‘BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.’
The days wore on very slowly for Naomi in her father’s absence.
Her heart was weighed down with anxiety on his account; but he had
told her not to follow him, and, anxious though she was, she obeyed
implicitly. A great burden had been taken from her mind by Joshua’s
confession. Bitter as it was to know that her lover had fallen by
her father’s hand, that the bright young life had been snapped short
off, like a blossom from its stalk, in a burst of sinful passion,
yet there was all the difference in the world between a fair fight
and a dastardly assassination; and she was able now to think of her
father as of other duellists she had heard and read about, red-handed
sinners all, but not beyond the reach of human pity.
She was reconciled even to the idea of her father’s prolonged
absence, of a separation which might extend over years. It would
be better, happier for him to go out into untrodden fields, and do
difficult work, for his Master’s sake. This pious labour would be his
penance: in heathen lands he would find cities of atonement, from
whose gates he might come forth loosed from the burden and stigma of
his crime. She had longed herself to go into strange lands and teach
heathen children the Gospel. What more natural than that her father,
with his consciousness of a terrible sin to be expiated, should
desire to brave dangers and endure hardships and trials in the great
cause?
‘Let him come back to me ten years hence, old and bent and gray,’
said Naomi, ‘and I will praise God for His bounteous mercies. I will
say that our lives have been full of blessings even after all our
sorrows.’
This was her prayer--that he might go forth as a messenger of the
Gospel, and do his work of expiation, and come back to her purified
and happy. It was the old heroic Greek idea of atonement, only in a
Christian and better form.
A letter had come from Penmoyle for Joshua, and was laid aside,
unopened, awaiting tidings from him. No one supposed that the letter
was of any particular importance. What they all waited for anxiously
was a letter from Joshua himself.
It was Thursday, and Oswald Pentreath had been lying in the family
vault for many days and nights. It seemed a natural thing already
to think of him resting there with his ancestors, and it was almost
possible to forget that he had lain for nearly a year in the darkness
of the deserted mine, none knowing his fate. Strange how soon poor
human nature resigns itself to the inevitable. Arnold bore the
annihilation of all his hopes about his brother better than he could
have supposed it possible to bear so heavy a blow. That agonising
grief which he had felt when he supposed Oswald the victim of a
treacherous assassin was lessened by Joshua’s confession. At least he
had fallen face to face with death. The murderer had not crept behind
him with uplifted knife, coming upon his victim in a ghostly silence.
It had been a hard fate and a cruel one, but not so bad as this.
And poor Naomi, the innocent sufferer from her lover’s inconstancy
and her father’s sin--could he ever be sorry enough for her? could
he ever be sufficiently kind, or gentle, or thoughtful for her dear
sake? Consideration for her pleaded eloquently against his desire for
revenge. Joshua must go unscathed, so far as human vengeance went,
and take his punishment from God. This was the result of many a weary
hour of thought that followed upon Arnold’s interview with Naomi.
Thursday morning brought another letter from Penmoyle, in the same
handwriting as the last, but directed to Judith instead of to Joshua.
Miss Haggard broke the seal with a slight tremor, while Naomi waited
full of anxiety. Why had her father not written?
‘Chestnut Cottage, Penmoyle,
Cornwall, June 26th.
‘Dear Miss Haggard,--I hope you will pardon the above
familiarity, but although we have not had the pleasure of
meeting, you can be no stranger to one who loves and reveres your
brother as I do.
‘I deeply regret to inform you that Mr. Haggard now lies in a
sadly precarious state. Indeed our doctor and another gentleman,
summoned at his advice from Penzance, entertain little hope of
his recovery. The shock caused by his wife’s death, which took
place prior to his arrival, caused an apoplectic stroke. He
recovered consciousness after several hours, but has never been
quite right in his mind since the seizure.
‘Feeling assured that you and the rest of his family would desire
to be with him at such a time, I hasten to communicate the sad
state of affairs, and beg you to make whatever use you please of
our small abode. It is entirely at your disposal, and my elder
sister and self will consider it a privilege to do all in our
power to ameliorate your sorrow by such attentions as sympathetic
hearts can offer. Our poor Cynthia’s funeral takes place to-day.
It is perhaps a blessing that in your suffering brother’s state
of mind he is scarcely conscious of passing events.
‘Awaiting your speedy arrival, I remain, dear Miss Haggard, your
obedient servant,
‘PRISCILLA WEBLING.’
Before she had read half this letter, Judith Haggard gave a shriek
of horrified surprise, and her niece looked over her shoulder and
read it with her. The two women stood side by side, devouring the
lines with white agonised faces, each in her own way feeling that
this sorrow was the deathblow to all hope. James was in the shop,
busy, happy, ignorant of this evil. He was whistling the last popular
melody as he went about his work. How awful it seemed to hear him!
Naomi’s grief found no outlet in tears or sobs or passionate speech.
She stood with the letter in her hand, her lips trembling.
‘The coach, aunt, the coach!’ she gasped. ‘Is it too late?’
‘Gone half an hour, child; we must have a post-shay. Jim!’
The shrill voice rang through house and shop, and Jim appeared with a
scared face at the parlour-door.
‘What’s the matter, aunt?’
‘Your father’s dying, and we’re going to him. Get us a post-shay.’
Jim looked from one to the other in awful wonder. Naomi tried to
speak, and, failing, gave him Priscilla’s letter.
‘What!’ he cried, hurriedly reading, ‘the poor little stepmother dead
and buried! Has the world come to an end?’
‘You unfeeling boy!’ exclaimed Judith. ‘To think of anybody else when
your father’s in such a state!’
‘Father will come round again, please God; but poor little
Cynthia--buried yesterday--so young and pretty! Isn’t it dreadful?’
‘Go for a chaise, Jim, for pity’s sake,’ cried Naomi. ‘Father may die
while you stand wondering there. O, let me go to him, let me go! let
me keep him back from death!’
James ran across to the First and Last, the only place in Combhaven
where post-horses were to be had. There was a burst of sympathy from
the stout landlord when he heard Jim’s news. The chaise should be
ready in ten minutes--the best horses in his stable.
It was half an hour before the chaise was at the door, despite the
landlord’s promises. Naomi and her aunt had put on their bonnets
and packed a few necessaries in a carpet-bag, and had been waiting
in the parlour ever so long, as it seemed to them, before an ancient
yellow-bodied chariot, like that which had brought Joshua’s young
bride to Combhaven, pulled up before the garden-gate.
‘You’ll stay at home and mind the business till I can come back,
Jim,’ said Judith.
‘I’d rather go to poor father; but perhaps it’s best so,’ answered
Jim. ‘But if he should be very bad, if there’s no chance of his
getting over it, you’ll send for me, aunt. I should like to see him
before--’
A sob strangled the young man’s speech, and he went back to the
house, leaving them to get into the carriage unassisted. Some one
was at Naomi’s side before she could mount the steps. It was Captain
Pentreath, breathless with running.
‘Naomi, I have just heard of your sorrow,’ he said gently. ‘One of
our men told me as I came across the meadow. Dear sister, let me go
with you. Let me go with you, Miss Haggard,’ he added pleadingly to
Judith. ‘I should like to go--to be of service to you, if I can--to
ask your brother’s pardon for my violence the other night.’
‘You’d need be sorry for that, I think,’ answered Judith. ‘What’s
the good of your coming? He’ll want to see his blood-relations, poor
dear--that’s natural; but it can’t give him much pleasure to see you.’
‘I may be of use to you on the journey. Let me come, Miss Haggard.
Two unprotected women, anxious, agitated as you are, ought not to
undertake such a journey. These post-boys are such ruffians. I shall
be able to prevent loss of time, to insure you civil treatment.’
Judith relented a little. Post-boys were an exacting and difficult
race--greedy of gain, capable of abandoning their helpless fare
upon a lonesome highway, or of colleaguing with highwaymen for
a defenceless traveller’s spoliation. Perhaps Judith, though
strong-minded enough at home, where every one trembled at her
voice, felt that she should be a weak vessel abroad. She had never
travelled farther than Barnstaple in her life; and to go up alone
into the wilds of bleak and barren Cornwall--the very stronghold of
witchcraft--a place where half the people were savage miners, and the
other half wreckers and smugglers; and to be benighted, perhaps, on a
moor where the Druids sacrificed human beings before the days of King
Arthur!
These terrors were too much for Judith. The proffered escort of
a courageous young man, open-handed and ready to make use of his
purse for the gratification of post-boys, was not to be despised. He
had brought a false charge against Joshua in an hour of temporary
madness; but he had repented, and this act of to-day was a confession
of his past folly. All Combhaven would know of it, and see how
baseless he now felt his idea of Joshua’s guilt to have been. Judith
gave way, but maintained her dignity even in the moment of concession.
‘It matters very little to me whether you come or stay,’ she said.
‘My mind’s too full of my poor brother to care about anything else.
But Naomi may be glad of your company on the dark roads--girls are so
timid.’
‘Indeed, aunt, I am not frightened,’ exclaimed Naomi.
‘I am coming with you,’ said Arnold decisively.
There was a seat at the back of the vehicle, a kind of rumble, and
into this he mounted, after despatching a small boy to the Grange
with a message for Nicholas the butler, who was to send his master’s
valise on to Truro by the evening coach. Arnold would not ask so
much as five minutes’ delay, lest Judith should change her mind and
decline his company. So the post-boy smacked his whip, and the chaise
went rattling through the long village street, to the delight of
the inhabitants, who flocked out of their dwellings to witness the
unwonted spectacle.
A long journey at any time; a weary one for aching hearts. Naomi
looked out of the carriage-window with dull eyes that roamed over
hill and valley, wood and winding stream, and saw no comfort
anywhere. Was the journey never to be over? she wondered, as the
slow hours rolled on; was there never to be an end of those green
hedgerows, and tangled honeysuckles, and clambering dog-roses,
and dusty wayside ferns, and sudden hollows, and jutting walls of
hill?--these perpetual hills, at the foot of which the travellers
descended, to walk in mournful silence to the top, where all the
glory of the valley below could not move Naomi’s cold lips to a smile
of gladness.
Arnold made no attempt at consolation. He entreated his companions
to hope for the best, and after that made no further allusion to
their grief. He talked to them very little, only showing himself
anxious for their comfort and repose. He saved them all trouble about
post-boys, or any of the details of their journey. They had nothing
to do but be patient, and wait till darkness came, and the end. Even
to eyes accustomed to the rustic seclusion of Combhaven, Penmoyle
looked a curious out-of-the-world place as the post-chaise drove into
the wide village street after sunset on that June evening. Lights
twinkled feebly in two or three casements, wide apart and rare, as if
the majority had gone to roost at curfew. There was one light much
brighter than the rest, which seemed to Naomi to shine like a star.
Some instinct of her heart told her that it was the candle in her
father’s sick-room.
‘There,’ she cried, putting her head out of the window, and calling
to the post-boy; ‘stop there.’
But Arnold had made his inquiries at the beginning of the village,
and the boy was already pulling up his horses. That lighted casement
belonged to Chestnut Cottage. The approach of the carriage had been
heard within, and Deborah’s stiff curls were waving at the door, as
she came out to receive her guests.
‘O dear Miss Haggard; O dear Miss Naomi,’ she gasped; ‘thank God you
are come!’
‘Not too late!’ cried Naomi, going into the house; ‘not too late!’
‘No, dear young lady, praised be Heaven! He has asked for you so
often.’
‘Take me to him, please--at once.’
‘But you ought to be prepared for the change--’
‘God will give me strength when his dear head is on my breast.
Father, I am coming,’ she cried, as if her voice would carry strength
and new life to the sick man.
She went up-stairs as quickly as if she had known the corkscrew
staircase all her life. The door of her father’s room was open;
the window opened wide to the summer night. The old-fashioned tent
bedstead, with its dimity festooning and netted fringe, faced the
door.
Who was it lying there, still as a stone figure, with a white strange
face, and dark cavernous eyes--a face Naomi had never seen before?
For a moment her heart failed, and she shrank away a step or two, as
from something more awful than death. Was this her father?
Yes, the hollow eyes lighted up at sight of her, the livid lips moved
tremulously, and then murmured, ‘Naomi!’
In the next instant she was on her knees beside his bed, clasping
the heavy hands, crying over him, kissing him with those passionate
despairing kisses life gives to death.
‘Dearest, I have come to nurse you, to bring you back to life. God
will help me. I have been praying for you all through our long
journey. Father, you will get well for my sake.’
‘I am dying, Naomi. The doctor and my old friend Martin have both
told me so. Do not cry, dear; I am suffering so little. The passage
is made very easy for me. And I have an infinite inextinguishable
faith in my Redeemer’s love. I go to Him without fear. He has loosed
me from the burden of my sin. Yes, Naomi, it is no idle boast. I feel
and know that I am forgiven. My punishment has been awarded here. My
broken heart has reconciled me with my God.’
‘You shall not die!’ said Naomi. ‘God cannot be so cruel as to part
us now, when there is no cloud between us any more, when I can love
you and honour you as I did in my childhood. Father, you will live
for my sake.’
‘No, dear, I have done with earthly life. God sent His stroke in
mercy when I came into this house and found my darling dead. O
Naomi, my latter days have been full of sin. I have been the slave
of passion. And yet I might have been so happy. I can see her
still--sitting in the sunshine--hair like spun gold--so helpless and
lovely, so ignorant of good and evil--like Eve when God gave her to
Adam.’
His mind wandered a little after this. All through the night he lay
in the same attitude, a corpse-like figure, a soul hovering between
life and death. Naomi never stirred from her seat beside his pillow,
save to kneel and pray. Judith and Priscilla sat a little way aloof,
watching the two, only coming nearer at intervals to moisten the sick
man’s lips with a feather dipped in brandy.
About an hour after daybreak Arnold, who had spent the night in the
parlour below, came slowly up the stair, and stood on the threshold.
Joshua had been lying for a long time with his eyes closed, breathing
heavily, and his watchers had supposed him sleeping; but at the sound
of Arnold’s cautious footfall he opened his eyes, and those restless
hands of his fastened with a nervous grasp upon the coverlet.
‘Is that Captain Pentreath?’ he asked his daughter.
‘Yes, dear father.’
‘Let the others go away,’ looking dimly round at the two women; ‘I
want to be alone with you and him.’
Priscilla and Judith left the room, full of wonder.
‘You got my letter?’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr. Haggard; and I am here to ask your forgiveness for the
accusation I brought against you. When I found my poor brother in his
secret grave I believed him the victim of a murderer. I am willing
now to believe that he was the victim of his own folly, and that he
willingly staked his life against yours.’
Joshua was silent. Some kind of struggle--whether bodily or mental
those who watched him could not tell--was racking him. His nether lip
worked convulsively; the veins stood up darkly purple from the broad
strong brow.
‘My letter told the truth,’ he said after that painful pause, ‘but
not all the truth. I am going to face an offended God--going to Him
confident in His illimitable mercy. Naomi, do not hate me when I
am dead;’ his hands wandered helplessly for a little, and then he
clasped them round her neck, and let his head fall on her shoulder;
‘do not hate me, dear. Your lover was murdered. He was generous, and
I was a dastard. We stood up, face to face, each with a pistol in
his hand. I was to count three, he told me, and then take aim. But
as I lifted my hand to aim at his heart I saw his arm flung up, his
pistol pointed to the sky. It was but an instant, fleeter than a
breath, before I fired straight at his breast. It was thirty years
since I had pulled a trigger--not since I was an idle lad, and went
rabbit-shooting with my father’s old blunderbuss. Yet my aim was
deadly. The bullet pierced his heart. He had fired in the air. I had
just time enough to see and understand what he was doing before I
killed him. This was the crime that weighed upon my soul and dragged
me down to the pit. O God, I can see him now, with his face lifted
up, the sun shining on it, his arm raised to fire in the air. It was
but a flash, scarce time for thought, but when it was over I knew
myself a murderer. O God, only an instant between everlasting glory
and eternal condemnation, unless Thine infinite sacrifice can blot
out mine iniquity.’
There was silence. Naomi’s face was buried in the coverlet. Arnold
walked across to the open window, and stood there looking out at the
gray morning sky, deeply thoughtful.
‘My God, my sin is heavy,’ ejaculated Joshua after an interval;
‘Thou only knowest my temptation. I, who had preached against
duelling, became a duellist; I, who had taught men brotherly love,
stained my hands with my brother’s blood. Only in illimitable mercy
can I find hope; and who shall tell the sinner his case is hopeless
when God has given the promise of forgiveness?’
He lay for a long time after this in a state that was almost
unconsciousness. The doctor came and felt his pulse, and told
them that he was slowly sinking. It was only the vigour of his
constitution which had held out so long against death. The
nobly-built frame had wrestled involuntarily with man’s last enemy,
while the spirit yearned to pass the mystic river, and rest in the
fair land beyond.
That day wore on, and the night which followed it, and another
long summer day, which seemed to Naomi different even in the
colour of its sky from every other day in her life. The sunshine
climbed the whitewashed wall, and touched with brighter gold the
tarnished gilding of the old oval picture-frames, and glorified the
old cups and saucers and quaint little pottery jars on the narrow
chimneypiece; and still Joshua lay, awfully motionless, with his
dull eyes turned to the light.
It was sunset when the dreaded change came. They were all on their
knees praying silently when Joshua lifted himself up in the bed, and
stretched out his arms towards that fading glory in the western sky.
‘Cynthia--chosen--beloved,’ he cried; ‘innocent as a little
child--ignorant of evil! Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’
And so, with a long-drawn shivering sigh, he fell back upon the
pillow; and, as the sun went down behind a dark range of moorland,
this little lamp of light went out with it, no less secure of
resurrection.
EPILOGUE.
Joshua Haggard has been lying in his quiet grave among the Cornish
hills just three years. It is midsummer time again, and the long
straggling village of Combhaven is looking its gayest, beautified by
Nature, and not by art. There is an unaccustomed life and stir in
the place--people dressed in their best clothes, new bonnet-ribbons
as rife as butterflies, every one upon the tiptoe of expectancy--and
Naomi Haggard standing by the open parlour-window, very pale, in a
gray Quaker-like silk--almost as pretty a gown as that wedding-dress
she gave away four years ago; but it was not her father’s hand this
time which tested the quality of the silk, or her father’s blessing
which made the gift sweet.
Naomi has been an independent young woman for the last three years;
for Joshua Haggard’s will, made immediately after Oswald’s dismissal,
left his only daughter the five thousand pounds which had been
intended as her marriage portion. She has suffered her aunt’s
domestic tyranny none the less meekly because of this independence.
She has lived her quiet life in the old familiar home, so desolate
without her father, and has taught her classes in the Sunday-school,
and helped the new minister by many a quiet service, and held her
place in the hearts of the Dissenters of Combhaven, who still honour
Joshua’s memory as that of a great and good man. This is Naomi’s
consolation. No shame or dishonour has ever been attached to her
father’s name in the public mind. The secret of Oswald’s fate is
known to none living save Arnold and herself.
To-day is a great day for Naomi--the happiest she has known since
her father’s death; for the memorial chapel--the new Bethel which
she has built with a portion of her inheritance--is to be opened
to-day. A fair lofty building of gray stone--a little too much like a
corn-exchange on a small scale for the improved taste of this latter
part of the century, but in those days a temple of exceeding beauty.
There are four long straight windows on each side, an oak pulpit and
reading-desk, a commodious gallery, and a Doric portico; and in the
eyes of Combhaven the edifice is second only to Exeter Cathedral and
Barnstaple Market.
To Naomi’s mind the fairest thing in the brand-new chapel is a brazen
tablet in front of the gallery bearing this brief inscription:
‘This Chapel was erected in affectionate remembrance of Joshua
Haggard, Minister.’
* * * * *
Naomi leaves the chapel after the opening service leaning on Arnold
Pentreath’s arm, tearful, but not altogether unhappy. Friends gather
round her, and congratulate her, and are warm in their praises of
the new Bethel; but it is to be noticed that there is an unwonted
reverence in the tone of these old acquaintances, and that Mrs.
Spradgers, notorious for extravagance in millinery, drops a low
curtsy to Miss Haggard, instead of extending her pudgy hand in its
black-lace glove.
Standing on the threshold of the new chapel, Naomi stands also on
the threshold of a new life. Her lover--faithful and unchanging
through his three years’ apprenticeship--is by her side, and
to-morrow is to be their wedding-day.
THE END.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
within the three volumes of this work and consultation of external
sources. Some hyphens in words have been silently removed and
some silently added when a predominant preference was found in
the original work. Except for those changes noted below, original
spellings in the text and inconsistent or archaic usage have been
retained.
Page 168: “ound out this” replaced by “found out this”.
Page 199: “brother’s murdar” replaced by “brother’s murder”.
Page 215: “with a a strange” replaced by “with a strange”.
Page 219: “last twelvemonths” replaced by “last twelvemonth”.
Page 233: “protrated thoughtlessness” replaced by “protracted
thoughtlessness”.
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.