MAHOMET AND KADIJAH.
Ralph Herkimer reached the station as the train was about to start. M.
Rouget was in the act of assisting his wife and daughter into the
parlour car, and Ralph sprang in after him just as the train moved
from the platform. M. Rouget owned the seigniory of La Hache, on the
outskirts of St. Euphrase, an outlying fragment of which Ralph had
purchased and built upon, hoping that with the other products of the
soil there would spring up an intimacy with the Rouget family,
and thereby an entrance to that French circle which so few
English-speaking Canadians ever penetrate. Not that that circle is
more wealthy, or of necessity more cultured than others on the great
American continent; but language, religion, and customs make it less
accessible and more exclusive, and therefore, like other things
difficult, both desirable and distinguished. A certain prescriptive
precedence, too, naturally attaches to the first comers everywhere, if
only they are strong enough to enforce it; and it must be remembered
that these Lower Canada seigniors represent the earliest settlers, and
as a body are the only approach to a landed aristocracy in North
America. North America, it is true, is the chosen home of democracy
and equality; but democratic equality--what is it? Does it not mean,
my brother, that you are on no pretext whatever to claim any sort of
betterness over _me_, while _I_, if I can secure distinction or
superiority am to be protected in the enjoyment of my acquisition; for
is it not a free and a law-abiding country that we live in? Witness
the army of the decorated in democratic France! or the shoals of
colonels, generals, and judges in the United States. Such is
democracy. _You_ must have nothing which I have not, but _I_ may take
whatever I can lay my hands on; and you, sir, are to bow down to me
for having it. It is the autocrat's crown cut up in slices, and placed
on the head of every one self-asserting enough to wear his fraction.
Ralph had made money--secured a substantial hunch of the bread of
subsistence, and now he was minded to butter it with all the social
distinctions and advantages he could attain to. M. Rouget passed up
the car before him, preceded by madame and the demoiselle, his
daughter. These ladies had not called upon Ralph's wife on her coming
to reside in the neighbourhood; but then Martha, as he told himself,
though a worthy creature, and one who had made him an excellent wife
in his day of small things, was scarcely equal to the promotion which
had overtaken her. She was undeniably diffident and undistinguished;
perhaps even dowdy, he added with a sigh, as the fresh crisp dresses
of the French ladies, befringed, bebugled, and "relieved" with
streamers of lace and ribbon, swam on in front of him. He would claim
his neighbour's acquaintance, he thought, who doubtless would
introduce him to his family; and then he doubted not he should make
himself so pleasant that the ladies would re-consider their previous
reserve and call on Martha forthwith. Already he saw himself at La
Hache, invited to meet Monseigneur the Archbishop and the Honourable
the Minister of Drainage and Irrigation, whom after that, if he were
but civil, he should feel bound to support at future elections, though
hitherto he had voted _rouge_.
So quick is thought, all this and more had flashed through his mind,
illustrated with _vignettes_ of gracious smiling ladies and
gesticulating Frenchmen--the prismatic glintings of a snob's beatific
vision--and he had not yet reached the middle of the car. M. Rouget
was walking on before. Another step and he would overtake him. Already
his hand was raised to touch the seignior's arm, when, hsh!--the prod
of a parasol point dexterously planted in the small of his back made
him start, exclaim, stop, and turn round.
In the corner of a sofa he had passed, a wizened little woman,
somewhat dusty and tumbled was smiling, to him from under the frizzes
of her false front, wide-mouthedly smiling, till every gold pin in her
best set of teeth shone in the slanting sunbeams of the afternoon. She
held out a clawlike hand in a cotton glove, by way of welcome, making
room on the sofa beside her, and dropping the parasol point, as the
wild Indian lays down his tomahawk in sign of amity.
"Judy!" said Ralph in some disgust; but while he spoke he saw the
Rouget party seat themselves with some friends, and recognized that
the opportunity for his little _coup_ was past, so he recovered
himself and dropped into the place so effusively offered.
"And how come _you_ to be here, ma'am? The general car does not seem
over-crowded. If the treasurer of the diocesan fund were to see you
travelling in parlour cars, he would doubt the need of that
augmentation we have been petitioning for."
"It would be just like him if he did. He is mean enough for anything
in the way of prying into the private affairs of the rural clergy. I
wonder how he would like it himself? Still, there _are_ a few whose
goings on he might inquire into more closely. But he has favourites. I
wish Synod would make a change."
"But they will say _you_ are a favourite if you travel in this
regardlessly extravagant way."
"Let them, if they dare! But there is no fear of that. They cannot but
know that on the five hundred dollars of stipend they allow Mr. Bunce,
a clergyman's family cannot travel at all, except on foot; and even
that takes more shoe leather than they can afford. They understand
perfectly well, that, but for my little income, Mr. Bunce could not
have afforded to accept the parish of St. Euphrase at all--a fact
which is no credit to our church. And I think, Ralph, it would have
been more respectful to Mr. Bunce, and kinder to me, if you had not
alluded to our pecuniary circumstances. We cannot all be brokers, you
must remember."
"Beg pardon, Judy. No offence. And you remind me that I have not yet
inquired after the health of my respected uncle," he added with an
impertinent laugh. "I hope he is well."
Ralph's acquisition of an uncle on his Aunt Judith's marriage was
rather an ancient ground of amusement by this time, for the marriage
had taken place years before; but the idea of his maiden aunt created
a wife, and the cleric, his junior, transformed into his uncle, was a
perennial joke, from which time and familiarity could not rub the
point. His other uncle, Gerald, had been one to make a nephew quail;
and that this mild, shaven, unwealthy, and, so far, youthful parson
should have stepped into the redoubtable title, was inexhaustibly
droll. It is notable how long the same quip and jest will serve to
tickle the busy man engrossed in material interests; but in this case
there was the excuse that the Bunces really were an oddly-assorted
pair. A stranger could not but have inquired how they had come to
marry each other--she, so mature, he, with his drab-coloured hair and
round smooth cheeks. "Cherubical," his bride had called the cheeks to
her bridesmaid in a moment of enthusiasm and confidence; but they were
too loose and pasty to deserve the title, or if not, the cherub must
have been out of health--cloyed with ambrosia perhaps, or too much
nectar, in the Elysian Fields.
Judith herself had rejuvenated, or brightened, perhaps, since we saw
her first, with hair and clothing severely plain, and a look of
reproving superiority to all things pleasant. She was an old young
woman in those days, and now she was a young old one. Then, leanness
and the tight-drawn skin prevented the crows' feet round the eyes from
being strongly marked, and the low-toned colouring harmonized in its
way with the grizzling of the hair; now, with some gain of adipose
tissue, and the relaxed tension incident to a mind relieved from the
imaginary reproach of spinsterhood, the lines and creases showed quite
clearly, like ripple marks on the sand left by the ebbing waves of
time. The hair, too, with its faded browns sympathizing with the
greyness of the flesh tints was changed; for now the lady shone in a
new capillary outfit, and seemingly, when buying it, she had chosen to
revert to the livelier colouring of her youth. The "front," "bang,"
"fringe," or whatever she may have called it, was of a cheerful
gingerbread hue, which quenched any lingering lustre of the eye, or
aspiration toward pinkness in the cheek, and gave her somewhat the
look of a mummy, which, after ages wasted in darkness, comes forth
again to taste the happiness of life, and the warmth of the upper
world.
The love tale of these two had no doubt been as thrilling an idyl to
themselves as that of any pair of nightingales in all Arcadia, but it
appeared rather a drab-coloured romance, or, better, no romance at
all, to their friends, who opened their eyes in blank amaze when the
project of marriage was announced, and vowed the strangely-assorted
couple had lost their wits. Judith, the severely Protestant virgin of
St. Silas, to the High Church--the very high--curate of St.
Wittikind's! It seemed incredible. It was true that for some time she
had visited a good deal among the poor of St. Wittikind's parish,
frequented its schools, guilds and sisterhoods, where things were
conducted not precisely as the good people of St. Silas thought best;
but still that was "Church work," and as she continued to distribute
tracts as copiously as ever in the Catholic neighbourhood selected by
the St. Silas' ladies as their experimental farm of controversy, they
had agreed to regard the vagary as only showing great breadth of view,
and a largely comprehensive charity, which they hoped would lead to
reciprocity, and bring some darkling wanderer from the other pen to
their own better-lighted fold.
The reality of the case was far otherwise. Miss Judith had a leisure
and energy ravenous of occupation, and which would not be filled up,
and appeased with fancy-work, and dispensing printed leaves to French
people who could not understand what she said. These are pleasing
occupations, but they grow monotonous after a time. She had tried
improving her mind, too, a good work, but it postulates a mind capable
of being improved by printed matter, and the minds of many who have
done the world's work, and done it well, have not been of that kind.
Miss Judith's mind was practical rather than contemplative, and her
studies did not go great lengths, while nature had blessed her with a
sustaining self-content. When her book wearied her she laid it down
and sought some other occupation--somebody else to improve, when her
own mind had had enough of it. Her sister Susan declined her offices,
knowing the teacher too well to set much store by the lessons, and
therefore she had to carry her instructions farther afield.
Such is the sad lot of spinsterhood in modern life, when woman misses
her natural vocation of house-mother, and fortune exempts her from the
need to earn her living. The instincts and traits which society for
its own entertainment encouraged and cultivated in youth lose their
power to please when bloom and sprightliness have vanished. Then the
love of applause and excitement so attractive in the youthful beauty
turn like famished hounds on their forsaken mistress, and rend her own
heart when she can furnish them no other game. She has been taught to
think highly of herself, and to claim much, and she may have learned
the world and its lessons well, but the world has grown weary of her,
and goes its way in search of a fresher plaything. There is tragedy in
this of the unspoken kind, but it is so common, and it drags its
course so slowly--for people do not easily die of spinsterhood--that
we fail to note the restless gnawing of hearts and brains condemned to
inaction, and only laugh at the _bizarrerie_, when, growing
intolerable, it breaks out into lady-doctors of divinity, law, or
physic.
When Judith made the acquaintance of the Rev, Dionysius Bunce, it was
with something of the trepidation with which an explorer clambers up
the side of an unknown volcano. "Could he be a Jesuit in disguise, as
some people said?" she wondered, "or was he a well-meaning but
uninstructed person who had lost his way, and now unwittingly was
travelling the broad and flowery road, whose course is ever downward,
and which leads, we all know whither?" What an achievement it would be
could she lead back the wanderer, if indeed he were astray! Or if he
were, as she had been taught to think, a wolf in sheep's clothing,
what a privilege to unmask him and save true Protestantism from his
insidious wiles!
But there was a single-minded earnestness in this young man which
interested her from the first, and soon assured her he was no Jesuit;
and he was so strangely willing to listen, to discuss, and even to
admit that there might be much in her view of a question. This was new
to Judith, whose guides hitherto, knowing all about everything, had
tolerated no differences of opinion, and had shown her the path of
orthodoxy laid down with square and compass from which no one must
venture to diverge under pain of running up against some text of
Scripture, set like a curbstone by the wayside, to the peril of unwary
wheels meandering off the track. Dionysius was self-denying in his
charity, too. He would give his dinner to the poor any day, instead of
dining first and bestowing the leavings, as is more usual; and
self-denial is a virtue which enthusiastic women delight in.
Enthusiasm is catching, and when it has caught, it makes scattered
units run together and cohere like drops of quicksilver. Judith had
caught it from him as had the members of his guilds; and they worked
away with a happy feeling of earnestness which made things very
pleasant, and over-rode all misgivings as to whether the dance were
worth the candle, or at least as to the usefulness or wisdom of what
they were about.
Judith was drawn by the fervour of St. Wittikind's curate into
visiting his poor, and even decorating his sanctuary--a Low Church
lady actually embroidering crosses and polemical symbols!--and yet in
her new frame of mind it did not occur to her she had at first
discussed with disapproval the use of papistical emblems. He had
treated her view with every respect while differing from it, and then
had talked round the point to the other side, and shown the amiable
and pious feeling in which such things may be done when looked at the
other way, till Judith, won by his toleration, could not but be
tolerant too, and actually joined in the work.
It must have been this mixture of docility and independence which won
on Dionysius, and recalled the sacred feelings with which in his
boyhood he had regarded a venerable aunt and a saintly mother both
deceased. He was a young man of a pre-eminently earnest cast of mind,
which turned churchwards. He greatly admired and fain would have
copied the saints and heroes of early times. Had the Church of Canada
kept a wilderness for retiring into, like the Thebæid of antiquity, he
would have turned hermit; or had there been some real genuine pagans
within its confines he would have been a missionary; but the Indian of
the North-West, part horse-thief, part fur-trader, and altogether
indifferent, offers no opening to aspirants to the rank of martyr or
confessor; so he was forced to do like the rest, and stay at home.
He did what he could in St. Wittikind's, but it was discouraging work.
The men there were mostly wealthy, and all engrossed in business. They
could not be induced to attend either daily matins or evensong, and
though scrupulously polite when he approached them, were sure to have
an important appointment somewhere, and forced to hurry away. The
young ladies of course were ready, nay charmed, to attend matins or
anything else, provided the hour was reasonable and there had been no
ball overnight. Evensong he found unpopular with them, as interfering
with "home duties," to wit afternoon tea; but they were eager for
"Church work," at least in the shape of elaborate embroideries in gold
thread and ecclesiastical patterns. If Dionysius would have interested
himself in croquet or lawn tennis, or if he would have nourished a
taste for music of a form less severe than Gregorians, he would have
come to have influence; but the young man at that stage of his growth
was too single-minded to have any mistress but Religion; and Mrs.
Silvertongue, his rector's worldly-minded wife, was heard to compare
him to a shaggy young Baptist broke loose from the desert, when Judith
rushed to the rescue by declaring that he seemed to be a very sound
Churchman indeed, and everybody laughed at both the ladies.
As years went on, the intimacy grew closer. Judith found it delightful
to be busy and of importance--to be authorized to interfere with
people too poor to dare resent it; telling them what they must do,
scolding and physicking them as seemed best, and really being kind,
though in a provoking way; consulting with a clergyman, talking and
being listened to by a gentleman with interest and respect. It was so
very long ago since any gentleman had shown interest in her
conversation, or anything but weariness, and now this ordained pastor
sometimes even consulted her. It made her feel that she was not yet
all of the past, that there was something to live for still, and
afforded some of the old time satisfaction in being minded by one of
the stronger sex, mixed at once with the reverence she owed a
spiritual guide, and motherly interest in one so much her junior.
Dionysius, too, grew attached, though not precisely in the same way as
if she had been twenty years younger. He was so good a young man, and
so shy, that he failed, perhaps, to fill all the social uses of a
curate, and grew somewhat out of intimacy with the younger ladies of
his cure, who, though they saw him daily at matins, had learned not to
look for his presence at garden parties and afternoon teas. Judith
listened to him with so ardent an interest that he forgot his
diffidence and reserve in conversing with her, and grew even eloquent
at times, as he knew by the admiring reverence in her face; and then,
in the gratification of appreciated merit, he would forget the
disparity in their ages, and hail her as a sister spirit travelling
the same heavenward road with himself. And so they continued to fare
on together in amity and trust, the brother uttering words of wisdom,
the sister accepting them humbly, and ignorant that they were leading
her far from the truth according to St. Silas, where with her sister
on Sundays she still went to church; for Judith's theological mind was
of the emotional not the argumentative sort; though she loved to use
the party catch-words, and believed she set great store by them, they
conveyed to her no clearly defined ideas. Warmth was what she longed
for, and friendship, and these she drew most readily from the curate
of St. Wittikind.
The intimacy between the two might have gone on for ever unchanged,
but at length Dionysius fell ill, and then the crisis in their
friendship and their lives arrived. Judith called regularly at her
friend's lodging to inquire for his health. By-and-by she had messages
to carry him from his poor, she sat down by his bedside and conversed,
and he declared himself so much refreshed by her visit that it would
have been inhuman if she had not called again. She did call again, and
again; and by-and-by she fell into the way of bringing jellies and
little dainties to tempt the sick man's appetite. One day as he was
dining on a warm and greasy broth, misnamed beef tea, he laid it down
scarce tasted on her entrance, and with manifest disrelish pushed it
away. Judith peered and sniffed at the ungrateful preparation, and
pressed him to try her jelly instead. "I know how beef-tea should be
made, and I shall bring your landlady a supply, and then she will only
have to warm a little from time to time as you want it."
The next day Judith arrived, carrying upstairs with difficulty a large
stone jar in a basket. In the study, which was also the ante-chamber
to the sick-room, she encountered the landlady coming out. Mrs.
McQuirter looked her full in the face, flushing indignantly and eyeing
with a sniff and a toss of the head the jar which Judith was lifting
with difficulty to the table.
"Good morning, Mrs. McQuirter," said Judith in her most conciliatory
manner.
"Morning, miss," replied the other with a side-long glance which was
far from friendly.
"How do you think Mr. Bunce is to-day, Mrs. McQuirter?"
"Guess you're going in, miss, and will see for yourself; so there's no
good me telling you. You'd be sure to think you knew a deal better,"
and she sailed towards the door in her grandest style; then turning as
if an idea had struck her, and as if fearing that she had not already
been sufficiently provoking, she added:
"Say, miss! Is that sleigh as brought you and your basket still at the
door? We've a deal of old crockery here as don't belong to us, and
we'd be right glad to be rid on. Odd bowls, and plates, and chipped
jelly glasses as don't match our sets, and make me feel kind o' mean
when neighbours come in at dish-washing time with their 'Laws, Mrs.
McQuirter, now! and where in goodness did you ever pick up all them
cracked dishes?' If you're agreeable, I will just get 'em all together
and send them back by the carman before they get broke, for it 'ud
cost more than the valy of all the messes they brought here to replace
'em with new."
Judith felt indignant, and coloured deeply, but as to reply in kind
would have been to raise a dragon in the path to her friend's bedside,
she restrained herself, and merely answered: "By all means, Mrs.
McQuirter. Kindly help me to lift this jar out of the basket, and then
you can take it."
"And what may you be bringing here in your large crock, miss?" asked
the landlady contemptuously. It seemed so impossible to irritate this
old maid into the scolding match she thirsted for, that she was
growing to despise as well as detest her.
"This is some beef-tea--a most excellent form in which to give
nourishment to invalids like Mr. Bunce."
"Beef-tea, indeed! It's more like half-melted glue to look at. Ugh!"
"Quite natural in you to say so, Mrs. McQuirter. So few people know
what beef-tea really should be like. It is the strength of the stock,
which has jellied in cooling, that gives it the appearance you allude
to. If you will just warm a cupful in a saucepan as it is wanted,
without letting it boil, you will find it delicious. Try a little of
it yourself, I know you will like it."
"Not me! And do you know, miss, how many large knuckles of beef I have
boiled into tea in the last ten days? And scarce a drop has he let
pass his lips! All clean gone to waste. I don't hold with beef-tea for
Mr. Bunce no ways. He seems to hate it like pizen."
"I am not surprised at his having refused the decoction I saw sent up
to him yesterday," said Judith with a relish. It seemed that
notwithstanding her forbearance she was to have an innings, and she
meant to use it in truly Christian fashion; not to exult openly, but
to rub any blistering truth which came to hand well into the bone. "In
making beef-tea all fat is carefully removed, and the meat is then
placed in a jar with salt and cold water, near the fire, where it must
stand for hours without boiling or even simmering. Now, really, Mrs.
McQuirter," and she dipped a teaspoon in the jar, "just taste how good
it is! If you will warm a cup or so of it two or three times a day I
am confident you will have no difficulty in getting Mr. Bunce to drink
it."
"I think I see me trying it, miss! And it shows your assurance to be
evening me to the like. You are but a young lady yet, so to say,
though you were born ten years before myself, I guess, as am the
mother of six--leastways you are but an old maid, when all is said,
and to take upon you to tell me how to make beef-tea! Me, as am the
mother of six, and has buried a good husband. And many a bowl of my
beef-tea the poor man drank, and him lying on the very feather bed
where the parson lies now."
"And he died, Mrs. McQuirter? I am not surprised," said Miss Judith,
thinking more of her argument and less of conciliation as the talk
went on. "I observed the mixture yesterday when Mr. Bunce was unable
to swallow it--a mere mixture of grease and warm water. Do you not
know that at boiling point albumen coagulates, and becomes insoluble,
like the white of a hard-boiled egg? You would not expect the water
you boil eggs in to be very nourishing? Your beef-tea is just like
that, and if your late husband's dietary contained no more nourishing
items, I cannot wonder that he did not survive."
"You owdacious old maid, you! How daar you? To insinniwate that me as
has fairly slaved for my man and his children had a hand to his taking
off. But I'll have the law of you, I will! and I take Mr. Bunce in
there as must have heard ye, if he's awake yet, to witness that you
said it. Me, the mother of six, to be insulted and put upon by an old
thing as never was able to get married at all! And it shows the men's
good sense, that same. And here you come with your broths and your
messes after my poor young gentleman, as is laid on the broad of his
back, and too sick to run away from you like the rest. And it's a
disgrace to your sect, you are, miss! for all your silk, and your
sealskin, and me but a poor lone widdy with a quiet lodger--to be
coming here at all hours acourting a gentleman as don't want you--you
that are old enough to be his grandmother and should be at home making
your soul, for your change as must come before long, 'stead of running
that shameless after the men to make them marry you."
"Oh!" was all that Judith could utter, throwing up her black gloved
hands to the ceiling and then dropping in a heap on a stool in the
corner and burying her face in her handkerchief. The wordy hurricane
had fallen on the flower--an elderflower--and beaten it down and
crushed it; and there she cowered in her confusion, convulsed with
sobs, while the hurricane whistled but the more wildly in its triumph,
and would fain have scattered and dispersed the ruin it had already
made.
"And well may you hide your face after sich ongoings! and it don't
become one as sets up for quality to have done the like; to be coming
here a worritting of a poor young gentleman to marry her, as it's
quite oncertain if he will see the light of next week! Or is it that
you think you will make the people say he has treated you bad if he
don't, after you coming here so often? But the people knows better,
miss! and they say you're too old for him; and that you've been
worritting around him that long, it's a fair amazement between his
patience and your perseverance whatever comes of it. The very rector
of the parish takes notice on it, and the rector's lady says its
shameless the way you go on to make him marry you!"
"Silence, Mrs. McQuirter! with your bad and cruel tongue."
Mrs. McQuirter turned and stood aghast. The door of the sleeping-room
had opened without noise, and framed in the opening stood Dionysius,
like the picture of his canonized namesake stepped out of some Gothic
window. One arm was thrust into the sleeve of a purple dressing-gown
which was wrapped about him, leaving exposed his chest and other arm
clothed in their snowwhite sleeping gear. Excitement caused by the
altercation he must have overheard, and the exertion of rising had
brought a feverish flush to his cheeks, burning into hectic spots amid
the pallor of illness, and there was a lustre in his eye, which could
the world have seen, it would have reconsidered its judgment of his
appearance as ordinary and commonplace.
"How dare you address my kind visitor--my friend--in the wicked words
I have heard you use?"
Mrs. McQuirter was taken aback; but being now, to use her own phrase,
"in for it," as having sinned beyond forgiveness, and sure to lose her
lodger, it seemed best to retreat in good order, and show neither fear
nor remorse.
"What a lone widdy like me says, Mr. Bunce, ain't of no 'count to a
gentleman like you, sir, and I have always done my very best to make
you comfortable, so my mind's easy. It's what the rector's lady says,
and the quality in your church, and if you like to have them speaking
that way of you and that--that female there, as is ashamed to look an
honest woman in the face, 'taint no affairs of mine."
Judith felt as if she would gladly die, and sank from the stool to the
carpet in a collapsed heap. If the ground would have opened and
swallowed her, how thankful she would have been; but it did not, and
she could but bury her face deeper in her lap.
"The lady you have presumed to scandalize so shamefully," the curate
resumed, "has called here at my earnest request. If I could induce her
to come more frequently she would be even more welcome; and in case
you should still have any doubts, let me tell you plainly that if this
lady would condescend to accept me, there is no one I would so gladly
make my wife. Now! I have said all that can possibly interest you.
Leave the room instantly, and close the door."
The door closed behind Mrs. McQuirter and the two were left together.
Judith's confusion was too great to permit her to lift her head, but
there was a tremor of expectancy in the heap of silk and sealskin into
which she had collapsed, which made itself felt in the surrounding
air. She had ceased to sob, and became all ear. Even the silk of her
gown, though she was crouched so close that to draw breath without a
movement seemed impossible, forbore to rustle.
Dionysius stood still in his white and purple like a Gothic saint, but
less erect now that the impulse of battle had spent itself. He stood a
committed man, yet a man who has not yet spoken, shivering on the
brink of the proposal which he has bound himself to make. You remember
the feeling, my married friend, when the words grew too unwieldy to
articulate, and there was a pause. The leading up to the grand climax
had been achieved, the lady and the universe were waiting, the very
next word must be the word of fate, and you were not dreaming of
drawing back, but still it lingered; and oh! the effort it took to
launch that ill-formed sentence! Dionysius stood, and his strength was
waning. Before him there was the prostrate heap of clothing which
waited but made no sign, and the air around was still and listening.
The very fire forgot to blaze and crackle, and looked at him silently
in red unblinking expectation. Only the clock on the mantelpiece went
on unmoved, counting the fleeting seconds as they sped with
dispassionate calmness. They were slipping away, and so too was his
strength, and yet he had not spoken.
"Judith," he said at last with a great effort; but when he had so far
found his voice the words came easier.
"Judith, my fr----Judith!" and he went and laid a tremulous hand upon
her shoulder. "You have heard the words I spoke to Mrs. McQuirter.
Will you forgive me that I should thus have declared myself in the
presence of a stranger before having spoken to yourself. Believe me,
dear, it was from no disrespect, no lack of appreciation; but you know
how we have been with each other. Our close fellowship in the higher
life may have made us forgetful of mere earthly relations, but we must
remedy that now. This foolish woman, with her idle tongue, has spoken
words of more wisdom than she knew, and if we are to be companions on
the heavenward way, is it not well that our earthly paths should be
united?"
A thrill ran all through Judith's frame. He felt her tremble beneath
his hand, but still she did not lift her head.
"Judith, my own dear, you must marry me! It is necessary for your good
name. If that is not enough to move you, it is necessary for mine. I
will not have them say that I could trifle with a woman's regard.
Though what care we, either you or I, for people's idle talk? Have we
not been walking hand-in-hand, each helping and supporting the other
to live aright? And has not our companionship been for good to both?
Let us marry, Judith! and silence babbling tongues. It will be best
so. Look up, my friend, and answer. And yet, Judith, I must own it, I
am poor. I have nothing but the stipend of my curacy; and when the
poor, my brothers, have had their share, and my yearly bills are paid,
there is nothing over. Not a cent. It will explain to you how I never
came to think of marriage before."
Then Judith raised her face suffused with blushes, and lighted with a
happy eager look which had not been seen there before in twenty years;
and under the transfiguring influence of an unexpected joy, she looked
for the moment almost beautiful. So, when the fogs and rain of autumn
have spent their strength, and the frosts of winter still linger in
their coming, there fall halcyon days, when nature, not yet stripped
bare of flower and foliage, blooms out again in her Indian summer. The
trees are hung with wreaths of gold-bright leaves, or garlanded with
crimson, the sod renewed by rains after the summer scorchings, is
green with a greenness unseen at other times; the garden is still
cheered by marigolds and asters, larkspur and phlox, and the sky and
the waters have a sunny blueness, shining but the brighter for the
smoky grey which conceals the distance--the distance which harbours
winter, tempest, rain, too soon to be let loose.
A tear was quivering on Judith's eyelash. A happy sob gave a tremor to
her voice when she tried to speak.
"Dionysius. And do you mean it? Marry--marry me! But it is only your
gentlemanly feeling which will not have me talked about. I dare not
take you at your word, however--however much--I might----" and her
colour deepened, and the drops rained down, and again she hid her
face.
"Indeed, it is not so, Judith. You may indeed believe me--if only you
will have it so. And we have been so much to each other--and now we
must be nothing any more, unless you will consent to marry."
Judith moved as if trying to gain her feet, and Dionysius took her
hand to lend assistance, and so it came about that they stood with
their arms entwined. Judith's head dropped on the curate's shoulder,
and felt as if it would gladly linger there for ever. And he, the lady
clinging and half-supported in his arms, had a vague sense of heroic
worth and power as man; standing thus before the universe, lord of
another life besides his own; and many other feelings, surging and
confused, which would not lend themselves to words. And little more
was said, though much was understood and agreed between them; and
by-and-by the striking of the clock recalled them to common life, and
both sat down. Then Dionysius, exhausted with excitement, grew faint
and returned to his room.
Judith lingered till she was assured that the faintness was wearing
off, and then she stole softly downstairs on her way home. Softly as
she stepped, however, she was overheard, and ere she could reach the
door, Mrs. McQuirter stood before her blocking the way; but it was
Mrs. McQuirter in a different part from the one she had played so
lately. Then, she was the dragon landlady ready to devour an intrusive
and defenceless spinster, now she was the lone widow, the mother of
six. One little toddler held on to her gown, she led another by the
hand, while her other hand held a napkin saturated with the moisture
which ran from her streaming eyes and bedewed her face.
"Oh, miss!" she cried with a sob, and the little ones piped a small
chorus of sympathy, "I was wishful to speak to you as you went out, to
make it up with you for what I said upstairs. And I'm free to confess,
miss, it was not my place to speak the way I did. But I'm hot by
nature, miss, and when once I begin, my tongue runs clean away from
me. But I bear no malice, miss, as John McQuirter often said. 'She
bears no malice,' he'd say, and them's his very words."
"It is of no consequence, Mrs. McQuirter; I'm willing to overlook,"
and Judith endeavoured to slide past in the narrow hallway, but the
little ones, with faces damp and sticky, and threatening damage to any
article of apparel which might rub against them in passing, blocked
the way.
"And it's good of you to say so much, miss; and it does credit to Mr.
Bunce's choice. And oh, Miss! you'll remember, will you not? I'm a
lone widdy, and the mother of six! And it's hoping you'll have a fine
family of your own some day," which made Judith blush. "And you won't
be for allowing Mr. Bunce to change his lodging, and all along of a
few thoughtless words, as I'm truly sorry for the saying on. You won't
now? Will'e, miss? Like a dear."
"I have told you, already, Mrs. McQuirter, I shall overlook the
offence. Mr. Bunce is too ill to think of moving. He feels quite faint
after the disturbance you caused him, and he needs nourishment. You
had better warm him a cupful of that beef-tea I brought. Warm it in a
saucepan, but don't let it boil; and send up a few sippets of dry
toast along with it. The sooner you can let him have it the better."
And having prescribed this penance to the spirit-broken mother of six,
she got away.
It was near the end of Lent before the secret of the engagement was
divulged, though the wedding was to be immediately after Easter; but
then a storm of ridicule arose which could not but offend those most
interested. Judith's own family were as provokingly sarcastic as any
one in the churches of St. Silas or St. Wittikind, and that is saying
much. It became clear to the young couple that they must leave the
city; so Dionysius resigned his curacy and accepted the small
missionary parish of St. Euphrase. The emoluments there were less than
he had enjoyed in the city, but his wife was possessed of a modest
competency, on which in that sequestered place, they contrived to live
in comfort and respect.
If the taste in which Judith had endeavoured to rejuvenate her
appearance was doubtful, the acquisition of a spouse had still had the
best influence in softening and sweetening her nature, and her
gratitude and devotion to the man who had looked on her in her
loneliness were pleasant to see. For him, it was only after marriage
and the worship which it brought him at his own fireside, that it
began to dawn on Mr. Bunce what a very superior man he must surely be,
and he felt beholden to his helpmate for making the discovery. So
Mahomet no doubt, felt to the elderly Kadijah, his first wife, the
earliest of his converts, and the first to recognize him as a prophet.
In after years he married women younger and more beautiful, but none
ever held a place so high in his affection as the wealthy widow who
had married him in his poverty and youth.