“I’m no saying if I’m well or ill,” said Lauderdale; “I’m saying it’s
grand for you to leave your friends in a suffering condition, and go off
and make up to other folk. It’s well to be off with the old love--for my
own part, however,” said Colin’s Mentor, “I’m no for having a great deal
to do with women. They’re awfu’ doubtful creatures, you may take my word
for it; some seem about as good as the angels--no that I have any
personal acquaintance with the angels, but it’s aye an intelligible
metaphor--some just as far on the other side. Besides, it’s a poor thing
for a man to fritter away what little capability of a true feeling there
may be in him. I’ve no fancy for the kind of friendships that are
carried on after the manner of flirtations. For my part, I’m a believer
in _love_,” said the philosopher, with a sudden fervour of reproof which
brought an unusual amount of colour to his face.
“You are absurd all the same,” said Colin, laughing; “here is no
question either of love, or flirtation, or even of friendship. I know
what you mean,” he added with a slightly heightened colour; “you think
that, having once imagined I admired Miss Frankland, I ought to have
continued in the same mind all my life. You don’t appreciate my good
sense, Lauderdale; but, at all events, the young lady has nothing to do
with my interest here.”
“I was saying nothing about Miss Frankland,” said Lauderdale; “I was
making a confession of faith on my own part, which has naething to do
with you that I can see. As for the young leddy, as you say, if it
doesna begin with her, it’s a’ the more likely to end with her,
according to my experience. To be sure, there’s no great amount of time;
but a boat like this is provocative of intimacy. You’re aye in the
second cabin, which is a kind of safeguard; but, as for your good
sense--”
“Don’t associate that poor fellow’s name with anything ridiculous,” said
Colin, “but come up on deck, like a reasonable man, and judge for
yourself.”
“Ay, ay,” said Lauderdale, slowly; “I understand the kind of thing. I’ve
seen it many a day myself. Partly youthfulness, that thinks the thing
that is happening to itself more important than anything else in the
world; partly a kind of self-regard; partly a wish to take compensation
out of the world for what has to be given up. I’m no saying but there’s
something better at the bottom, but it’s awfu’ hard to separate the
physical and the spiritual. I wouldna say but even you, your own
self--but it took a different form with you,” said Lauderdale, stopping
short abruptly. Looking at Colin, and seeing that still there was not
much bloom on his worn cheeks, it occurred to his careful guardian that
it might be as well not to recall the distempered thoughts of the
sick-room at Wodensbourne to his patient’s mind too soon.
“I suppose you are right,” said Colin; “it took a different form with
me. A more undutiful, unbelieving form; for Meredith makes no question
what it means, as I used to do.”
“I’m no so clear of that,” said Lauderdale. “It’s seldom unbelief that
asks a reason. I would not say, now I’m on my feet, but what there may
be a place known among men by the name of Italy. Come, callant, and let
me see if the skies are aught like what they are at hame.”
Everything was changed when Colin and his friend stood again on deck.
The calm weather had restored to life the crowd of sea-sick passengers
who, like Lauderdale, had, up to this moment, kept themselves and their
miseries under cover below. The universal scepticism and doubt of ever
being better had given way to a cheerful confidence. Everybody
believed--happy in his delusion--that for himself he had mastered the
demon, and would be sea-sick no more. Among so many, it was not so easy
to distinguish Meredith as Colin had expected; and he had time to
discuss several matters with Lauderdale, showing a certain acrid feeling
on his side of the question which surprised his interlocutor, before his
new friends appeared. Colin had taken his second-class berth gladly
enough, without thinking of any drawback; but, when he saw the limit
clearly before his eyes, and perceived within reach, and indeed within
hearing, the little “society” which he was not able to join, the fact of
this momentary inferiority chafed him a little. Like most other people,
he had a dislike to the second place--not that he cared about society,
as he took pains to convince himself. But the truth was, that Colin did
care for society, and, though too proud to confess such a thought, even
to himself, secretly longed to join those new groups which were
gradually growing into acquaintance before his eyes.
When he saw the two figures approaching which had attracted him so
strongly on the previous night, his heart gave a little jump, though his
eyes were fixed in another direction. They were not only two curious
human creatures whom it was hard to comprehend, but, at the same time,
they represented the world to Colin, who was at this present moment shut
out from intercourse with everybody but Lauderdale, whose manner of
musing he knew by heart. He did not look round, but he heard the
footsteps approaching, and would have been equally disappointed and
irritated had they turned back. This danger, however, speedily
terminated. Meredith came up hastily, drawing along with him, as usual,
the sister who had not any being except in him, and laid his thin hand
on Colin’s shoulder. The sunshine and the brightened skies did not
change the strain of the young preacher’s thoughts. He laid his hand on
Colin, pressing the young man’s shoulder with an emphatic touch. “We
meet again in the land of living men, in the place of hope,” he said,
turning his sister with him as he turned. She clung to him so closely
that they moved like one, without any apparent volition on her part; and
even Colin’s salutation seemed to disturb her, as if it had been
something unnecessary and unexpected. Her little hurried bow, her lips
that just parted in an anxious momentary smile, had a certain surprise
in them; and there was even a little impatience, as if she had said,
“Answer _him_; why should you mind me?” in the turn of her head.
“Yes, we meet on a bright morning, which looks like life and hope,” said
Colin; “and everybody seems disposed to enjoy it; even my friend here,
who has been helpless since we started, has come to life at last.”
Thus directed, Meredith’s eager eyes turned to Lauderdale, upon whom
they paused with their usual solemn inquiring look. “I hope he has come
to life in a higher sense,” said the sick man, who thought it his duty
to speak in season and out of season; “but for that true life, existence
is only the payment of a terrible penalty. I hope, like you, he has
thought on the great subject.”
When he stopped short, and looked straight in Lauderdale’s face, there
was a wonderful silence over the little group. The dying prophet said
nothing more, but looked down, awful and abstracted, from the heights of
death on which he was standing, to receive an answer, which Lauderdale
was too much taken by surprise, and Colin too much alarmed for the
result of the inquiry, to give at once.
“I’ve thought on an awfu’ quantity of subjects,” said Lauderdale, after
a moment; “a hundred or two more than can have gone through your mind at
your age; and I’m no averse to unfolding my experiences, as this callant
will tell you,” he added, with a smile, which, however, was lost upon
his questioner.
“Your experiences!” said Meredith. He put his thin arm eagerly, before
any one was aware what he intended to do, through Lauderdale’s arm. “I
frighten and horrify many,” said the invalid, not without a gleam of
satisfaction; “but there are so few, so miserably few, with whom it is
possible to have true communion. Let me share your experiences--there
must be instruction in them.”
The philosopher, thus seized, made a comical grimace, unseen by anybody
but Colin; but the sick man was far too much in earnest to observe any
reluctance on the part of his new acquaintance, and Lauderdale submitted
to be swept on in the strange wind of haste and anxiety and eagerness
which surrounded the dying youth, to whom a world lying in wickedness,
and “I, I alone” left to maintain the knowledge of God among men, was
the one great truth. There was not much room to move about upon the
deck; and, as Meredith turned and went on, with his arm in Lauderdale’s,
his sister, who was sharply turned round also by his movement, found it
hard enough to maintain her position by his side. Though he was more
attached to her than to any other living creature, it was not his habit,
as it might have been in happier circumstances, to care for her comfort,
or to concern himself about her personal convenience. He swept her along
with him over the hampered deck, through passages which were barely wide
enough for two, but through which she crushed herself as long as
possible, catching her dress on all the corners, and losing her breath
in the effort. As for Colin, he found himself left behind with a
half-amazed, half-mortified sensation.
Not his the form, not his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly;
and though he was not truly open to Lauderdale’s jibe concerning
flirtations, the very name of that agreeable but dangerous amusement had
roused him into making the discovery that Meredith’s sister was very
pretty, and that there was something extremely interesting in the rapt
devotion to her brother, which at first had prevented him from observing
her. It seemed only natural that, when the sick man seized upon
Lauderdale, the young lady should have fallen to Colin’s share; and he
kept standing where they had left him, as has been described, half
amused and half mortified, thinking to himself that, after all, he was
not an ogre, nor a person whom ladies in general are apt to avoid.
After poor little Alice had hurt herself and torn her dress in two or
three rapid turns through the limited space, she gave up her brother’s
arm with a pained, surprised look, which went to Colin’s heart, and
withdrew to the nearest bench, gathering up her torn dress in her hand,
and still keeping her eyes upon him. What good she thought she could do
by her watching it was difficult to tell, but it evidently was the
entire occupation and object of her life. She scarcely turned her eyes
upon Colin when he approached; and, as the eyes were like a
fawn’s--brown, wistful, and appealing (whereas Miss Matty’s were blue,
and addicted to laughter)--it is not to be wondered at that Colin, in
whom his youth was dimly reawaking, with all its happier
susceptibilities, should feel a little pique at her neglect. The shadow
of death had floated away from the young man’s horizon. He believed
himself, whether truly or not, to have come to a new beginning of life.
He had been dead and was alive again; and the solemn interval of
suffering, during which he questioned earth and heaven, had made the
rebound all the sweeter, and restored with a freshness almost more
delightful than the first, the dews and blossoms to the new world. Thus
he approached Alice Meredith, who had no attention to spare to him--not
with any idea that he had fallen in love with her, or that love was
likely, but only with that vague sense that Paradise still exists
somewhere, not entirely out of reach, and that the sweet Eve, who alone
can reveal it, might meet him unawares at any turn of his path--which is
one of the sweetest privileges of youth. But he did not know what to say
to the other youthful creature, who ought to have been as conscious of
such possibilities as he. No thought was in _her_ mind that she ever
could be the Eve of any paradise; and the world to her was a confused
and darkling universe, in which death lay lurking somewhere, she could
not tell how close at hand--death, not for herself, which could be
borne, but for one far dearer than herself. The more she felt the
nearness of this adversary, the more she contradicted herself and would
not believe it; and so darkness spread all round the beginning path of
the poor girl, who was not much more than a child. She would not have
understood the meaning of any pretty speeches had Colin been so far left
to himself as to think of making them. As it was, she looked up at him
wistfully as he sat down beside her. She thought in her mind that he
would be a good friend for Arthur, and might cheer him; which was the
chief thing she cared for in this world.
“Has your brother been long ill?” said Colin. It seemed the only subject
on which the two could speak.
“Ill?” said Alice; “he is not very ill--he takes a great deal of
exercise. You must have observed that; and his appetite is very good.”
The question roused her to contradict her own fears, and doing so out
loud to another was more effectual somehow than anything she could say
to herself. “The storm which made everybody else so ill had no effect
upon Arthur,” she went on, almost with a little irritation. “He is thin
to be sure, but then many people are thin who are quite well; and I am
sure you do not look very strong yourself.”
“No,” said Colin, who possessed the instinct rare among men of divining
what his companion wished him to say; “my people had given me up a few
weeks ago. I gave myself a poke somewhere in the lungs which very nearly
made an end of me; but I mean to get better if I can,” he said, with a
smile, which for the moment brought a doubtful look upon the girl’s
face.
“You don’t think it wrong to talk like that,” she said; “that was what
made me wish so much you should come to see Arthur. Perhaps if he were
more cheerful it would do him good. Not that he is very ill, you know,
but still--we are going to Italy,” she went on with a little abruptness,
“to a place near Rome--not to Rome itself, because I am a little afraid
of that--but into the country. Are you going there?”
“I suppose so,” said Colin; “it is the most interesting place in the
world. Do you not think so? But everything will be new to me.”
“If you were to come where we are going,” said his companion with a
composure which was wonderful to Colin, “you would find it cheaper, and
you could see things almost as easily, and it would not be so hot when
summer comes. I think it would do Arthur a great deal of good. It is so
hard to know what to do with a man,” she went on, unconsciously yielding
to that inexpressible influence of a sympathetic listener which few
people can resist; “they cannot occupy themselves, you know, as we women
can, and they get tired of _our_ society. I have so longed to find some
man who would understand him, and whom he could talk to,” cried the
poor girl, with tears in her eyes. She made a pause when she had said so
much--not that it occurred to her that any one could misunderstand her,
but because the tears were getting into her voice, which was a weakness
not to be yielded to. “I don’t know why I should cry,” she added a
minute after, with a faint smile; “it is talking about Italy I suppose;
but you will like it when you get there.”
“Yet you do not seem to like it,” said Colin, with a little curiosity.
This time she made him no direct answer. Her eyes were following her
brother and Lauderdale as they walked about the deck. “Is _he_ nice?”
she asked, with a little timidity, pointing at Lauderdale, and giving
another hasty wistful look at Colin’s face.
“I don’t know if you would think so,” said Colin; “he is very Scotch,
and a little odd sometimes; but kinder and better, and more truly a
friend than words can describe. He is tender and true,” said the young
man, with a little enthusiasm which woke up the palest ghost of an
answering light in his young companion’s face.
“Being Scotch is a recommendation to me,” she said; “the only person I
ever loved, except Arthur, of course,--and those who are gone--was
Scotch.” After this quaint intimation, which woke in Colin’s mind an
incipient spark of the earliest stage of jealousy--not jealousy proper,
but only a lively and contemptuous curiosity to know “who the fellow
was”--she dropped back again into her habitual silence. When Colin tried
to bring her back by ordinary remarks about the voyage and their
destination, she answered him simply by “Yes,” or “No.” She was of one
idea, incapable apparently of exerting her mind on any other subject.
When they had been thus sitting silent for some time, she began again
abruptly at the point where she had left off.
“If you were to come to the same place,” she said--“Arthur can speak
Italian very well, and I know it a little--we might be able to help you,
and you would have very good air--pure air off the sea. If he had
society he would soon be better.” This was said softly to herself; and
then she went on, drawn farther and farther by the sympathy which she
felt in her listener. “There are only us two in the world.”
“If I can do anything,” said Colin, “as long as we are here at least;
but there is no lack of society,” he said, pointing to the groups on
the quarter-deck, at which Alice Meredith shook her head.
“He frightens them,” she said; “they prefer to go out of his way; they
don’t want to answer his questions. I don’t know why he does it. When he
was young he was fond of society, and went out a great deal, but he has
changed so much of late,” said the anxious sister, with a certain look
of doubt and wonder on her face. She was not quite sure whether the
change was an improvement. “I don’t understand it very well myself,” she
went on, with a sigh; “perhaps I have not thought enough about it. And
then he does not mind what I say to him--men never do; I suppose it is
natural. But, if he had society, and you would talk and keep him from
writing--”
“Does he write?” said Colin, with new interest. It was a bond of
sympathy he had not expected to hear of; and here again the tears, in
spite of all her exertions, got into Alice’s voice.
“At night, when he ought to be sleeping,” said the poor girl. “I don’t
mean to say he is very ill; but, oh! Mr. Campbell, is it not enough to
make any man ill to sit up when he is so tired he cannot keep awake,
writing that dreadful book? He is going to call it “A Voice from the
Grave.” I sometimes think he wants to break my heart; for what has the
grave to do with it? He is rather delicate, but so are you. Most people
are delicate,” said poor Alice, “when they sit up at night, and don’t
take care of themselves. If you could only get him to give up that book,
I would bless you all my life.”
Such an appeal from sweet lips quivering with suppressed anguish, from
beautiful eyes full of heavy tears, was not likely to be without effect;
and, when Colin went to his own cabin in the evening, hearing but
imperfectly the criticisms of Lauderdale on his new friend and his
affairs, he was more and more impressed by the conviction that something
must come of an encounter so singular and unexpected. The young man
immediately set himself to wind new threads of fate about his feet, and
while he was doing so, thought with a little thrill of the wonderful way
in which things came about, and the possible purposes of Providence in
this new change. It roused and excited him to see the new scenery coming
into its place, and the ground preparing for another act of his life.