not a particle of a
girl about her!'
'But she is very young.'
'There it is again! She grows so outrageously. She is not sixteen,
and there she is taller than granny already. It is getting quite
absurd.'
'What advice do you want on that head?'
'Seriously, it is a disadvantage, especially to that sort of girl, who
can't afford to look like a woman before her time. Well, as she must
probably depend on herself, I looked out for as good a school as could
be had for the means, and thought I had succeeded, and that she would
be brought into some sort of shape. Granny was ready to break her
heart, but thought it quite right.'
'Then, does it not answer?'
'That is just what I can't tell. You have been used to schools: I wish
you could tell me whether it is a necessary evil, or Clara's own
idiosyncrasy, or peculiar to the place.'
'Whether what is?'
'Her misery!'
'Misery! Why, there is nothing of that in her letters to my aunt.
There is not a complaint.'
'She is a brave girl, who spares granny, when she knows it would be of
no use to distress her. Judge now, there's the sort of letter that I
get from her.'
Mary read.
'DEAREST JEMMY,--Write to me as quick as ever you can, and tell me how
Louis is; and let me come home, or I shall run mad. It is no good
telling me to command my feelings; I am sure I would if I could, for
the girls are more detestable than ever; but what can one do when one
cannot sleep nor eat? All the screaming and crying has got into one
bump in my throat, because I can't get it out in peace. If I could
only shy the inkstand at the English teacher's head! or get one moment
alone and out of sight! Let me come home. I could at least run
messages; and it is of no use for me to stay here, for I can't learn,
and all the girls are looking at me. If they were but boys, they would
have sense! or if I could but kick them! This will make you angry, but
do forgive me; I can't help it, for I am so very unhappy. Louis is as
much to me as you are, and no one ever was so kind; but I know he will
get well--I know he will; only if I knew the pain was better, and could
but hear every minute. You need not come to fetch me; only send me a
telegraph, and one to Miss Brigham. I have money enough for a
second-class ticket, and would come that instant. If you saw the eyes
and heard the whispers of these girls, I am sure you would. I should
laugh at such nonsense any other time, but now I only ask to be
wretched quietly in a corner.
'Your affectionate, nearly crazy, sister,
'CLARA FROST DYNEVOR.'
Mary might well say that there was nothing more expedient than going to
see Clara, and 'much,' said poor James, 'he should gain by that,'
especially on the head that made him most uneasy, and on which he could
only hint lightly--namely, whether the girls were 'putting nonsense in
her head.'
'If they had done her any harm, she would never have written such a
letter,' said Mary.
'True,' said Jem. 'She is a mere child, and never got that notion into
her head for a moment; but if they put it in, we are done for! Or if
the place were ever so bad, I can't remove her now, when granny is thus
occupied. One reason why I made a point of her going to school was,
that I thought doing everything that Fitzjocelyn did was no preparation
for being a governess.'
'Oh! I hope it will not come to that! Mr. Oliver Dynevor talks of
coming home in a very few years.'
'So few, that we shall be grey before he comes. No; Clara and I are
not going to be bound to him for the wealth heaped up while my
grandmother was left in poverty. We mean to be independent.'
Mary was glad to revert to Clara.
'I must do the best I can for her for the present,' said Jem,--'try to
harden her against the girls, and leave her to bear it. Poor dear! it
makes one's heart ache! And to have done it oneself, too! Then, in the
holidays, perhaps, you will help me to judge. You will be her friend,
Mary; there's nothing she needs so much. I thought she would have
found one at school but they are not the right stamp of animal. She
has been too much thrown on Louis; and though he has made a noble thing
of her, that must come to an end, and the sooner the better.'
Certainly, it was a perplexity for a young elder brother; but there
could not but remain some simple wonder in Mary's mind whether the
obvious person, Mrs. Frost, had not better have been left to decide for
her granddaughter.
The building operations gave full occupation to the powers of the two
cousins, and in good time before breakfast, all was successfully
completed,--a hand-rail affixed, and the passage cleared out, till it
looked so creditable, as well as solid, that there was no more to wish
for but that Louis should be able to see their handiwork.
James went away in the better spirits for having been allowed to shake
Louis by the hand and exchange a few words with him. Mary augured that
it would be the better for Clara and for the pupils.
All that further transpired from him was a cheerful letter to Mrs.
Frost, speaking of Clara as perfectly well, and beginning to
accommodate herself to her situation, and from this Mary gathered that
he was better satisfied.
The days brought gradual improvement to the patient, under Mrs. Frost's
tender nursing, and his father's constant assiduity; both of which, as
he revived, seemed to afford him the greatest pleasure, and were
requited with the utmost warmth and caressing sweetness towards his
aunt, and towards his father with ever-fresh gratitude and delight.
Lord Ormersfield was like another man, in the sick-room, whence he
never willingly absented himself for an hour.
One day, however, when he was forced to go to Northwold on business,
Louis put on a fit of coaxing importunity. Nothing would serve him but
some of Jane Beckett's choice dried pears, in the corner of the oaken
cupboard, the key of which was in Aunt Kitty's pocket, and no one must
fetch them for him but Aunt Kitty herself, he was so absurdly earnest
and grave about them, that Jane scolded him, and Mrs. Frost saw
recovery in his arch eyes; understanding all the time that it was all
an excuse for complimenting Jane, and sending her to air herself, visit
the Faithfull sisters, and inspect the Lady of Eschalott. So she
consented to accompany Lord Ormersfield, and leave their charge to Mrs.
Ponsonby, who found Louis quite elated at the success of his
manoeuvre--so much disposed to talk, and so solicitous for the good of
his nurses, that she ventured on a bold stroke.
His chamber was nearly as much like a lumber-room as ever; for any
attempt to clear away or disturb his possessions had seemed, in his
half-conscious condition, to excite and tease him so much, that it had
been at once relinquished. Although the room was large, it was always
too much crowded with his goods; and the tables and chairs that had
been brought in during his illness, had added to the accumulation which
was the despair of Mrs. Beckett and Mr. Frampton. Mrs. Ponsonby thought
it was time for Louis to make a sacrifice in his turn, and ventured to
suggest that he was well enough to say where some of his things might
be bestowed; and though he winced, she persevered in representing how
unpleasant it must be to his father to live in the midst of so much
confusion. The debonnaire expression passed over his face, as he
glanced around, saying, 'You are right. I never reflected on the
stretch of kindness it must have been. It shall be done. If I lose
everything, it will not be soon that I find it out.'
It evidently cost him a good deal, and Mrs. Ponsonby proposed that Mary
should come and deal with his treasures; a plan at which he caught so
eagerly, that it was decided that no time was like the present, and
Mary was called. He could move nothing but his hands; but they were
eagerly held out in welcome: and his eyes glittered with the bright
smile that once she had feared never to see again. She felt a moisture
in her own which made her glad to turn aside to her task even while he
complimented her with an allusion to the labours of Hercules. It did
not seem uncalled-for, when she began by raising a huge sheet of paper
that had been thrown in desperation to veil the confusion upon the
table, and which proved to be the Ordnance map of the county,
embellished with numerous streaks of paint. 'The outlines of the old
Saxon wappentakes,' said Louis: 'I was trying to make them out in blue,
and the Roman roads in red. That mark is spontaneous; it has been
against some paint.'
Which paint was found in dried swamps in saucers, while cakes of lake
and Prussian blue adhered to the drawing-board.
'The colour-box is probably in the walnut-press; but I advise you not
to irritate that yet. Let me see that drawing, the design for the
cottages that Frampton nipped in the bud--'
'How pretty and comfortable they do look!' exclaimed Mary, pleased to
come to something that was within her sphere of comprehension. 'If they
were but finished!'
'Ah! I thought of them when I was lying there in the dell! Had they
been allowed to stand where I wanted them, there would have been no
lack of people going home from work; but, 'Quite impracticable' came in
my way, and I had no heart to finish the drawing.'
'What a pity!' exclaimed Mary.
'This was Richardson's veto, two degrees worse than Frampton's; and I
shall never be able to abuse Frampton again. I have seen him in his
true light now, and never was any one more kind and considerate. Ha,
Mary, what's that?'
'It looks like a rainbow in convulsions.'
'Now, Mary, did not I tell you that I could not laugh? It is a diagram
to illustrate the theory of light for Clara.'
'Does she understand _that_?' cried Mary.
'Clara? She understands anything but going to school--poor child! Yes,
burn that map of the strata,--not that--it is to be a painted window
whenever I can afford one, but I never could make money stay with me.
I never could think why--'
The _why_ was evident enough in the heterogeneous mass--crumpled
prints, blank drawing-paper, and maps heaped ruinously over and under
books, stuffed birds, geological specimens, dislocated microscopes,
pieces of Roman pavement, curiosities innumerable and indescribable;
among which roamed blotting-books, memorandum-books, four pieces of
Indian rubber, three pair of compasses, seven paper-knives, ten knives,
thirteen odd gloves, fifteen pencils, pens beyond reckoning, a purse, a
key, half a poem on the Siege of Granada, three parts of an essay upon
Spade Husbandry, the dramatis personae of a tragedy on Queen
Brunehault, scores of old letters, and the dust of three years and a
half.
Louis owned that the arrangements conduced to finding rather than
losing, and rejoiced at the disinterment of his long-lost treasures;
but either he grew weary, or the many fragments, the ghosts of departed
fancies, made him thoughtful; for he became silent, and only watched
and smiled as Mary quietly and noiselessly completed her reforms, and
arranged table and chairs for the comfort of his father and aunt. He
thanked her warmly, and hoped that she would pursue her kind task
another day,--a permission which she justly esteemed a great testimony
to her having avoided annoying him. It was a great amusement to him to
watch the surprised and pleased looks of his various nurses as each
came in, and a real gratification to see his father settle himself with
an air of comfort, observing that 'they were under great obligations to
Mary.' Still, the sight of the arrangements had left a dreary,
dissatisfied feeling with Louis: it might have been caught from Mary's
involuntary look of disappointment at each incomplete commencement that
she encountered,--the multitude of undertakings hastily begun, laid
aside and neglected--nothing properly carried out. It seemed a mere
waste of life, and dwelt on his spirits, with a weariness of himself
and his own want of steadfastness--a sense of having disappointed her
and disappointed himself, and he sighed so heavily several times, that
his aunt anxiously asked whether he were in pain. He was, however, so
much better, that no one was to sit up with him at night--only his
father would sleep on a bed on the floor. As he bade him good night,
Louis, for the first time, made the request that he might have his
Bible given to him, as well as his little book; and on his father
advising him not to attempt the effort of reading, he said, 'Thank you;
I think I can read my two verses: I want to take up my old habits.'
'Have you really kept up this habit constantly?' asked his father, with
wonder that Louis did not understand.
'Aunt Catharine taught it to us, he said. 'I neglected it one
half-year at school; but I grew so uncomfortable, that I began again.'
The Earl gave the little worn volume, saying, 'Yes, Louis, there has
been a thread running through your life.'
'Has there been one thread?' sadly mused Louis, as he found the weight
of the thick book too much for his weak hands, and his eyes and head
too dizzy and confused for more than one verse:--
'I am come that they might have life,
And that they might have it more abundantly.''
The Bible sank in his hands, and he fell into a slumber so sound and
refreshing, that when he opened his eyes in early morning, he did not
at first realize that he was not awakening to health and activity, nor
why he had an instinctive dread of moving. He turned his eyes towards
the window, uncurtained, so that he could see the breaking dawn. The
sky, deep blue above, faded and glowed towards the horizon into gold,
redder and more radiant below; and in the midst, fast becoming merged
in the increasing light, shone the planet Venus, in her pale, calm
brilliance.
There was repose and delight in dwelling on that fair morning sky, and
Louis lay dreamily gazing, while thoughts passed over his mind, more
defined and connected than pain and weakness had as yet permitted.
Since those hours in which he had roused his faculties to meet with
approaching death, he had been seldom awake to aught but the sensations
of the moment, and had only just become either strong enough, or
sufficiently at leisure for anything like reflection. As he watched
the eastern reddening, he could not but revert to the feelings with
which he had believed himself at the gate of the City that needs
neither sun nor moon to lighten it, and, for the first time, he
consciously realized that he was restored to this world of life.
The sensation was not unmixed. His youthful spirit bounded at the
prospect of returning vigour, his warm heart clung round those whom he
loved, and the perception of his numerous faults made him grateful for
a longer probation; but still he had a sense of having been at the
borders of the glorious Land, and thence turned back to a tedious,
doubtful pilgrimage.
There was much to occasion this state of mind. His life had been
without great troubles, but with many mortifications; he had never been
long satisfied with himself or his pursuits, his ardour had only been
the prelude to vexation and self-abasement, and in his station in the
world there was little incentive to exertion. He had a strong sense of
responsibility, with a temperament made up of tenderness, refinement,
and inertness, such as shrank from the career set before him. He had
seen just enough of political life to destroy any romance of
patriotism, and to make him regard it as little more than party spirit,
and dread the hardening and deadening process on the mind. He had a
dismal experience of his own philanthropy; and he had a conscience that
would not sit down satisfied with selfish ease, pleasure, or
intellectual pursuits. His smooth, bright, loving temper had made him
happy; but the past was all melancholy, neglect, and futile enterprise;
he had no attaching home--no future visions; and, on the outskirts of
manhood, he shrank back from the turmoil, the temptations, and the
roughness that awaited him--nay, from the mere effort of perseverance,
and could almost have sighed to think how nearly the death-pang had
been over, and the home of Love, Life, and Light had been won for
ever:--
'I am come that they might have life,
And that they might have it more abundantly.'
The words returned on him, and with them what his father had said, 'You
have had a thread running through your life.' He was in a state
between sleeping and waking, when the confines of reflection and
dreaming came very near together, and when vague impressions, hardly
noticed at the time they were made, began to tell on him without his
own conscious volition. It was to him as if from that brightening
eastern heaven, multitudes of threads of light were floating hither and
thither, as he had often watched the gossamer undulating in the
sunshine. Some were firm, purely white, and glistening here and there
with rainbow tints as they tended straight upwards, shining more and
more into the perfect day; but for the most part they were tangled
together in inextricable confusion, intermingled with many a broken
end, like fleeces of cobweb driven together by the autumn wind,--some
sailing aimlessly, or with shattered tangled strands-some white, some
dark, some anchored to mere leaves or sprays, some tending down to the
abyss, but all in such a perplexed maze that the eye could seldom trace
which were directed up, which downwards, which were of pure texture,
which defiled and stained.
In the abortive, unsatisfactory attempt to follow out one fluctuating
clue, not without whiteness, and heaving often upwards, but frail,
wavering, ravelled, and tangled, so that scarcely could he find one
line that held together, Louis awoke to find his father wondering that
he could sleep with the sun shining full on his face.
'It was hardly quite a dream,' said Louis, as he related it to Mrs.
Frost.
'It would make a very pretty allegory.'
'It is too real for that just now,' he said. 'It was the moral of all
my broken strands that Mary held up to me yesterday.'
'I hope you are going to do more than point your moral, my dear. You
always were good at that.'
'I mean it,' said Louis, earnestly. 'I do not believe such an
illness--ay, or such a dream--can come for nothing.'
So back went his thoughts to the flaws in his own course; and chiefly
he bewailed his want of sympathy for his father. Material obedience
and submission had been yielded, but, having little cause to believe
himself beloved, his heart had never been called into action so as to
soften the clashings of two essentially dissimilar characters. Instead
of rebelling, or even of murmuring, he had hid disappointment in
indifference, taken refuge in levity and versatility, and even consoled
himself by sporting with what he regarded as prejudice or unjust
displeasure. All this cost him much regret and self-reproach at each
proof of the affection so long veiled by reserve. Never would he have
given pain, had he guessed that his father could feel; but he had grown
up to imagine the whole man made up of politics and conventionalities,
and his new discoveries gave him at least as much contrition as
pleasure.
After long study of the debates, that morning, his father prepared to
write. Louis asked for the paper, saying his senses would just serve
for the advertisements, but presently he made an exclamation of
surprise at beholding, in full progress, the measure which had brought
Sir Miles Oakstead to Ormersfield, one of peculiar interest to the
Earl. His blank look of wonder amused Mrs. Ponsonby, but seemed
somewhat to hurt his father.
'You did not suppose I could attend to such matters now?' he said.
'But I am so much better!'
Fearing that the habit of reserve would check any exchange of feeling,
Mrs. Ponsonby said, 'Did you fancy your father could not think of you
except upon compulsion?'
'I beg your pardon, father,' said Louis, smiling, while a tear rose to
his eyes, 'I little thought I was obstructing the business of the
nation. What will Sir Miles do to me?'
'Sir Miles has written a most kind and gratifying letter,' said Lord
Ormersfield, 'expressing great anxiety for you, and a high opinion of
your powers.'
Louis had never heard of his own powers, except for mischief, and the
colour returned to his cheeks, as he listened to the kind and cordial
letter, written in the first shock of the tidings of the accident. He
enjoyed the pleasure it gave his father far more than the commendation
to himself; for he well knew, as he said, that 'there is something
embellishing in a catastrophe,' and he supposed 'that had driven out
the rose-coloured pastor.'
'There is always indulgence at your age,' said the Earl. 'You have
created an impression which may be of great importance to you
by-and-by.'
Louis recurred to politics. The measure was one which approved itself
to his mind, and he showed all the interest which was usually stifled,
by such subjects being forced on him. He was distressed at detaining
his father when his presence might be essential to the success of his
party, and the Earl could not bear to leave him while still confined to
his bed. The little scene, so calm, and apparently so cold, seemed to
cement the attachment of father and son, by convincing Louis of the
full extent of his father's love; and his enthusiasm began to invest
the Earl's grey head with a perfect halo of wisdom slighted and
affection injured; and the tenor of his thread of life shone out bright
and silvery before him, spun out of projects of devoting heart and soul
to his father's happiness, and meriting his fondness.
The grave Earl was looking through a magnifying-glass no less powerful.
He had not been so happy since his marriage; the consciousness of his
own cold manner made him grateful for any demonstration from his son,
and the many little graces of look and manner which Louis had inherited
from his mother added to the charm. The sense of previous injustice
enhanced all his good qualities, and it was easy to believe him
perfect, while nothing was required of him but to lie still. Day and
night did Lord Ormersfield wait upon him, grudging every moment spent
away from him, and trying to forestall each wish, till he became almost
afraid to express a desire, on account of the trouble it would cause.
Mary found the Earl one day wandering among the vines in the old
hothouse, in search of a flower, when, to her amusement, he selected a
stiff pert double hyacinth, the special aversion of his son, who
nevertheless received it most graciously, and would fain have concealed
the headache caused by the scent, until Mrs. Frost privately abstracted
it. Another day, he went, unasked, to hasten the birdstuffer in
finishing the rose-coloured pastor; and when it came, himself brought
it up-stairs, unpacked it, and set it up where Louis could best admire
its black nodding crest and pink wings; unaware that to his son it
seemed a memento of his own misdeeds--a perpetual lesson against
wayward carelessness.
'It is like a new love,' said Mrs. Ponsonby; 'but oh! how much depends
upon Louis after his recovery!'
'You don't mistrust his goodness now, mamma!'
'I could not bear to do so. I believe I was thinking of his father
more than of himself. After having been so much struck by his
religious feeling, I dread nothing so much as his father finding him
deficient in manliness or strength of character.'