The fatigue of sight-seeing, wound up by a frantic rush to the railway
to be in time for the train, which after all was a train quite at
leisure, as most passengers are in Italy, was too much for the early
budding of Colin’s strength, and laid him up for a day or two, as was
only natural; an occurrence which had a curious effect upon the little
household. To Lauderdale it was a temporary return into those mists of
despair which, partly produced by the philosopher’s own sad experience,
had made him at first come to so abrupt a conclusion touching Colin’s
chances of life. When he saw him once more prostrated, Lauderdale’s
patience and courage alike gave way. He became like a man in a sinking
ship, who has not composure to await the end which is naturally at hand,
but flings himself into the sea to meet it. He talked wildly of going
home, and bitterly of the utter privation of comfort to which his
invalid was exposed; and his heart was closed for the moment even to the
approaches of Alice. “If it hadna been for you!” he said within his
clenched teeth, turning away from her; and was not safe to speak to for
the moment. But, oddly enough, the effect of Colin’s illness upon the
others was of an entirely different character. Instead of distressing
Meredith and his sister, it produced, by some wonderful subtle action
which we do not pretend to explain, an exhilarating effect upon them. It
seemed to prove somehow, to Alice especially, that illness was a general
evil distributed over all the world; that it was a usual thing for young
men to be reduced to weakness and obliged to be careful of themselves.
“Mr. Campbell, you see, is just the same as Arthur. It is a great deal
commoner than one thinks,” the poor little girl said to Sora Antonia,
who had charge of the house; and though her feelings towards Colin were
of the most benevolent and even affectionate description, this thought
was a sensible consolation to her. Meredith regarded the matter from a
different point of view. “I have always hoped that he was one of the
chosen,” the invalid said when he heard of Colin’s illness; “but I
feared that God was leaving him alone. We always judge His ways
prematurely even when we least intend it. We ought to thank God that our
dear friend is feeling His hand, and is subject to chastisements which
may lead him to Christ.”
“Callant,” said Lauderdale fiercely, “speak of things ye understand;
it’s not for you to interfere between a man and his Maker. A soul more
like Him of whom you dare to speak never came out of the Almighty’s
hands. Do you think God is like a restless woman and never can be done
meddling?” said Colin’s guardian, betrayed out of his usual
self-restraint; but his own heart was trembling for his charge, and he
had not composure enough to watch over his words. As for the sick man,
whose own malady went steadily on without any great pauses or sudden
increase, he lifted his dying eyes and addressed himself eagerly, as he
was wont, to his usual argument.
“If any man can understand it, I should,” said Meredith. “Cannot I trace
the way by which He has led _me_?--a hard way to flesh and blood. Cannot
I see how He has driven me from one stronghold after another, leaving me
no refuge but in Christ? And, such being the case, can you wonder that I
should wish the same discipline for my friend? The only thing I should
fear for myself is restoration to health; and are you surprised that I
should fear it for him?”
“I am not surprised at anything but my ain idiocy in having my hand in
the matter,” said Lauderdale; and he went away abruptly to Colin’s room
with a horrible sense of calamity and helplessness. There was something
in Meredith’s confident explanation of God’s dealings which drove him
half frantic, and filled him with an unreasonable panic. Perhaps it was
true; perhaps those lightnings in the clouds had been but momentary--a
false hope. When, however, with his agitation so painfully compressed
and kept under that it produced a morose expression upon his grave face,
he went into Colin’s room, he found his patient sitting up in bed, with
his great-coat over his shoulders, writing with a pencil on the fly-leaf
of the book which his faithful attendant had given him to “keep him
quiet.”
“Never mind,” said the disorderly invalid. “I am all right, Lauderdale.
Give us pen and ink, like a kind soul. You don’t imagine I am ill,
surely, because I am lazy after last night?”
“I’ve given up imagining anything on the subject,” said Colin’s grim
guardian. “When a man in his senses sets up house with a parcel of
lunatics it’s easy to divine what will come of it, lie down in your bed
and keep quiet, and get well again; or else get up,” said Lauderdale,
giving vent to a sharp acrid sound as if he had gnashed his teeth, “and
let us be done with it all, and go home.”
At this Colin opened his great brown eyes, which were as far from being
anxious or depressed as could well be conceived, and laughed softly in
his companion’s face.
“This comes of Meredith’s talk, I suppose,” he said; “and of course it
has been about me, or it would not have riled you. How often have you
told me that you understood the state of mind which produced all that?
He is very good at the bottom, Lauderdale,” said Colin. “There’s a good
fellow, give me my little writing-case. I want to write it out.”
“You want to write what out?” asked Lauderdale. “Some of your nonsense
verses? I’ll give you no writing-case. Lie down in your bed and keep
yourself warm.” “You’re awfu’ fond of looking at your ain productions.
I’ve no doubt its terrible rubbish if a man could read it. Let’s see the
thing. Do you think a parcel of verses in that halting _In Memoriam_
metre--I’m no saying anything against _In Memoriam_--but if _I_ set up
for a poet, I would make a measure for mysel’--are worth an illness?
and the cold of this wretched place is enough to kill ony rational man.
Eetaly! I wouldna send a dog here, to be perished with cold and hunger.
Do what I tell you, callant, and lie down. It shows an awfu’ poverty of
invention, that desire to copy everything out.”
“Stuff!” said Colin; “you don’t suppose it is for myself. I want to give
it to somebody,” said the young man with a conscious smile. And to look
at him with his countenance all a-glow, pleasure and fun and affection
brightening his eyes, and his face lighted up with the gentle commotion
of thought which had ended in that writing of verses, it was hard to
think of him as a man whom God for a solemn purpose had weighted with
affliction--as he had appeared in Meredith’s eyes. Rather he looked,
what he was, one of God’s most joyful and gifted creatures; glad without
knowing why; glad because the sweet imaginations of youth had possession
of him, and filled heaven and earth with brave apparitions. Love and
anxiety had introduced into the heart of Lauderdale, so far as Colin was
concerned, a certain feminine element--and he laughed unsteadily out of
a poignant thrill of relief and consolation, as he took the book from
his patient’s hands.
“He’s no a callant that can do without an audience,” said Lauderdale;
“and, seeing it’s poetry that’s in question, no doubt it’s a female
audience that’s contemplated. You may spare yourself the trouble, Colin.
She’s bonnie, and she’s good; and I’m no free to say that I don’t like
her all the better for caring for none of these things; but I see no
token that she’ll ever get beyond Watts’s hymns all her days. You needna
trouble your head about writing out things for her.”
Upon which Colin reddened a little, and said “Stuff!” and made a long
grasp at the writing-case--which exertion cost him a fit of coughing.
Lauderdale sat by his side gloomily enough all day, asking himself
whether the colour was hectic that brightened Colin’s cheeks, and
listening to the sound of his breathing and the ring of his voice with
indescribable pangs of anxiety. When evening came the watcher had
considerably more fever than the patient, and turned his eyes abroad
over the Campagna, with a gaze which saw nothing glorious in the scene.
At that moment, the sun going down in grandeur over the misty distance,
which was Rome--the wonderful belts and zones of colour in the vault of
sky which covered in that melancholy waste with its specks of ruin--were
nothing in Lauderdale’s eyes in comparison with the vision that haunted
him of a cosy homely room in a Scotch farmhouse, full of warm glimmers
of fire light and humble comforts. “He would mend if he were but at
home,” he said to himself almost with bitterness, turning his eyes from
the landscape without, to which he was indifferent, to the bare white
stony walls within. He was so cold sitting there, he who was well and
strong, that he had put on his great-coat. And it was for this he had
brought the youth whom he loved so far away from those “who belonged to
him!” Lauderdale thought with a pang of the Mistress, and what she would
say if she could see the comfortless place to which she had sent her
boy. Meanwhile the patient who caused so much anxiety, was, for his own
part, very comfortable, and copied out his verses with a care that made
it very apparent he had no intention of coming to a speedy end, either
of life or its enjoyments. He had not written anything for a long time,
and the exercise was pleasant to him--and when it was done he lay back
on his pillows, and took the trouble to remark to Lauderdale upon the
decorations of the poor bare stony chamber which the philosopher was
cursing in his heart.--“We are before them in some things,” said Colin,
reflectively, “but they beat us in a great many. See how simply that
effect is obtained--just a line or two of colour, and yet nothing could
be more perfect in its way.” To which observation Lauderdale responded
only by an indescribable growl, which provoked the laughter of his
unruly patient. The next remark Colin made was, however, received with
greater favour, for he asked plaintively if it was not time for
dinner--a question more soothing to Lauderdale’s feelings than volumes
of remonstrances. He carried Colin’s portion into the room when that
meal arrived from the Trattoria, scorning female assistance, and
arranging everything with that exquisite uncouth tenderness which,
perhaps, only a woman could do full justice to; for the fact is, that
Colin, though ravenously hungry, and fully disposed to approve of the
repast, had a momentary thought that it would have been ever so much
pleasanter to have been served by the little housekeeper herself.
When the darkness had hushed and covered up the Campagna, and stilled
all the village sounds, Lauderdale himself, a little flushed from an
address he had just been delivering to Meredith, went in and looked at
the sleeping face which was so precious to him, and tortured himself
once more with questions whether it might be fever which gave colour to
the young man’s cheek. But Colin, notwithstanding his cold, was
breathing full long breaths, with life in every inspiration, and his
friend went not uncomforted to bed.
But while Colin lay thus at rest, Meredith had resumed his writing, and
was working into his current chapter the conversation which had just
taken place. “The worldly man asks if the afflictions of the just are
signs of favouritism on God’s part,” wrote the young author, “and
appeals to us whether a happy man is less beloved of his Father than I
am who suffer. He virtually contradicts scripture, and tells me that the
Lord does _not_ scourge every son whom He receiveth. But I say, and the
Holy Bible says with me, Tremble, oh ye who are happy--our troubles are
God’s tokens of love and mercy to our souls.” As he wrote this, the
young eyes, which were so soon to close upon life, brightened and
expanded with a wonderful glow. His mind was not broad nor catholic, nor
capable of perceiving the manifold diversity of those ways of God which
are beyond the comprehension of men. He could not understand how, upon
the last and lightest labourer, the Master of the vineyard might bestow
the equal hire; and--taking that as the hardest labour which fell to his
own share--was bent at least on making up for it by the most supreme
compensation. And, indeed, it was hard to blame him for claiming, by way
of balance to his afflictions, a warmer and closer share in the love of
God. At least, that was no vulgar recompense. As for the “worldly man”
of Arthur’s paragraph, he, too, sat a long while in his chamber, not
writing, but pondering--gazing into the flame of the tall Roman lamp on
his table as if some solution of the mysteries in his thoughts was to be
found in its smoky light. To identify Lauderdale in the character of a
worldly man would have been difficult enough to any one who knew him;
yet, to Meredith, he had afforded a perfect example of “carnal
reasoning,” and the disposition which is according to the flesh, and not
according to the Spirit. This worldly-minded individual sat staring into
the lamp, even after his young critic had ceased to write--revolving
things that he could see were about to happen, and things which he
dreaded without being able to see; and more than all wondering over that
awful mystery of Providence to which the young invalid gave so easy a
solution. “It wouldna be so hard to make out if a man could think he was
less loved than his fellows, as they thought lang-syne,” said Lauderdale
to himself, “or more loved, as, twisting certain scriptures, it’s the
fashion to say now; but its awfu’ ill to understand such dealings in Him
that is the Father of all, and makes nae favourites. Poor Callant! it’s
like he’ll be the first to find the secret out.” And, as he pondered, he
could not restrain a groan over the impending fate which threatened
Meredith, and on the complications that were soon to follow. To be sure,
he had nothing particular to do with it, however it might happen; but
every kind of Christian tenderness and charity lurked in the heart of
the homely Scotch philosopher who stood in Arthur Meredith’s last
chapter as the impersonation of the worldly man.
Next day Colin reappeared, to the astonishment of the brother and
sister. Let us not say, to their disappointment--and yet poor little
Alice, underneath her congratulations, said to herself with a pang, “He
has got well--they all get well but Arthur;” and, when she was aware of
the thought, hated herself, and wondered wistfully whether it was
because of her wickedness that her prayers for Arthur were not heard.
Anxiety and even grief are not the improving influences they are
sometimes thought to be--and it is hard upon human nature to be really
thankful for the benefits which God gives to others, passing over one’s
self. Meredith, who was the sufferer in his own person, could afford to
be more generous. He said, “I am glad you are better” with all his
heart; and then he added--“The Lord does not mean to leave you alone,
Campbell. Though He has spared you, He still continues His warnings. Do
not neglect them, I beseech you, my dear friend”--before he returned to
his writing. He was occupied now day and night with his “Voice from the
Grave.” He was less able to walk, less able to talk, than he had been,
and now, as the night came fast in which no man can work, was devoting
all his time and all his feeble strength to this last message to the
world.
It would have been pitiful enough to any indifferent spectator to note
the contrast between the sick man’s solemn labour apart, and the glow of
subdued pleasure in Colin’s face as he drew his seat in the evening
towards the table which Alice had chosen for herself. The great bare
room had so much space and so many tables, and there was so large a
stock of lamps among the movables of the house, that each of the party
had a corner for himself, to which (with his great-coat on or otherwise)
he could retire when he chose. The table of Alice was the central point;
and as she sat with the tall antique lamp throwing its primitive
unshaded light upon her, still and graceful with her needlework, the
sight of her was like that of a supreme _objet de luxe_ in the otherwise
bare apartment. Perhaps, under due protection and control, the presence
of womankind, thus calm, thus silent--letting itself, as the old maxim
commanded, be seen and not heard--is to men of sober mind and middle
age--such as Lauderdale, for example--the most agreeable ornament with
which a room could be provided. Younger individuals might prefer that
the tableau should dissolve, and the impersonation of womankind melt
into an ordinary woman. Such at least was the feeling of Colin. She was
very sweet to look at; but, if she had descended from her pedestal, and
talked a little and laughed a little, and even perhaps--but the idea of
anything like flirtation on the part of Alice Meredith was too absurd an
idea to be entertained for a moment. However, abstracted and preoccupied
as she was; she was still a woman young and fair--and Colin’s voice
softened and his eyes brightened as he drew his chair to the other side
of the lamp, and looked across the table at her soft, downcast face. “I
have something here I want you to look at,” said the young poet, who had
been used to Matty Frankland’s sympathy and curiosity; “not that it is
much worth your while; but Lauderdale told you that writing verses was a
weakness of mine,” he went on, with, a youthful blush and smile. As for
Alice, she took the paper he gave her, looking a little frightened, and
held it for a moment in her hand.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Campbell; am I to read it?” she said, with puzzled,
uncertain looks. Naturally enough she was perplexed and even frightened
by such an address; for, as Lauderdale said, her knowledge of poetry was
confined to hymns, over which hung an awful shadow from the “Paradise
Lost.” She opened Colin’s “copy of verses” timorously as she spoke, and
glanced at them, and stumbled at his handwriting, which, like most other
people’s in these, scribbling days, was careless and indistinct. “I am
sure it is very pretty,” faltered Alice as she got to the end of the
page; and then, more timidly still, “What am I to do with it, Mr.
Campbell?” asked the poor girl. When she saw the sudden flush that
covered his face, Alice’s slumbering faculties were wakened up by the
sharp shock of having given pain--which was a fault which she had very
seldom consciously committed in the course of her innocent life.
Colin was too much a gentleman to lose his temper; but it is impossible
to deny that the effort which he made to keep it was a violent one, and
required all his manhood. “Keep it if you like it,” he said, with a
smile which thinly covered his mortification; “or put it in the fire if
you don’t.” He said this as philosophically as was possible under the
circumstances. And then he tried a little conversation by way of proving
his perfect composure and command of his feelings, during which poor
Alice sat fluttered and uncomfortable and self-conscious as she had
never been before. Her work was at an end for that night at least. She
held Colin’s little poem in her hand, and kept her eyes upon it, and
tried with all her might to invent something gracious and complimentary
which could be said without offence; for, of course, carefully as he
imagined himself to have concealed it, and utterly unconscious of the
fact as Lauderdale remained, who was watching them, Alice was as
entirely aware of the state of Colin’s mind and temper at the moment as
he was himself. After a while he got up and went to Meredith’s table by
the fire; and the two began to talk, as Alice imagined, of matters much
too serious and momentous to leave either at leisure to remark her
movements. When she saw them thus occupied she left the room almost
stealthily, carrying with her the tall lamp with its four tongues of
flame. She set down her light in her own room when she reached that
sanctuary, and once more read and pored over Colin’s poem. There was
nothing about love in it, and consequently nothing improper or alarming
to Alice. It was all about the Pantheon and its vespers, and the echoes
in the dome. But then why did he give it to her? why did he look so much
disturbed when she in her surprise and unreadiness hesitated over it?
Such an offering was totally new to Alice: how could she be expected to
understand exactly how it ought to be received? But it is impossible to
describe how vexed and mortified she was to find she had failed of what
was expected of her, and inflicted pain when she might have given
pleasure. She had been rude, and to be rude was criminal in her code of
manners; and a flutter of other questions, other curiosities, awoke
without any will of her own in the young creature’s maiden bosom; for,
indeed, she was still very young, not nineteen, and so preoccupied by
one class of thoughts that her mind had been absolutely barred against
all others until now.
The end was that Alice put away Colin’s poem in the private pocket of
her writing-case, the very innermost of her sanctuaries. “How clever he
is,” she thought to herself; “how odd that such things should come into
any one’s head; and to think I had not even the civility to say that it
was beautiful poetry!” Then she went back very humbly into the
sitting-room, and served Colin with the last cup of tea, which was the
most excellent. “For I know you like strong tea, Mr. Campbell,” she
said, looking at him with appealing eyes. “It feels quite strange to
think that we should know you so well--you who can write such beautiful
poetry,”[1] she managed to say later in the evening. “I have always
supposed a poet so different.”
“With wings, perhaps?” said Colin, who was not displeased even with this
simple testimony.
“Oh no,” said Alice, “that is impossible, you know--but certainly very
different; and it was so very kind to think of giving it to me.”
Thus she made her peace with the young man--but it is doubtful how far
she promoted her own by so doing. It introduced a new element of wonder
and curiosity, if nothing more, into her watching life.