NEARER AND NEARER.
On a sofa, drawn at right angles with the fire, lay Hamish Channing;
his bright head raised high, a crimson coverlid of eider down thrown
over his feet. In the last day or two he had grown perceptibly worse;
that is, weaker. The most sanguine amidst his friends, medical or
others, could not say there was hope now. But, as long as he could
keep up, Hamish would not give in to his illness: he rose in the
morning and made a pretence of going about the house; and when he was
tired, lay on the sofa that had been put into his writing-room. It
was the room he felt most at home in, and he seemed to cling to it.
On the other side the hearth, bending forward in his chair, staring at
Hamish with sad eyes, and pulling at his whiskers in grievous gloom,
sat Roland Yorke. Roland had abandoned his home-copying for the past
two days, and spent all his spare time with Hamish. Mrs. Jones,
snatching a moment to go and visit Mr. Channing for old association's
sake, had been very much struck with what she saw in him, and carried
home the news that he was certainly dying. Roland, believing Mrs. J.
to be as correct in judgment as she was tart in speech, had been
looking out for death from that moment. Previously he was given to
waver; one moment in despair; the next, up in the skies with
exultation and thinking recovery had set in. The wind could not be
more variable than Roland.
It was the twilight hour of the winter's day. The room was not lighted
yet, but the blaze from the fire played on Hamish's face as he lay.
There was a change in it tonight, and it told upon Roland: for it
looked like the shadow of death. Things seemed to have been rather at
sixes and sevens in the office that afternoon: Mr. Brown was absent,
Hurst had gone home for Christmas, Bede Greatorex did not show
himself, and there was nobody to tell Roland what work to be about. Of
course it presented to that gentleman's mind a most valuable
opportunity for enjoying a spell of recreation, and he took French
leave to abandon it to itself and little Jenner. Rushing home in the
first place, to see what might be doing there--for it was the day that
Miss Rye had been captured by Butterby. Roland had his run for his
pains. There was nothing doing, and his curiosity and good nature
alike suffered. Miss Rye was a prisoner still; she, and Mrs. Jones,
and the policeman left in charge, being shut up in the parlour
together. "It's an awful shame of old Butterby!" cried Roland to
himself, as he sped along to Hamish's. There he took up his station in
his favourite chair, and watched the face that was fading so rapidly
away. With an etherealized look in it that spoke of Heaven, with a
placid calm that seemed to partake of the fast approaching rest; with
a sweet smile that told of altogether inward peace, there the face
lay; and Roland thought he had never seen one on earth so like an
angel's.
Hamish had dropped into a doze; as he often did, at the close of day,
when darkness is silently spreading over the light. Nelly Channing,
who had learnt--by that subtle warning that sometimes steals, we
know not how, over the instinct of little ones about to be made
orphans--that some great and sad change was looming in the air, sat on
a stool on the hearthrug as sedately as any old woman. Nelly's
boisterous ways and gleeful laugh had left her for awhile: example
perhaps taught her to be still, and she largely profited by it.
On her lap lay a story book: papa had bought it for her yesterday that
is, had given the money to Miss Nelly and nurse when they went out,
and wrote down the title of the book they were to buy, and the shop
they might get it at, with his own trembling fingers, out of which the
strength had nearly gone. It was one of those exquisite story books
that ought to be in all children's hands, Mrs. Sherwood's; belonging
of course to a past day, but nothing has since been written like them.
With every leaf that she silently turned, Nelly looked to see that it
did not wake the invalid. When she grew tired, and her face was
roasted to a red heat, she went to Roland, resting the open book upon
his knee. He lifted her up.
"It is such a pretty book, Roland."
"All right. Don't you make a noise, Nelly."
"Margaret went to heaven in the book: she was buried under the great
yew tree," whispered Kelly. "Papa's going there."
Roland caught the little head to him, and bent his face on the golden
hair. He knew that what she said was true: but it was a shock
nevertheless to have it repeated openly to him even by this young
child.
"Papa talks to me about it. It will be so beautiful; he will never be
tired there, or have any sorrow or pain. Oh, Roland; I wish I was
going with him!"
Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked up; Roland's were filled
in sympathy. He had cried like a schoolboy more than once of late. All
on a sudden, happening to glance across, he saw Hamish looking on with
a smile.
"You be off, Nelly," said arbitrary Roland, carrying her to the door
and shutting it upon her and her book. "I'm sure your tea must be
ready in the nursery."
"Don't grieve, Roland," said Hamish, when he sat down again.
"I wish you could get well," returned Roland, seeing the fire through
a mist.
"And I have nearly ceased to wish it, Roland. It's all for the best."
"Ceased to wish it! How's that?"
"Through God's mercy, I think."
The words silenced Roland. When anything of this kind was mentioned it
turned him into a child, so far as his feelings went; simple as Miss
Nelly, was he, and a vast deal more humble-minded.
"Things are being cleared for me so wonderfully, Roland. But for
leaving some who are dear to me, the pain would be over."
"I wish I could come across that fiend who wrote the reviews!" was
Roland's muttered answer to this. "I _wish_ I could!"
"What?" said Hamish, not catching the words.
"I _will_ say it, then; I don't care," cried impetuous Roland--for no
one had ever spoken before Hamish of what was supposed to have caused
him the cruel pain. Roland blurted it all out now in his explosive
fashion; his own long-suppressed wrath, and what he held in store for
the anonymous reviewer, when he should have the good fortune to come
across him.
A minute's silence when he ceased, a wild hectic spreading itself into
the hollow cheeks--that it should so stir him even yet! Hamish held
out his hand, and Roland came across to take it. The good sweet eyes
looked into his.
"If ever you do 'come across' him, Roland, say that I forgive," came
the low, earnest whisper. "I did think it cruel at the time; well nigh
too hard to bear; but, like most other crosses, I seem to see now that
it came to me direct from heaven."
"That _is_ good, Hamish! Come!"
"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom," whispered
Hamish, looking up at him with a yearning smile. "You have in all
probability a long life before you, Roland: but the time may come when
you will realize the truth of those words."
Roland swallowed down a lump in his throat as he turned to the fire
again. Hamish resumed, changing his tone for one almost of gaiety.
"I have had good news today. Our friend the publisher called; and what
do you think he told me, Roland? That my book was finding its way at
last."
"Of course it will. Everybody always thought it must. If you could but
have put off for a time your bother over the reviews, Hamish!" Roland
added piteously.
"Ay. He says that in three months' time from this, the book will be in
every one's hands. In the satisfaction of the news, I sat down and ate
some luncheon with him and Ellen."
"Don't you think the news might be enough to cure you?" asked sanguine
Roland.
Hamish shook his head. "If I were able to feel joy now as I felt the
sorrow, it might perhaps go a little way towards it. But that is over,
Roland. The capability of feeling either in any degree was crushed out
of me."
Roland rubbed up his hair. If he had but that enemy of his under his
hand, and a spacious arena that admitted of pitching-in!
"And now for some more good news, Roland. You must know how I have
been troubled at the thought of leaving Ellen and the child unprovided
for--"
"I say, _don't_ you! Don't you trouble, Hamish," came the impulsive
interruption. "I'll work for them. I'll do my very best for them, as
well as for Annabel."
"It won't be needed, dear old friend," and Hamish's face, with its
bright, grateful smile, almost looked like the sunny one of old.
"Ellen's father, Mr. Huntley, is regaining the wealth he feared he had
lost. As an earnest of it, he has sent Ellen two hundred pounds. It
was paid her today."
"Oh, now, isn't that good, Hamish!"
"Very good!" answered Hamish, reverently and softly, as certain words
ran through his mind: "So great is His mercy towards them that trust
in Him."
"And so, Roland, all things are working round pleasantly that I may
die in peace."
Mrs. Channing, coming in with her things on, for she had been out on
some necessary business, interrupted the conversation. She mentioned
to Roland that she had seen Gerald drive up to his wife's rooms, and
that he had promised to come round.
"Why I thought he was at Sunny Mead with Dick!"
"He told me he had just returned from it," said Mrs. Channing.
"I say, Hamish, who knows but he may have brought me up a message!"
cried Roland.
Hamish smiled. Roland had disclosed the fact in family conclave, of
his having applied for the place of bailiff to Sir Vincent; Annabel
being present. He had recited, so far as he could remember them, the
very words of the letter, over which Hamish had laughed himself into a
coughing-fit.
"To be sure," answered Hamish, with a touch of his old jesting spirit.
"Gerald may have brought up your appointment, Roland."
That was quite enough. "I'll go and ask him," said Roland eagerly.
"Anyway he may be able to tell me how Dick received it."
Away went Roland, on the spur of the moment. It was a clear, cold
evening, the air sharp and frosty; and Roland ran all the way to Mrs.
Gerald Yorke's.
That lady was not in tears this evening; but her mood was a gloomy
one, her face fractious. The tea was on the table, and she was cutting
thick bread-and-butter for the three little girls sitting so quietly
round it, before their cups of milk-and-water. Gerald had gone out
again; she did not know where, whether temporarily, or to his chambers
for the night, or anything about him.
"I think something must have gone wrong at Sunny Mead," observed
Winny. "When I asked what brought him back so soon, he only swore.
Perhaps Sir Vincent refused to lend money, and they had a quarrel. I
know Gerald meant to ask him: he is in dreadful embarrassment."
"Mamma," pleaded a little voice, "there's no butter on my bread."
"There's as much as I can afford to put, Kitty," was Mrs. Yorke's
answer. "I must keep some for the morning. Suppose your papa should
find no butter for breakfast, if he comes home to sleep tonight! My
goodness!"
"Bread and scrape's not good, is it, Kitty?" said Roland. "No,"
plaintively answered the child.
Roland clattered out, taking the stairs at a leap. Mrs. Yorke supposed
he had left without the ceremony of saying goodnight.
"Just like his manners!" she fractiously cried. "But oh! don't I wish
Gerald was like him in temper!"
Roland had not gone for the night. He happened to have a shilling in
his pocket, and went to buy a sixpenny pot of marmalade. As he was
skimming back with it, his eye fell on some small shrimps, exposed for
sale on a fishmonger's board. The temptation (with the loose sixpence
in his hand) was not to be resisted.
He carried in the treasures. But that the three little ones were very
meek spirited, they would have shouted at the sight. Roland lavishly
spread the marmalade on the bread-and-scrape, and began pulling out
shrimps for the company round, while he talked of Hamish.
"They are saying that those reviews that were so harsh upon his books
have helped to kill him," said Mrs. Yorke, in a low tone, turning from
the table to face Roland.
"But for those reviews he'd not have died," answered Roland. "I never
will believe it. Illness might have come on, but he'd have had the
spirit to throw it off again."
"Yes. When I sit and look at him, Roland, it seems as if I and Gerald
were wretches that ought to hide ourselves. I say to myself, it was
not my fault; but I _feel_ it for all that."
"Why, what do you mean?" asked Roland.
"About the reviews. I can't bear to go there now."
"What about the reviews?"
"It was Gerald who wrote them."
Roland, for convenience sake, had the plate of shrimps on his knee
during the picking process. He rested from his work and stared in a
kind of puzzle. Winny continued.
"Those reviews were all Gerald's doings. That dreadful one in the
_Snarler_ he wrote himself; here, and was two days over it, getting to
it at times as ideas and strong words occurred to him to make it worse
and worse--just as he wrote the one of praise on his own book. The
other reviews, that were every bit as bad, he got written. I read
every word of the one in the _Snarler_ in manuscript. I wanted to tell
him it was wicked, but he might have shaken me. He said he owed Hamish
Channing a grudge, and should get his book damned. That's not my word,
you know, Roland. And, all the while, it was Hamish who was doing so
much for me and the poor children; finding us in food when Gerald did
not."
No whiter could Hamish Channing's face look when the marble paleness
of death should have overshadowed it, than Roland's was now. For a
short while it seemed as though the communication were too astounding
to find admittance to his mind. Suddenly he rose up with a great cry.
Down went shrimps, and plate, and all; and he was standing upright
before Mrs. Yorke.
"Is it true? Is it _true?_"
"Why of course it's true," she fractiously answered, for the movement
had startled her. "Gerald did it all. I'd not tell anybody but you,
Roland."
Throwing his hat on his head, hind part before, away dashed Roland.
Panting, wild, his breath escaping him in great sobs, like unto one
who has received some strong mental shock, he arrived at Mr.
Channing's in a frantic state. Vague ideas of praying at Hamish's feet
for forgiveness were surging through his brain--for it seemed to
Roland that _he_, as Gerald's brother, must be in a degree responsible
for this terrible thing.
The door opened, he turned into the dining-room, and found himself in
the presence of--Gerald. Hamish, feeling unusually weak, had gone up
to bed, and Gerald was waiting the signal to go to him. As he supposed
he must call to see Hamish before it should be too late--for Ellen had
told him how it was, that afternoon--he had come at once to get the
visit over.
Of all the torrents of reproach ever flung at a man, Gerald found
himself astounded by about the worst. It was not loud; loudness might
have carried off somewhat of the sting; but painfully sad and bitter.
Roland stood on the hearthrug in front of Gerald as he had but now
stood before Gerald's wife; with the same white and stricken face;
with the same agitation shaking him from head to foot. The sobbing
words broke from him in jerks: the voice was a wail.
"Was it not enough that I brought disgrace on Arthur Channing in the
years gone by, but you, another of us ill-doing Yorkes, must destroy
Hamish?" panted Roland. "Good Lord! why did heaven suffer us two to
live! As true as we are standing together here, Gerald, had I known at
the time those false reviews were yours, I should have broken your
bones for you."
"You shut up," retorted Gerald. "It's nothing to you."
"Nothing to me! Nothing to _me_--when one of the best men that ever
lived on earth has been wilfully sent to his grave? Yes; I don't care
how you may salve over your conscience, Gerald Yorke; it is murder,
and nothing less. What had he done to you? He was a true friend, a
true, good friend to you and to me: what crime against us had he
committed, that you should treat him like this?"
"If you don't go out of the house, I will," said Gerald. But Roland
never seemed to so much as hear it.
"Who do you suppose has been helping you all this year?" demanded
Roland. "When you were afraid of the county-court over a boot bill,
somebody paid the money and sent you the receipt anonymously: who has
kept your wife and children in rent and clothes and food, and all
kinds of comforts, while you gave wine parties in your chambers, and
went starring it over the seas for weeks in people's yachts? Hamish
Channing. He deprived himself of his holiday, that your wife and
children might be fed, you abandoning them: he has lived sparingly in
spite of his failing health, that you and yours might profit. You and
he were brought up in the same place, boys together, and he could not
see your children want. They've never had a fraction of help but what
it came from Hamish and his wife."
"It is a lie," said Gerald. But he was staggered, and he half felt
that it was not.
"It is the truth, as heaven knows," cried Roland, breaking down with a
burst. "Ask Winny, _she_ told me. I'd have given my own poor worthless
life freely, to save the pain of those false and cruel reviews to
Hamish."
Sheer emotion stopped Roland's tongue. Mrs. Channing, entering, found
the room in silence; the storm was over. Roland escaped. Gerald,
amazingly uncomfortable, had a mind to run away there and then.
"Will you come up, Gerald?" she said.
Hamish lay in bed in his large cheerful chamber, bright with fire and
light. His head was raised; one hand was thrown over the white
coverlid; and a cup of tea waited on a stand by the bed-side. Roland
stood by the fire, his chest heaving.
"But what is it, old fellow?" demanded Hamish. "What has put you out?"
"It is _this_, Hamish--that I wish I could have died instead of you,"
came the answer at last, with a burst of grief.
He sat down in the shade in a quiet corner, for his brother's step was
heard. As Gerald approached the bed, he visibly recoiled. It was some
time since he had seen Hamish, and he verily believed he stood in the
presence of death. Hamish held out his hand with a cheering smile, and
his face grew bright.
"Dear old friend! I thought you were never coming to see me."
Gerald Yorke was not wholly bad, not quite devoid of feeling. With the
dying man before him, with the truths he had just heard beating their
refrain in his ears, he nearly broke down as Roland had done. Oh, that
he could undo his work! that he could recall life to the fading spirit
as easily as he had done his best to take it away! These regrets
always come rather late, Mr. Gerald Yorke.
"I did not think you were so ill as this, Hamish. Can nothing be
done?"
"Don't let it grieve you, Gerald. Our turns must all come, sooner or
later. Don't, old fellow," he added in a whisper. "I must keep up for
Ellen's sake. God is helping me to do it: oh, so wonderfully."
Gerald bent over him: he thought they were alone. "Will you forgive
me?"
"Forgive you!" repeated Hamish, not understanding what there was to
forgive.
And Gerald, striving against his miserably pricking conscience, could
not bring himself to say. No, though it had been to save his own life,
he dared not confess to his cowardly sin.
"I have not always been the good friend to you I might, Hamish. Do say
you forgive me, for Heaven's sake!"
Hamish took his hand, a sweet smile upon his face. "If there is an
anything you want my forgiveness for, Gerald, take it. Take it freely.
Oh, Gerald, when we begin to realize the great fact that our sins are
forgiven, forgiven and washed out, you cannot think how _glad_ we are
to forgive others who may have offended us. But I don't know what I
have to forgive in you."
Gerald's chest heaved. Roland's, in his distant chair in the shade,
heaved rebelliously.
"I had ambitious views for you, Gerald. I meant to do you good, if I
could. I thought when my book was out and brought funds to me, I would
put you straight. I was so foolishly sanguine as to fancy the returns
would be large. I thought of you nearly as much as I thought of
myself: one of my dear old friends of dear old Helstonleigh. The world
is fading from me, Gerald; but the old scenes and times will be with
me to the last. Yes, I had hoped to benefit you, Gerald, but it was
otherwise ordained. God bless you, dear friend. God love and prosper
you, and bring you home to Him!"
Gerald could not stand it any longer. As he left the room and the
house, Roland went up to the bed with a burst, and confessed all. To
have kept in the secret would have choked him.
Gerald was the enemy who had done it all; Gerald Yorke had been the
one to sow the tares amid wheat in his neighbour's field.
A moment of exquisite pain for Hamish; a slight, short struggle with
the human passions, not yet quite dead within his aching breast; and
then his loving-kindness resumed its sway, never again to quit him.
"Bring him back to me, dear Roland; bring him back that I may send him
on his way with words of better comfort," he whispered, with his
ineffable smile of peace.