TILL THE ELEVENTH HOUR.
Her fruitless call for Bressant seemed quite to exhaust Sophie. For a
long time afterward she hardly opened her mouth, except to swallow some
hot black coffee. The professor sat, for the most part, with his finger
on her pulse, his eyes looking more hollow and his forehead more deeply
lined than ever before, but with no other signs of anxiety or suffering.
Cornelia came in and out--a restless spirit. She awaited Sophie's
recovery with no less of dread than of hope. Her life hung, as it were,
upon her sister's. The moment in which Sophie recovered her faculties
enough to think and speak would be the last that Cornelia could maintain
her mask of honor and respectability, for Cornelia knew that Sophie was
in possession of her secret; she had been up in her room, and the open
window had told the story.
It was a time of awful suspense. Cornelia wished there had been somebody
there to talk with; even Bill Reynolds would have been welcome now. He,
however, had departed long ago, having bethought himself that his horse
was catching its death o' cold, standing out there with no rug on. She
was entirely alone; she hardly dared to think, for fear something guilty
should be generated in her mind; and, though every moment was pain,
without stop or mitigation, every moment was inestimably precious, too;
it was so much between her and revelation. She almost counted the
seconds as they passed, yet rated them for dragging on so wearily.
Every tick of the little ormolu clock marked away a large part of her
life, and yet was wearisome to so much of it as remained. Sometimes she
debated whether she could not anticipate the end by speaking out at
once, of her own free-will; but no, short as her time was, she could not
afford to lose the smallest fraction of it--no, she could not.
Bethinking herself that her father would be lost to her after the
revelation had taken place, Cornelia felt a consuming desire to enjoy
his love to the fullest possible extent during the interval. She wanted
him to call her his dear daughter--to hold her hand--to pat her
check--to kiss her forehead with his rough, bristly lips--to tell her,
in his gruff, kind voice, that she was a solace and a resource to him.
The thousand various little ways in which he had testified his
deep-lying affection--she had not noticed them or thought much of them,
so long as she felt secure of always commanding them--with what
different eyes she looked back upon them now. Oh! if they might all be
lavished upon her during these last few remaining hours or minutes.
Should she not go and sit down at his knee, and ask him to pet her and
caress her?
No; she would not steal the love for which her soul thirsted, even
though he whom she robbed should not feel the loss. She had stripped him
of much that would doubtless seem to him of far more worth and
importance; but, when it came to taking, under false pretenses, a thing
so sacred as her father's love, Cornelia drew back, and, spite of her
great need, had the grace to make the sacrifice. Let it not be
underrated: a woman who sees honor, reputation, and happiness slipping
away from her, will struggle hardest of all for the little remaining
scrap of love, and only feel wholly forlorn after that, too, has
vanished away.
At length, about daybreak or a little after, Sophie spoke, low, but very
distinctly:
"I'm going to sleep; don't wake me or disturb me;" and almost
immediately sank into a profound slumber--so very profound, indeed, that
it rather bore likeness to a trance. Yet, her pulse still beat
regularly, though faintly, and at long intervals, and her breath went
and came, though with a motion almost imperceptible to the eye.
"Is it a good sign? Will she get well now?" asked Cornelia, as she and
her father stood looking down at her.
"She'll never get well, my dear," said Professor Valeyon, very quietly.
"Her mind and body both have had too great a shock--far too great. More
has happened than we know of yet, I suspect. But we shall hear, we shall
hear. Yes, sleep is good for her: it'll make her comfortable. Her nerves
will be the quieter."
"O papa! papa! is our little Sophie going to die?" faltered Cornelia;
and then she broke down completely. She had not fully grasped the idea
until that moment; but the very tone in which her father spoke had the
declaration of death in it. It was not his usual deep, gruff, forcible
voice, shutting off abruptly at the end of his sentences, and beginning
them as sharply. It had lost body and color, was thin, subdued, and
monotonous. Professor Valeyon had changed from a lusty winter into a
broken, infirm, and marrowless thaw.
He stood and watched her weep for a long while, bending his eyes upon
her from beneath their heavy, impending brows. Heavy and impending they
were still, but the vitality--the sort of warm-hearted fierceness--of
his look was gone--gone! A young and bitter grief, like Cornelia's,
coming at a time of life when the feelings are so tender and their
manifestation of pain so poignant--is terrible enough to see, God knows!
but the dry-eyed anguish of the old, of those who no longer possess the
latent, indefinite, all-powerful encouragement of the future to support
them--who can breathe only the lifeless, cheerless air of the
past--grief with them does not convulse: it saps, and chills, and
crumbles away, without noise or any kind of demonstration. The sight
does not terrify or harrow us, but it makes us sick at heart and tinges
our thoughts with a gloomy stain, which rather sinks out of sight than
is worn away.
"Will you stay and watch with her, my dear?" said the old man, at last.
"She'll sleep some hours, I think. I'll take a little sleep myself. Call
me when she wakes."
So Cornelia was left alone to watch her sleeping and dying sister. All
the morning she sat by the bed, almost as motionless as Sophie herself.
Her mind was like a surf-wave that breaks upon the shore, slips back,
regathers itself, and undulates on, to break again. Begin where she
would, she always ended on that bed, with its well-known face, set
around with soft dark hair, always in the same position upon the pillow,
which yielded beneath it in always the same creases and curves.
By-and-by, wherever she turned, still she saw that face, with the pillow
rising around it; and when she shut her eyes, there it was, growing, in
the blackness, clearer the more she tried to avert her mind.
It seemed to Cornelia--for time enters involuntarily into our thoughts
upon all subjects--that the present order of things must have existed
for a far longer period than a single night. How could the events of a
few hours wear such deep and uneffaceable channels in human lives? But
our souls have a chronology of their own, compared with the vividness
and instantaneous workings of which, our bodies bear but a dull and
lagging part. Sorrow and joy, which act upon the soul immediately, must
labor long ere they can write themselves legibly and permanently upon
our faces.
Cornelia fell to wondering, too--as most people under the pressure of
grief are prone to do--whether there were any sympathy or any connection
between the world and the human beings who live upon it. Her eyes
wandered hither and thither about the room, and found it almost
startling in its unaltered naturalness. There was the same view of
trees, road, and field, out of the window; and the same snow which had
fallen before the tragedy, lay there now. Even in Sophie's face there
was no adequate transformation. Indeed, being somewhat reddened and
swollen by the reaction from freezing, a stranger might have supposed
that she was tolerably stout and glowing with vitality. And Cornelia
looked at her own hands, as they lay in her lap: they were as round and
shapely as ever; and there, upon the smooth back of one, below the
forefinger, was a white scar, where she had cut herself when a little
girl. Moreover--Cornelia started as her eyes rested upon it, and the
blood rose painfully to her face--there was a dark, discolored bruise,
encircling one wrist: Bressant's last gift--an ominous betrothal ring!
Thus several hours passed away, until, at length, Cornelia raised her
eyes suddenly, and encountered those of Sophie, fixed upon her.
What a look was that! At all times there was more to be seen in Sophie's
eyes than in most women's; but now they were fathomless, and yet never
more clear and simple. Cornelia read in them all and more than legions
of words could have told her. There were visible the complete grasp and
appreciation of Cornelia's and Bressant's crime; the realization of her
own position between them; pity and sympathy for the sinners, too, were
there; and love, not sisterly, nor quite human, for Sophie had already
begun to put on immortality--but such a love as an angel might have
felt, knowing the temptation and the punishment. Before that look
Cornelia felt her own bitterness and anguish fade away, as a candle is
obliterated by the sun. She saw in Sophie so much higher a capacity for
feeling, so much profounder and more sublime an emotion, that she was
ashamed of her own beside it.
There was at once a comprehensiveness and a particularity in Sophie's
gaze which, while humbling and abasing Cornelia, brought a comforting
feeling that full justice, upon all points, had been done her in
Sophie's mind. There was no lack of charity for her trials and
temptations, no vindictiveness. Cornelia felt no impulse to plead her
cause, because aware that all she could say would be anticipated in her
sister's forgiveness. Nay, she almost wished there had been some
bitterness and anger against which to contend. Perhaps it may be so with
our souls in their judgment-day; God's mercy may outstrip the poor
conjectures we have formed about it. He may see palliation for our sins,
which we ourselves had not taken into account.
After a few moments, Sophie beckoned Cornelia to come near, and, as the
latter stood beside the bed, took her by the hand and smiled.
"I've been all this time with Bressant," were her first words, spoken
faintly, but with a quiet and serene assurance.
Cornelia made no answer; indeed, she could not speak. Strange and
incomprehensible as Sophie's assertion was, she did not think of
doubting but that in some way it must be true. Sophie continued:
"Before I went to sleep, I prayed God to send my spirit to him; and we
have been together. Neelie, he is coming back!"
"Coming back! Sophie, coming back! For what?"
"Don't look so frightened, my darling. He will tell you why when he gets
here. That will be to-morrow at noon."
"O Sophie! Sophie! the day and hour of your marriage!"
Cornelia sank upon her knees, and hid her face upon the edge of the bed.
But Sophie let her hand wander over her head, with a soothing motion.
"No, dear; that's all over, Neelie dear, you know. Not the day and hour
of my marriage any more. Neelie, I want to ask you something."
Cornelia lifted her head from the bedside; then, divining from Sophie's
face, ere it was spoken, what her question was to be, faintness and
terror seized upon her, and she clasped her hands over her eyes. The
unexpectedness of Sophie's first awakening, and her subsequent strange
speech concerning Bressant, had driven from Cornelia's head the matter
which had monopolized her thoughts and fears before; and it now recurred
to her with an effect almost as overwhelming as if the idea had been a
new one.
"I couldn't do it," said she, huskily; "it seemed worse than killing
myself. I believe it would have killed me to have stood before him, with
his eyes upon my face, and have told him--told him--"
"Yes, dear, yes; it must not be you, Neelie. How is he? Does he seem
well and cheerful?"
"I don't know--I've hardly dared to look at him, or speak to him. He's
been lying down, I believe, since you went to sleep."
"Ask him to come to me," Sophie said, after a pause. "I will speak to
him; I'll tell him; it will be best that I should do it; and you will
trust me?"
"O Sophie!" was all that Cornelia could say; but it expressed at least
the fullness of her heart. What must be the love and tenderness that
could undertake such a task as this! How great the trial for a nature
delicate and shrinking, like Sophie's, to bear witness before their own
father of her sister's sin against herself! But Sophie was as brave as
she was feminine and delicate.
Cornelia's gratitude, however, was mingled still with a despairing
agony, and her life seemed to be escaping from her. If this cup might
but pass!
"He will not be to me as you are, Sophie. He will never look at me
again."
"Do not fear," replied Sophie, with her faint but incomparable smile.
"If I can forgive you, surely he must. Go and call him, and then stay in
your room till he comes to you."
But Cornelia, as she left the room upon her heavy errand, shook her
head, and drew a shivering breath. She knew her father would look upon
the matter more from the world's point of view than Sophie did; and it
was a curious example of the strength of the material element in
Cornelia, that she more feared to meet her father's eye, whom she felt
would understand that aspect of her disgrace, than Sophie's, who
probably had a more acute and certainly a more exclusive perception of
her spiritual accountability.
As she was beginning to mount the stairs, she met her father already on
his way down. He noticed the wretchedness depicted on her face, and,
supposing it to be all on Sophie's account, did what he could to comfort
her.
"Don't despair, my child," quoth the old man, laying his hands on her
shoulders. "Nothing is so hopeless that we mayn't trust in God to better
it."
The words seemed to apply so felicitously that Cornelia tried to think
it a good omen sent from heaven. Then he bent over and kissed her
forehead--perhaps before she was aware, perhaps not; but she took it,
praying that it might prove a blessing to her hereafter, even if it were
the last she were destined to receive. She passed on into her own room
without speaking, and sat down there to wait.
To wait! and for what, and how long? till her father came to her? But
suppose he were not to come? She would stay there, perhaps, an
hour--that would be long enough--yes, too long; but still let it be an
hour; and then, he not coming, what should she do? Go to him? No, she
would never dare, never presume to do that. What then? steal
down-stairs, a guilty, hateful thing, softly open the door which would
never open to her again, and run away through the snow? The world would
be before her, but snow and ice would but faintly symbolize its
coldness. Was it likely that heaven itself would yield her entrance
after her father's door had closed upon her?
But would not Sophie prevail, and turn his heart to forgiveness? Oh!
but why was it not probable, and more than probable, that the argument
would result the other way?--that her father, by a clear and stern
representation of the real heinousness of her offense, would convince
Sophie that Cornelia was entitled to nothing but condemnation?
There would be nothing to urge against the justice of such a
sentence--nothing.
Perhaps Sophie's courage might fail her, or her strength give way,
leaving the ugly story but half told, and then her father would come to
her to learn the rest. What should she do then? How much more terrible
to be obliged to tell him then, after having made up her mind that her
sister was to take the burden off her shoulders, than it would have been
before any such resource had presented itself! How much more awful to
meet her father when aroused by suspicion and anger, and perhaps
loathing, than to begin her confession while his face was as she had
always seen it, when turned toward her--loving and tender!
She could not sit still, at last, but rose up from her chair to walk the
room--not from the old, restless energy, which needed physical exercise
to keep it within bounds, for Cornelia was now white and faint, from
exhaustion of mind and body, but from the tumult of pervading fear and
delusive hope--the attention strained to catch some sound from below,
and the dread lest it should never come. As the suspense grew more
painful, the rapidity of her walk increased.
She expected now, every moment, to catch herself shrieking aloud, or
performing some mad action or other. How long had she been up there
already? Was it an hour yet? It must be an hour. Oh! it was more. Was he
never coming, then?--never? O God! was there no forgiveness? Cornelia's
walk had gone on quickening until it was almost a run. She was circling
round and round the room, like a wild animal--was growing dizzy and
exhausted, but was afraid to stop: better her body should give way than
her mind--and, all the time, her ears were alert for the slightest
sound.
She halted, wild-eyed and unsteady on her feet, her hand trembling at
her lips. A step in the passage below, ascending the stairs slowly and
heavily. Oh! did it come in mercy? She tried to draw a meaning from the
sound--then dared not trust her inference. The steps had gained the
landing now--were advancing along the entry toward her door. Did they
bear a load of sorrow only, or of hate and condemnation likewise?
They paused at her threshold--then there was a knock, thrice
repeated--not loud, nor rapid, nor regular, nor precise--rather as one
heart might knock for admittance to another. Cornelia tried to say "Come
in," or to open the door, but could neither speak nor move. Iron bands
seemed to be clasped around all her faculties of motion. Would he go
away and leave her?
The door opened, turning slowly and hesitatingly on its hinges, until it
disclosed her father's venerable figure. His limbs seemed weak; his
shoulders drooped; but Cornelia looked only at his face. His eyes were
deep and compassionate. He held out his arms, which shook slightly but
continually: "Come, my daughter," said he.
She was his daughter still! She cried out, and, walking hurriedly to
him, laid herself close against him, and he hugged her closer yet--poor,
miserable, erring creature though she was.
So the three were reunited--and not superficially, but more intimately
and indissolubly than ever before. They would not be apart, but remained
together in Bressant's room--Sophie on the bed, with an expression of
divine contentment on her face, Cornelia and the professor sitting near.
"Papa," said Sophie, as the afternoon came on, "I want to make my will."
Cornelia caught her breath sharply, and, turning away her face, covered
her eyes with her hand. Professor Valeyon's gray eyebrows gathered for a
moment--then he steadied himself, and said, "Well, my dear."
It was not a very intricate matter. The various little bequests were
soon made and noted down as she requested. After all was disposed of,
there was a little pause.
"Neelie, dear," then said Sophie, turning her eyes full upon her, "I
bequeath my love to you."
Cornelia perceived the hidden significance in the words, and blushed so
deep and warm that the tears were dried upon her cheeks. Sophie went on,
before she could make any reply:
"And I have something left for you, too, papa, though I know no one
needs it less than you. But you may be called on for a great deal, so I
bequeath you my charity. I haven't had it so very long myself."
The professor bowed his head, and, the will being complete, he took off
his spectacles, and wiped them with his handkerchief.
"I was telling Neelie this morning, papa," resumed Sophie, after a
while, "that I had been--that I'd had a dream that I was with Bressant;
and I feel sure--though I suppose you'll think it nothing but a sick
fancy of mine--that he will be here to-morrow noon."
The professor looked at Sophie, startled and anxious; but her appearance
was so composed, straight-forward, and full of faith, he could not think
her wandering.
"Do you know where he has been, my dear? or where he is now?" asked he,
gently.
"I cannot tell that. I knew and understood a great deal in my dream that
I cannot remember now," she answered. "I only know that he will be here
to-morrow, and, papa, and you, Neelie, whether you believe as I do or
not, I want you to get ready to receive him. Let it be in this dear old
room--I lying here as I am now, and you sitting so beside me. We'll wait
for him to-morrow morning until twelve o'clock. If I should die before
then, let my body stay here until noon, for I want him to see my face
when he comes, so that he'll always remember how happy I looked. But if,
after that little clock on the mantel-piece strikes twelve, still he
isn't here, then you may do with me as you will. I shall not know nor
mind."
After this little speech, Sophie became very silent, being, in truth,
too weak and worn out to speak or move, save at long, and ever longer,
intervals. All that night, Professor Valeyon carried an aching and
mistrustful heart; but Cornelia had a red spot in either cheek, never
fading nor shifting. Sophie appeared to wander several times, murmuring
something about darkness, and snow, and deadly weariness. A snow-storm
had set in toward evening, and lasted until daybreak, a circumstance
which seemed to cause Sophie considerable anxiety.
By ten o'clock all the preparations were made according to Sophie's
wish, and there was nothing to do but to wait. Cornelia sat brooding
with folded arms, and the feverish spots on her cheeks. Occasionally she
restlessly varied her position, seldom allowing her eyes to stray around
the room, however, save that once in a while they sought Sophie's
colorless, ethereal face, as a thirsty soul the water. The professor
stood much at the window, and once or twice he imagined he caught a
glimpse, somewhere down the road, of a darkly-clad woman's figure; but
she never came nearer, and he decided it must be a hallucination of his
fading eyes.
Eleven o'clock struck from the little ormolu timepiece. A few moments
afterward Sophie stirred slightly as she lay, and the professor and
Cornelia listened breathlessly for what she would say.
She lifted her heavy lids, and turned her eyes, a little dimmer now than
heretofore, but steady and confident, first on her father, then on her
sister.
"Till noon--remember!" said she.
Nothing more was heard, after that, but the hasty ticking of the little
ormolu clock, as its hands traveled steadily around the circle.