with many-colored clouds, as out of the door of the old house a woman
glides and takes the beaten path to the beach. A great rough and
shaggy dog follows her, and the two together walk thoughtfully along.
They go down where the great waves are tumbling and tossing upon the
rocks, and pace rapidly up and down the shore, looking far out over
the green waters with their fleecy crowns of foam. She is a woman of
middle-age, verging near upon forty, one would say, tall, and straight
as an arrow, with large, unfathomable gray eyes and a massive coronal
of glossy hair, streaked here and there with gray. She wears a cheap,
dark dress; but she has a handsome scarlet shawl around her shoulders,
of the most superb tint of which you can conceive; and she looks like a
woman who would love rich and gorgeous coloring; and, indeed, it is one
of her passions. In draperies, in articles of dress where such colors
are admissible, and more than all in flowers and leaves, she loves the
deepest and richest tints. Every night the sunset is a revelation to
her. She studies the gorgeous castles and cathedrals of gold, which are
builded in the western heavens with a glory which the temple of Solomon
could never attain; and she watches, from her little turret window up
in the old gray house yonder, every morning for the rising of the great
high-priest in his garments resplendent. There was, indeed, something
warm and rich and tropical in her blood, albeit it sprung from the cold
New England fount. She reminded one, as much as anything, of
"The wondrous valley hidden in the depths of Gloucester woods
Full of plants which love the summer blooms of warmer latitudes,
Where the Arctic birch is broided by the tropic's flowery vines,
And the silver-starred magnolia lights the twilight of the pines."
She walks upon the beach till the sunset has burned low in the red
west, and then takes the path back to the house. When about half-way
across the garden, she turns off a little from the main path, and,
putting back the bushes with her hands, makes her way for a few paces
and stops at a little grave,--a child's grave,--tufted thick with
purple pansies, sprinkled with white daisies. She sits down for a
moment beside it, plucks one or two spires of grass which have sprung
up among the flowers, then hurriedly leaves it, calling her dog after
her, and going into the house, where the light soon shines in the
seaward-looking window. The woman's name is Agnes Wayland, and here she
has lived alone for now nearly twenty years,--alone, except once in
a while of a summer she takes a quiet boarder or two, who see little
of her and know less, and of whom she esteems it a great pleasure to
be well rid, when the autumnal equinox comes on. Winter and summer,
in storm and sleet, rain and shine, she stays shut in the dim old
house all day, and emerges only towards evening for her walk upon the
beach, and her peep at the little grave, with its coverlet of pansies
in summer and its white drapery of snow in winter. Upon the night of
which I have been writing, she made her way back, as I have said,
into her own room,--a room where her prevailing tastes could quickly
be discovered. A peculiar depth and brilliancy of coloring pervaded
everything; carpet and curtains were of the same vivid crimson, and the
large bay-window filled with plants was gorgeous as a festal-room of
the fairies. Everything was old and much worn, and had a look of old
but not faded splendor. A few books occupied a cabinet in one corner,
and a piano, which was always locked, stood in another. An easy-chair
was drawn up to a little stand, near the window, and upon it lay an
open Bible. This was the place where she sat and read hour by hour
and day by day, always from the Bible, only varying her occupation by
weary hours over intricate and elaborate pieces of fancy-work,--more
beautiful and marvellous than such pieces of work ever were made
before, but always things which required only mechanical kind of
ingenuity, and needed genius and taste only in the coloring,--and these
she sold at the nearest town, and so earned her daily bread. After she
had taken her accustomed seat this evening, she was startled by a ring
at the door,--a sound so unusual that she trembled like a leaf as she
took the lamp and started to answer the summons. She had got half-way
down the stairs, when she stopped, and called lightly to the dog,
who was beside her in a moment, and together they opened the door. A
grave-looking elderly gentleman stood there, who inquired if he had the
honor of addressing Mrs. Wayland.
"That is my name, sir," she answered, not opening the door or bidding
him enter.
"And mine is Ashly, madam. I am a clergyman, living in Boston, and
I am seeking a quiet place, near the sea, in which to spend the
summer. I have been told in the village yonder that you sometimes
receive a boarder, and I think your place will just suit me. I have
recommendations, if you wish."
But Mrs. Wayland did not need them. She was too good a judge of
character, despite her long seclusion, not to see at a glance that he
was what he asserted, and that, if she must have boarders at all, he
was just what she wanted. So she invited him in, without relaxing a
particle in the coldness of her demeanor, and, giving him a seat in a
cheerless-looking and scantily-furnished dining-room, told him in as
few words as possible what she would do for him and for how much she
would do it,--a straightforwardness which raised her very highly in
the reverend doctor's estimation, although she designed, if she had a
design in the matter, quite a contrary effect. She had sometimes had
some trouble in keeping her boarders at a sufficient distance to suit
her, and she had found it necessary upon their first arrival to have it
distinctly understood that they were to expect no sort of companionship
from her; that she gave them a room and their board, such as it was,
and she never took any pains to make it good or attractive, and that
that was all she wanted of them. But Dr. Ashly had a great horror of
a bustling and gossipy landlady, and thought he had found a perfect
treasure; and when she had shown him the room he could have, if he
liked, he eagerly agreed to take it, and said if she had no objection
he would take possession forthwith, and not go back to the village till
morning. To this she assented indifferently, and soon left him alone,
calling the one house-maid to get him some supper, and, retiring to
her own room, was soon buried in her accustomed thoughts, and scarcely
aware of his existence. And as landlady and lodger were equally pleased
to let each other alone, there was little intercourse between them for
several weeks. But one night, when the doctor had been for a long walk
on the beach, he saw, as he was returning, Mrs. Wayland, in her usual
evening exercise, pacing up and down the beach, and was struck by her
appearance as she walked thus, and stood still for a time observing
her, and followed her at last, at a little distance, while she made her
visit to the child's grave. His kind heart was very much touched by the
sight, and he determined to talk with her and give her his sympathy
and friendship, if she needed them. So he gathered some of the pansies
off from the grave, and, holding them in his hand, went into tea. Mrs.
Wayland had laid aside her shawl and was already seated at the table.
They usually had little conversation at these times, and that of the
most commonplace character. This evening, as he came through the door
and she caught sight of the flowers in his hand, she exclaimed, in a
quick, excited way, "You have been to my grave!"
She spoke as though he had intruded upon her most sacred privacy, and
he answered, apologetically, "Yes, I have visited the little grave in
the garden. I hope I have not intruded. I have a little grave in the
churchyard at home, and such spots are very sacred to me."
Agnes Wayland was a lady, and she would not have been guilty of a
rudeness for the world, so she hastened to reply,--
"Oh, no, sir, you have not been guilty of intrusion, but you are the
first one who has ever visited my grave, and I have watched it so
fondly for so many years that I almost felt jealous that any other eyes
should ever look upon it."
"And I have not only looked upon it," said the minister, very softly
and benignantly, "but I have dropped a tear upon it."
"That is something that I have never done."
"Then I pity you with all my heart, my friend. If I had not been able
to weep over my child's grave, I think my heart would have broken."
"Mine, sir, was broken before the child died," and, as she said this,
she arose hastily and left the room.
The minister was much interested and full of sympathy for this lonely
woman, whose lot was so isolated, and as he lay that night and listened
to the deep, hollow roar of the sea, he thought of the great deeps of
the human heart, and the fierce passions which were ever tossing it,
and of the great calm of death.
A few days after he ventured as delicately as he could to return to the
subject, by referring to the little girl he had lost, and of how her
mother had followed her, but a short time before, to the better land.
"You seem very cheerful, sir," said Agnes Wayland, in a quick,
impetuous way, "and yet you have had trouble, it seems."
"Yes, madam, I have had some very severe and dreadful trials; but I am
very happy and hopeful in spite of them all, for I know that now they
will soon be ended, and that I shall recover all that I have lost when
I reach the heavenly land."
"How do you know that? I don't know it. When I buried my only child
down in the garden there, I thought I had lost him forever. That was
why, in my stony grief, no tear ever fell upon his grave. I have been
trying these fifteen years to believe what you say you believe; but
it has no consolation for me. God took my child away from me in my
bitterest need, and he took him forever. Was it a good God who did
that?"
Her voice was cold and rigid, and a pallor as of death was upon her
face as she paused for a reply.
"A good God, madam! and whom he loveth he chasteneth!"
"No, indeed, sir, I don't believe that. He didn't love me, and I didn't
love him, and I don't love him now,--hate him, rather. He has tried me
too sorely."
"My dear friend, you know not what you say. I beseech you, do not
blaspheme your God."
"I have only said, sir, for once, what I have been thinking all these
dreadful years. When I buried my child down there, I did not believe in
any God for years. I thought some vile and fiendish Fate was pursuing
me. Then you ministers were always saying to me, 'Pray;' and I prayed.
They said to me 'Study the word of God;' and I studied it. It has been
my only study for fifteen years, and it has brought me no consolation
yet."
"But you have found God in it,--have you not? You do not deny a God?"
"I have found a God in it certainly, but only a God who has separated
me eternally from all I love."
"My dear friend, I assure you, you have not yet found the true God, if
you believe this."
"I have found I verily believe the God of the Bible, and he has said
the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment; and I am the most
wicked of all God's creatures."
Here Mrs. Wayland left him again standing upon the colonnade, and
hurried rapidly from him down the path which led to the sea. Her
conversation had revived in her heart all the strong passions which
slumbered there, and which she usually held in close repression. As
she paced wildly up and down the beach, feeling in her nearness to
the sea a sort of comfort as though the great ocean were her friend,
she thought over her whole lonely life. She thought of her happy and
brilliant youth, of its gayeties, its triumphs, and its great hopes;
she beheld herself the petted darling of a joyous circle of companions
and friends. She thought of her journeys in distant lands, whither a
loving father had taken her, and of all the delights of those years
when they had wandered through all the sunny climes of southern Europe,
and so away on to the Orient, where she had trodden with pilgrim feet
all the sacred places of that Holy Land. It was there she had first
met her husband; and she dwelt with fondness upon every little incident
which memory recalled of her intercourse with him there, and of how
they had sailed together upon their return to their native land. It was
then she had learned to love the ocean. In those long days, when they
were out upon the trackless deep, they had learned together the sweet
mystery of loving. Night after night they had paced the deck together,
gazing out upon the moonlighted expanse, and watching the breakers rise
and fall. The long voyage had been a season of enchantment. It had
passed into her being, and become a part of her inmost life forever.
She had one of those natures to whom such things come but once in a
lifetime. When they had reached home, they had been married, and, after
a year or two of pleasant married life, they had built the old gray
house of which I have told you, designing to pass their summers down
there within hearing of the grand, eternal anthem of the sea. How well
she remembered the hurry they were in to get down here,--so great a
hurry that they could not stop to have the house entirely finished, and
so in early May they had furnished two or three rooms, and lived here
in a wild trance of what seems to her now, as she looks back upon it,
perfect bliss. Here they wandered up and down the beach together hand
in hand for hours and beheld the waters glowing in the early tints of
sunrise, and reflecting the gorgeous splendors of sunset, and rippling
and shimmering in the bewildering moonlight. Then she thinks of how
gayeties began up at the village yonder, and how they began to see
much company and to mingle in all the excitements of watering-place
life. Here they had met the beautiful syren who had stolen her husband
from her. With what angry hate she dwells upon the soft, bewildering
beauty of that woman,--her rounded, dimpled form, her golden hair,
and the languishing blueness of the dreamy eyes! She seemed in all
her bewitching beauty, to the eye of Agnes Wayland, more hateful and
hideous than a fiend. She had fascinated Mortimer Wayland almost from
their first meeting. Of a dreamy, sensuous temperament, and a weak
will, and with no great power of principle at his back, the artful and
wicked woman had ensnared him with her wiles, and in the meshes of her
charms he had forgotten the grand and queenly wife, who to every eye
was so infinitely the superior of one for whom he was deserting her,
and the little year-old baby, who was just learning to lisp "father" to
him as he fondled him.
Of the wild tempest which tossed her soul at this time she dreaded to
think even now. It had been so near to madness that it was a terror
to her yet. But pride had always been one of her ruling passions,
and, instead of pleading with him with a woman's tenderness, as some
might have done, she had treated him with coldness and disdain, and
with reproachful scorn had goaded him on to take the last step in the
dreadful drama.
He had deserted her, and with the blue-eyed woman had sailed for a
distant land. Never since that time, now nearly twenty years, had
she left, except for her lonely walks, the old gray house. She shut
herself up like a hermit, and with wild and bitter grief cursed herself
and her God. Down into the deepest gloom of despair she went, where
never a single ray of heavenly light and comfort reached her. Her
child, indeed, she had left; but although she loved him with all the
concentrated passion of her nature, he seemed little comfort to her.
She brooded continually upon the darkness of her fate, and upon the
fathomless depths of despair into which she was sinking.
Then the child died, and her last human interest went; and she made
its little grave in the tangled garden, and every year covered it
thick with flowers. But in her heart no white blossom of hope had ever
sprung up, no purple pansy of royal magnanimity and forgiveness had yet
blossomed there. And this night, after so many years, she was living
it all over again with tragic interest, and no softened feelings of
relenting or forgiveness entered her stern heart.
"He is very happy," she thought to herself as she wended her way back
and stood by her little grave; "he is very happy, for he can stand
by his child's bed and weep; and so could I, if I had his hope. O my
darling, my darling, darling boy!" and she stooped down, and threw her
arms caressingly over the little mound.
"Oh, if God would only, only let me meet you once more! O my God, why
cannot I forgive and be forgiven?"
"My sister," said the kind old man, coming up and hearing her last
words; and feeling how vain it would be to reason or expostulate with
this woman,--"let us pray;" and, almost before she knew it, they were
kneeling by the little one's grave; and before the old minister had
concluded his simple but touching prayer, the woman, whose heart had
been stone for so many years, was weeping, weeping with passionate sobs
like a little child; and when he had concluded, she arose, and without
a word made her way into the house, and soon the red light shone in the
little window.
Somehow after this a more gentle feeling crept into the heart of Mrs.
Wayland. A softer light came into her eye, and a more gentle tremor
was in her voice as she addressed the old minister, who saw that she
was touched, but was too wise to meddle farther than was absolutely
necessary with the good work which he was sure was going on.
It was not many weeks from the evening of which I have spoken, when, as
she was returning from her evening walk, she beheld a scene of bustle
around the door of her house; a carriage was driving away, and a trunk
stood upon the steps, while some figures seemed just entering the door
whom she could not distinguish in the gathering darkness. "Dr. Ashly
has some friends come," she thought, with a feeling of impatience;
"what shall I do with them?" and she walked quickly to the house. As
she turned into the cheerless dining-room,--the only room which was
ever used below,--she saw, stretched upon a couch, the figure of a man
propped up by pillows, which seemed to have been hastily brought, and
looking pallid and wan. She walked quickly forward, but when she had
reached the middle of the room, she stopped like one transfixed, and,
with wild eyes full of eagerness and something like joy, looked about
her.
"Mortimer Wayland!" she exclaimed at last, grasping the table for
support. "Why come you here?"
"I have come home to die, Agnes. I could not die anywhere else; I have
been for years trying to do so,--but God would not let me. I was forced
to come and seek your forgiveness, and God will not take me until I
have it; yet I dare not ask you to grant it; it is too much!" At this
the sick man shut his eyes wearily, and said no more.
"Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who trespass against us,"
solemnly said the voice of the old minister, who was sitting near the
couch upon which the man lay.
"Oh, sir, you cannot know what it is for me to ask of her. Most wrongs
may be forgiven; but mine against her is so great that she cannot
forgive me, I am sure, unless God helps her. I have been suffering for
it these twenty years,--trying to expiate it; but I have failed. I have
suffered, I have struggled, I have almost died many times, sir; but I
could not atone for my sin, and God could not forgive it, nor can she."
Then the minister's voice was heard again, and it said, "Sister,
remember the little child's grave in the garden, and forgive and be
forgiven."
Then Mrs. Wayland, who had stood like a statue all this time, rushed
forward, and, kneeling by the couch poured forth her whole heart in a
torrent of passionate words,--
"O my husband, my darling, my only love, forgive me for my coldness and
my scorn! forgive me for not helping you to withstand temptation,--I,
who was always the stronger! It was I who drove you away, and for it
I have suffered and agonized all these years. I have been so hard, so
wicked and cruel, so unpitying and unforgiving, that I have had no rest
or peace night or day. It is so blessed to feel that I forgive you! so
joyful to think that you will forgive me,--that God will forgive us
both!" and the woman laid her head upon his breast, and rained upon his
lips a thousand passionate kisses.
Then Dr. Ashly would have left them; but the woman called him back.
"Share in our great joy, dear friend," she said; "for, had it not
been for you, this would never have been. A few weeks ago I should
never have received him whom I loved even as I had always loved, but
whom my pride would have banished from my door in the face of all his
pleadings; but you have softened my heart, and to you we owe this
joyful hour. And now you must help me," she continued, with a woman's
thoughtful care, "to carry him to my own room upstairs, which is the
only comfortable room I have; and there I can nurse him up, and soon
have him well again."
And so he was carried up to the room where she had sat alone so many
years, and was soon as comfortable as womanly care could make him.
"How natural it all looks here!" he said, glancing around the room.
"It is just as it used to be,--isn't it, darling? And I remember it so
well,--furnished, to suit you, in crimson, which you still like, as I
see by your shawl."
"Yes," she said, with a little blush; "I have always worn it for your
sake. You used to say it was just the color to suit me, and I have worn
it all these years."
"Darling," said he, looking all about the room, "I see no traces of any
one but yourself here. Where is our child,--our little baby boy?"
Agnes Wayland went softly up to him, and put her arms around his neck,
as she said,--
"I thought, a few weeks ago, that he was down in the garden under a bed
of pansies; but now I know he is in heaven, where you and I will soon
join him."
WHY MRS. RADNOR FAINTED.
WHY MRS. RADNOR FAINTED.
[Illustration]
You have seen hazel eyes,--have you not? I don't mean the quiet
nut-brown ones, you meet every day, but _bona fide_ hazel eyes,
opaline in their wonderful changes,--that make you wonder, when you
turn away from them, what color they will have assumed when you next
look into their depths; for such eyes have depths, sometimes glowing
emerald-like, with a steady, lambent flame, now gleaming with a soft
lustre like pearls, or melted into sapphires by tears.
Such eyes had Mrs. Radnor,--cold, beautiful woman that she was;
insensible, I was about to say, only I remember her fainting at sight
of a pond-lily. How well I recollect the day! There was a party of us
passing the midsummer at the old Richmond farm, a few miles from ----;
Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Radnor among the rest. The latter, a haughty
statuesque woman, with nothing save her wonderful eyes to indicate
anything approaching a heart,--lovely as a dream, yet with beauty
that repelled even in its fascination. Such hair, too, as she had,
rolling in golden ripples down to her slender feet;--fine as silk, it
was brown in the shade, but glowed and intensified in the light till it
seemed as if a thousand stray sunbeams were imprisoned in the radiant
mass. We always called her the "Princess with the golden locks." You
remember her in the fairy tale,--do you not? That one, I mean, whose
hair was the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and whose lovers
delighted to bind themselves with fetters so exquisite; yet when they
strove playfully to throw them off, they found themselves with gyves
and manacles of steel, under which they were powerless.
Mr. Radnor was urbane and gentlemanly; but, possessing only half a
soul, he divided the interest of that equally between admiring his own
person and annoying Mrs. Radnor by his attentions.
It was a sultry July day, and we were all of us on the rose-terrace
back of the house, some dozing,--I pretending to read, though all the
time watching the "Princess" furtively from the shelter of my book.
She had a pile of cushions spread with a scarlet shawl, and, like an
Eastern beauty, lay languidly upon them. Her dress of palest blue was
open at the throat, and her hands toyed listlessly with the heavy cord
that confined her waist. There was a blush-rose tint on her usually
pale cheek, and her hair, half escaped from its little net, lay like
flecks of gold on the scarlet cover. I think I never saw repose, utter
and perfect, before.
"Down through her limbs a drooping languor crept,
Her head a little bent, and on her mouth
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon
In a still water."
Suddenly the charmed silence was broken, for round the corner of the
house came Mr. Radnor, with his arms filled with superb water-lilies,
which he threw in a fragrant shower over his wife. He was saluted with
exclamations of wonder and delight, and while he was replying, I had
leisure to observe his wife.
The change was frightful: an ashen pallor had spread itself over her
face, she was panting violently for breath, and, at the same time,
attempting to clasp both hands before her eyes. I cried aloud and
sprang towards her,--but it was too late.
Mrs. Radnor had fainted!
At the same time, Anne Richmond threw herself upon her knees beside
her, and, hastily gathering the snowy flowers from her dress and bosom,
where they had fallen, thrust them into Mr. Radnor's arms, saying
hurriedly, as she did so,--
"Pray, pray, take them away, sir, or your wife will die."
He obeyed blankly, and together Anne and I applied the usual
restoratives, and, after some minutes, were rewarded by a faint color
in her lips, then a quivering of the mouth, and I heard her murmur
faintly,--"I saw him again, Anne. Oh, those dreadful flowers!"