BROKEN BUBBLES.
“So you especially enjoyed your stay at Florence,” said Isa, after the
conversation had taken a less serious turn.
“I was very happy there; it was so beautiful, and we knew such very nice
people. I should have liked to have stayed there much longer.”
“And why did you not remain there?” asked Isa. “Did not Sir Digby enjoy
Florence too?”
“Very much indeed, until—until a lady came to stay there who spoilt all
his pleasure in the place.”
“How was that?” said Isa.
“Why, the lady was witty; at least people said so; but if her kind of
talking was wit, I wish that there were no such thing in the world. All
her delight seemed to be to gossip and make her friends merry; and so
long as they laughed, she did not much mind what they laughed at. You
see,” continued Edith in a confidential tone, “her mother had lived in
the Castle, and she talked a great deal about that. Now, of course, it
was quite right and noble in papa to let strangers come here while we
were away—and there had been difficulties, as you know—but he did not
like its being talked about to every one.”
Isa could easily comprehend that her proud uncle had been very sensitive
on the subject of the letting of his ancestral mansion.
“And then,” pursued Edith, “she mixed up what was true with what was
not true; and how could strangers tell whether she spoke in jest or in
earnest? She said that papa had been harsh and violent to his servants;
and that was shamefully false!” exclaimed the girl, with a flush of
indignation on the face usually so gentle and calm—“he had been only too
indulgent and trustful. In short, this lady made Florence so unpleasant
by her gossip, that papa could bear it no longer. He said that he would
never willingly be for a day in the same city with Cora Madden.”
“Cora Madden!” repeated Isa, with a little start; and Edith, who had been
looking up at her cousin, saw with surprise a stern, gloomy expression
pass over her countenance like a shadow.
“Do you know Miss Madden?” inquired the baronet’s daughter.
“Do I know her?” repeated Isa slowly, with her hazel eyes bent on
the ground. Then suddenly she raised them, as she uttered the abrupt
question, “Edith, do you know what it is to hate?”
“Hate? no, not exactly,” replied the gentle girl; “but there are some
persons whom I do not like at all—some with whom I feel angry at times. I
was angry with Miss Madden one day when she was laughing at Mr. Eardley,
and mimicking his manner. I thought her doing so was so silly, so wrong.
Besides, rudeness to one’s friends tries one’s patience a great deal more
than unkindness to one’s self.”
“Cora reminds me of the description of the wicked in the Psalms,”
observed Isa—“‘_They shoot out their arrows, even bitter words._’ She
cares little where the darts alight, or how deep they may pierce.”
Edith, who had a very tender conscience, was very doubtful whether such
an application of a text from Scripture was consistent with Christian
charity. Without venturing, however, to reprove, she merely observed in
her gentle tone, “I am sorry that I spoke of Cora at all. It was breaking
a rule which I had made.”
“What is your rule?” asked Isa.
“Never to speak of those whom I cannot like, except to God,” replied
Edith.
“And what do you say of them to God?”
“Oh, if I speak of them to God, I must speak _for_ them,” answered little
Edith; “I dare not do anything else, for the Lord has told us to love
our enemies, and we could not bring malice into our prayers.”
“Yours is a good rule, darling,” said Isa, and she turned to imprint a
kiss on the forehead of her cousin. “Let us speak no more of Cora Madden,
and may God help us to obey the most difficult command contained in all
the Bible!”
To explain why the command appeared such a hard one to the young
maiden—why the very name of Cora called up bitter remembrances to her
mind—it is needful that I should let the reader know something of the
previous history of Isa Gritton.
Like her cousin Edith, Isa had early lost her mother, and had been the
only daughter in her father’s home; but otherwise there had been little
resemblance between the early childhood of the two. Edith, a crippled,
suffering invalid, had been the unmurmuring victim of nursery oppression;
and in her splendid mansion had had more to endure than many of the
children of the poor. Isa, on the contrary, fondly tended by a devoted
nurse, herself strong, vigorous, and full of spirits, had found her
childhood flow pleasantly past, like a stream dimpling in sunshine and
bordered with flowers. Isa had scarcely known what it was to feel weary,
sick, or sad. Her father called her his little lark, made only to sing
and to soar. She was beloved by all who knew the bright, playful child,
and her affectionate nature disposed her to love all in return. The
religion which was carefully instilled into Isa partook of the joyful
character of her mind. Isa was troubled by no doubts and few fears. The
thoughts of heaven and bliss which were suggested to her, were congenial
to the spirit of the child. Isa looked forward to the joys of Paradise
without letting imagination dwell either on the dark valley or “the
narrow stream.” Her idea of death was simply a peaceful removal to a yet
brighter and happier home.
There were some spiritual dangers attending this existence of ease and
joy. The very sweetness of Isa’s disposition dimmed her perception of
inward corruption. If she was tempted to make an idol of self, it was an
idol so fair that she scarcely recognized it as one. Sometimes, indeed,
Isa’s conscience would accuse her of vanity as she lingered before her
mirror, surveying with girlish pleasure the smiling image within it, or
recalled words of fond admiration, or committed some little extravagance
in regard to dress, for Isa at that time had a weakness for dress. But
the accusation was made in a whisper so soft, that it scarcely disturbed
her serenity. It affected her conduct, however; for on the day when Isa
first received a regular allowance of her own, she made on her knees a
resolution which never was broken—not to spend money on the adornment
of her person without devoting an equal sum to the relief of the poor.
Thus early the love of God combated the love of the world; a bridle was
placed upon vanity, which was still but a bridle of flowers; for Isa felt
as much pleasure in helping the poor as in wearing a new robe, or in
clasping the jewelled bracelet round her soft white arm.
Isa’s brightness of spirit did not pass away with childhood; it rather
increased, as the bud expands into the perfect flower. But in life’s
school Providence has appointed various teachers, and few of God’s
children pass many years upon earth without coming under the discipline
of disappointment, bereavement, and care. Isa was to know all three. The
first came to her when the blooming girl felt herself at the very summit
of earthly bliss, when a halo of happiness was thrown around every object
near her. Isa believed herself to be the most blest of women in being
beloved by Lionel Madden. Young and inexperienced as she was, Isa’s fancy
invested her hero with every noble and sterling quality; she believed
all that she desired, and the bright bubbles blown by hope glittered
with all the prismatic tints of the rainbow. The bubble suddenly broke!
Lionel became cold, alienated, shortly after the arrival of his sister,
who seemed to have taken an instinctive dislike to Isa. What had been
said against her Isa never exactly knew; but whatever poisoned shaft
had destroyed her hopes, she knew that it came from the quiver of Cora.
What marvel if bitter, resentful feelings arose towards the author of
her deep, though hidden, anguish? As Isa’s gaiety was suddenly changed
into gloom, so her kindly loving nature for awhile seemed altered into
one sternly vindictive. Like Satan intruding in a paradise of peace, and
blighting its flowers by his presence, hatred, and even a lurking desire
for vengeance, suddenly arose in a soul which had previously appeared to
be formed only for happiness and love.
[Illustration: CHANGED AFFECTION.]
But had Cora really injured Isa? Nay; the malicious enemy had done
more to shield the young maiden from misfortune than her most tender
friend could have done. Cruel may be the hand which tears to pieces the
half-formed nest which a bird is building on a hedge by the wayside, but
it is well for the bird if it be thus constrained to choose a higher
and safer bough. Lionel was unworthy of the affection of a faithful,
confiding young heart. It was well for Isa that her bubble was broken,
that her cherished hopes were scattered to the winds. She did not think
so, she could not feel so; even Lionel’s very worldly marriage, which
took place a few months afterwards, did not fully open her eyes to this
truth. Isa deemed all that was unworthy in the conduct of young Madden
the result of the influence of his sister; and regarded Cora not only as
her own evil genius, but that of the man whom she had loved. Startled and
alarmed by the fierce passions which, for the first time, struggled for
the possession of her heart, Isa looked upon Cora as the cause not only
of misery, but of sin also. Isa’s self-knowledge was deepened by trial,
but it was a self-knowledge that mortified and pained her. She found
that she was far from what she had hoped to become, from what the world
believed her to be; she was no calm angel soaring above earth and its
trials, but a weak tempted woman, who found it hard not to murmur, and
almost impossible truly to forgive.
And yet Cora had been but an instrument in a higher Hand, and to Isa
an instrument for good. We may praise God in another world even more
for the malice of our bitter enemies, than for the tender love of our
friends. Jacob’s paternal affection would have shielded his best-beloved
son from every touch of misfortune; but it was the hatred of Joseph’s
brethren, the malice of his false accuser, that led him—through the pit
and the prison—to exaltation and to honour. Satan himself became, through
God’s over-ruling goodness, an instrument of blessing to Job; his cruel
assaults led to deeper experience in the man whom he sought to destroy,
more close communion with God, and doubtless more exalted blessedness
hereafter. No enemy, human or infernal, has power to do us aught but
_good_, except by leading us into sin. Could we realize this, our wounded
hearts might find it less difficult to forgive the wrongs which are
“blessings in disguise.”
Not a year after the stroke of disappointment had fallen upon Isa, she
had to endure that of sudden bereavement. A few—very few—days of anxious
watching by a parent’s sick-bed, and Isa found herself fatherless as
well as motherless in the world. Very heavy lay the burden of loneliness
upon the young orphan’s heart. It is true that Isa had a half-brother
yet living, but Gaspar was many years older than herself, and Isa had
seen very little of him, as the greater part of his life had been passed
in Jamaica. Still the affections of Isa clung fondly around the nearest
relative left for her to love, especially as she knew her brother to be
in broken health; and she resolved that to watch over him and minister to
his comfort should be the object thenceforth of an existence from which
all the brightness appeared to have departed.
Even with thoughts of Gaspar, however, were linked associations of
mystery and pain. Isa had never imparted to any one a care which to her
young spirit was more oppressive than sorrow itself. She had never told
how, when the shadow of approaching dissolution lay on her father, when
the delirium of fever had passed away, he had fixed his glazing eyes
upon his daughter, at that midnight hour the sole watcher beside him.
The dying man had seemed anxious to disburden himself of something that
weighed on his mind; he struggled to speak, but his parched lips could
scarcely frame articulate words. Isa strained her ear to catch the almost
inaudible accents, bending down so low that she could feel the dying
man’s breath on her cheek. A few scattered sentences were gathered,
deeply imprinted on her memory by the solemnity of the time when they
were uttered.
“Gaspar—you will be with him—something wrong—the _Orissa_—not her money
lost—he should deal fairly by that orphan—tell him from me—” But whatever
was the message intended, death silenced the lips that would have sent
it, and Isa was left to ponder painfully over what could be “wrong,” and
how Gaspar could have not “dealt fairly” by an orphan, at least in the
opinion of his father.
The remembrance of these dying words, the dread of some painful
explanation with Gaspar, alone threw a damp upon the earnest desire with
which Isa looked forward to her only brother’s return to England. Her
affectionate spirit yearned for the sympathy of one bound to her by the
tie of blood, and she longed once more to possess a settled home. About a
year after Mr. Gritton’s death, Gaspar arrived from Jamaica. Isa was at
the time residing with a friend in London, and her brother took a lodging
near her. Being a good deal occupied with business during the day, and
too much an invalid to venture out in the evening, Gaspar did not see
much of his sister,—far less than Isa desired. Her brother’s manner
towards her was gentle and courteous, his kindness won her gratitude, his
broken health her sympathy. Isa wished to devote herself to the care of
her brother, but he preferred delaying the time when they should reside
together in a settled home, until he should have built a house into which
he could receive his young sister. During this period spent in London,
Isa either found no opportunity of speaking to Gaspar on the subject of
their father’s mysterious message, or she put off making the effort
till a more quiet season, when her brother might have recovered his
health. She could not bear to risk exciting him when he was so delicate,
or offending him when he was so kind. Isa gladly availed herself of any
excuse to delay the performance of a duty from which she intuitively
shrank.
Isa felt grateful to her half-brother for selecting as the place of
their future residence a spot near Castle Lestrange. She had paid many
a delightful visit to her uncle’s lordly mansion, both before and after
the death of his wife, and she deemed it a proof of Gaspar’s considerate
affection for herself, that he should purchase a site for his house but a
mile from the dwelling of those who were her relatives, but not his own.
Isa could have wished, indeed, that it had not been on the Wildwaste side
of the Castle, as memory recalled a flat expanse of common surrounding a
miserable hamlet, and an unsightly manufactory; but she had not visited
her uncle’s home for nearly six years, and many changes might have taken
place during that period. Isa also encouraged herself with the thought
that a little paradise might stand even in the midst of a barren heath,
like an oasis in a desert; and that as Gaspar had chosen to build a house
instead of buying one, it was evident that his was a taste which could
not be satisfied by any ordinary attractions in a dwelling.
During the time when Gaspar was building, Isa never once saw her
brother. He took a lodging above the single shop in Wildwaste, that he
might superintend operations. He kept a sharp eye over the workmen who
were brought from London, not suffering them, it was said, to mix with
the cottagers around, or spend their evenings at the small county inn.
There was no doubt that Gaspar Gritton was eccentric, and Isa was aware
of the fact; but she was disposed to look at her only brother in the most
favourable light, and persuaded herself that she rather liked a dash of
eccentricity in a character; it redeemed it from being commonplace.
Isa was very impatient for the completion of her new home, and would, if
permitted, have entered it before it was sufficiently dry to be a safe
residence for her. Buoyant hope had again sprung up within her young
heart, long cast down, but not crushed by affliction. Life might yet
have joys in store for the bright girl. Isa would be, as she thought,
everything to her brother; his nurse, companion, and friend. She would
make his home a fairy dwelling, where everything on which the eye might
rest should be graceful and pretty. Isa knew that her brother had
sufficient means to procure every comfort; and though her own patrimony
was but slender, she hoped, dispensing Gaspar’s alms, to become a
benefactress to all the poor around them. Again the fairy bubble was
glittering before Isa, and if its colours were now less splendid, and it
rose to less lofty a height still the emblem of earthly hope was not
without its beauty and brightness.
It was on a day in March that Isa joined her brother. She had enjoyed
her journey by train; the sunshine had been brilliant, her companions
agreeable, and her mind was full of pleasant expectation. Isa’s pleasure
was damped by the little disappointment of not finding Gaspar ready to
welcome her at the station. It was with a sensation of loneliness that
she took her seat in a hired open conveyance to be driven to Wildwaste
Lodge. The sunshine was now overclouded, a fierce north-east wind was
blowing, from the chilling effects of which the young lady from London
tried to protect herself in vain. The horse was lame, the drive seemed
long.
“Are we far from Wildwaste Lodge?” asked Isa at last of the driver,
as they skirted a dreary common of which she fancied that she could
recognize some of the features.
“That be’s the house,” replied the man, pointing with his whip towards a
narrow three-storied dwelling, looking staringly new, without sheltering
shrubbery or even hedge, with no blinds to the windows, no porch to the
door, nothing that could redeem its aspect from absolute vulgarity. Could
this be the rural retreat to which Isa had given the name of home!
[Illustration: ISA’S ARRIVAL AT WILDWASTE.]
Disheartened and chilled felt Isa as her conveyance passed through the
wretched hamlet, where groups of untidy women and barefooted children
stood staring at the unwonted apparition of anything in the shape of a
carriage. She scarcely liked to look again at the house, as the lame
horse stopped at the dark green door. Gaspar did not come forth to
welcome her; he dared not face the cutting wind which had chilled his
sister to the heart. Cold and numbed after her journey, Isa—when a deaf
elderly woman had answered the knock—descended from the conveyance;
herself saw her boxes carried into the narrow hall by the driver, paid
the man and dismissed him, and then hastened into the parlour, where
she found her brother. His reception, though not uncourteous, was by
no means calculated to dispel the chill which had fallen on the spirits
of Isa. Gaspar was so full of his own complaints that he had scarcely
leisure to observe that his sister was tired and cold. After conversing
with him for a while, Isa arose to explore the other apartments of the
house. She suppressed a little sigh of disappointment as she ascended the
uncarpeted stair.
The interior of Wildwaste Lodge was, if possible, more unattractive than
its outward appearance. Gaspar had reserved the ground-floor for himself,
and no one had a right to complain if in his own peculiar domain he
preferred simplicity to ornament, and neglected the little elegancies
which Isa deemed almost essential to comfort. But Isa was deeply
mortified when she entered her own apartments, which were immediately
over those of her brother, and found them furnished with a regard to
economy which amounted to actual penuriousness. A few chairs, not one of
which matched another, and which seemed to have been chosen at haphazard
out of some broker’s shop; a table of painted wood, one of the legs of
which did not touch the uncarpeted floor; and a shelf to serve as a
bookcase: these formed the entire furniture of the young lady’s boudoir.
There was not so much as a curtain to the window. Isa, weary and chilled
after her journey, felt inclined to sit down and cry from mortification
and disappointment. Little joy could she anticipate from a life to be
passed with one who from the first showed such disregard for her pleasure
and comfort.
Isa’s misgivings were painfully realized. There are some persons who are
pleasing in society, agreeable when only met on casual occasions, with
whom it is very annoying to be brought into closer contact. It is trying
to the temper to transact business with them, still more trying to dwell
under the same roof. The character of such persons seems to be made up
of angles, that on every side chafe and annoy. A graphic writer[1] has
humorously described them as unpruned trees. “Little odd habits, the
rudiments of worse habits, need every now and then to be cut off and
corrected. We should all grow very singular, ridiculous, and unamiable
creatures, but for the pruning we have got from hands kind and unkind,
from our earliest days.... Perhaps you have known a man who has lived for
forty years alone; and you know what odd shoots he had sent out; what
strange traits and habits he had acquired; what singular little ways he
had got into. There had been no one at home to prune him, and the little
shoots of eccentricity, of vanity, of vain self-estimation, that might
have easily been cut off when they were green and soft, have now grown
into rigidity.”
Mr. Gritton, from living much alone, had become a man of this kind. The
most unsightly branch on the unpruned tree was that of penuriousness.
Isa had had little opportunity of knowing her brother’s infirmity until,
when she became a resident in his house, it affected her daily, her
hourly, comfort. Herself generous and open-handed, fond of having the
conveniences and elegancies of life around her, yet esteeming as the
greatest of luxuries the power of giving freely to others, Isa could
not understand, far less sympathize with, the love of money for money’s
sake, which was the leading characteristic of Gaspar. It seemed to her
so grovelling, so mean, that Isa had to struggle against emotions not
only of irritation but of contempt. She was also deeply wounded to find
that Gaspar’s affection for his only sister was so subordinate to his
avarice. The young lady, accustomed to luxury and refinement, had the
utmost difficulty in persuading her brother even to allow her to find
an assistant to the ill-tempered elderly woman whom he had engaged
as a general servant. Though Isa succeeded in gaining her point, Mr.
Gritton would only give such wages as would be accepted by none but an
inexperienced girl like Lottie Stone. The efforts which it cost Isa to
carry out even this small domestic arrangement made her aware of another
unpleasant fact—that Gaspar had a peevish, irritable temper, more trying
to one residing constantly with him than a passionate one would have
been. The dying charge of her father lay now like an oppressive weight
upon the heart of poor Isa: her new insight into the character of Gaspar
gave to their parent’s words a more forcible meaning, and she dreaded
more and more the idea of being compelled by a sense of duty to open the
subject to her brother.
The first weeks of Isa’s residence at her dreary home would have been
weeks of positive misery, but for the cheering prospect of the speedy
return of her uncle and cousin, and the comfort which she derived from
the visits of the pastor of Axe, whose fatherly interest in her young
servant had first led his steps to her dwelling. Smiling April came at
last; and with it—more welcome to Isa than the nightingale’s song—Edith
Lestrange returned to the Castle. It was now arranged that Isa should
pass with her cousin a portion of each of those days on which an evening
lecture should be held at the steward’s cottage, and return to Wildwaste
in the baronet’s carriage at night. It was something to Isa to be thus
sure of at least two pleasant days in the week; though the contrast
between the refined elegance of Edith’s home and the dreary discomfort of
her own, increased the sense of bitterness in the soul of Isa.
But that sense of bitterness seemed for a time to pass away, and
domestic trials to be forgotten, when the cousins entered together
the flower-covered porch of the dwelling of Holdich, to unite with
their poorer brethren in the simple cottage service. Edith’s heart was
overflowing with thankful delight at being permitted again to worship in
that place where some of her earliest impressions of religion had been
received. Isa felt that here at least the carking cares of life might be
shut out: she might lift up her soul, as in happier days, unto her Father
in heaven.
The subject chosen by Mr. Eardley was the history of the triumph of
Gideon, the hero and saint, over the hosts of Midian. It was his object
in this, as in former courses of lectures,[2] to draw simple practical
lessons from the narratives contained in the Word of God; and as such
lessons are required by us all, I shall weave the brief addresses of the
clergyman, though in separate chapters, into the web of my story.
[1] _Vide_ “Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson.”
[2] _Vide_ “The Shepherd of Bethlehem,” “Exiles in Babylon,”
and “Rescued from Egypt.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]