"The very gentlest of all human natures
He joined to courage strong,
And love outreaching unto all God's creatures,
With sturdy hate of wrong."
WHITTIER.
Evening was closing in, and filling the little room where I lay with
fitful shadows, which the tiny blaze of fire in the grate was
incompetent to dispel. If it had been possible for me to be more
miserable than I had been all day, I should indeed have "loathed the
hour" when gloom and darkness so palpably and hopelessly descend, but
the climax of misery and self-reproach had been reached by daylight, and
outward dreariness could only increase, in a very slight degree, the
inward gloom. The faults I had been guilty of, and the errors into which
I had led, or allowed Kitty to go, seemed to me, and justly, the first
steps in a most dangerous path. I fully realized the sins, and their
effect upon my conscience, apart from their consequences and punishment.
These last, I was aware, were hard enough. I knew I had done what must
lower me in Mr. Rutledge's esteem; to be the accomplice in a deception,
however slight, was to sink just that much in his regard, whose rigid
truthfulness and honor were offended by the least prevarication. I knew
I had given Mrs. Roberts grounds for all her former distrust and
aversion, and placed myself lower than she could have estimated me.
Above all, poor Kitty was the victim on whom it fell hardest, and how
much of the blame of not checking her or guiding her right lay on my
shoulders, I dared not think. I was really attached to the brave,
quick-witted girl, and remembered, with humiliation, how ignorant and
untaught she was, and how naturally and unavoidably her faults were the
results of her unguided impetuosity, while mine were committed in the
light of an instructed conscience and educated intellect.
But with me to suffer pain, was to seek some cure for it. My repentances
were not often fruitless; I could no more have lain there, and endured
that self-reproach, without resolving on some way to allay it, than I
could have submitted to a dagger in my breast without attempting to draw
it out. The only remedy I could see, was painful enough, but there was
no help for it.
"Mrs. Arnold," I implored, "do put down your work, and come and sit by
me; I want to ask you something."
Mrs. Arnold left her seat by the window, and laying down the knitting
that her rapid fingers plied alike through daylight and darkness, came
to my bedside and sat down. She saw I was excited and feverish, and in
her gentle way strove to soothe and amuse me. She talked of a great many
things about the parish that she thought might interest me--of the
school children, and the Christmas festivities that were preparing, and
in some way Rutledge was spoken of, and its dullness and gloominess.
"But I don't think it's gloomy in the least," I said; "I think it's the
most beautiful place I ever was in in my life. Don't you think it's
delightful?"
"I used to think so," she said, sadly.
"Have you been there lately?" I demanded.
"Never since I left it first," she answered, musingly.
"Then you lived there once?"
She assented half unconsciously.
"What were you?" I asked, very suddenly; "were you housekeeper?"
"No, I was governess, Miss," she answered; then started, as if she had
said more than she had intended, and hastily turned the conversation to
something else. But I could not so quickly turn my thoughts. This woman,
then, who tended me, with sad, soft eyes and voice, had been the
governess and companion of Alice--had known from the beginning the storm
that had burst over Rutledge, and was herself, perhaps, involved in this
dark story of the past, that was meeting me at every turn. The miniature
would have startled her, perhaps, if she could have seen it. What if
she, in reality, had it now, and hers was the cold hand upon my breast
that had seized it? But no; Kitty was sure it was not. And then my
thoughts reverted to my own remorse and trouble that had only been
momentarily lulled by Mrs. Arnold's conversation. There was a pause just
then, and raising myself on my elbow, I said, looking intently at my
companion:
"Mrs. Arnold, did you ever confess a sin to Mr. Shenstone, and ask
counsel of him when you were very miserable?"
At my words, Mrs. Arnold gave a start; but recovering herself, she said,
in a voice somewhat agitated:
"Why do you ask me such a question?"
"Because," I said, too much absorbed in my own trouble to heed her
agitation, "because I am very miserable, and don't know exactly what to
do; I am sure he is the only one who can help me, and I must tell him
before I sleep to-night, if only I can get the courage! Oh, Mrs. Arnold!
tell me, is he very severe? Or will he be kind--and would you dare, if
you were me?"
"I cannot tell what trouble you have on your mind, but I can answer for
it, if human help can lighten it, Mr. Shenstone will give you all the
help he can. And if it is but between you and heaven, he will show you
the way to get at peace. Oh, my dear young lady! you need not be afraid
to open your heart to one who knows so much about God's mercy and men's
sins. You need not be afraid but that he will be as tender as he is
wise; indeed, you need not fear him."
She spoke rapidly and earnestly; her whole manner of precision and
composure seemed to be broken down and melted before some recollection
that my trouble seemed to recall. I laid my burning hand in hers, and
said with a sigh:
"Oh, if I only dared!"
"But why should you fear?" she continued, earnestly. "Why should you
fear, when I tell you that he has only kindness and pity in his
heart--that he has looked with forbearance and compassion on blacker
sins than ever stained your young soul; and when I tell you--for I have
reason to know--that he can bring light out of darkness, and can show a
way of peace to even the most tortured and despairing. It may," she
continued, "be but a very little sin that is weighing on you, and
turning you out of the right way; but from little sins grow heavy
punishments, and better find now the best way of putting it out of your
heart, and putting something good in its stead. You have all life before
you," she said, with a weary sigh, "and repentance is easier and more
hopeful work, than it is to come back, when one has spent one's
inheritance of life in sin, having nothing to offer heaven but fruitless
tears."
Her voice trembled with emotion; she looked pityingly at me as,
struggling to keep back my tears, I hid my face in the pillow, and
caressing the hand that still lay in hers, she went on to persuade me to
the only remedy she knew for my unhappiness. I still felt shudderingly
afraid to make the dreadful effort, and faltered something about my fear
of his goodness and superiority, and the contempt he would feel for me
when he knew how weak and sinful I had been.
"Would it give you courage," she said, in a low tone, "to know how he
once received the repentance of a very miserable woman--a woman who had
not only sinned against heaven, but against him--who had done more than
any one else to blight his happiness and make his life desolate, but
who, having met the due reward of her deeds, came back to die in misery
where she had failed to live in innocence? Shall I tell you of this?"
I whispered "Yes," and she went on in a low voice:
"It is no matter what the sins were that brought me to the misery I
shall tell you of; it is no matter whether they were committed for
myself, or for the love of one whom I would have died to serve; it is no
matter for me to tell you that they grew from little unchecked thoughts
of pride and self-will, and little half-intended acts of deception, into
the monster sins that overshadowed my life; it is enough that I had come
to the recompense of them--that in remorse, in utter consternation, I
mourned as one without hope. What did I know of hope? Six feet of
foreign mound covered the remains of her I had served and sinned for.
Shame and infamy covered her name; hope was dead in my heart; faith had
never been lit there. Alone in a land of strangers, there was but one
longing in my breast that exceeded the desire for death, and that was
the craving to see home again. It makes me shudder even now to recall
that journey--weary months of fatigue, and exposure and misery; the only
thought that kept me up, a dreary one at best, to see home once more,
and die before a word of reproach could stab me, or a familiar voice
recall the wretched past.
"It was a still, clear December night, when, footsore and weary, I saw,
with a strange thrill, the lights of a little village, that my heart
told me was the little village I had come thousands of miles to see, and
that I had not seen nor heard from since my guilty flight, long years
ago, on a December night, still and cold as this. I hurried on, my
sinking strength nerved up for a last effort, till I should reach a
woody knoll I knew overlooked the village, and there, I said, I will
die. In my hand I held what I knew would free me; I had carried it in my
bosom for months and months, only waiting for this moment. At last I
reached the spot, and sinking down on the hard ground, covered my face a
moment with my hands, then looked down upon the scene before me. There
lay the village, its white houses gleaming in the moonlight--there the
familiar road wound round the foot of the hill--there was the broad
street, the old mill, the placid lake in the distance, and beyond it,
clear against the sky, the dark outlines of Rutledge; massive, and
gloomy, and lifeless, it stood far off from the cheery village, with its
animation and content. Not a window of the little hamlet but showed a
kindly light, while the great house beyond was dark and silent--not a
gleam of light from all its sombre front. A horror and remorse that you
cannot understand came over me, such as I had thought my dead heart was
incapable of harboring; then despair settled on it again, and I prepared
for death. But as I was looking--and I was not dreaming--between the
desolate house and me, distinct against the dark woods, there shone out
a silver cross. I was not dreaming--I was terribly awake; but there it
glittered, still and bright. Not a sound broke the stillness of the
frosty air, not another feature in the landscape changed; I strained my
eyes to catch the least wavering or fading of the distinct lines, but
calm and clear the holy sign still lit the dark stretch of woodland
between me and Rutledge, and never wavered or faded. I was not
superstitious, but this came to me like a token from heaven, and I held
the fatal vial unopened in my hand. What if this was meant to tell me
there was forgiveness yet--that there was a sanctifying calm even over
the cold desolation of that dark house--that the sins were done away,
and that mercy had shone out. With that sign before me, I did not dare
to add that one sin more to those I had already committed; I did not
dare to die by my own hand. And then a desire took possession of me to
know something of what had passed in all these years, or if there was,
indeed, none remaining to loathe and execrate me. And finally, hiding
the vial in my bosom, I crept down, and keeping my eye still fixed on
the shining cross, I turned into the broad street that led to the
village. One after another of the cheerful lights I passed, not daring
to go in, pausing before each gate, and then hurrying on, determined to
try the next. By and by, the cross was lost among the trees, and my
courage began to fail, when, on a sudden, I found myself at the gate of
a church-yard, and looking up, saw, what was most unexpected and
unfamiliar, the arches and spire of a little church, on the site of the
neglected old graveyard I remembered; and there, above it, gleamed the
cross that had stayed my hand from suicide, which, catching the rays of
the rising moon, had shone out with such a message of mercy.
"I opened the little gate, and stealing across the churchyard, bent down
to read the names upon the graves that had been made since I had been
away. I mournfully traced out one familiar name after another, till,
with a groan, I turned away from the gloomy spot, and shutting the gate,
struck off into the road again. I dragged on, till I reached the
outskirts of the village, then sat down to rest. A single light, at a
little distance, shone from a cottage on the edge of the woods, that I
knew bordered Rutledge Park. A boy passed by me, and summoning courage,
I stopped him, and asked him what house that was. 'The Parsonage,' he
said. And there, I thought, is where I will go, and hear, perhaps,
whether there is any hope for such as me in either world. When I reached
the low gate of the garden in front of it, I did not allow myself time
to think, but walked down the path, and stepping on the little porch,
knocked faintly at the door. The blinds of the window where the light
was, being open, I looked in, and saw the only occupant of it, who had
been reading by the lamp on the table, rise to answer my knock.
"'Can I see the clergyman?' I asked, in a low voice.
"'Come in, this way,' he said, kindly, leading the way to the room he
had left; 'I am the clergyman.'
"He told me to sit down by the fire, and then, in a tone that moved me
strangely, asked if he could help or direct me in any way.
"I was too near the gate of death to see in him anything but the
minister of God; and, forgetting that he was a man and a stranger, began
in a broken, husky voice, the recital of the doubts and the despair I
had been fighting with. I do not know how much of my story I betrayed,
or what, in this extremity of wretchedness, I said; but pausing at the
end, and frightened by his silence, I raised my eyes, and faltered:
"'Would God have mercy after that, do you think?'
"The clergyman's face was white as mine: his voice shook as he said:
"'If He has let you live, He means to forgive you, you may be sure.'
"'He has let me live,' I said, eagerly, and I told him of the cross that
had held me back from suicide. He pressed his hand before his eyes, then
said, after a moment, in a broken voice:
"'Take it for a sign, then, that He is waiting to be gracious; that
there is peace on earth, as well as mercy in heaven, for you.'
"'Never peace; I have no right to hope for that, only a chance of pardon
before I die.'
"'A sure hope of pardon, if you verily repent, and a sure sense of
peace, if you strive to put in deeds, the repentance that God has put in
your heart.'
"'There is nothing left in life for me to do,' I said, with a bitter
sigh.
"'So I thought once,' he said, 'but I have learned that God never leaves
a soul on earth, without leaving some work for it to do, to keep it from
despair, some sin to be atoned for, some duty to be fulfilled. Can you
think of none?'
"'None,' I said; 'there is nothing left for me, my repentance comes too
late; there is none left but my weary self, to profit by it.'
"'There is a work I know of waiting for you, Rachel Arnold,' he said, in
a voice that thrilled through and through me. It all came upon me then;
with a low cry, I started up and sprang toward the door; but he
interposed.
"'Let me go,' I cried; 'I cannot face you in this world! Wait, before
you bring your accusation, till we are at God's tribunal! Let me go, and
I will never offend your sight again. Oh! why are you not dead, like all
the rest? Why are you left to drive me back to despair again?' And in an
agony I sank down at his feet.
"'I am left,' he said, raising me up, 'to guide you back to peace and
duty; to tell you of God's infinite loving kindness, and to show you how
much of hope there is for you, in this world and in the next; and to
assure you, if you need the assurance, that I as utterly forgive you, as
I hope for God's forgiveness for myself.'
"'You never would say so,' I murmured, 'if you knew all.'
"'I know enough to understand your remorse; the rest you can tell to
God; I say again, from my soul, I forgive you.'
"But I never raised my face, nor looked at him, till I had told him all,
and he had said again:
"'With all my heart I forgive you. The past is cancelled; stay here, and
help me in the work that God has set us to do, and obliterate the sins
that this place has seen, by faithful striving in the labor of restoring
it to his service again.'
"My dear young lady," said Mrs. Arnold, in a trembling voice, "can you
fear him after that?"
"No," I exclaimed, with tears; "let me see him now."