SIR HUGH'S REPENTANCE.
And by comparison I see
The majesty of matron grace,
And learn how pure, how fair can be
My own wife's face:
Pure with all faithful passion, fair
With tender smiles that come and go,
And comforting as April air
After the snow.
JEAN INGELOW.
Sir Hugh began to wish that he had never gone to Egypt, or that he had
gone with any one but Fitzclarence--he was growing weary of his
vagaries and unpunctuality. They had deviated already four times from
the proposed route, and the consequence was, he had missed all his
letters; and the absence of home news was making him seriously uneasy.
He was the only married man; the rest of the party consisted of gay,
young bachelors--good enough fellows in their way, but utterly
careless. They laughed at Sir Hugh's anxious scruples, and secretly
voted that a married man was rather a bore in this kind of thing. What
was the use of bothering about letters, they said, so long as the
remittances came to hand safely.
Sir Hugh thought of Fay's loving little letters lying neglected at the
different postal towns, and sighed; either he was not so indifferent
to her as he supposed himself to be, or absence was making his heart
tender; but he had never been so full of care and thought for his Wee
Wifie as he was then. He wished he had bidden her good-bye. He
remembered the last time he had seen her, when he had gone into his
study with the telegram in his hand; and then he recalled the strange
wistful look she had given him. He could not tell why the fancy should
haunt him, but he wished so much that he had seen her again and taken
a kinder leave of her. It had not been his fault, he told himself a
hundred times over; but still one never knew what might happen. He
wished now that he had taken her in his arms and had said God bless
her; she was such a child, and he was leaving her for a long time.
Sir Hugh was becoming a wiser man, and was beginning to acknowledge
his faults, and, what was better still, to try and make amends for
them.
It was too late to undo the effects of Fitzclarence's reckless mode of
traveling, but he would do all he could; so in his leisure moments,
when the other men were smoking and chatting in their tent, he sat
down in a quiet corner and wrote several letters, full of descriptions
of their journey, to amuse Fay in her solitude; and one Sunday, when
the others had started on an expedition to see some ruin, he wrote the
explanation that he had deferred so long. Hugh was an honest,
well-meaning man, in spite of his moral weakness; if that letter had
only reached the young wife's eyes it would have healed her sore heart
and kept her beside him.
For he told her everything; and he told it in such a frank, manly way,
that no woman could have lost confidence in him, though she read what
Fay was to have read in the first few lines--that he had not married
her for love. Hugh owned his unhappy passion for Margaret, and pleaded
his great trouble as the excuse for his restlessness. He had gone
away, he said, that he might fight a battle with himself, and return
home a better man; it would all be different when he came back, for he
meant to be a good husband to her, and to live for her and the boy,
and to make her happy, and by and by he would be happy too. And he
ended his letter as he never ended one yet, by assuring her that he
was her loving husband. But, alas, when that tardy explanation reached
the cottage at Daintree, Aunt Griselda only wrung her thin white hands
and cried, for no one knew what had become of Fay, and Erle was
rushing about and sending telegrams in all directions, and Fay, with
the shadow always on her sweet face, was sitting in the orchard of the
Manse, under the shade of the mossy old apple-trees, and baby Hugh lay
on her lap, gurgling to the birds and the white clouds that sailed
over their heads. When Sir Hugh had written that letter, he felt as
though a very heavy weight were off his mind, and he began to enjoy
himself. Not for long, however, for presently they reached Cairo, and
there he found a budget awaiting him. Every one seemed to have written
to him but Fay; and when he saw that, he began to tear open the
letters rather wildly, for he feared she must be ill. But by and by he
came to her letter.
He read Erle Huntingdon's first--an indignant letter, evidently
written under strong excitement--"Why had he not come home when they
had sent for him? He must know that their search had been useless;
they had no news of either Fay or the child. Miss Mordaunt was very
ill with worry, and her old servant was much alarmed about her. They
had written to him over and over again, and directed their letters to
every possible place he could not have missed. If he had any affection
for his wife and child, and cared to know what had become of them, he
had better leave Fitzclarence and the other fellows and return at
once," and so on.
Hugh dropped the letter--he was pale to the lips with
apprehension--and turned to the others.
They were from Miss Mordaunt, and Mrs. Heron, and Ellerton, and the
lawyer, but they only reiterated the same thing--that all efforts had
been in vain, and that they could hear nothing of either Lady Redmond
or the boy; and then they urged him to come home at once. Lastly,
directed by Mrs. Heron, as though by an afterthought, was the letter
Fay had left for him upon the study-table; but, in reality, it had
been forwarded before the alarm had been given, for the seal was still
unbroken. Mrs. Heron, on learning from the messenger that Sir Hugh had
started for Egypt, had redirected it, and it had only just been posted
when the distracted nurse made her appearance at the Hall and told her
story. When Hugh read that poor little letter, his first feeling was
intense anger--all his Redmond blood was at fever-heat. She had sinned
beyond all mercy; she had compromised his name and his reputation, and
he would never forgive her.
He had confided his honor to a child, and she had played with it, and
cast it aside; she had dared to leave him and her home, and with his
child, too, and to bring the voice of scandal about them; she--Lady
Redmond, his wife--wandering like a vagabond at the world's mercy! His
feelings were intolerable. He must get back to England; he must find
her and hush it up, or his life would be worth nothing to him. Ah, it
was well for Fay that she was safely hidden in the old Manse, for, if
he had found her while this mood was on him, his anger would have
killed her.
When his passion had cooled a little, he went to Fitzclarence and told
him abruptly that he must return home at once--affairs of the utmost
importance recalled him.
Fitzclarence thought he looked very strange, but something in his
manner forbade all questioning. Two hours afterward he was on his way
to England.
There is an old proverb, often lightly quoted, and yet full of a wise
and solemn meaning, "_L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose_." Poor, angry
Hugh, traveling night and day, and cursing the tardy railways and
steamers, was soon to test the truth of the saying.
He had reached Marseilles, and was hurrying to the post-office to
telegraph some order to Mrs. Heron, when he suddenly missed his
footing, and found himself at the bottom of a steep, dark cellar, with
his leg doubled up under him; and when two passers-by who saw the
accident tried to move him, they discovered that his leg was broken;
and then he heard that he fainted.
And so fate, or rather Providence, took the reins from the weak,
passionate hands that were so unfit to hold them, and threw him back,
helpless and baffled, on his bed of pain; there to learn, week by
week, through weary sickness and still more weary convalescence, the
lesson that only suffering could teach him--that it were well to
forgive others their sins, even as he hoped his might be forgiven.
And yet he learned another thing, as his anger slowly burned itself
out and only profound wretchedness and intolerable suspense remained
as to his wife's fate--something that startled him with a sense of
sweetness, and yet stung him with infinite pain; when the haunting
presence of his lost wife seemed ever with him, and would not let him
rest; when his remorse was terrible; and when he would have given up
all he had in the world just to hear her say in her low, fond voice,
that she forgave him all.
For he knew now that he had wronged her, and that his neglect and
coldness had driven her from her home.
The uncertainty of her fate sometimes nearly drove him wild. How could
she have laid her plans so accurately that no traces of her or the
child could be found? Could evil have befallen them? God help him if a
hair of those innocent heads had been touched. In his weakness he
could not always control the horrible imaginations that beset him.
Often he would wake from some ghastly dream and lie till dawn, unable
to shake off his deadly terror. Then all of a sudden he would remember
that hasty postscript, "Do not be anxious about me. I am going to some
kind people who will be good to me and the boy;" and he would fall
asleep again while vainly trying to recall if he had ever heard Fay
speak of any friends of her childhood. But though Erle and Miss
Mordaunt tried to help him, no name occurred to any of them.
It was an added burden that Erle could not come to him; but there was
trouble at Belgrave House, and the shadows were closing round it. Erle
could not leave his uncle, but he wrote very kindly to poor
conscience-stricken Hugh, and said all he could to comfort him.
It was in those hours of dreary helplessness that Hugh learned to miss
his Wee Wifie. In those long summer afternoons, while his foreign
nurse nodded drowsily before him, and the hot air crept sluggishly in
at the open window, how he longed for the small cool hand that used to
be laid so softly on his temples, or put the drink to his parched lips
before they could frame their want. He remembered the hours she had
sat beside him, fanning the flies from his pillow or bathing his
aching head. She had never left him--never seemed tired or impatient,
though her face had grown so pale with watching. Others would have
spared her; others told him that she was spent and weary, but he had
never noticed it. "And, brute that I was," he thought, "I left her
alone in her trouble with only strangers and hirelings about her, to
fight her way through the very Valley of the Shadow of Death." He took
out her letter and smoothed it out--it was a trick of his when he
thought no one would see him. He had read it over until he knew every
word by heart. Ah! if Heaven would but spare him this once and give
him back the strength he had misused, that he might find her, poor
child, and bring her home, and comfort her as only he could comfort
her. He would love her now, he thought; yes, if she would only bear
with him and give him time, he knew from the deep pity and tenderness
which he felt that he would love her yet, for the merciful Providence
that had laid the erring man low was teaching him lessons that no
other discipline could have inculcated.
The cold December wind was whirling through the bare branches of the
oaks and beeches in the Redmond avenue when Sir Hugh came home, a
changed and saddened man.
Yes, changed outwardly as well as inwardly. Good Mrs. Heron cried when
she saw him enter the hall on Saville's arm, looking so thin and worn,
and leaning on his stick.
His youth seemed to have passed away; his smooth forehead was already
furrowed like that of a middle-aged man, and his fair hair had worn
off it slightly, making him look ten years older; and yet there was
that in Hugh Redmond's face, if Margaret could have seen it, that
would have filled her pure heart with exceeding thankfulness.
For though the pallor caused by suffering was still there, and those
who saw him said Sir Hugh was a broken man, yet there was a nobler
expression than it had ever worn in happier days. The old fretful
lines round the mouth were gone; and, though the eyes looked sadly
round at the old familiar faces, as though missing the truest and
best, still, there was a chastened gravity about his whole mien that
spoke of a new and earnest purpose; of a heart so humbled at last that
it had fled to its best refuge, and had found strength in the time of
need.
Many years afterward he owned, to one who was ever his closest friend,
that a whole life-time of suffering had been compressed into those few
short years that had followed his father's death. The whole plan and
purpose of his youth had been marred; his heart wasted by a passion
that was denied satisfaction; and lastly, just as he was beginning to
turn to his neglected wife with a sympathy and interest that promised
well for her future happiness, suddenly he found his name outraged and
his home forsaken, and the load and terror of an unbearable remorse
laid heavily upon him.
That was a strange winter to Hugh Redmond--the strangest and saddest
he had ever passed; when he spent long, solitary days in the old Hall;
and only Erle--generous, kind-hearted Erle--came now and then to break
his solitude.
Ah! he missed her then.
Sometimes, as he wandered disconsolately through the empty rooms, or
sat by his lonely fireside in the twilight, the fancy would haunt him
that she would come back to him yet--that the door would open, and a
little figure come stealing through the darkness and run into his arms
with a low, glad cry. And sometimes, when he stood in her room and saw
the empty cot over which she used to hang so fondly, a longing would
seize him for the boy whom he had never held in his arms.
By and by, when the spring returned, some of his old strength and
vigor came back, and he was able to join personally in the search,
when a new zest and excitement seemed added to his life; and in the
ardor of the chase he learned to forget Margaret and the shadows of a
too sorrowful past.
When the sweet face of his Wee Wifie seemed to lure him on with the
sad Undine eyes that he remembered so well; when, with the contrariety
of man ever eager for the unattainable, he began to long more and more
to see her; when his anger revived, and impatience with it. And,
though he hardly owned it to himself, both anger and impatience were
born of love.