A GLIMPSE INTO PARADISE.
I cannot tell whether it was fancy merely, but the morning light which
streamed into his room seemed more familiar and home-like to him than
it had ever done in Switzerland. He was awakened by one of those sounds
which dwell longest in the memory--the chiming of the church bells
nearest home, which in childhood had so often called to him to shake off
his slumbers, and which spoke to him now in sweet and friendly tones, as
if he was still an innocent child. The tempest-tossed, sinful man lay
listening to them for a minute or two, half asleep yet. He had been
dreaming that he was in truth dead, but that the task assigned to him
was that of an invisible guardian and defender to those who had lost
him. He had been present all these years with his wife, and mother, and
children, going out and coming in with them, hearing all their
conversation, and sharing their family life, but himself unseen and
unheard, felt only by the spiritual influence he could exercise over
them. It had been a blissful dream, such as had never visited him in his
exile; and as the familiar chiming of the bells, high up in the belfry
not far from his attic, fell upon his ear, the dream for a brief moment
gathered a stronger sense of reality.
It was with a strange feeling, as if he was himself a phantom mingling
with creatures of flesh and blood, that he went out into the streets.
His whole former life lay unrolled before him, but there was no point at
which he could touch it. Every object and every spot was commonplace,
yet invested with a singular and intense significance. Many a man among
the townsfolk he knew by name and history, whose eyes glanced at him as
a stranger, with no surprise at his appearance, and no show of suspicion
or of welcome. Certainly he was nothing but a ghost revisiting the
scenes of a life to which there was no possible return. Yet how he
longed to stretch out his hand and grasp those of these old towns-people
of his! Even the least interesting of the shopkeepers in the streets,
bestirring themselves to meet the business of a new day, seemed to him
one of the most desirable of companions.
His heart was drawing him to Whitefriars Road, to that spot on earth of
all others most his own, but his resolution failed him whenever he
turned his face that way. He rambled into the ancient market square,
where stood a statue of his Felicita's great uncle, the first Baron
Riversdale. The long shadow of it fell across him as he lingered to look
in at a bookseller's window. He and the bookseller had been
school-fellows together at the grammar-school, and their friendship had
lasted after each was started in his own career. Hundreds of times he
had crossed this door-sill to have a chat with the studious and quiet
bookworm within whose modest life was so great a contrast with his own.
Jean Merle stopped at the well-remembered shop-window.
His eyes glanced aimlessly along the crowded shelves, but suddenly his
attention was arrested, and his pulses, which had been beating somewhat
fast, throbbed with eager rapidity. A dozen volumes or more, ranged
together, were labelled, "Works by Mrs. Roland Sefton." Surprise, and
pride, and pleasure were in the rapid beatings of his heart. By
Felicita! He read over the titles with a new sense of delight and
admiration; and in the first glow of his astonishment he stepped quickly
into the shop, with erect head and firm tread, and found himself face
to face with his old school-fellow. The sight of his blank,
unrecognizing gaze brought him back to the consciousness of the utter
change in himself. He looked down at his coarse hands and mechanic's
dress, and remembered that he was no longer Roland Sefton. His tongue
was parched; it was difficult to stammer out a word.
"Do you want anything, my good man?" asked the bookseller quietly.
There was something in the words "my good man" that brought home to him
at once the complete separation between his former life and the present,
and the perfect security that existed for him in the conviction that
Roland Sefton was dead. With a great effort he commanded himself, and
answered the bookseller's question collectedly.
"There are some books in the window by Mrs. Roland Sefton," he said,
"how much are they?"
"That is the six shilling edition," replied the bookseller.
Jean Merle was on the point of saying he would take them all, but he
checked himself. He must possess them all, and read every line that
Felicita had ever written, but not now, and not here.
"Which do you think is the best?" he asked.
"They are all good," was the answer; "we are very proud of Mrs. Roland
Sefton, who belongs to Riversborough. That is her great uncle yonder,
the first Lord Riversdale; and she married a prominent townsman, Roland
Sefton, of the Old Bank. I have a soiled copy or two, which I could sell
to you for half the price of the new ones."
"She is famous then?" said Jean Merle.
"She has won her rank as an author," replied the bookseller. "I knew her
husband well, and he always foretold that she would make her mark; and
she has. He died fourteen years ago; and, strange to say, there was
something about your step as you came in which reminded me of him. Do
you belong to Riversborough?"
"No," he answered; "but my name is Jean Merle, and I am related to
Madame Sefton, his mother. I suppose there is some of the same blood in
Roland Sefton and me."
"That is it," said the bookseller cordially. "I thought you were a
foreigner, though you speak English so well."
"There was some mystery about Roland Sefton's death?" remarked Jean
Merle.
"No, no; at least not much," was the answer. "He went away on a long
holiday, unluckily without announcing it, on account of bank business;
but Mr. Clifford, the senior partner, was on his way to take charge of
affairs. There was but one day between Roland Sefton's departure and Mr.
Clifford's arrival, but during that very day, for some reason or other
unknown, the head clerk committed suicide, and there was a panic and a
run upon the bank. Unfortunately there was no means of communicating
with Sefton, who had started at once for the continent. Mr. Clifford did
not see any necessity for his return, as the mischief was done; but just
as his six months' absence was over--not all holiday, as folks said, for
there was foreign business to see after--he died by accident in
Switzerland. I knew the truth better than most people; for Mr. Clifford
came here often, and dropped many a hint. Some persons still say the
police were seeking for Roland; but that is not true. It was an
unfortunate concatenation of circumstances."
"You knew him well?" said Jean Merle.
"Yes; we were school-fellows and friends," answered the bookseller, "and
a finer fellow never breathed. He was always eager to get on, and to
help other people on. We have not had such a public-spirited man amongst
us since he died. It cuts me to the heart when anybody pretends that he
absconded. Absconded! Why! there were dozens of us who would have made
him welcome to every penny we could command. But I own appearances were
against him, and he never came back to clear them up, and prove his
innocence."
"And this is his wife's best book," said Jean Merle, holding it with
shaking, nerveless hands. Felicita's book! The tears burned under his
eyelids as he looked down on it.
"I won't say it is the best; it is my favorite," replied the bookseller.
"Her son, Felix Sefton, a clergyman now, was in here yesterday, asking
the same question. If you are related to Madame Sefton, you'll be very
welcome at the Old Bank; and you'll find both of Madame's grand-children
visiting old Mr. Clifford. I'll send one of my boys to show you the
house."
"Not now," said Jean Merle. If Mr. Clifford was living yet he must be
careful what risks he ran. Hatred has eyes as keen as love; and if any
one could break through his secret it would be the implacable old man,
who had still the power of sending him to a convict prison.
A shudder ran through him at the dread idea of detection. What would it
be to Felicita now, when her name was famous, to have it dragged down to
ignominy and utter disgrace? The dishonor would be a hundred-fold the
greater for the fair reputation she had won, and the popularity she had
secured. And her children too! Worse for them past all words would it be
than if they were still little creatures, ignorant of the value of the
world's opinion. He bade the bookseller good-morning, and threaded his
way through many alleys and by-lanes of the old town until he reached a
ferry and a boat-house, where many a boat lay ready for him, as they
had always done when he was a boy. He seated himself in one of them, and
taking the oars fell down with the current to the willows under the
garden-wall of his old home.
He steered his boat aside into a small creek, where the willow-wands
grew tall and thick, from which he could see the whole river frontage of
the old house. Was there any change in it? His keen, despairing gaze
could not detect one. The high tilted gables in the roof stood out clear
against the sky, with their spiral wooden rods projecting above them.
The oriel window cast its slowly moving shadow on the half-timber walls;
and the many lattice casements, with their small diamond-shaped panes,
glistened in the sun as in the days gone by. The garden-plots were
unchanged, and the smooth turf on the terraces was as green and soft as
when he ran along them at his mother's side. The old house brought to
his mind his mother rather than his wife. It was full of associations
and memories of her, with her sweet, humble, self-sacrificing nature.
There was repose and healing in the very thought of her, which seemed
to touch his anguish with a strong and soothing hand. Was there an echo
of her voice still lingering for him about the old spot where he had
listened to it so often? Could he hear her calling to him by his name,
the name he had buried irrecoverably in a foreign grave? For the first
time for many years he bent down his face upon his hands, and wept many
tears; not bitter ones, full of grief as they were. His mother was dead;
he had not wept for her till now.
Presently there came upon the summer silence the sound of a young,
clear, laughing voice, calling "Phebe;" and he lifted up his head to
look once more at the house. An old man, with silvery white hair was
pacing slowly to and fro on the upper terrace, and a slight girlish
figure was beside him. That was old Clifford, his enemy; but could that
girl be Hilda? A face looked out of one of the windows, smiling down
upon this young girl, which he knew again as Phebe Marlowe's. By and by
she came down to the terrace, with a tall, fine-looking young man
walking beside her; and all three, bidding farewell to the old man,
descended from terrace to terrace, becoming every minute more distinct
to his eyes. Yes, there was Phebe; and these others must be his girl
Hilda and his son Felix. They were near to him, every word they spoke
reached his ears, and penetrated to his heart. They seemed more
beautiful, more perfect than any young creatures he had ever beheld. He
listened to them unfastening the chain which secured the boat, and to
the creaking of the row-locks as they fitted the oars into them. It was
as if one of his own long-lost days was come back again to earth, when
he had sat where Felix was now sitting, with Felicita instead of Hilda
dipping her little white hand into the water. He had scarcely eyes for
Phebe; but he was conscious that she was there, for Hilda was speaking
to her in a low voice which just reached him. "See," she said, "that man
has one of my mother's books! And he is quite a common man!"
"As much a common man, perhaps, as I am a common woman," answered Phebe,
in a gentle though half-reproving tone.
As long as his eyes could see them they were fastened upon the receding
boat; and long after, he gazed in the direction in which they had gone.
He had had the passing glimpse he longed for into the Paradise he had
forfeited. This had been his place, appointed to him by God, where he
could have served God best, and served Him in as perfect gladness and
freedom as the earth gives to any of her children. What lot could have
been more blessed? The lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places; he
had had a goodly heritage, and he had lost it through grasping
dishonestly at a larger share of what this world called success. The
madness and the folly of his sin smote him with unutterable bitterness.
He could bear to look at it no longer. The yearning he had felt to see
his old home was satisfied; but the satisfaction seemed an increase of
sorrow. He would not wait to witness the return of his children. The old
man was gone into the house, and the garden was quiet and deserted. With
weary strokes he rowed back again up the river; and with a heavier
weight of sorrow and a keener consciousness of sin he made his way
through the streets so familiar to his tread. It was as if no eye saw
him, and no heart warmed to him in his native town. He was a stranger in
a strange place; there was none to say to him, here or elsewhere on
earth, "You are one of us."