BETWEEN three and four the next morning, the robin in the nest above
Mary’s room stretched out his left wing, opened one eye, and gave a
short and rather drowsy chirp, which broke up his night’s rest and
restored him to the full consciousness that he was a bird with wings
and feathers—a large apple-tree to live in, and all heaven for an
estate—and so, on these fortunate premises, he broke into a gush
of singing, clear and loud, which Mary without waking heard in her
slumbers.
Scarcely conscious, she lay in that dim clairvoyant state, when the
half-sleep of the outward senses permits a delicious dewy clearness
of the soul; that perfect ethereal rest and freshness of faculties,
comparable only to what we imagine of the spiritual state. Season
of celestial enchantment, in which the heavy weight ‘of all this
unintelligible world’ drops off, and the soul, divinely charmed,
nestles like a wind-tossed bird in the protecting bosom of the One
all Perfect, all Beautiful. What visions then come to the inner eye
have often no words corresponding in mortal vocabularies. The poet,
the artist, and the prophet in such hours become possessed of divine
_certainties_, which all their lives they struggle, with pencil or
song, or burning words, to make evident to their fellows. The world
around wonders, but _they_ are unsatisfied, because they have _seen the
glory_ and know how inadequate the copy. But not merely to selectest
spirits come these hours, but to those (humble poets) ungifted with
utterance, who are among men as fountains sealed; whose song can be
wrought out only by the harmony of deeds; the patient, pathetic
melodies of tender endurance, or the heroic chant of undiscouraged
labour. The poor slave woman last night parted from her only boy,
and weary with the cotton-picking; the captive pining in his cell;
the patient wife of the drunkard, saddened by a consciousness of the
growing vileness of one once so dear; the delicate spirit doomed
to harsh and uncongenial surroundings;—all in such hours feel the
soothings of a celestial harmony, the tenderness of more than a
mother’s love. It is by such hours as these often, more than by
reasonings or disputings, that doubts are resolved in the region of
religious faith. The All-Father treats us as the mother does her
‘infant crying in the dark;’ He does not reason with our fears, or
demonstrate their fallacy, but draws us silently to His bosom, and we
are at peace. Nay, there have been those undoubtedly who have known
God falsely with the intellect, yet felt Him truly with the heart; and
there may be many, principally among the unlettered little ones of
Christ’s flock, who positively _know_ that much that is dogmatically
propounded to them of their Redeemer is cold, barren, unsatisfying, and
even utterly false, who yet can give no account of their certainties
better than that of the inspired fisherman, ‘We know Him, and have seen
Him.’
It was in such hours as these that Mary’s deadly fears for the soul of
her beloved had passed away, passed out of her, as if some warm healing
nature of tenderest vitality had drawn out of her heart all pain and
coldness, and warmed it with the breath of an eternal summer. So, while
the purple shadows spread their gauzy veils inwove with fire along
the sky, and the gloom of the sea broke out here and there into lines
of light, and thousands of birds were answering to each other from
apple-tree, and meadow-grass, and top of jagged rock, or trooping in
bands hither and thither like angels on loving messages, Mary lay there
with the flickering light through the leaves fluttering over her face,
and the glow of dawn warming the snow-white draperies of the bed, and
giving a tender rose hue to the calm cheek. She lay half conscious,
smiling the while, as one who sleeps while the heart waketh, and who
hears in dreams the voice of the One Eternally Beautiful and Beloved.
Mrs. Scudder entered her room, and thinking that she still slept, stood
and looked down upon her. She felt as one does who has parted with
some precious possession, a sudden sense of its value coming over her;
and she queried in herself whether any living mortal were worthy of so
perfect a gift; and nothing but a remembrance of the Doctor’s prostrate
humility at all reconciled her to the sacrifice she was making.
‘Mary, dear,’ she said, bending over her with an unusual infusion of
emotion in her voice; ‘darling child.’
The arms moved instinctively, even before the eyes unclosed, and drew
her mother down to her with a warm clinging embrace.
Love in Puritan families was often like latent caloric,—an
all-pervading force that affected no visible thermometer, shown
chiefly by a noble, silent confidence, a ready helpfulness, but seldom
out-breathed in caresses,—yet natures like Mary’s always craved these
outward demonstrations, and sprang towards them as a trailing vine
sways to the nearest support. It was delightful for once fully to
_feel_ how much her mother loved her, as well as to _know_ it.
‘Dear, precious mother, do you love me so very much?’
‘I live and breathe in you, Mary,’ said Mrs. Scudder, giving vent to
herself in one of those trenchant short-hand expressions, wherein
positive natures incline to résumé _all_ when they must speak at all.
Mary held her mother silently to her breast, her heart shining through
her face with a quiet radiance of love.
‘Do you feel happy this morning?’ said Mrs. Scudder.
‘Very, very, _very_ happy, mother.’
‘I am so glad to hear you say so,’ said Mrs. Scudder, who, to say the
truth, had entertained many doubts at her pillow the night before.
Mary began dressing herself in a state of calm exaltation. Every
trembling leaf on the tree, every sunbeam was like a loving smile of
God, every fluttering breeze like His voice, full of encouragement and
hope.
‘Mother, did you tell the Doctor what I said last night?’
‘I did, my darling.’
‘Then, mother, I would like to see him a few moments alone.’
‘Well, Mary, he is in his study at his morning devotions.’
‘That is just the time. I will go to him.’
The Doctor was sitting by the window, and the honest-hearted motherly
lilacs, a-bloom for the third time since our story began, were filling
the air with their sweetness. Suddenly the door opened, and Mary
entered in her simple white short-gown and skirt, her eyes calmly
radiant, and her whole manner having something serious and celestial.
She came directly towards him, and put out both her little hands with a
smile half child-like, half angelic, and the Doctor bowed his head, and
covered his face with his hands.
‘Dear friend,’ said Mary, kneeling, and taking his hands, ‘if you want
me, I am come. Life is but a moment. There is an eternal blessedness
just beyond us, and for the little time between, I will be all I can to
you if you will only show me how.’
And the Doctor—— No, young man, the study door closed just then, and no
one heard those words from a quaint old oriental book which told that
all the poetry of that grand old soul had burst into flower, as the
aloe blossoms once in a hundred years. The ripples of that great heart
might have fallen unconsciously into phrases from that one love poem
of the Bible which these men read so purely and devoutly, and which
warmed the icy clearness of their intellects with the myrrh and spices
of ardent lands, where earthly and heavenly love meet and blend in one
indistinguishable horizon line, like sea and sky.
‘Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon? clear
as the sun? My dove, my undefiled, is but one. She is the only one of
her mother—thou art all fair, my beloved, there is no spot in thee.’
The Doctor might have said all this, we will not say he did, nor will
we say he did not; all we know is, that when the breakfast-table was
ready they came out cheerfully together. Madame de Frontignac stood in
a fresh white wrapper, with a few buttercups in her hair, waiting for
the breakfast. She was startled to see the Doctor entering all radiant,
leading in Mary by the hand, and looking as if he thought she were some
dream-miracle which might dissolve under his eyes unless he kept fast
hold of her. The keen eyes shot their arrowy glance, which went at
once to the heart of the matter. Madame de Frontignac knew they were
engaged, and regarded Mary with attention.
The calm, sweet, elevated expression of her face struck her; it struck
her also that _that_ was not the light of any earthly love, that it had
no thrill, no blush, no tremor, but only the calmness of a soul that
knows itself no more, and she sighed involuntarily.
She looked at the Doctor, and seemed to study attentively a face which
happiness had made this morning as genial and attractive as it was
generally strong and fine.
There was little said at the breakfast-table this morning; and yet the
loud singing of the birds, the brightness of the sunshine, the life and
vigour of all things, seemed to make up for the silence of those who
were too well pleased to speak.
‘_Eh bien, ma chère_,’ said Madame, after breakfast, drawing Mary into
her little room. ‘_C’est fini?_’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, cheerfully.
‘Thou art content,’ said Madame, passing her arm around her; ‘well
then, I should be: but, Mary, it is like a marriage with the altar,
like taking the veil, is it not?’
‘No,’ said Mary, ‘it is not taking the veil, it is beginning a
cheerful, reasonable life with a kind, noble friend who will always
love me truly, and whom I hope to make as happy as he deserves.’
‘I think well of him, my little cat,’ said Madame, reflectively;
‘but—,’ she stopped something she was going to say, and kissed Mary’s
forehead; after a moment’s pause, she added,
‘One must have love or refuge, Mary; this is thy refuge, child; thou
wilt have peace in it;’ she sighed again.
‘_Enfin_,’ she said, resuming her gay tone, ‘what shall be _la toilette
de noce_? Thou shalt have Verginie’s pearls, my fair one, and look like
a sea-born Venus; _tiens!_ let me try them in thy hair.’
And in a few moments she had Mary’s long hair down, and was chattering
like a blackbird, wreathing the pearls in and out, and saying a
thousand pretty nothings, weaving grace and poetry into the strait
thread of Puritan life.