SUNSET GOLD AND PURPLE.
We had a happy time after that; our Sunday was a very glad and peaceful
one, with our thanksgiving in the morning, and Dora's pleasure in the
dear old children's service in the afternoon. Poor child, she liked
everything that she had only submitted to when she was with us, and
Harold took her away on the Monday in a more resigned frame of mind,
with a kind of promise that she would be good if the Horsmans would let
her.
Then came the removal, and I must say there was some compensation for
the pain of leaving my old home in that sense of snugness and liberty
in our new plenishing, rather like the playing at doll's houses. We
had stable room for Harold's horse and my pony--the kangaroo, alas! had
pined and died the winter that Harold was away; the garden was
practicable, and the rooms were capable of being made home-like and
pleasant.
The Tracys were out of reach for the present. Dermot was gone to
Ireland, and Lady Diana and her daughter were making a long round of
visits among friends, so that there was nothing for it but waiting, and
as it was hopeful waiting, enlivened by Viola's letters to me, Harold
endured it very happily, having indeed much to think about.
There was Prometesky's health. It was ascertained that he must undergo
an operation, and when we found that all the requisite skill could be
had near at hand, I overruled the scruples about alarming or
distressing me. I knew that it would be better for him to be watched
by George Yolland, and for Harold to be at home, and I had come to love
the old man very heartily.
One day of expectation, in which he was the most calm and resolute of
us, one anxious day when they sent me to Miss Woolmer, until Harold
came, thankful and hopeful to fetch me, a few more of nursing accepted
with touching gratitude, and he was soon downstairs again, a hale old
man, though nearly seventy, but more than ever bent on his retreat to
La Trappe. It distressed us much. He seemed so much to enjoy
intelligent talk with Miss Woolmer and the Yollands; he so delighted in
books, and took such fresh interest in all, whether mechanical or
moral, that was doing at the Hydriots--of which, by-the-by, as first
inventor, the company had contrived, at Harold's suggestion, to make
him a shareholder to an extent that would cover all his modest needs, I
could not think how he would bear the change.
"My dear young lady," he said to me, when I tried to persuade him out
of writing the first letter, "you forget how much I have of sin upon
me. Can years of negation of faith, or the ruin of four young lives,
and I know not of how many more, be repented of at ease in your
pleasant town, amid the amiable cares you young people are good enough
to lavish on the old man?"
I made some foolish answer about his having meant all for good and
noble purposes, but he shook his head.
"Error, my dear madam, error excusable, perhaps, in one whose country
has been destroyed. I see, now that I have returned, after years alone
with my God, that the work I tried to precipitate was one of patience.
The fire from heaven must first illuminate the soul, then the spirit,
and then the bonds will be loosed of themselves; otherwise we do but
pluck them asunder to set maniacs free to rush into the gulf. And as
to my influence on my two pupils, your brothers, I see now that what
began in filial rebellion and disobedience could never end well. I
bless God that I have been permitted to see, in the next generation,
the true hero and reformer I ought to have made of my Ambrose. Ah!
Ambrose, Ambrose! noble young spirit, would that any tears and penance
of mine would expiate the shipwreck to which I led thee!" and he burst
into tears.
He had, of course, seen the Roman Catholic priest several times before
encountering the danger of the operation, and was a thoroughly devout
penitent, but of his old Liberalism he retained the intense benevolence
that made the improvements at the potteries a great delight to him,
likewise the historical breadth of understanding that prevented his
thinking us all un-Catholic and unsafe.
It was a great blessing that Harold was not held back but rather aided
and stimulated by the example of the man to whom he most looked up; but
with his characteristic silence, it was long before I found that,
having felt, beside his mother's death-bed, how far his spiritual wants
had outgrown me, he had carried them to Ben Yolland, though the old
morning habit remained unbroken, and he always came to the little room
I had made like my old one.
Ben Yolland had become more entirely chaplain to the Hydriots. Those
two brothers lived together in a curious way at what we all still
called the "Dragon's Head," each with his own sitting-room and one in
common, one fitted as a clergyman's study, the other more like a
surgery; for though George had given up his public practice since he
had been manager of the works, he still attended all the workpeople and
their families, only making them pay for their medicines "when it was
good for them."
Thus the care of the soul and bodies of the Hydriots was divided
between the two, and they seemed to work in concert, although George
showed no symptom of change of opinions, never saying anything openly
to discredit his brother's principles, nay, viewing them as wholesome
restraints for those who were not too scientific to accept them, and
even going to church when he had nothing else to do, but by preference
looking up his patients on a Sunday. He viewed everything, from
religion to vice, as the outcome of certain states of brain, nerves,
and health; and so far from being influenced by the example of
Prometesky, regarded him as a proof of his own theory, and talked of
the Slavonic temperament returning to its normal forms as the vigour of
life departed.
Nevertheless, he did not seem to do harm to the workpeople. Drunkenness
was at least somewhat restrained, though far from conquered, and the
general spirit of the people was wonderful, compared with those of
other factories. Plans were under discussion for a mission chapel, and
the people themselves were thoroughly anxious for it.
Lord Erymanth returning, kindly came to call on me in my new house, and
as I was out of the drawing-room at the time, he had ten minutes'
conversation with the gentleman whom he found reading at the window,
and was so much pleased with him that when making the tour of our small
domain, he said, "You did not introduce me, Lucy. Is that an
Australian acquaintance of Harold Alison's? I did not expect such high
cultivation."
"An Australian acquaintance, yes," said I, "and also a Polish count."
"Prometesky!"
"Prometesky," said I, to whom the name had begun to sound historical.
"I did not know you did not recognise him."
I was afraid my old friend would be angry with me, but he stood still
and said, "I never saw him except at his trial. I can understand now
the fascination he was said to have possessed. I could not
conscientiously assist your nephew in his recall, but I highly honour
the generous perseverance with which he has effected it; and I am happy
to acknowledge that the subject is worthy of his enthusiasm. Animosity
may be laid aside now, and you may tell Mr. Harold Alison that I
heartily congratulate him."
"And he--Count Stanislas we call him--sees now that he was mistaken," I
said.
"Does he? That is the best of the higher stamp of men, my dear. They
know when they are wrong, and own it. In fact, that's the greatest
difference between men. The feeble and self-opinionated never
acknowledge an error, but the truly sincere can confess and retrieve
their hallucinations and prejudices. Well, I am glad to have seen
Prometesky, and to be disabused of some ideas respecting him."
Count Stanislas, on the other hand, received me with, "So that is
Erymanth! The tyrant, against whom we raged, proves a charitable,
benevolent, prosy old gentleman. How many illusions a few decades
dispel, and how much hatred one wastes!"
Lord Erymanth had told me that his sister would soon be at home, and in
September I was surprised by a call from Dermot. "Yes, I'm at Arked,"
he said, "Killy Marey is full of Dublin workmen. My uncle has
undertaken to make it habitable for me, like an old brick, and, in the
meantime, there's not a room fit to smoke or sleep in, so I'm come home
like a dutiful son."
"Then your mother is come?"
"Oh yes; she is come for six weeks, and then she and the St. Glears are
to join company and winter at Rome."
"At Rome?"
"Prevention, you see," said Dermot, with a twinkle in his eye, as if he
were not very uneasy. "The question is whether it is in time. She will
have Piggy's attentions at Christmas. He is to come out for the
vacation."
Then he further told me that his mother had brought home with her a
Mrs. Sandford with a daughter, heiress to L60,000, and to a
newly-bought estate in Surrey, and newly-built house "of the most
desirable description," he added, shrugging his shoulders.
"And what sort of a young lady is she?"
"Oh, very desirable, too, I suppose."
"But what is she like?"
"Like? Oh, like other people," and he whistled a little, seeming
relieved when "Count Stanislas" came in, and soon after going to hunt
up Harry at the Hydriot works.
It made me uncomfortable; it was so evidently another attempt on his
mother's part to secure a rich home for him in England, and his tone
did not at all reassure me that, with his easy temper, he would not
drift into the arrangement without his heart in it. "Why should I be
so vexed about it? It might be very good for him," said I to myself.
No, his heart was not in it, for he came back with Harold, and lingered
over our fire beyond all reasonable time, talking amusing random stuff,
till he had left himself only ten minutes to ride home in to dinner.
The next day Harold and I rode over to Arked together. Dermot was the
first person we saw, disporting himself with a pug-dog at the door.
"The fates have sped you well," said he, as he helped me down from my
pony. "My mother has taken Mrs. Sandford in state to call on Mrs.
Vernon, having arranged that Viola and I should conduct the
sixty-thousand pounder to admire the tints in the beech woods. The
young ladies are putting on their hats. Will it be too far for you,
Lucy, to go with us?"
Wherewith he fraternally shouted for "Vi," who appeared all in a rosy
glow, and took me upstairs to equip me for walking, extracting from me
in the meantime the main features of the story of the bloodhound, and
trembling while she gave exulting little nods.
Then she called for Nina (were they so intimate already?) and found
that young lady in a point device walking dress, nursing the pug and
talking to Dermot, and so we set forth for the beech-woods, very soon
breaking our five into three and two. Certainly Lady Diana ought to
have viewed Dermot's attentions to the sixty-thousand pounder as
exemplary, for he engrossed her and me so entirely with the description
of Harold's victory over a buck-jumper at Boola Boola, that it was full
a quarter of an hour before she looked round to exclaim, "What is
become of Viola?" And then we would not let her wait, and in truth we
never came again upon Viola and Harold till we overtook them at the
foot of the last hill, and they never could satisfy Miss Sandford where
they had been, nor what they had seen, nor how they had missed us; and
Dermot invented for the nonce a legend about a fairy in the hill, who
made people gyrate round it in utter oblivion of all things; thus
successfully diverting the attention of Miss Sandford, who took it all
seriously. Yes, she certainly was a stupid girl.
Every moment that lengthened the veritable enchantment of that autumn
afternoon was precious beyond what we knew, and we kept Miss Sandford
prowling about the garden on all sorts of pretexts, till the poor girl
was tired out, as well she might be, for we had kept her on her feet
for three hours and a half, and she made her escape at last to join
Viola.
I always think of Harold and Viola, as I saw them at that moment, on
the top of the western slope of the lawn, so that there was a great
ruddy gold sky behind them, against which their silhouettes stood out
in a sort of rich dark purple shade.
"Oh, they are looking at such a sunset!" cried Miss Sandford, climbing
up the hill.
"Query!" murmured Dermot, for the faces were in profile, not turning
towards the sun in the sky, but to the sunbeams in one another's
eyes--sunbeams that were still there when we joined them, and, in my
recollection, seem to blend with the glorious haze of light that was
pouring down in a flood over the purple moorland horizon, and the wood,
field, and lake below. I was forced to say something about going home,
and Viola took me up to her room, where we had one of those embraces
that can never be forgotten. The chief thing that the dear girl said
to me was, "Oh, Lucy. How he has suffered! How shall I ever make it
up to him?"
Poor dear Viola, little did she think that she was to cause the very
sharpest of his sufferings.
Nay, as little did he, when we rode home together with the still
brilliant sky before us. I never see a lane ending in golden light,
melting into blue, and dark pine trees framing as it were the
brightness, with every little branch defined against it, without
thinking of that silence of intense, almost awe-struck joy in which
Harold went home by my side, only at long intervals uttering some brief
phrase, such as "This is blessedness," or "Thank God, who gives women
such hearts."
He had told her all, and it had but added a reverent, enthusiastic pity
and fervour to that admiring love which had been growing up so long,
and to which he had set the spark.
His old friend was admitted to share their joy, and was as happy as we
were, perhaps doubly so, since he had beheld with despair Harold's
early infatuation and its results, which had made him fear, during
those three wretched years, that all the lad's great and noble gifts
would be lost in the coarse excesses of his wild life, with barbarous
prosperity without, and a miserable, hardening home. That he should
have been delivered from it, still capable of refinement, still young
and fresh enough for a new beginning, had been a cause of great joy,
and now that all should be repaired by a true and worthy love, had
seemed beyond hope. We built our castles over the fire that evening,
Harold had already marked out with his eye the tract of Neme Heath
which he would reclaim; and the little he had already set me on doing
among the women and children at the potteries, had filled us with
schemes as to what Viola was to carry out.
Some misgivings there were even then. Lady Diana was not to be
expected to like Harold's L1,200 a year as well as Piggy's heirship to
the Erymanth coronet, or any of the other chances that might befall an
attractive girl of twenty.
For coldness and difficulties we were prepared, but not for the
unqualified refusal with which she met Harold the next morning,
grounding all on the vague term, "circumstances," preventing his even
seeing Viola, and cutting short the interview in the manner of a grande
dame whose family had received an insult.
Dermot, however, not only raging, but raving, on his side, assured him
of the staunchness of his sister, and her resolve to hold by him
through everything; and further, in sundry arguments with his mother,
got to the bottom of the "circumstances." She had put away from
herself the objection to the convict birth and breeding, by being
willing to accept Eustace, to whom exactly the same objections applied;
and when she called Eustace a man of more education and manners, her
son laughed in her face at the comparison of "that idiot" with a man
like Harold.
Then came the "past life," a much more tangible objection, but Dermot
was ready there, declaring that whatever Harold had done, considering
his surroundings, was much less heinous than his own transgressions,
after such a bringing up as his, and would his mother say that nobody
ought to marry him? Besides, to whom had she given Di? They were not
arguments that Lady Diana accepted, but she weakened her own cause by
trying to reinforce it with all the Stympson farrago, the exaggeration
of which Dermot, after his own meeting with Henry Alison, and with
Prometesky to corroborate him, was fully prepared to explode, to the
satisfaction even of Lord Eryinanth.
Harold himself was deeply sensible of the stain and burthen of his
actual guilt, more so, indeed, than he had ever been before, both from
the religious influences to which he had submitted himself, and from
the sense of that sweet innocence of his Viola's; but his feeling had
come to be that if his Heavenly Father loved and forgave him, so, in a
lesser way, Viola forgave him because she loved him. He did not wonder
at nor complain of Lady Diana's not thinking him worthy of her good and
lovely child. He would be thankful to submit to any probation, five,
seven, ten years without any engagement, if he might hope at last.
Even Lord Erymanth, when he saw how his darling's soul was set on it,
thought that thus much might be granted.
But Lady Diana had still another entrenchment which she had concealed,
as it were, to the last, not wishing to shock and pain us all, she
said. Though she said she had reason to complain of not having been
told from the first that Harold had once been insane, nothing could
induce her to sanction her daughter's marriage with a man whose mind
had been disordered; nay, who had done mortal injury in his frenzy. It
was a monstrous idea!
Dermot's reply to this was, that nobody, then, ought to marry who had
had a delirious fever; and he brought Prometesky over to Arked to
testify to her how far the attack had been from anything approaching to
constitutional insanity. The terrible fall, of which Harold's head
still bore the mark, the shock, the burning sun, were a combination of
causes that only made it wonderful that he should have recovered the
ensuing brain fever, and the blow to his rival had been fatal by the
mere accident of his strength. A more ordinary man would have done no
serious harm by such a stroke, given when not accountable. Lady Diana
answered stiffly that this might be quite true, but that there had been
another cause for the temporary derangement which had not been
mentioned, and that it was notorious that Mr. Alison, in consequence,
had been forced to avoid all liquors, and she appealed to Dermot as to
the effects of a very small quantity on his friend's brain.
Poor Dermot! it was bitter enough for him to have that orgie at Foling
brought forward against his friend. Nor could any representation
appease Lady Diana.
I thought her very cruel and unreasonable then, and I am afraid I
believe that if Harold had had ten, or even five thousand a year, these
objections would never have been heard of; but after years and
experience have cooled my mind, it seems to me that on several grounds
she was justified in her reluctance, and that, as Viola was so young,
and Harold's repentance had been comparatively recent, she might fairly
have insisted on waiting long enough to see whether he were indeed to
be depended upon, or if Viola's affection were strong enough to endure
such risk as there might be.
For Dermot, resolute to defend his friend, and declaring that his
sister's heart should not be broken, was the prime mover in Harold
going up to consult the most eminent men of the day on mental disease,
Prometesky going with him as having been his only attendant during his
illness, to give an account of the symptoms, and Dermot, who so
comported himself in his excitement as to seem far more like the lover
whose hopes might have depended on the verdict on his doubtful sanity,
than did the grave, quiet, self-contained man, who answered all
questions so steadily.
The sentence was so far satisfactory that the doctor confirmed
Prometesky's original view, that concussion of the brain, aggravated by
circumstances, had produced the attack, and that there was no
reasonable ground for apprehension of its recurrence, certainly not of
its being hereditary. But he evidently did not like the confession of
the strange horror of dogs, which Harold thought it right to mention as
having been brought on by the circumstances of his accident, and he
would not venture to say that any "exciting cause" might not more
easily affect the brain than if nothing had ever been amiss. Yet when
Dermot tarried, explaining that he was the brother of a young lady
deeply concerned, the doctor assured him that whereas no living man
could be insured from insanity, he should consider the gentleman he had
just seen to be as secure as any one else, since there was no fear of
any hereditary taint, and his having so entirely outgrown and cast off
all traces of the malady was a sign of his splendid health and vigour
of constitution.
But Lady Diana was still not satisfied. She still absolutely refused
all consent, and was no more moved at the end of three weeks than
before. Dear Harold said he did not wonder, and that if he had seen
himself in this true light, he would have loved Viola at a distance
without disquieting her peace, but since he had spoken and knew she
loved him, he could not but persevere for her sake. We could see he
said it with a steady countenance, but a burning heart. Neither he nor
I was allowed to see Viola, but there was Dermot as constant reporter,
and, to my surprise, Viola was not the submissive daughter I had
expected. Lady Diana had never had any real ascendancy over her
children's wills or principles. Even Viola's obedience had been that
of duty, not of the heart, and she had from the first declared that
mamma might forbid her to marry Harold, or to correspond with him, and
she should consider herself bound to obey; but that she had given him
her promise, and that she could not and would not take it back again.
She would wait on for ever, if otherwise it could not be, but he had
her troth plight, and she _would_ be faithful to it. She would not give
up her crystal cross, and she sent Harold her love every day by her
brother, often in her mother's very hearing, saying she was too proud
of him to be ashamed. She had resolved on her own line of passive
obedience, but of never renouncing her engagement, and her brother
upheld her in it; while her uncle let himself be coaxed out of his
displeasure, and committed himself to that compromise plan of waiting
which his sister viewed as fatal, since Viola would only lose all her
bloom, and perhaps her health. Nothing, she said, was so much to be
deplored for a girl as a long engagement. The accepting a reformed
rake had been always against her principles, and she did not need even
the dreadful possibility of derangement, or the frightful story of his
first marriage, to make her inexorable. Viola, we were told, had made
up her mind that it was a case for perseverance, and all this time kept
up dauntlessly, not failing in spirits nor activity, but telling her
brother she had always known she should have to go through something,
but Harold's love was worth it, and she meant to be brave; how should
she not be when she knew Harold cared for her; and as to what seemed to
be objections in the eyes of others, did they not make her long the
more to compensate him?
"She has to make all her love to me, poor little woman, and very pretty
love it is," said Dermot.
Whether Harold made as much love in return to their ready medium I
cannot tell, for their conferences were almost always out of doors or
at the office, and Harold was more reserved than ever. He was not
carrying matters with the same high hand as his little love, for, as he
always said, he knew he had brought it all on himself.
He never complained of Lady Diana, but rather defended her to her son
for not thinking him fit for her daughter, only adhering to his
original standpoint, that where there was so much love, surely some
hope might be granted, since he would thankfully submit to any
probation.
We all expected that this would be the upshot of our suspense, and that
patience and constancy would prevail; and by the help of immense walks
and rides, and a good deal of interest in some new buildings at the
potteries, and schemes for the workmen, Harold kept himself very
equable and fairly cheerful, though his eyes were weary and anxious,
and when he was sitting still, musing, there was something in his pose
which reminded me more than ever of Michel Angelo's figures, above all,
the grand one on the Medicean monument. He consorted much more now
with Mr. Yolland, the curate, and was making arrangements by which the
school chapel might expand into a Mission Church, but still I did not
know that he was finding the best aid through this time in the
devotions and heart-searchings to which the young clergyman had led
him, and which were the real cause of the calm and dignified humility
with which he waited.
At last Lady Diana, finding herself powerless with her daughter, sent a
letter to Harold, beginning: "I appeal to your generosity." A very
cruel letter in some ways it was, representing that he had acquiesced
in her judgment, that there were certain unfortunate passages in his
past life which made it her painful duty to prevent her child from
following the dictates of an inexperienced heart. Then she put it to
him whether it were not a most unfortunate position for a young girl to
be involved in an engagement which could never be fulfilled, and which
was contrary to the commands of her only remaining parent, and she
showed how family peace, confidence, and maternal and filial affection
must suffer if the daughter should hold fast persistently to the
promise by which she held herself bound. In fact, it was an urgent
entreaty, for Viola's own sake, that he would release her from her
promise. Dermot was shooting at Erymanth, and neither he nor I knew of
this letter till Harold had acted. He rode at once to Arked, saw Lady
Diana, and declared himself convinced that the engagement, having no
chance of sanction, ought to be given up. Rather than keep Viola in
the wearing state of resistance and disobedience her mother described,
he would resign all hopes of her.
Lady Diana went to her daughter with the tidings, that Mr. Alison saw
the hopelessness of his suit, and released her from her promise.
"You have made him do so, mamma," cried Viola. "If he releases me I do
not release myself."
Finally, Lady Diana, astonished to find Harold so reasonable and
amenable, perceived that the only means of dealing with her daughter
was to let them meet again. Of course no one fully knows what passed
then. Harold told me, the only time he spoke of it, that "he had just
taken out his own heart and crushed it!" but Viola dwelt on each
phrase, and, long after, used to go over all with me. He had fully
made up his mind that to let Viola hold to her troth would neither be
right nor good for her, and he used his power of will and influence to
make her resign it. There was no concealment nor denial of their
mutual love. It was Viola's comfort to remember that. "But," said
Harold, "your mother has only too good reasons for withholding you from
me, and there is nothing for it but to submit, and give one another up."
"But we do not leave off loving one another," said poor Viola.
"We cannot do what we cannot."
"And when we are old--"
"That would be a mental reservation," said Harold. "There must be no
mutual understanding of coming together again. I promised your mother.
Because I am a guilty man, I am not to break up your life."
He made her at last resign her will into his, she only feeling that his
judgment could not be other than decisive, and that she could not
resist him, even for his own sake. He took her for a moment into his
arms, and exchanged one long burning kiss, then, while she was almost
faint and quite passive with emotion, he laid her on the sofa, and
called her mother. "Lady Diana," he said, "we give up all claim to one
another's promise, in obedience to you. Do we not, Viola?"
"Yes," she faintly said.
He gave her brow one more kiss, and was gone.
He took his horse home, and sent in a pencil note to me: "All over;
don't wait, for me.--H. A."
I was dreadfully afraid he would go off to Australia, or do something
desperate, but Count Stanislas reassured me that this would be unlike
Harold's present self, since his strength had come to be used, not in
passion, but in patience. We dined as best we could without him,
waited all the evening, and sat up till eleven, when we heard him at
the door. I went out and took down the chain to let him in. It was a
wet misty night, and he was soaked through. I begged him to come in
and warm himself, and have something hot, but he shook his head, as if
he could not speak, took his candle, and went upstairs.
I made the tea, for which I had kept the kettle boiling all this time,
and Prometesky took his great cup in to him, presently returning to
say, "He is calm. He has done wisely, he has exhausted himself so that
he will sleep. He says he will see me at once to my retreat in
Normandy. I think it will be best for him."
Count Stanislas was, in fact, on the eve of departure, and in a couple
of days more Harold went away with him, having only broached the matter
to me to make me understand that the break had been his, not Viola's;
and that I must say no more about it.
Dermot had come over and raged against his mother, and even against
Harold, declaring that if the two had "stood out" they would have
prevailed, but that he did not wonder Harold was tired of it.
Harold's look made him repent of that bit of passion, but he was
contemptuous of the "for her sake," which was all Harold uttered as
further defence. "What! tell him it was for her sake when she was
creeping about the house like a ghost, looking as if she had just come
out of a great illness?"
Dermot meant to escort his mother and sister to Florence, chiefly in
order to be a comfort to the latter, but he meant to return to Ireland
as soon as they had joined the St. Glears. "Taking you by the way," he
said, "before going to my private La Trappe."
Prometesky took leave of me, not quite as if we were never to meet
again, for his experimental retreat was to be over at Christmas, and he
would then be able to receive letters. He promised me that, if I then
wrote to him that, Harold stood in need of him for a time, he would
return to us instead of commencing the novitiate which would lead to
his becoming dead to the outer world.
Harold was gone only ten days, and came back late on a Friday evening.
He tried to tell me about what he had done and seen, but broke off and
said, "Well, I am very stupid; I went to all the places they told me to
see at Rouen and everywhere else, but I can't recollect anything about
them."
So I let him gaze into the fire in peace, and all Saturday he was at
the potteries or at the office, very busy about all his plans and also
taking in hand the charge for George Yolland, for both brothers were
going on Monday to take a fortnight's holiday among their relations.
He only came in to dinner, and after it told me very kindly that he
must leave me alone again, for he wanted to see Ben Yolland. A good
person for him to wish to see, "but was all this restlessness?" thought
this foolish Lucy.
When he came in, only just at bed-time, there was something more of
rest, and less of weary sadness about his eyes than I had seen since
the troubles began, and as we wished one another good night he said,
"Lucy, God forgives while He punishes. He is better to us than man.
Yolland says I may be with you at church early to-morrow."
Then my cheeks flushed hot with joy, and I said how thankful I was that
all this had not distracted his thoughts from the subject. "When I
wanted help more than ever?" he said.
So in some ways that was to me at least a gladsome Sunday, though not
half so much at the time as it has become in remembrance, and I could
not guess how much of conscious peace or joy Harold felt, as, for the
first and only time, he and I knelt together on the chancel step.
He said nothing, but he had quite recovered his usual countenance and
manner, only looking more kind and majestic than ever, as I, his fond
aunt, thought, when we went among the children after the school
service, to give them the little dainties they had missed in his
absence; and he smiled when they came round him with their odd little
bits of chatter.
We sat over the fire in the evening, and talked a little of surface
things, but that died away, and after a quarter of an hour or so, he
looked up at me and said, "And what next?"
"What are we to do, do you mean?" I said, for I had been thinking how
all his schemes of life had given way. We spoke of it together. "Old
Eu did not want him," as he said, and though there was much for him to
do at the Hydriot works and the Mission Chapel, the Reading Room, the
Association for Savings, and all the rest which needed his eye, yet for
Viola's peace he thought he ought not to stay, and the same cause
hindered the schemes he had once shared with Dermot; he had cut himself
loose from Australia, and there seemed nothing before him. "There were
the City Missions," he said, wearily, for he did not love the City, and
yet he felt more than ever the force of his dying father's commission
to carry out his longings for the true good of the people.
I said we could make a London home and see Dora sometimes, trying to
make him understand that he might reckon on me as his sister friend,
but the answer was, "I don't count on that."
"You don't want to cast me off?"
"No, indeed, but there is another to be thought of."
Then he told me how, over my letters to him in New South Wales, there
had come out Dermot's account of the early liking that everyone nipped,
till my good-girlish submission wounded and affronted him, and he
forgot or disliked me for years; how old feelings had revived, when we
came in contact once more; but how he was withheld from their
manifestation, by the miserable state of his affairs, as well as by my
own coldness and indifference.
I made some sound which made Harold say, "You told me to keep him away."
"I knew I ought," I remember saying faintly.
"Oh--h--!" a prolonged sound, that began a little triumphantly, but
ended in a sigh, and then he earnestly said, "You do not think you
ought to discourage him now? Your mother did not forbid it for ever."
"Oh no, no; it never came to that."
"And you know what he is now?"
"I know he is changed," was all I could say.
"And you will help him forward a little when he comes back. You and he
will be happy."
There might be a great surging wave of joy in my heart, but it would
not let me say anything but, "And leave you alone, Harold?"
"I must learn to be alone," he said. "I can stay here this winter, and
see to the things in hand, and then I suppose something will turn up."
"As a call?" I said.
"Yes," he answered. "I told God to-day that I had nothing to do but
His service, and I suppose He will find it for me."
There was something in the steadfast, yet wistful look of his eyes,
that made me take down the legend of St. Christopher and read it aloud.
Reading generally sent him into a doze, but even that would be a
respite to the heartache he so patiently bore, and I took the chance,
but he sat with his chin on his hand and his eyes fixed attentively on
mine all the time, then held out his hand for the book, and pondered,
as was his thorough way in such matters. At last he said, "Well, I'll
wait by the stream. Some day He will send me some one to carry over."
We little thought what stream was very near!