PER ASPERA AD ASTRA.
The next day was Sunday, a chilly September day, threatening rain. Missy
quite wished it would rain, and then there would be an excuse for
omitting the children's church-going. But church time approached. It did
not rain, indeed, looked as if it were to be a prolonged sulk, and not a
burst of tears. So the carriage was ordered, the children made ready,
and Miss Varian and Goneril, armed with prayer-books, waited on the
piazza. The children looked very pretty in their mourning. Gabrielle was
so handsome, she repaid any care in dressing her, and Alphonsine had
really exerted herself to make up a pretty black dress, and trim a hat
for her. There is always something pathetic in the sight of young
children in mourning, and Missy had almost cried the first time she saw
Jay in his little black kilt and with that somber cap on his yellow
curls. She was quite used to it now, and did not feeling like crying
from anything but vexation, as she came out on the piazza when she heard
the carriage wheels approaching. She was going to church, to be sure,
and that ought to have been soothing to her feelings. But she was also
going to face the little populace of Yellowcoats, and that was very
ruffling to them. She felt it was a pity she could not make herself
invisible, and that her neighbors could not make themselves invisible
too. She was sure they would say better prayers if that could be the
case. How they would gaze at her as she walked down the aisle! How
glances would be exchanged, and nudges given, as the little black-clad
children came in sight. It is all very well to say, don't think of such
things if you know you're doing right. It takes a very advanced saint
not to mind what people think, and Missy, poor Missy, was not that. She
longed to say her prayers, and felt she had never needed to say them
more; but it was as if a thousand little devils, with as many little
prongs, were busy in a swarm around her. To add to all her fretting
thoughts, Aunt Harriet was particularly trying, Goneril was more
audacious, the children were exasperating, even sitting still and in
their Sunday clothes.
As the carriage rolled up to the church gate, Missy felt her face
growing red and white with apprehension of the eyes that would in a
moment more be looking at it. The bell had stopped ringing, and she
heard the organ. Of all moments, this was the worst to go in.
"What are you waiting for?" said Miss Varian, sharply, as Missy paused,
irresolute.
"Nothing," said Missy with a groan, and she went forward, bidding the
children follow. Goneril, of course, was a dissenter, and had to be
driven to the other end of the village to say her humble prayers. I
think she objected to stopping even at the church gate, and to riding
with people who were going there. She always had a great deal to say at
the Sunday dinner, about forms and ceremonies and a free Gospel, but as
her fellow-servants were most of them of a more advanced creed
themselves, she did not get much sympathy, or do much injury to any
one. So Goneril went her way, and Missy, with her blind aunt on her
arm, and the children following in her wake, went hers. Certainly it was
the way of duty, or she never would have walked in it. If she had dared
to do it, she would have stayed from church that morning, and said
matins among the cedars on the bank. But as she did what was right and
what was hard, no doubt, her poor distracted prayers got an answer, and
her marred, distorted offering of worship was accepted.
St. John was not yet in the chancel; they had fallen upon the moment
when they would naturally be most conspicuous and attract most notice
from the congregation. Miss Varian always would walk slowly and heavily;
the children gazed about them, and met many curious eyes. Missy looked
haughty enough; she was never particularly humble-looking. When they
reached the pew-door (and it seemed to Missy they would never reach it),
Miss Varian was a long while getting through the kneeling cushions, and
accepted no help from any one.
"Well, I hope they all see the children and are satisfied of my
intentions," said Missy bitterly to herself, as she stood thus a mark
for the merry eyes of Yellowcoats. At last, Aunt Harriet made her way to
the end of the pew, and Missy followed her, letting the children take
care of themselves.
St. John's voice; well, there was something in it different from other
voices. There must have been a dim and distant echo of that company who
rest not day nor night. It did not recall earth and vanity. It made a
lift in the thoughts of those who heard it. Missy, amidst distraction
and vexation, heard him, and in a moment felt that it was very little
worth, all that had caused her smart and ache. When St. John read,
people listened, whatever it was. Perhaps it was what is "sincerity" in
art. He read in a monotone too, as does his school. He did not lift his
eyes and look about him; he almost made a business of looking down. It
was very simple; but maybe those who would analyze its power, would have
to go far back into fasts and vigils and deep hours of meditation. Missy
drew a long breath. She didn't care for Yellowcoats' gossip now, while
she heard St. John's voice, and poured out her fretted soul in the
prayers of her childhood. Perhaps she never knew how much she owed her
brother, and those disapproved austerities of his. We do not always know
what the saints win for us, nor how much the fuller we may be for our
holy neighbor's empty stomach. And the children tumbled and twisted
about on their seats, and Jay went to sleep, and Gabby eyed her
neighbors, and Missy did not mind. It was well that she did not, for if
she had reproved them, Yellowcoats would have whispered, what a
step-mother is that, my brothers. And if she had caressed them, they
would have jeered and said, see the pursuit, my sisters. But as she
simply let them alone, they could say nothing, and settled themselves to
listen to the sermon after the prayers were said.
And in the sermon there was a word for Missy. It was an old word, as
most good words are; Missy remembered copying it out years before, when
it had seemed good to her, but now it seemed better and fuller:
"Let nothing disturb thee, nothing surprise thee:
"Everything passes:
"God does not change:
"Patience alone weareth out all things:
"Whoso holds fast to God shall want for nothing:
"God alone sufficeth."
And "the benediction that followeth after prayer" seemed to her more
than ever
"A Christian charm,
To dull the shafts of worldly harm."
Even though the arm stretched out to bless were that of the young
brother whose steps she had so often guided in their days of childhood.
As they went in, Missy had seen, somehow, with those quick, light-blue
eyes of hers, that Mr. Andrews was in the church, in a pew near the
door. She knew it was the first time he had been in the church since his
wife's death. She began instantly to speculate about his reasons for
coming, and to wonder whether he would have the kindness to go off and
leave them to get into the carriage by themselves after service. Then
St. John's voice had broken in upon the fret, and she had forgotten it,
till they were at the church door, coming out, before chattering little
groups of people on the grass outside. It did not yet rain, but the sky
was gray as granite, and the air chill.
Jay's warm little hand was in hers, unconsciously to them both. Miss
Varian was leaning heavily upon her other arm. Half a dozen persons came
up to speak to them as they made their way to the carriage. At the
carriage door stood Mr. Andrews. Jay made a spring at him. Mr. Andrews
gravely lifted him in. Missy felt an angry agitation as she saw him, but
the words of St. Theresa's wisdom stood by her for the moment. He
scarcely looked at her as he put her into the carriage. Gabrielle, very
subdued, followed, and Mr. Andrews closed the door, lifted his hat,
after some commonplace about the weather, and the carriage drove away.
All Yellowcoats might have seen that. Nothing could have been more
unsensational.
That evening St. John came to tea, very tired and silent. He sat alone
with his mother an hour before tea, and Missy saw tears on her cheeks as
she brought in the light. She came into the library and lay on her sofa,
but could not join them at tea. Those tears always gave Missy a jealous
feeling. These long talks with St. John now always brought them. At tea
the children chattered, and St. John tried to be amusing to them, and
after tea, as they sat around the library fire, while the rain outside
dashed against the windows, he took Jay on his lap, and told him a
story. Jay liked it, and called for more, and Gabby drew near to listen.
"Why didn't you tell us a story to-day at church," he said. "Stories are
a great deal nicer than talking the way you did."
"Goneril says it doesn't do us any good to go to church when we don't
want to," said Gabby. "Does it, Mr. Varian?"
"People don't go to church to be done good to," said Missy, who had no
patience with Goneril, and less with Gabrielle.
"Don't they?" asked Gabrielle, ignoring Missy, and turning her great
eyes up appealingly into St. John's face, as she leaned on the arm of
his chair.
"No, I should think not," said St. John, slowly, putting his hand on
hers.
"Translate it into words of one syllable, St. John," said Missy, poking
a pine-knot into blaze, "that people go to church for worship, not for
edification."
"Well, children," he said, "no doubt you have always been taught to go
and say good-morning to your father, and give him a kiss, haven't you?
And you generally do it, though it doesn't do you any particular good,
nor, for the matter of that, very much to him. But he likes it, and you
always ought to go. Maybe sometimes you don't want to go; sometimes
you're busy playing, or you're hungry for your breakfast, or you're a
little lazy. But if you always give up your play, or put off your
breakfast, or get over being lazy, and go, no doubt you have done right,
and he is pleased with you. Now, going to church is a service, a thing
to be done, to be offered to God; it isn't that we may be better, or
learn something, or get any good, that we go. It is to pay an honor to
our Heavenly Father; it is something to give to Him, an offering. I
think we should be glad, don't you? There are so few things we can give
Him."
Gabrielle was not convinced, and offered objections manifold, but Jay
said "All right, he'd go next time without crying, if Goneril didn't
brush his hair so hard."
"You mustn't get her into an argument, then," said Missy. "The faster
she talks, the harder she brushes."
"You won't be here another Sunday, Jay," said Gabby. "You'll have your
own nurse, and maybe she'll brush easy."
The children were soon sent to bed, and then St. John went away.
"I have something to tell you, Missy," said her mother. "Come to my room
before you go to bed."
Missy's heart beat faster. Now she should know the explanation of her
mother's tears, and St. John's long silences.
"Well," said Missy, sitting down by her mother's sofa, before the fire
which blazed uncertainly. She knew from the clear shining of her
mother's eyes, and from the faint flush on her cheek, that it was no
trifling news she was to hear, and that before that pine log burned
away, they should have gone very deep. She felt a jealous determination
to oppose.
"You don't know how to begin, I see," she said, with a bitter little
laugh. "I wish I could help you."
"Oh," said her mother, "it is not very difficult. St. John says you told
him never to talk to you about going away; and so it was best not to
talk about it till everything was settled."
"Certainly; he has only kept his promise. I did not want to be stirred
up with all his fluctuations of purpose."
"I do not think, Missy, you can justly say he has fluctuated in purpose.
I think he came here almost under protest, giving up his will in the
matter to please us--to please you. In truth, I think he has had but one
purpose, that has been strengthening slowly day by day."
Missy lifted her head. "I don't understand exactly. I know he has been
getting restless."
"I don't think he has been getting restless."
"Well, at any rate it looks so, going from one parish to another in six
months."
"But, he is not going from one parish to another."
Missy started. "What do you mean, mamma? I hope he isn't--isn't giving
up the ministry."
"Oh, no; how could you think of such a thing."
"Well," cried Missy, impetuously, "please remember I am outside of all
your counsels. Everything is new to me. St. John is going away; is going
to make some important step, and yet is not going to a new parish, is
not forsaking his vocation. How can you wonder I am puzzled?"
"He isn't forsaking his vocation; he is only following what he is very
sure is his vocation in its highest, fullest sense."
"You don't mean," cried Missy, turning a startled face to her mother,
"that St. John has got an idea that he is called to the religious life?
Mamma, it isn't possible. I can't believe you have encouraged him in
this."
"I have had nothing to do with it, alas, my child. One must let that
alone forever. We can give up or deny to God, our own souls; but 'the
souls of others are as the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil; we must not touch them.' I had my own soul to give, and I did not
give it."
Missy turned coldly away while her mother pressed her hands before her
face. There was a silence, in which a bitter flood of thoughts passed
through the mind of the younger one.
"I am a reproach to you, mamma," she said. "Perhaps I ought not to
exist. There are moments when I feel the contradictions of my nature to
be so great, I wonder if it were not wrong, instead of right, that I was
born--a broken law, and not a law fulfilled. I know--you need not tell
me--you had always thought of the religious life yourself. We have not
talked much of it, but I have had my thoughts. Your first marriage bound
you to the world, because it left you with me. I suppose if I had not
been born you would have entered a sisterhood. Then, mamma, you need not
evade it, you would have missed the real love, the real life of your
heart. You have never told me this, but I know enough to know you did
not love my father. It cannot be your fault; but it was your fate. Do
not contradict me, we never have gone so deep before. Yes, mamma, _I_
bound you to the world. I was the unlovely child who stood between you
and heaven. How could I help being unlovely, born of duty, not of love?
I don't reproach you, except as my existence reproaches you. St. John is
not a contradiction; his nature is full and sweet; he might live a happy
life. Why do you sacrifice him? You say you have had no hand in
this--mamma--mamma--you moulded him; you bend him now. You do not know
how strong your influence upon him is. It is the unconscious feeling of
your heart that you are making reparation. You are satisfied to give him
up who is all the world to you, that Heaven may be propitiated. It is I
who should have been sacrificed; I, who have been always in your way to
holiness--a thorn in your side, mamma--a perverse nature, not to be bent
to your path of sacrifice and immolation."
"Do not talk of sacrifice, my child, of immolation. It is a height, a
glory, to attain to. I cannot make you understand--I will not contradict
you."
"No, do not contradict me. I am contradicted enough. I am not in your
state of fervor. I see things as they are, I see plain facts. Believe
me, this enthusiasm cannot last. You will find, too late, that you have
not counted the cost; that you cannot bear the strain of feeling--a
living death--a grave that the grass never grows over. Time can't heal a
wound that is always kept open. You are mad, mamma, you are mad. We
cannot bear this thing. Look at it, as you will when your enthusiasm
cools."
"I have looked at it, Missy, for many months, through silent nights and
days. It is no new thought to me. My dear, I have many lonely hours; I
have much suffering, which abates enthusiasm. Through loneliness and
suffering, I have had this thought for my companion. I know what I am
doing, and I do it almost gladly. Not quite, for I am very weak, but
almost, for God has been very gracious to me."
"It is infatuation, it is madness, and you will both repent."
"Hush, my child," said her mother, trying to take her hand, "the thought
is new to you, that is why it seems so dreadful."
But Missy drew her hand from her mother's and turned her face away. Her
heart was pierced with sorrow at the thought of parting from her
brother. It was the overthrow, too, of all her plans for him, of all
their joint happiness and usefulness. But, to do her justice, the
bitterness of her disappointment came from the idea of separation from
him. She loved him a great deal more than she acknowledged even to
herself. Life would be blank without him to her, and what would it be to
her mother? This sudden weight of woe seemed unbearable, and it was a
woe worse than death, inasmuch as, to her mind, it was unnecessary,
unnatural, and by no law of God ordained. She felt as if she were
smothering, stifling, and her mother's soft voice and calm words
maddened her.
"I need not talk to you," she cried, "for you are in this state of
exaltation you cannot understand me. When your heart is broken by this
sorrow; when you sink under the weariness of life without him, then we
can talk together in one language, and you can understand me. But it
will be too late--Oh, mamma, hear me--but what is the use of
talking!--remember how young he is, how little of life he knows! Think
how useful, how honorable, his work might be. I cannot comprehend you; I
cannot think what magic there is about this idea of the monastic life.
Why must St. John be better than other men of his generation? Why cannot
he serve God and live a good life as better men have done before him? I
see nothing in him so different from others; he is not so much worse,
that he needs such rigor, nor so much better, that he need set himself
apart. Believe me, it is the subtle work of a crafty enemy; he cannot be
contented with the common round, the daily task; he is not satisfied to
do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly; he must do some great thing."
"We shall see," said her mother, gently. "His vocation will be tested.
You know it will be long before he is permitted to enter the order he
has chosen. He may not be accepted."
"Not accepted!" cried Missy. "A man with money, influence, talent--Oh,
we need not flatter ourselves. He will be accepted soon enough. They may
coquet about it a little to save appearances, but they will not let him
escape them, you may be quite sure."
"Missy, I must beg, if you cannot spare me such things, you will at
least not wound St. John by saying them before him."
"Oh, you may be sure I will not wound his saintly ears by such
profanity. But you--I did not think you had yet left the world. I
fancied there was yet one of my blood to whom I might speak familiarly.
You and St. John are all I have; and when he is a monk, I shall be
obliged to be a Trappist--are there female Trappists?--excuse my
ignorance of such matters--or offend you occasionally by my secular
conversation."
"Missy, we won't talk of this any more till you have got over your
bitterness a little. I hoped you would not take it so. I have dreaded
telling you for the pain it would give you, but I did not think you
would so misapprehend him. By and by, I am sure you will see it
differently, and though you may not fully approve, you will yet admire
the fullness of his faith, and the sweetness of what you call his
sacrifice."
"Never, never," cried Missy. "I love truth and right and justice too
much to admire even the most beautiful perversions of them. I may be
reconciled so far as to hold my peace. More you cannot ask of me. Mamma,
remember, you and I have always thought differently about these things.
St. John took your faith, and has always been dearer and nearer to you
than I. I cannot help the way I was made; we are not responsible, I
suppose, for the shape of our minds any more than for the shape of our
bodies. St. John always loved to hear about miracles and martyrdoms; I
never did. It wasn't his merit that he liked them, nor my fault that I
didn't like them. Such as I am by nature, you must be patient with me."
"Such as we are by nature, my dear, would draw little love to us from
God, or men. Our corrections and amendments make our worth. I love you
for what you have made yourself, in spite of passion and self-will, and
St. John, for the conquest he has made of faults that lie deeper and
more hidden. Ah, my dear, we may go to prisons and reformatories to see
how attractive people are by nature."
"You know," said Missy, coldly, "I never could feel as you do about this
making over, 'teaching our very hearts to beat by rule.' You see it
is--just one part of our difference. St. John will always please you. I
am afraid I cannot hope to do it, and as we are to spend our lives alone
together, it is to be regretted."
"Oh, Missy, Missy, do not try to break my heart!"
"If it is not broken now, by this cruel separation, nothing I can do
will break it. Mamma, forgive me, if I am not as humble and reverent as
I should be, but you have laid a great deal on me. All this is, as you
say, quite new to me. It is as if you had taken me by the hand, and led
me to the room where my brother lay dying and had said to me, 'See, I
have mixed the poison, and given it to him; we have talked it over for
months together; we are both convinced that it is right and good. Death
is better than life. Be content, and give thanks for what we have
done.'"
"My child, you cannot surely be so blind. How is it that you do not
perceive that it is not death, but life, that I have led you in to see?
That I have shown you your brother, girded with a new strength, clothed
with a new honor; set apart for the service of God forever. Missy, he
is not lost to us, dear, while we believe in the Communion of Saints."
"Mamma, I don't believe in it! I don't believe in anything. You have
overthrown my faith. You have killed me."
"Listen to reason, Missy, if not to faith. St. John is happy; happier
than I ever knew him, even as a child; he is happy, even in this time of
transition and suspense. If he is blessed with this great gift, if he
has sought peace and found it, even in what may seem to you this hard
and bitter way, let us be thankful and not hinder him. This is not of an
hour's growth, and he will not waver. He is slower than we are, Missy,
slower and deeper. St. John is steadfast, and he is fully persuaded in
his own mind of what he wants to do and what he ought to do. I know no
one with so little natural enthusiasm--the fire that burns in him is not
of nature. And he has counted the cost. He knows what he gives up, and
he knows what he gains. He knows that he is sure of misconception,
reprobation, scorn, and I do not think it weighs a straw with him. What
would weigh with you, and possibly with me, is literally of no force at
all with him. You know he never thought at all what the world might say
about him, not from disrespect to the opinion of others, but from deep
indifference, from perfect unconsciousness. That is nature, and not
grace, but it makes the step less hard. The separation from us, Missy,
the giving up his home, that has been a battle indeed; but it has been
fought, and, I think, will never have to be gone over, in its
bitterness, again."
"I don't know how you can have any assurance of that; excuse me for
saying so."
"Well, I cannot explain it to you. I am afraid I could not make you
understand exactly. 'The heart hath its reasons, which the reason cannot
comprehend.'"
"No doubt. I am not right in asking you to cast these spiritual pearls
before me--"
"Missy!"
"But I may ask for some plain husks of fact. I am capable of
understanding them, perhaps. If it isn't bringing things down too much,
please, when does my brother go away--where does he go to, when he
goes?"
"I suppose he will go next month; he will offer his resignation here
to-morrow at the vestry meeting."
"Then will begin the strife of tongues," said Missy, with a shudder. "I
suppose he will think it his duty to tell these ten solid gentlemen
'with good capon lined,' fresh from their comfortable dinners, why he
goes away."
"Assuredly not, Missy. St. John is not Quixotic. He has good quiet
sense."
"He had, mamma. Excuse me. Well, if I may hear it, where is he going,
and is it to be unequivocally forever--and--I hope he remains in our own
communion? I don't know whether I ought to ask for such low details or
not, but I cannot help a certain interest in them. I suppose an ecstasy
has no body; but a resolution may have."
"Surely, Missy, you will not say things like these to St. John? Save
your taunts for me. It would wound him cruelly, and he would not know,
as I do, that they spring from your suffering and deep love to him."
"Truly, mamma, you are too tender of the feelings of your ascetic. If I
wound him, that is a part of what he has undertaken; that is what he
ought to be prepared for, and to ask for. You can't put yourself between
him and his scourge. Think of it! how the lash will come down on his
white flesh; and St. John has always been a little tender of his flesh,
mamma. Well--is he Roman or Anglican? For I confess I feel I do not know
my brother. Please translate him to me."
"I don't know why, having seen no wavering in his faith, you should
insult him by supposing he has any intention to forsake it. But let us
end this conversation, Missy. I feel too ill to talk further to-night,
beyond telling you he hopes to enter an order in England, and that he
will be gone, in any event, two years. After that, it is all uncertain.
If he is received, he is under obedience. He may be sent to America; he
may end his days in India. We may see him often, or we may see him
never. It is all quite one to him, I think, and I pray he may not even
have a wish."
Mrs. Varian ceased speaking, and lay back on her sofa quite white and
exhausted.
"I suppose I'd better not keep you awake any longer, then," said Missy,
rising. "Is there anything I can do for you? Call me if you need me.
Good-night." She stooped over her mother and kissed her lightly. She
would not touch her hand, for fear she should show how cold hers was,
and how it trembled. She went across the room to see if the windows were
closed, and then to the fire to see that it was safe to leave for the
night, and with another word or two, went out and shut the door. A
tempest of remorse for her unkindness came over her when she was alone
in her own room. She knew what her mother was suffering, had suffered,
and though she reproached her for having influenced her brother's
decision, she reproached herself for having added one pang to her
already too great sorrow. She had, indeed, cruelly wounded her, and left
her to the long night watches without a word of repentance.
Missy would have given worlds to have been on the other side of the door
she had just closed. _Then_ it would be easy to let the tears come that
were burning in her eyes, and to throw herself into her mother's arms,
and be silently forgiven. But in cold blood to go back, to reopen the
conversation, to take back what she had said, to humble herself to ask
forgiveness for what was true, but which ought not to have been
spoken--this was more than she had grace to do. She longed for the time
to come when she should have a sorrow to bear that was not mixed up with
repentance for some wrong-doing of her own. This loss of her brother,
cruel as it was, would always be made crueller by the recollection of
her jealousy of him, of her unkindness to her mother, of the way in
which she had rejected her sympathy and taunted her with the share she
had had in what had happened. It all seemed insupportable, the wounded
love, the separation, the remorse, the jealousy, and the disappointment.
What was her life now? St. John was woven into every part of it. What
was her work in the parish, with him away; what her home without his
presence? The world, she had given up as much as he, she thought; in it
she could find no amusement. Study had been but a means to an end; there
was nothing left her but duty--duty without peace or pleasure. She had
her mother still, but her mother's heart was with St. John. Missy felt
that there was a barrier between them which each day's suffering would
add to. She should reproach her mother always for having influenced St.
John. (She never for a moment altered her judgment of the error that had
been made, nor allowed that there might be a side on which she had not
looked.) She was certain that her mother would be unable to endure the
separation, and that the months, as they wore away, would wear away her
life. She would see her mother fading away before her eyes; and St.
John, in his new life, leaving his duties to her, would be sustained by
his mother's praise, and the approbation of his perverted conscience.
She would be cut off from the sympathy of both mother and brother;
equally uncongenial to both. She thought of them as infatuated; they
thought of her as worldly-minded; she looked down upon their want of
wisdom; she knew they looked down upon her unspiritual sordidness. It
was all sore and bitter, and as the day dawned upon her sleepless eyes,
she thought, with almost a relenting feeling, that if St. John had found
peace _anywhere_, he was not to blame for going where it led him.