THE BETROTHED.
Between three and four the next morning, the robin in the nest above
Mary's window 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, with 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.
And not merely to selectest spirits come these hours, but to those
humbler 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 labor. 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 so dear to her once,--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 seasons as these, more often 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 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 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 all 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 inwoven 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 on her. She felt as one does who has parted with some
precious possession, a sudden sense of its value coming over her; 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 outbreathed in caresses;
yet natures like Mary's always craved these outward demonstrations, and
leaned 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 shorthand expressions wherein positive
natures incline to sum up everything, if they must speak at all.
Mary held her mother silently to her breast, her heart shining through
her face with a quiet radiance.
"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 on 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 living 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, abloom 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-childlike,
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 feelings of that great heart might have fallen
unconsciously into phrases from that one love-poem of the Bible which
such men as he read so purely and devoutly, and which warm the icy
clearness of their intellection 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 love! 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 affianced, 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 made this morning as genial and attractive as it was generally
strong and fine.
There was little said at the breakfast-table; and yet the loud singing
of the birds, the brightness of the sunshine, the life and vigor 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 donc 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 noces?_ Thou shalt have Virginia'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 little nothings,--weaving grace and poetry upon the straight
thread of Puritan life.