What more is there to say? If I had written all this ten years ago I
should have said that there was nothing more to say, I should have said
that my life was ended. But now I am not of that mind. Thank God! there
is more to say, and though there have been sad hours to live through,
the haven has been reached at last.
When father was dead and buried, they told us that we should have to
leave the Grange. I can remember how the blow fell on me. Reuben had
just buried Luck, the old sheep-dog, under the big apple-tree.
"The Lord'll have to take me now," he had said, with tears in his
dim eyes; "but I'd sooner die than see the old place go to the bad.
I knowed what it 'd be when the master was called; and now that the
dog's gone as well, there's no more luck for us. Ay, if he'd ha' stuck
to Early Perlifics we shouldn't ha' seen old Knellestone come to the
hammer."
I don't believe I felt the thrust, I don't believe I ever saw the comic
incongruity of the situation, when, leaning forward on his spade and
gazing tearfully at the grave of his old dumb comrade, he had turned
to me saying, confidentially: "There'll be a rare crop of apples this
year, miss. There's nothing for an apple-tree like a dead dog."
But Reuben was a philosopher and I was no philosopher; and of the days
that followed, the days when Deborah went about with a grim, wise air,
as one who had known all along what would happen--the days when mother
wandered aimlessly from the chairs and presses to the old writing-table
where father had sat so many years, and the eight-day clock that had
summoned us as children to breakfast and prayers--of those horrible
days I cannot speak. I dare not remember the guilty feeling with which
I felt mother's eyes upon me when the squire delayed to come for that
"business talk" that he had asked leave for; I might have found spirit
once more to scorn Deborah's more openly expressed upbraiding, but
mother's silent reproach made my heart sick.
We were wrong, however, to doubt the squire. He came in spite of Deb's
cruel, covert taunts, in spite of mother's hopeless eyes. If he had not
come earlier, it was only because he was waiting till he had good news
to bring. I can see him now as he walked once more into that parlor
where we had had so many eager discussions, so many friendly meetings
and half-fancied quarrels, so many affectionate reconciliations! The
late autumn sun shone in through the three deep windows upon the worn
old Turkey carpet and leather chairs, upon the polished spindle-backed
seats that stood on either side of the hearth--one empty now forever;
it almost put the fire out, and touched the copper fire-irons into
flame. I suppose it was the sun that made the squire's face look so
ruddy and so radiant.
Radiant it most certainly was, and yet, at the same time, half
shamefaced too as he said that he had just come from a meeting of the
creditors, and that he had every reason to hope that father's affairs
would be satisfactorily arranged. I don't think I believed him at the
time, I think I was almost hurt when he met my trembling question, as
to whether we should have to leave Knellestone, with a laugh. But oh,
what a relief was that laugh from the visits of condolence we had had!
He did not forget father although he did not speak of him in words:
the awe that had surrounded the death-bed was gone, but not the sacred
burden that it had left. Yet I did not understand when he said that the
creditors had been satisfied. Even when the dreaded day of the sale
came, and mother kept her old friends in chairs and tables and presses,
and linen within the presses, and Joyce kept her favorite cows in the
dairy, and I even the mare that had been the innocent means of first
bringing romance within our quiet family--when the farm was not even
deprived of a single one of the mowing and threshing machines that had
caused so much strife--I, ignorant as I was of business, never even
guessed in what way an "arrangement" had been come to!
It was old Reuben again--sitting by the chimney-corner crippled with
rheumatism, or, as he himself expressed it, with all his constitution
run into his legs--it was poor old Reuben who had told me the truth.
Shrewd Deb knew it and was silent, but Reuben--too shrewd or not shrewd
enough to be silent, told me the tale: if squire had not bought in
all the stock and the furniture before it ever came to the hammer, we
shouldn't have been in the Grange now, living practically very much
the same life as we had always lived.
Ah me! I knew well enough why the squire had taken such pains to
conceal from us all that he had done anything more than effect a
compromise with the creditors. But I ought to have guessed. If I had
not been so much wrapped up in my own personal pains and feelings I
_should_ have guessed it, and when I next met him I nerved myself to
speak on the subject. How well I recall his explanation! "Folk in
the country grow to depend so on one another that I couldn't do with
strangers at the Grange while I'm alive," he had said; "so you must
forgive me if I played a game to serve my own ends. The place might
have stood empty ever so long. Farms do nowadays."
We must have been riding eastward over the downs, for I can remember
that the wind blew keen in our faces, and that the sky was leaden
overhead, almost as dull as the wide, dull marsh below it: it was
winter. I know that, even at the time, I recalled another night when I
had ridden with the squire; then the west was raging crimson behind us,
and the moon rose yellow out of the sea; it had been summer.
"There is no one else in the world who would have done for us what you
have done for us, nor any one else in the world from whom we could take
it," I had murmured, in a trembling voice. "It is for father's sake."
"It is not all for your father's sake," the squire had answered,
softly, with grave and tender face, his blue eyes shining down on me
with a deep, bright light.
By a sudden impulse I recollect holding out my hand to him. "I know you
are my friend and I am your friend," I had said. "We shall always be
friends till we die."
And all through the dreary days that followed, that friendship, that
needed no words to tell and that no parting could weaken, warmed my
empty heart at a time when the world seemed to hold no further joy nor
even such comparative content as a respite from remorse.
For, alas! Joyce slowly faded and saddened before my eyes, and all my
passionate love for her came back, making the thought of her wasted
youth, her tarnished loveliness, her happiness uselessly spoiled
through my fault, almost heavier than I could bear.
For it was spoiled though she spoke no word. At first the tall, slim
figure--more Quakerly neat than ever in its straight black gown--went
about the household duties just as serenely as before, and the face, so
dazzlingly fair a flower on the dark stem, shone as innocently content
as of yore. I could scarcely believe that she could have seen that
cruel letter, with its upright, rugged characters, that seemed to have
sent away the last drop of blood from my heart. Her hope must have been
high or she could never have kept so patient a countenance.
But however high it may have been, it began to fade. I had said to
myself that Joyce could not feel, but--ah me, how little can we
know how much other people feel! I could see her feeling through
the tremulous sensitiveness of the face that once seemed to me so
impossible to ruffle--I could hear it through the thin sound of her
timid voice, in her rare speech and rarer laughter--and I knew that my
loved sister was unhappy. Yes, she was unhappy; life was as dead to her
as it was to me, and it was I--I, loving her--who had killed her joy
for her, and killed it wilfully. May no one whom I love ever know, what
it is to feel remorse!
A whisper ran round the village that Joyce Maliphant was pining away
her beauty for love of the gay young captain who had once courted her,
and who was now going to wed with Miss Mary Thorne, the heiress. Deb
told me of it, she had heard the rumor coming out of church; but I
don't believe we, any of us, thought that it mattered much what Frank
Forrester did. He could never have made Joyce happy, why should he not
make Mary Thorne happy? There had been tears in her eyes when the news
of his accident had come, there had been no tears in Joyce's.
No, what really mattered was that my sister's face was growing paler
and thinner, and that at last the day came when they told us that
unless we could make up our minds to part from Joyce for a while, we
might have to part from her forever.
I hope I may never feel again the heart-sick pang that went through me
as the doctor said those words. I had thought that no such pang could
be worse than that I had felt when father had told me he was going to
die; but this was worse, for Joyce was young, and had the right still
to a long and happy life, and if she was deprived of it, it was I who
had deprived her.
I went to work with an aching spirit to arrange how it should be
that Joyce should leave us for warmer lands. Mother had a married
brother living at Melbourne, and to him it was decided at last that
Joyce should go for a couple of years. We found her an escort in some
friends of the squire's, and the only little grain of comfort I had
in the whole matter was that if Joyce was to leave us, it was to go to
the same country whither Trayton Harrod had fled a year before. But
Australia was a large field, and unless they were to meet by the purest
accident, Trayton Harrod was not likely ever to seek Joyce out.
Was it some such faint and wild hope, I wonder, or merely the feeling
that I could not part from that dear heart without making a clean
breast of my sin to it, which made me say what I did when the last
moment came? I don't know. I only know that as we stood there in the
little waiting-room of the London Docks, while mother stooped from her
usual shy dignity to beg the kindness and care of this unknown friend
of the squire's for her suffering child, I felt suddenly that I could
not let Joyce go from me with that lie weighing on my heart--I felt
that I _must_ have her forgiveness!
I cannot imagine how I had endured so long without it. I had hungered
for _his_ forgiveness, whom I had wronged less cruelly, because I owed
him less devotion, and had been able to live side by side with her
without asking for her pardon whose life I had so wrecked.
Many a time in those past months I had started to find the squire's
perplexed eyes upon me, following mine that were fixed upon Joyce, and
I had blushed with shame, knowing what it was that put that look in
me which puzzled him; and many a time I had vowed that I would abase
myself and tell her all, yet never had found the courage. But now, when
the last chance was slipping from me, the courage came. It came, I
think, because Joyce stood suddenly revealed before me in the grandeur
of her simple goodness, her power of silent and loving sacrifice; it
came because I had no fear, because I was ashamed of my very shame,
because I was sure of her forgiveness.
She stood with her hand in mine, her figure very tall and slim in
the straight black gown, her face very fair and fragile in the frame
of the neat little close bonnet. She might have been a nun, so quiet
and orderly her outward demeanor, so calm her beautiful face, and yet
when I looked again I saw that there were tears in the blue eyes that
looked away from me to the tangled mass of shipping in the dock, and to
the confused net-work of masts and rigging that lay black against the
leaden, wintry sky.
"O Joyce, darling," I cried, seizing her hand wildly, "don't cry! I
can't bear it."
She did not answer, she was afraid of trusting herself to speak, but,
true to her perfect unselfishness, she turned to me and smiled. "You'll
get well, you know," I went on, with determined cheerfulness; "you'll
get quite well and come back to us very soon."
Still she smiled that heart-breaking smile, nodding her head, however,
as though to confirm my cheerful words. Then came my burst of
confidence. "If you were _not_ to come back quite well," said I, in a
low voice, "I think, Joyce, I should die. It's all my fault."
At that she spoke. She did not seem surprised at my words, but only
anxious to deny them so as to remove any pain of my self-reproach.
"Oh no, no, Meg," she said, softly. "Not your fault, dear. Things like
that are never any one's fault."
She thought I only meant that my love for Harrod had stood in the way
of her accepting his, because _she_, brave and unselfish in what I used
to call her coldness, would have given him up to me.
But I couldn't let her think that I had meant only that. "Joyce," said
I, firmly, "if it hadn't been for me, Trayton Harrod would have married
you."
I saw that the name hurt her like the lash of a whip. "Oh, don't,
don't!" she murmured, with pain in her eyes.
"I beg your pardon," said I, humbly, "but I must tell you. I can't
let you go away without telling you the truth. O Joyce, my poor, dear
Joyce, however much it pains you I must tell you. I don't mean only
what you think. I don't mean only that I didn't go away, that I didn't
behave as generously towards you as you would have done towards me. I
mean--O Joyce, how can I tell you? But I was mad with jealousy, and
I told him that you loved Frank. I sent him away from you." I had
hurried the words out without preparation, I was so afraid of being
interrupted--and now I was frightened.
Every drop of the blood that was left in that poor, wan face fled from
it. I thought she was going to faint, but she stood firm, only her eyes
seemed to turn to stone, to see nothing.
"O Joyce, darling, don't look like that!" cried I, in an agony. "Speak
to me. Say something."
She closed her hand over mine, and her lips moved, but I could not hear
a word.
"I shall never, never forgive myself so long as I live," murmured I,
a sob rising in my throat; "but if _you_ do not forgive me, Joyce, I
think I shall die, Joyce."
"Poor Meg!" murmured my sister at last, and then the lump that had
been rising in my throat broke into a sob, and the tears rushed to my
eyes.
For a moment I could not speak. I got rid of my tears as well as I
could, and looking at her, I saw, yes, thank God! I saw that her eyes
were wet too.
"Can you forgive me, Joyce?" I faltered. "Yes, I think _you_ can. You
are good enough."
"Forgive you!" echoed she, faintly. And her sweet mouth breaking into
the tremulous smile that was its familiar ornament, she added, "Dear,
_you_ have been unhappy too."
They were few words, but what more perfect expression of tenderest
forgiveness could there be? I wanted no more. I knew there was no
bitterness, that there never would be any bitterness, in my sister's
heart towards me.
There was no one in the waiting-room, mother had gone out onto the
wharf with the strange lady; I put my arms round Joyce's neck, and drew
her face down to mine. "God bless you!" I said, reverently, and I think
for the first time in my life I felt what the words meant.
"It's all for the best, dear," added she, gently, leaning her cheek
against my hair. "You know we never really do alter things that are
going to happen by anything we do. It's arranged for us by a wise
Providence." It was the simple faith that had always guided her life;
it had often annoyed my more impetuous and self-willed spirit, but it
did not annoy me now; there was a soothing in it.
But there was no time for further speech; mother came back again, it
was time to go on board. I busied myself with the luggage and with
talking to Joyce's escort--a kindly, good-natured couple--and left
mother and daughter together.
The parting was over all too quickly, and we were left standing on the
wharf alone, mother and I, watching the big black mass steer its way
slowly among the crowd of shipping, watching the tall black figure on
the deck until, even in imagination, it faded from us, and we looked
but on the interminable rows of black masts against the lurid sunset of
a bleak winter evening.
When we were safe in the cab again, homeward bound, I did what I had
done only once in my life before, and that was on the night when the
mare threw me and I had first fancied that Trayton Harrod loved my
sister--I put my head down on my mother's breast and wept my heart out
on hers. It was selfish of me, for I should have thought of her grief,
and yet I do not think that it intensified it; I think, somehow, my
tears did her good.
She said nothing, but she stroked my hair tenderly, and from that
moment there was opened up between us a new vein of sympathy that had
never been there before, and that left something sweet in life still,
even in the sad and empty home to which we came back.
It was an empty home indeed. The squire could no longer cheer its
solitude with his genial presence. He had gone abroad. The Manor was
shut up, and there was no sign of life about the dear old place, that
held so many happy memories, but the sound of the keeper's gun in the
copses above the marsh, and the cawing of the familiar rooks that
circled round the old chapel at eventide.
I dared not complain, things might have been so much worse. The farm
was still our own. A new bailiff and I managed it together, but though
I had reached what, a while ago, would have been the summit of my
ambition, it was gone. I no longer cared to have my own way; save for a
somewhat vain struggle to keep up father's theories as far as I could,
I let the new man do as he liked; he made the farm pay us a moderate
income, and I asked no questions. My duty to mother was the plain
thing before me, and I threw myself into that now, as I had thrown
myself into personal ambition before--the farm must be made to keep her
comfortably.
But for all my devotion to her, these were dreary days. With my new
passion for self-sacrifice, I refused to leave her for the rambles
of old, and the want of fresh air and exercise told on me a bit. The
only things that broke the monotony of our life were our letters from
Joyce and from the squire. He wrote to me regularly, telling me of
all that he was seeing, of all that he was doing--the kind letters
of a friend, from whose thoughts, it made me happy to think, I was
never long absent. I would scarcely have believed a year ago that it
would have made me as low-spirited as it did, when one of the squire's
letters was a little delayed. I think I missed them almost more than
I should have missed one of Joyce's, for--save for knowing that she
was better, and, as I faintly began to hope, a little happier--her
letters were so entirely unlike herself that they gave one but scant
satisfaction; whereas the squire's, without breathing a word that was
out of the common, were full of himself and his own characteristics. In
spite, however, of these red-letter days, the hours were long hours,
and the days gray days for me. I worked as of old through summer and
winter, spring and autumn, flower and fruit, sowing and reaping, but
the seasons were not the same to me as they once had been. I loved the
sunless days, with their fields and mysteries of cloud, soft promises
of a far-off heaven, ever-changing, ever-unknown depths--I loved them
as I could not love the sunshine. I was not always unhappy, for I was
young, and out of the past upon which I mused, many a note of suffering
had had its answering whisper of joy; but upon the marsh there lay a
shade which had not been there when I was a merry, thoughtless girl.
* * * * *
Thus far had I written, and I thought my task was finished; but
to-night, as I lean out of my window, watching the pale moon sink
cradled in gray clouds, and make a misty silver path across the lonely
land that is woven into my life, I want to reopen my book that I may
set down in it one last word.
It is not half an hour since I stood down there on the cliff waiting
for a carriage to come along the white road that crosses the plain.
Two were in that carriage--the sister whom I had loved and betrayed,
the man whom I had loved, and for whom I had betrayed her. They were
returning together from a distant land, where they had met once more.
My heart was full of thankfulness, and yet--when I felt the aspens
shiver again in the night breeze as they had done that evening ten
years ago--I seemed to hear the deep voice in my ear, and to feel the
cold strike to my heart as it spoke.
But it was not _his_ voice that spoke; another stood at my side,
one who had come back to me from a long parting, the friend of my
life, the lover of ten years who had never spoken but once of his
love, who had never put a kiss upon my lips. I scarcely know what he
said--simple words enough, but they told me of his tender pity and
untiring sympathy, they opened the floodgates of my burdened heart, and
I told him all my tale. I shrank from nothing. I told him of my wild,
unreasoned passion that, deep as it had been, was not all that I could
imagine love might be; I told him of my selfish sin, of my long and
bitter remorse, of my thankfulness that the punishment was removed, and
that Joyce was coming back to me happy in spite of my great wrong to
her. I did not ask myself what this longing to confess to the squire
meant in me, and yet the confession was by no means an easy matter; and
when all was told, my heart sank within me at his silence, and I felt
as though I could not bear it if _he_ should be ashamed of me, if he
should take away his friendship from me because I had done an unworthy
thing.
But I suppose one does not love people nor cease to love them for what
they do or for what they leave undone; for certain it is that when the
squire spoke at last there was something in his voice that told me he
was not ashamed of me, that same "something" that had been so silent
all these years, that I sometimes wondered if it was still alive.
The squire has gone home, and all the house is at rest; but I still
look out of my little attic window whence I have seen the sea for
so many years. Below me a mist lies upon the dike like a white pall
upon some cherished grave. It is just such a night as that night ten
years ago--only with a difference: the dim plain is not so cold, the
light has a promise of brightness. And in my heart, too, there is a
brightness which I am almost afraid to believe can be mine. I am happy
because Joyce is happy, because Joyce is beautiful once more as she
was beautiful when I first wanted a lover to love her. But it is not
only thankfulness for the stain blotted out, peaceful resignation to
the inevitable, which makes light in my soul to-night. There is a new
picture growing slowly out of the clouds as they part and melt around
the moon; there is a new harmony coming to me at last out of the very
monotony of the marsh-land.
Above the lonely plain the night is blue and vast.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes.
Page 35: changed ofter to after
Page 142: changed You've sister to Your sister
Page 146: changed heeard to heard
Page 215: removed the word 'the' from 'said the mother'
Page 233: changed instincttively to instinctively