"I KNEW YOU WOULD BE SORRY FOR US."
"When they see her their tears will cease to flow,
Lest they should fall on this pure pale brow,
Or the lilies the child is holding.
With symbol flowers in stainless hand,
She goes by the great white throne to stand,
Where Jesus His lambs is folding."
_Helen Marion Burnside._
As the door closed upon the bereaved parents, Queenie heard a low
"Thank God" behind her, and immediately afterwards Langley crept
softly away. When Queenie went back to her, she found her lying on
her bed shedding tears quietly. The strained and fixed expression of
her face had relaxed; the worn nerves and brain had at last found
relief.
"Let me cry, it will do me good," she said, when the girl would have
hushed her. "If you only knew how long it is since I have been able
to shed a tear. I felt as though I were turning into stone. But
now--ah, if she will only be good to him I think I could bear
anything."
Queenie was obliged to modify her opinion of Mrs. Chester as she
watched her during the trying hours that followed. Whatever sins
Gertrude had committed against her husband and child during their
brief married life she felt must be partially condoned by her present
self-forgetfulness.
It may be doubted perhaps whether she had loved her child while it
lived with a mother's strong passion. Certain words that little Nan
had uttered in her baby language had given a contrary impression.
"Mammie did say, 'Go away, Nan,'" she had observed more than once.
"Mammie always so tired when Nan looks at her." Might it not have
been that, absorbed in her own selfish repinings and discontent, she
had refused to gather up the sweetness of that infant life into hers
until it was too late? That she was suffering now, no one could
doubt who looked at her. The father's heart might be broken within
him, but his was the agony of bereavement. No self-reproach festered
his wound; no bitterness of remorse was his. But who could measure
the anguish of that unhappy mother?
Queenie watched her half fascinated as she glided softly from place
to place, a graceful, dark-eyed woman. The tall figure, once so full
and commanding, was attenuated and bowed as though with weakness.
Bright patches of color burnt on the thin cheeks: soft streaks of
gray showed in the thick coils of hair; and how low and suffering
were the once sharp, querulous tones.
It was a mournful little household in Brierwood Cottage. Mr. Chester
had refused to leave the place where his child was. Little Nan still
lay in Emmie's room. Queenie had given up hers, and had betaken
herself to Patience's little chamber. Emmie was still at
Church-Stile House.
Queenie used to go out to her work, and leave Gertrude alone with her
husband. On her return she would see them sitting hand in hand
talking softly of their child. Nothing but his wife's presence
seemed to console the unhappy father. Only she or Langley could
rouse him or induce him to take food. Once when they thought they
were alone Queenie saw Gertrude take her husband's head between her
hands and kiss it softly, and lay it on her breast. "Harry, my poor
Harry," she whispered over him, with a perfect passion of pity. Did
the warning voice within her admonish her that she too must soon
leave him and join her child?
Langley came and went on brief ministering errands, but she never
remained long. Now and then, when all was quiet in the little room
above, she would go in and kneel down beside the baby coffin. What
sort of prayers ascended from that lonely heart that had missed its
way so early in life? "Little Nan, I would have laid down my life to
have saved yours," she whispered, pressing her lips to the wood.
One day Captain Fawcett stood there with Emmie beside him. Emmie's
great blue eyes dilated and widened with awe and wonder at the sight
of the tiny white face. The little coffin, the bed, the room were
perfectly strewn with flowers. Great boxes of rare hot-house flowers
sent from Carlisle, and directed in an unknown hand, had arrived that
morning at the cottage. Gertrude was sitting weaving a cross in the
room down-stairs, while her husband watched her.
"Is that Nan? it looks like a stone angel lying under a quilt of
roses and lilies. It is just like a little angel that I used to see
in the cathedral," whispered Emmie.
"Aye, it is Nan; it is just as my girl looked when her mother dressed
her up for the last time in her flowers," returned Captain Fawcett,
tremulously. A tear rolled down his grizzled moustache; but Emmie's
eyes only widened and grew solemn.
"It is a pity, such pretty flowers; and they will have so many
there," she continued, reflectively. "Aren't you glad that Alice has
all those roses? Do you know, I often dream about your girl. She
was like me, you know, only she had long hair. Last night I thought
she and Nan came running to meet me; they were laughing so, and their
hands were full of roses."
"Bless your pretty fancies, my darling. Well, I dream of my little
maid often myself, and she always comes to me and says, 'Father.' I
can feel her little hand slipping into mine. And then when I wake I
am lonesome somehow. Poor little Ailie."
"You must not say poor," returned Emmie, pressing heavily against his
knee; "she is not poor at all; she was very tired, you know, and now
she is rested. Perhaps Nan would have been tired too if she had
stayed longer."
"Ah, so she might, poor lammie," with a heavy sigh.
"The world is such a tiring place," continued Emmie, moralizing in
her quaint childish way. "Some one is always crying in it. If it
were not for leaving Queenie alone, I think I should like to go too,
and walk about the golden streets with Alice and Nan; there are such
lots of children there, and it is all bright, and nobody cries and
looks sad and miserable."
"Let us go and look for blackberries: the Missus is so fond of
blackberries," interposed the Captain, hurriedly, for Emmie's dilated
eyes filled him with alarm. The child's sensitive nature was
depressed by the sadness that surrounded her; a whole world of
pathos, a strange involved meaning, lay behind those simple words.
"The world is such a tiring place; some one is always crying in it."
Alas! yes, little Emmie. Out of His bright heaven God looks down on
the upturned wet faces of myriads of His creatures. What seas of
tears roll between the earth and His mercy! If the concentrated pain
of humanity could be condensed into a single groan, the whole
universe could not bear the terror of that sound, reverberating
beyond the bound of the uttermost stars, silencing the very music of
heaven.
Such a tiring place! True, most true, little Emmie. A place where
mistakes are made and never rectified; a place where a joyous meeting
is too often replaced by a sad good-bye; where hearts that cleave
together are sundered; where the best loved is the soonest taken;
where under the sunshine lie the shadows, and the shadows lengthen
the farther we walk.
Such a tiring place! since we must work and weep, and live out the
life that seems to us so imperfect; since sweet blossoms fail to
bring fruit, and thorns lurk underneath the roses. Yet are the
letters written up, graven and indelible, on every mutilated life:
"What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."
So one bright summer's morning, loving hands lifted little Nan and
laid her in her resting-place by the lime-tree walk, and the
childless parents followed hand in hand.
The churchyard was crowded with sympathizing faces. Queenie was
there at the head of her scholars, and Langley stood near her,
leaning heavily on her brother's arm. When the service was over the
children stepped up two and two, and dropped their simple offerings
of rustic wreaths and flowers into the open grave. One child had
fashioned a rude cross of poppies and corn, and flung it red and
gleaming at the mother's feet. Gertrude took it up and kissed it,
and placed it tenderly with the rest. The child, a chubby-faced
creature scarcely more than an infant, looked up at her with great
black eyes.
"Oo' little gell will like my fowers," she lisped, as Gertrude burst
into tears.
Queenie felt very heavy-hearted when, the next day, the Chesters left
her and went back to their lonely home. Gertrude kissed her, and
tried to say a few words of thanks.
"You have been a good Samaritan to me and Harry, Miss Marriott," she
said, in a broken voice; "you have taken us in, and tried to bind up
our wounds with oil and wine, and yet you were almost a stranger to
us."
"I shall come again. I cannot keep away from there," added Mr.
Chester, with a yearning look towards the place where the mortal
remains of his darling were laid. "No, I cannot thank you, Miss
Marriott, I never can do so."
"Oh, hush! go away, please. Would not any one have done it in my
place?" cried the girl, with a little sob. She leant against the
little gate, watching them until the phaeton was out of sight.
Garth, who was coming down the lane, crossed over the road and joined
her.
"So you have your little home to yourself again," he said, looking
down at her kindly. "Ah, well, it has been a miserable week to you
and to all of us. No one can help feeling for poor Chester; and as
for that wife of his--"
"Well!" interrupted Queenie, fixing her strange, fathomless eyes on
the young man, as he left his sentence unfinished. Every now and
then they startled people with their strange haunting beauty; they
startled Garth now, for he became suddenly confused.
"All I meant was, that one can plainly see that Mrs. Chester is not
long for this world. Stewart says so plainly, and she must be
conscious of it herself. One can tell that there is trouble in store
for that poor fellow."
"Yes, and she has begun to love him too late," replied Queenie. "All
these years lost, and only to understand each other at the last;
there does seem such a mystery in things, Mr. Clayton."
"Not at all; he has only married the wrong woman," returned Garth,
coolly; "hundreds of men do that, and have to rue their mistake. You
are only a girl, you do not know the world as we do," continued the
young man, a little loftily. "There are all sorts of temptations and
influences. One needs all one's wisdom and strength of mind to steer
clear among all the shoals and quicksands one finds in life."
"It was Mr. Chester's own fault marrying the wrong woman," persisted
Queenie, with a little heat.
Garth's loftiness and burst of eloquence did not move her in the
least. His cool statement of facts was rank heresy in her eyes.
What was it to her that hundreds of men had made matrimonial
mistakes? In her woman's creed, that code of purity and innocence,
it was a simple question of right and wrong. To love one woman and
marry another, however expedient in a worldly point of view, was a
sin for which there was no grace of forgiveness.
"Men make their own fate; it is for them to choose. No one need make
mistakes with their eyes open," continued the girl, with a little
impatience and scorn of this matter-of-fact philosophy. "If they
make a poor thing of their own life it is not for them to complain."
"Ah, you are hard on us. You are only a girl; you do not know,"
returned the young man, looking down from the altitude of his
superior wisdom into Queenie's wide-open indignant eyes with
exasperating calmness. "Your life compared to ours is like a
mill-stream beside a rushing river: one is all movement; the strong
currents draw hither and thither."
"The mill-stream is often the deeper," was the petulant answer.
Garth laughed; he was not at all discomposed by Queenie's impatient
argument. He would have enjoyed having it out with her if he had had
time, but, as he told himself, he had more important business in hand.
"By-the-bye, you are making me waste my precious moments as usual,"
he observed, good-humoredly; "and I have never given you Langley's
message. She and Cathy want you to come up to our place this
evening; they think the cottage must be so dull now your guests have
gone."
"How kind and thoughtful of Langley!" returned Queenie; and now the
brown eyes had a happy sparkle in them. There was no place so dear
to her as Church-Stile House. If Garth could only have known it!
"You will be doing them a kindness by cheering them up a little, as
both Ted and I will be away. Have you heard," he continued, gravely,
"that they are rather in trouble at Crossgill Vicarage. I had a
letter this morning from Dora, I mean Miss Cunningham," went on
Garth, coloring a little bashfully over his mistake.
"Are you going there? I hope there is not much the matter," asked
Queenie, in a measured voice. There was no sparkle now in her eyes.
The evening was to be spent without him; and then Miss Cunningham had
written to him at the first hint of trouble. She had sought him, and
not Langley.
"Oh, as to that, she does not say much in her letter. Miss
Cunningham is not one to make a fuss about anything. It is Florence
who is ill, and she and her father mean to go over to Brussels.
Stay, I have her note here," producing it from his breast-pocket.
"You can judge for yourself there is not much in it; but then Miss
Cunningham is one of the quiet sort."
Queenie took the note "a little reluctantly. Dora wrote a large,
business-like hand. Those firm, well-formed characters had nothing
irresolute in them. It was curt and concise.
"Dear Mr. Clayton," it began, "my father wishes you to know that we
have had bad news from Brussels. Darling Flo is very ill. Madame
Shleïfer says it is typhoid fever; but as there are no unfavorable
symptoms, there is nothing serious to be apprehended. One must make
allowances for Beattie's nervousness; girls of seventeen are apt to
exaggerate. Still papa and I cannot help feeling anxious, and we
shall start by the early train to-morrow. If you could come over
this evening we shall be glad, as papa wants to consult you about a
little business. The porch-room shall be got ready for you, as I
know you will make an effort to come to us in our trouble."
"She does not say very much, but one can read between the lines.
Florence is the youngest sister, and her favorite. I know she is
terribly anxious," observed Garth, as Queenie returned the note in
silence. "Well, I must be off; my trap will be round directly. You
three girls will have a cosy evening without me I expect. Good-bye
till to-morrow," and Garth touched his felt hat and ran down the lane.
"He might have shaken hands," thought Queenie, as she walked slowly
back into the cottage.
The empty room felt very dull, but still it would have been better
there than in Church-Stile House without him. On the whole, the
evening was a failure. Cathy was in one of her quiet moods, and
could not be roused into interest about anything. Langley looked
paler than usual, and complained of head-ache, and Emmie was listless
and restless. As for Queenie, she took herself to task severely for
all manner of miserable fancies as she walked back to the cottage in
the darkness.
"What is the use of your perpetually crying for the moon?" she said
indignantly to herself. "Are you going to spoil your life and other
people's with such nonsense? It is not for you to say that he is
marrying the wrong woman. She is a hundred times superior to you,
and I suppose he thinks so. Why is he to be blamed because he sees
no beauty in your little brown face? You are nothing to him but Miss
Marriott, the village school-mistress."
But that would not do, so she began again, looking at herself in the
glass and crying softly. "Yes, you are a poor thing, and I pity you,
but I am disappointed in you as well. You are not a bit better or
more to be trusted than other girls. You know you are jealous of
this Dora Cunningham; that you hate the very sound of her name, as
though she had not a better right to him than you. Has she not known
him all her life? and could she know him without loving him? Why,"
with a little sob, that sounded very pathetic in the silence, "as
though any one could help it. Even Emmie loves him, and follows him
about like a dog everywhere. I am not a bit ashamed of my affection
for him. I would rather live lonely, as I shall live, and care about
him in the way I do, receiving little daily kindnesses at his hand,
than marry any other man. It is not much of a life perhaps," went on
the girl, with a broken breath or two; "it does not hold as much as
other people's; but such as it is, I would rather live it than go
away elsewhere, and forget, and perhaps be forgotten."
Queenie was preaching a desolate little sermon to herself, but it
edified and comforted her. It was only the eddying of the
mill-stream when a stone had been flung into it, she told herself
by-and-bye. She would be reasonable, and cease to rebel against an
inevitable fate.
Garth's evening promised to be more successful. He had driven
himself up to the Vicarage in the red sunset light that he loved, and
Dora had come out into the porch to welcome him with her sweetest
smile.
"How good of you to come! papa and I both wanted you so," putting up
a white little hand to stroke the mare's glossy coat. "Poor old
Bess, how hot she looks, and how fast you must have driven her; you
are quite twenty minutes before the time we expected you."
"Have you been looking out for me? I am glad I was wanted," returned
Garth, leaning down to take possession of the little hand. "I
suppose Bess and I were both in a hurry to be here," he continued, as
he looked down with kindly scrutiny at the dainty figure beside him.
Dora was a little paler than usual, and the blue eyes were a trifle
heavy, but somehow her appearance had never pleased him better. She
had dressed herself with even greater care than was customary with
her. The soft cream-colored dress, with its graceful folds, rested
the eye with a sense of fitness. One tiny rosebud gave a mere hint
of color.
"I am glad you wanted me," he went on, with a little stress on the
personal pronoun. "I must have been engaged indeed to have remained
away at such a time."
"Yes, indeed. Poor papa, and poor dear Flo!" returned Dora,
earnestly, leading him into the hall. "How could we help being very
anxious and unhappy, and after Beattie's miserable letter too? But
that is the worst of girls; they cannot help exaggerating things."
"I was afraid from what you said that poor Florence is very ill."
"She is ill, of course; one is always afraid of typhoid fever for a
growing girl; and then papa has such a horror of German doctors. I
must confess myself that I have every faith in Madame Shleïfer--such
a judicious, temperate letter, and so different to poor Beattie's,
who is crying herself to sleep every night, and making herself ill."
"But Madame Shleïfer does not love Florence as Beatrix does; she is
liable to take alarm less easily," returned Garth, moved at this
picture of the warm-hearted, impetuous girl he remembered so well.
"Beatrix's affection is not greater than ours," replied Dora, calmly.
"Florence is the youngest, and I have brought her up from such a
child. It is inconsiderate and a pity to write like that, and has
upset papa dreadfully; but, as I told him, it was only Beatrix's way.
I am afraid you will not find us very cheerful company to-night,"
looking up with a certain bright dewiness in her eyes--not exactly
tears, but a suspicion of them.
Dora never cried, as he knew he had once heard her say that it never
mended matters, and only spoiled the complexion; but as she looked up
at him now with a certain unbending of the lip, and a shining mist in
her blue eyes, he felt himself touched and softened.
"I cannot bear to see you in such trouble," he said, with involuntary
tenderness in his tone.
"I knew you would be sorry for us," she returned simply, not moving
away from him, but taking the sympathy as though it belonged to her
of right. "It was so good of you to come all this distance just for
papa and me."