Alone--Yet not alone.
"Well, Donnie, don't talk about _her_; talk about Wardlock, and the
people, and the garden, and the trees, and old Wardlock church," said
Lady Jane, subsiding almost as suddenly as she flamed up. "Do you
remember the brass tablet about Eleanor Faukes, well-beloved and godly,
who died in her twenty-second year, in the year of grace sixteen hundred
and thirty-four? See how I remember it! Poor Eleanor Faukes! I often
think of her--and do you remember how you used to make me read the two
lines at the end of the epitaph? 'What you are I was; what I am you
shall be.' Do you remember?"
"Ay, miss, that I do. I wish I could think o' them sorts o' things
allays--it's very good, miss."
"Perhaps it is, Donnie. It's very sad and very horrible, at all events,
death and judgment," answered Lady Jane.
"Have you your old Bible yet, miss?"
"Not here," answered Lady Jane, colouring a little; but recollecting,
she said, "I _have_ got a very pretty one, though," and she produced a
beautiful volume bound in velvet and gold.
"A deal handsomer, Miss Jennie, but not so well read, I'm afeared,"
said Donica Gwynn, looking at the fresh binding and shining gilt leaves.
"There it is, Donnie Don; but I feel like you, and I _do_ like the old
one best, blurred and battered; poor old thing, it looked friendly, and
this like a fashionable chaplain. I have not seen it for a long time,
Donnie; perhaps it's lost, and this is only a show one, as you see."
And after a few seconds she added, a little bitterly, almost angrily, "I
never read my Bible now. I never open it," and then came an unnatural
little laugh.
"Oh! Miss Jennie, dear--I mean my Lady Jane--don't say that,
darling--_that_ way, anyhow, don't say it. Why should not you read your
Bible, and love it, better now nor ever, miss--the longer you live the
more you'll want it, and when sorrow comes, what have you but that?"
"It's all denunciation, all hard names, and threats, Donnie. If people
believed themselves what they _say_ every Sunday in church, miserable
sinners, and I dare say they are, they'd sicken and quake at sight of
it. I hope I may come to like it some day, Donnie," she added, with a
short sigh.
"I mind, Miss Jennie--I mean my Lady Jane."
"No, you're to call me Jennie still, or I'll drop Donnie Don, and call
you Mrs. Gwynn," said Lady Jane, with her hands on Donica's thin
shoulders, playfully, but with a very pensive face and tone.
Donica smiled for a moment, and then her face saddened too, and she
said--
"And I mind, Miss Jennie, when it was the same way with me, only with
better reason, for I was older than you, and had lived longer than ever
you did without a thought of God; but I tell you, miss, you'll find your
only comfort there at last; it is not much, maybe, to the like o' me,
that can't lay her mind down to it, but it's _some_think; ay, I mind the
time I durst not open it, thinking I'd only meet summat there to vex me.
But 'tisn't so: there's a deal o' good nature in the Bible, and ye'll be
sure to stumble on somethink kind whenever you open it."
Lady Jane made no answer. She looked down with a careworn gaze on her
white hand, the fleeting tenement of clay; jewelled rings glimmered on
its fingers--the vanities of the world, and under it lay the Bible, the
eternal word. She was patting the volume with a little movement that
made the brilliants flash. You would have thought she was admiring her
rings, but that her eyes were so sad and her gaze so dreamy.
"And I hear the mistress, Lady Alice, a-coming up--yes, 'tis her voice.
Good-night, Miss Jennie, dear."
"Good-night, dear old Donnie."
"And you'll promise me you'll read a bit in it every night."
"Where's the use in promising, Donnie? Don't we promise everything--the
whole Christian religion, at our baptism--and how do we keep it?"
"You must promise you'll read, if 'twas only a verse every night, Miss
Jennie, dear--it may be the makin' o' ye. I hear Lady Alice a-calling."
"You're a good old thing--I like you, Donnie--you'd like to make me
better--happier, that is--and I love you--and I promise for this night,
at all events, I will read a verse, and maybe more, if it turns out
good-natured, as you say. Good-night."
And she shook old Gwynn by both hands, and kissed her; and as she parted
with her, said--
"And, Donnie, you must tell my maid I shan't want her to-night--and I
_will_ read, Donnie--and now, good-night again."
So handsome Lady Jane was alone.
"It seems to me as if I had not time to think--God help me, God help
me," said Lady Jane. "Shall I read it? That odious book, that puts
impossibilities before us, and calls eternal damnation eternal justice!"
"Good-night, Jane," croaked Lady Alice's voice, and the key turned in
the door.
With a pallid glance from the corners of her eyes, of intense
contempt--_hatred_, even, at the moment, she gazed on the door, as she
sate with her fingers under her chin; and if a look could have pierced
the panels, hers would have shot old Lady Alice dead at the other side.
For about a minute she sat so, and then a chilly little laugh rang from
her lips; and she thought no more for a while of Lady Alice, and her
eyes wandered again to her Bible.
"Yes, that odious book! with just power enough to distract us, without
convincing--to embitter our short existence, without directing it; I
_hate_ it."
So she said, and looked as if she would have flung it into the farthest
corner of the room. She was spited with it, as so many others are,
because it won't do for us what we must do for ourselves.
"When sorrow comes, poor Donnie says--_when_ it comes--little she knows
how long it has been here! Life--such a dream--such an agony often.
Surely it pays the penalty of all its follies. Judgment indeed! The
all-wise Creator sitting in judgment upon creatures like us, living but
an hour, and walking in a dream!"
This kind of talk with her, as with many others, was only the expression
of a form of pain. She was perhaps in the very mood to read, that is,
with the keen and anxious interest that accompanies and indicates a
deep-seated grief and fear.
It was quite true what she said to old Donica. These pages had long been
sealed for her. And now, with a mixture of sad antipathy and interest,
as one looks into a coffin, she did open the book, and read here and
there in a desultory way, and then, leaning on her hand, she mused
dismally; then made search for a place she wanted, and read and wept,
wept aloud and long and bitterly.
The woman taken, and "set in the midst," the dreadful Pharisees standing
round. The Lord of life, who will judge us on the last day, hearing and
_saving_! Oh, blessed Prince, whose service is perfect freedom, how wise
are thy statutes! "More to be desired are they than gold--_sweeter_ also
than honey." Standing between thy poor tempted creatures and the worst
sorrow that can befall them--a sorrow that softens, not like others, as
death approaches, but is transformed, and stands like a giant at the
bedside. May they see thy interposing image--may they see thy face now
and for ever.
Rest for the heavy-laden! The broken and the contrite he will not
despise. Read and take comfort, how he dealt with that poor sinner.
Perfect purity, perfect mercy. Oh, noblest vision that ever rose before
contrite frailty! Lift up the downcast head--let the poor heart break no
more--you shall rise from the dust an angel.
Suddenly she lifted up her pale face, with an agony and a light on her
countenance, with hands clasped, and such a look from the abyss, in her
upturned eyes.
Oh! was it possible--could it be true? A _friend_--such a _friend_!
Then came a burst of prayer--wild resolutions--agonised tears. She knew
that in all space, for her, was but one place of safety--to lie at the
wounded feet of her Saviour, to clasp them, to bathe them with her
tears. An hour--more--passed in this agony of stormy hope breaking in
gleams through despair. Prayer--cries for help, as from the drowning,
and vows frantic--holy, for the future.
"Yes, once more, thank God, I can dare with safety--here and now--to see
him for the last time. In the morning I will conjure old Lady Alice to
take me to Wardlock. I will write to London. Arthur will join me there.
I'd like to go abroad--never into the world again--never--never--never.
He will be pleased. I'll try to make amends. He'll never know what a
wretch I've been. But he shall see the change, and be happier. Yes,
yes, yes." Her beautiful long hair was loose, its rich folds clasped in
her strained fingers--her pale upturned face bathed in tears and
quivering--"The Saviour's feet!--No happiness but there--wash them with
my tears--dry them with this hair." And she lifted up her eyes and hands
to heaven.
Poor thing! In the storm, as cloud and rack fly by, the momentary gleam
that comes--what is it? Do not often these agitations subside in
darkness? Was this to be a lasting sunshine, though saddened for her?
Was she indeed safe now and for ever?
But is there any promise that repentance shall arrest the course of the
avenger that follows sin on earth? Are broken health or blighted fame
restored when the wicked man "turneth away from the wickedness that he
hath committed;" and do those consequences that dog iniquity with "feet
of wool and hands of iron," stay their sightless and soundless march so
soon as he begins to do "that which is lawful and right?" It is enough
for him to know that he that does so "shall save his soul alive."