THE DEATH-BED MESSAGE.
Isa awoke on the following morning with a feeling of oppression on
her heart, a vague impression that something had been neglected which
ought to have been done, and she connected that something with the
lecture which she had heard on the preceding day. Several minutes
passed, however, before she could trace back the links of thought to the
actual cause of her uneasiness, as it lay out of the general course of
reflection suggested by the subject of the lecture. Then Isa recalled the
words which at the time that she heard them had painfully reminded her
of a death-bed scene, perhaps the saddest recollection left on a mind
which had had of late much experience of sorrow. “The Christian may be
called to draw upon himself the anger of men by defending the truth, or
upholding the cause of the oppressed.”
“It is more than two years,” reflected Isa, “since I received a sacred
charge from the dying lips of my dear father; and that charge I have
never obeyed. For more than two years may an orphan have been suffering
wrong on account of my brother, and during all this time I have let
the sin rest on his soul. I first put off an explanation till I should
meet him; then, when we met, I shrank from doing my duty. I quieted
conscience with every kind of frivolous excuse; he was too delicate, too
sensitive, too busy, it would be better to delay speaking till we should
be alone together in some peaceful home. We have been alone together, we
have passed hours, days, weeks in each other’s society, with nothing to
hinder me from speaking, except my own cowardly dislike of saying what
might probably offend. Surely cowardice like this is another Midianite
in possession, and I shall never know real peace till I have wrestled it
down. Whenever the remembrance of that charge comes over my mind, it is
like a cloud darkening the sunshine, and throwing a chill around. God
help me to fulfil at length a neglected duty! I will speak to Gaspar
before this day has passed over.”
To some strong natures there might have appeared little that was
formidable in the task before her, but to Isa it was peculiarly painful.
Brought up as an only daughter, tenderly nurtured from her cradle, she
had hardly known what it was to have to encounter even a grave look
or a hasty word,—Isa had never learned to _endure hardness_. Fond of
pleasing, both from natural kindliness of heart and love of approbation,
Isa never willingly gave offence; with her to inflict pain was to suffer
it. Isa delighted in deeds of kindness and works of beneficence; to
comfort the sorrowing, or rejoice with the happy was congenial to her
womanly spirit; but to restrain, rebuke, oppose—the sterner duties which
are sometimes assigned to the most gentle of the sex in the battle-field
of life—cost Isa an effort which can only be appreciated by those of a
disposition like her own.
Isa’s heart throbbed uneasily with the feeling that the explanation
so long dreaded, so long put off, was at hand, as she sat in the
apartment which she called her boudoir, but which was always used as a
breakfast-room. The bronze urn was hissing on the table, on which was
spread a somewhat meagre repast. Awaiting her brother, who was late, Isa
placed herself by the window, and gazed forth on the prospect before
her. There was little to charm in that prospect, even on a bright spring
day. A tract of common spread in front, dotted with golden patches of
blossoming furze; but the picturesqueness of heath land was marred by
the low-lying hamlet which was the foreground of the landscape. The
cottages, or rather hovels of Wildwaste, wore an appearance of squalor
and decay, which was not softened by the charm which moss and lichen and
clustering ivy can throw around even ruins. They appeared rather falling
to pieces because originally ill-built, than because they were ancient.
The only tenement at Wildwaste which looked in perfect repair, and with
some pretension to beauty, was the neat little school-house, erected by
a Madden, but not, as Isa had soon learned from Lottie, either by Lionel
or by Cora. “How pleasant,” mused Isa, as she watched the little clusters
of cottage children entering the low-browed porch—“how pleasant to leave
behind such a memorial of a passing visit to a place as that young Arthur
has left!” and as she thought of her brother, with his ample means yet
penurious disposition, she felt painfully how far better it is to possess
the heart to give than the money.
The soap manufactory, lying a little to the right of the prospect, a
huge unsightly square-windowed pile of brick and mortar, was a yet more
conspicuous object than the hamlet of Wildwaste. It stood not two hundred
yards from Isa’s home, so that when the wind blew from that quarter she
dared not open the windows to let in the breezes, so polluted were they
by smoke and evil scent. The only redeeming feature in the landscape seen
from the lodge was the park which skirted the road beyond the common, the
beautiful park above whose light leafy screen rose the gray turrets of
Castle Lestrange. There, indeed, beauty and peace might dwell; thence no
ruder sound would be heard than the cuckoo’s note or the nightingale’s
song. Isa’s eyes, overlooking nearer and less pleasing objects,
constantly wandered to those verdant woods, those lofty picturesque
towers.
Gaspar entered the sitting-room with a complaint on his lips against
“treacherous weather” on that clear April morn, for he was never weary
of contrasting the climate of England with that of Jamaica, much to the
disadvantage of the former, though the heat of the latter seemed to have
dried up and withered his frame. He seated himself at the table, and
began cutting the stale loaf (bread at the lodge was always stale), but
interrupted himself with the observation, “How one misses the papers of a
morning! Isa, I wish you’d ask your uncle, the baronet, to send over the
_Times_ every day.”
“I should hardly like to ask that favour,” replied Isa, leaving the
window, and joining her brother at the breakfast-table.
“And why not?” inquired Gaspar peevishly; “are you afraid of robbing the
servant’s hall?”
“No,” said Isa, as she occupied herself with the tea-caddy; “but my
uncle would naturally think that we might take in a paper for ourselves,
instead of putting him to the inconvenience of sending a mile every
morning.”
“I’m not the idiot to throw away my money on what may be had for the
asking; you have so much foolish pride,” muttered Mr. Gritton. “I feel
myself out of the world where I can’t get a glimpse of the money-market
or the shipping report.”
That word “shipping” served as a cue to Isa. While sitting by the window
she had been revolving in her mind how she should introduce the subject
of her father’s dying message to Gaspar. Isa was convinced that her
long silence had been sinful, and having “screwed up her courage to the
sticking point,” was on the watch for an opportunity of saying what she
had determined should be said. Too anxious to make some commencement to
be able to do so without the appearance of effort, Isa abruptly remarked,
in a tone that betrayed a little nervousness, “Is not your interest in
the shipping chiefly on account of the _Orissa_?”
“The _Orissa_?” repeated Mr. Gritton in accents of surprise; “why, all
the world knows that she foundered nigh four years ago, passengers saved,
cargo lost, and the greater part uninsured.”
“Had you anything to do with the vessel?” asked Isa, timidly feeling her
way.
Gaspar looked a little embarrassed by the question. “Yes—no,” he replied,
almost with a stammer. “I might have had a stake in that vessel—I
thought of having—’twas lucky I had not; there had been such a run for
certain goods in the West Indian market, that the cargo was expected to
bring double its value. But—but you know nothing and care nothing about
matters of business,” he added, stretching out his hand for the cup of
tea which his sister had poured out. “Has the post brought any letters
this morning?”
Isa did not suffer the current of conversation to be thus abruptly
turned. Merely shaking her head in reply to the question, she nerved
herself to go one step further. “Who was the orphan whose property was in
some way or other connected with the _Orissa_?”
“Orphan! what do you mean? Who on earth talked to you about an orphan?”
Isa felt—for she dared not look up—that her brother’s eyes were keenly
scrutinising her face.
“Better have the whole truth out at once,” thought poor Isa, who, in
her nervousness, was emptying the milk-jug into the tea-pot. “The fact
is, dear Gaspar,” she said, speaking with rapidity and a sensation of
breathlessness, “I have been anxious for a long time to talk to you about
some words uttered by our beloved father a very, very short time before
we lost him. When he was almost too ill to speak, he said”—Isa pressed
her forehead as if to collect her thoughts—“he said, ‘Gaspar—you will be
with him—the _Orissa_—not her money lost—tell him from me;’ the dear lips
had not power to finish the sentence.”
“Did my father say anything more than these words?” asked Gaspar, who saw
from the quivering of Isa’s lashes and the trembling of her lip that she
at least attached some importance to the fragmentary message.
Isa pressed her hands very tightly together; she could hardly articulate
the broken sentences—“He said, ‘_something wrong_—he should deal fairly
by that orphan’—I can remember no more.”
[Illustration: THE CONVERSATION AT BREAKFAST.]
Gaspar rose abruptly from his seat and walked to the window. Isa felt the
brief silence which followed almost unendurable, and yet was thankful
that she had been enabled to speak out the whole truth at last. After a
few seconds Gaspar returned to his seat, and with a rapid—Isa fancied a
slightly tremulous utterance—thus addressed his sister:—
“Isa, your ears deceived you—your memory is at fault—or—or there was
a wandering of mind at the last. You shall know exactly how the case
lies. A young lady, known to my father and myself, had some thousands of
pounds which she wished to invest, four years ago, during my short visit
to England. My father was consulted on the business. There was a sudden
demand for a particular kind of goods in the West Indies; money invested
in them might double itself if no time were lost; the girl was eager
to increase her property—natural enough,—I was employed in making the
arrangement—ship went down—goods uninsured—she had staked her property,
and lost it. This was no fault of mine; you might blame the captain or
the crew, or the winds and the waves; I was never blamed by Cora Madden
herself.”
“Cora Madden!” ejaculated Isa.
“You know the whole truth now,” said Gaspar; “let us never come on the
subject again.”
Isa felt bewildered by the sudden disclosure of the name of the orphan
in whom she had taken such painful interest; so much so, that she
could hardly tell at that time whether the explanation of Gaspar were
satisfactory or not to her mind. When the name of Cora was uttered, Isa’s
surprise had made her for a moment look full in the face of her brother,
and that face—which had been almost ghastly—had become suffused with a
colour which she had never before seen upon it, and the eyes of Gaspar
had instantly sunk beneath the gaze of her own. Isa hardly noticed this
in the excitement of the instant, but it afterwards often recurred to her
mind, with an ever-strengthening persuasion that her brother had _not_
told her all.
The subject of the death-bed message was dropped, but Isa felt during
the remainder of that morning that her brother’s nerves had been shaken,
and that his spirits were utterly out of tune; and she could not but
refer this to its natural cause—the conversation at breakfast. Nothing
pleased Mr. Gritton: the tea was bitter, cold, undrinkable; the room full
of draughts; Lottie a useless idiot, and Mr. Eardley little better for
having ever recommended her. Isa came in for her full share of peevish
reproach, almost more difficult to be borne than angry rebuke. It was
a great relief to the young lady when her companion at length quitted
her boudoir to go down to his accounts, though Isa well knew that these
accounts would afford a new cause of grievance, and that all her care to
manage household affairs with strict economy would not prevent pettish
remarks on the extravagance of the Saturday bills.
“I shall not be able to endure this kind of life long,” murmured Isa to
herself, as she returned from ordering dinner, having had to encounter
the ill-temper of Hannah, who, while her master inveighed against
reckless extravagance, complained on the other hand that there were “some
ladies as think that their servants can live upon nothing.” “I was never
made to bear all this constant fret and worry,” sighed the discouraged
Isa; “this perpetual effort to please, without the possibility of
succeeding in doing so.” Isa was, like so many others, tempted to
think that the post in which Providence had placed her was not the one
that suited her; that she would _do_ better, _be_ better in another.
Disappointment, discontent, distrust, had not been driven forth from her
heart. Again Isa seated herself by the window which commanded a view of
the towers of Lestrange, feeling disinclined to settle to any occupation,
to take up her work, or to finish her book.
A visit from Edith made a delightful break on the dreary solitude of Isa.
“I have come with a message from papa, dear Isa,” cried the baronet’s
daughter, after an affectionate greeting had passed between the cousins;
“he has charged me to carry you back captive with me to the Castle, to
remain there as long as we can make our prisoner happy. Oh, don’t make
resistance—lay down your arms and surrender at once!” The pleading eyes
seconded well the playful petition of the lips.
A prisoner! nay, to Isa the invitation came like an offer of freedom
to one in irksome bondage. Her countenance lighted up with pleasure. “I
should gladly surrender to so generous a foe,” she replied, “only—my
brother—”
“He will let me carry you off, I am sure that he will,” cried Edith.
“I will go and ask him,” said Isa, hastily rising and quitting the room.
Edith, left thus alone, looked around the boudoir of her cousin with
mingled pity and surprise. “Poor Isa, is this her abode? so small, so
wretchedly furnished, so dreary and bare. And what a view from the
window!” added the heiress, as she sauntered up to the casement; “the
very look of those tumble-down cottages would make one miserable; and as
for that hideous manufactory, it would spoil the fairest landscape in
the world. No wonder that Isa was not able to echo my words when I said,
‘There is no place like home.’”
Isa soon returned with her brother’s permission for her to accompany her
cousin, a permission which he could hardly have withheld. Edith knew not
how ungraciously it had been accorded, how bitterly Gaspar had remarked,
“I knew that you would never care to stay quietly here with an invalid
brother.”
“Had he been like a brother to me,” was Isa’s mental comment when she
quitted the room, “no pleasure would have drawn me from his side.”
Nevertheless Mr. Gritton’s observation gave pain to his sister, and so
did the distressed look on the face of Lottie, when hastily summoned to
help her young mistress in her preparations for quitting the Lodge.
“O Miss Isa, I hope you’ll not be long away; we’ll be just lost without
you;” and Isa saw that moisture rose in Lottie’s black eyes.
Isa returned with Edith to the Castle, where she was graciously received
by her stately uncle. Two beautiful rooms, exquisitely furnished, one
opening into the other, had been assigned to her; none in the Castle
commanded a more beautiful prospect. Swiftly the hours rolled by amidst
varied occupations. Cheerful was the afternoon saunter in the park with
Edith, and the little dinner-party in the evening, when Isa met with
congenial society. Pleasant on the following morning was the drive to the
distant church, and very refreshing to the spirit the sacred service,
conducted with none of the lifeless formality which cast such a chill
over Isa’s devotion in the church which she had attended with Gaspar.
Delightful was the evening converse with Edith; converse on high and holy
themes. Then, on the Monday morning, Isa much enjoyed visiting with her
sweet young cousin some of the dwellings of Sir Digby’s poorer tenants,
bearing little delicacies to invalids from the baronet’s luxurious table.
All these employments were in themselves innocent and good, and to Isa
would have afforded unmixed gratification, but for a feeling which would
intrude itself on her mind, that she was where she liked to be rather
than where she ought to be—that even her holiest pleasures were rather
of her own taking than of God’s bestowing. Whenever Gaspar or Wildwaste
were mentioned, a slightly uncomfortable sensation was experienced by
Isa. Well she knew that her presence was more needed in the dreary Lodge
than in the stately Castle; more by the peevish invalid than by the happy
young girl; a brother, an only brother, had a stronger claim on her
care than a cousin. Isa suspected, though she cared not to search for
confirmation of the suspicion, that Self-indulgence was another Midianite
in possession of her soul.
So passed the time till Tuesday brought the little meeting in the
cottage of Holdich, which the cousins attended. The first face which
Isa caught sight of on entering the crowded room was that of her maid,
Lottie Stone, beaming with an expression of honest pleasure at seeing her
mistress again. Isa and Edith were a little late in joining the meeting,
the former had therefore no opportunity of speaking to Lottie till the
lecture and prayers were over.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]