“LIFE AT PARADISE.”
Two years passed by—how, Mina knew; perhaps some of my readers can
imagine. No event broke the monotony of that dreadful period; it was one
incessant drop, dropping of endless annoyances, too minute, too
contemptible, for recapitulation; a constant trial of temper and
patience, a ceaseless stinging of sensitive feelings, a sort of
perpetual blister kept open on the mind, a kind of never-ending sorrow,
without the luxury of a tremendous grief, without the dignity of one
great trial, without the excitement of one mighty storm.
Mina’s part was always bearing, Sir Ernest’s always inflicting. If it
had been a savage blow struck to her heart at distant intervals, with
sufficient periods permitted to elapse between each, for the wound to
close, it might have been easier to endure; for it is with the mind as
with the body: a severe dangerous illness, weakening though it may be at
the time, still can be got over, whilst a slight malady always at work,
ultimately saps the strongest constitution. Occasionally even a slight
wall withstands a sudden rush of waters; but the action of a
contemptible, insignificant little spring, ceaselessly oozing and oozing
at the foundations of the mightiest edifice, eventually undermines and
hurls it to the ground. Then people marvel that such great results are
capable of being produced by such small means; and thus, when hearts are
broken by paltry every-day occurrences, by constant vexations, so
trivial as to be almost imperceptible to stranger eyes—by unkindnesses
which never amount to cruelties—by taunts so adroitly uttered as to
render recrimination useless and complaint impossible, the world wonders
how it chances that one person can outlive a tempest of trial, whilst
another sinks under the merest trifle. Yet we acknowledge that constant
dropping wears the stone, and know a mighty blow is required to break
it.
The world’s prejudices and the world’s wise saws are greatly at
variance; surely there must exist some extraordinary misconception
somewhere. In Paradise, however, the drop did double duty, for it first
fell on Mina and then on Ernest. Through her he was made to suffer,—a
punishment which, perhaps, he deserved, but which certainly was none the
easier to bear on that account.
Sir Ernest managed to sow doubt between them, too; he impressed his son
with the belief that Mina had married him from purely mercenary motives,
and that her unhappiness was consequent on the discovery of his actual
position; and, day by day, the idea gained ground in Ernest’s breast,
and the distance betwixt him and his wife hourly increased; he became
gloomier and more wretched and more reserved than ever. There was not
the slightest confidence on either side, for part of Mina’s trouble—and
not the least part of it, either—was a determination she adhered to
resolutely, never to complain to her husband, never to add to his sorrow
by confessing her own, to bear all in silence, to die and make no sign.
If it had been in the power of mortal being to carry out such a purpose
with a cheerful countenance, to endure the torture and still present a
smiling face to the world; if she could, not merely have held her peace,
but preserved her health and kept from pining away and moping and crying
in secret, this determination might have been a judicious one; but,
though she had resolution enough to refrain from saying she was unhappy,
to seem the reverse was a something quite beyond her powers to
accomplish. She could bear patiently, silently, but she could not
conceal the fact that she was bearing; and, without this last triumph
can be effected over pain, whether mental or bodily, all other efforts
are of very little avail: it is, indeed, the perfection of resignation,
for, without that grand key-stone, the arch of resignation dwindles down
to mere passive endurance, a thing which frequently does no good to the
beholder and much harm to the sufferer. So Ernest never spoke on the
subject to his wife, and she never spoke to him; but a great breach
yawned between them: mutual confidence, the discarding of all sorts of
doubts and fancies, the overcoming of timidity and fear and many morbid
ideas on the one side, and of suspicion, reserve, and sternness on the
other, would have filled it up; but, because neither thoroughly
understood the other, each seemed to consider it a moral impossibility
that any change of conduct or alteration of manner could lead to a
better comprehension. They did not desire to learn, because both fancied
they knew too much: Ernest, of the reasons which had induced her to
marry him, and of the vain regrets which harassed her; Mina, of the
feelings dwelling in his heart, of the repentance she imagined he felt
at having wed a portionless girl without his parent’s consent.
So they both kept silent, and both were miserable. Many a man, under
similar circumstances, might have grown to hate the woman for whom he
had run such a risk; who, instead of aiding him to bear his burden,
sank, day by day, under the weight of her own; who had made a fresh
care, a fresh anxiety for him, a fresh sorrow for herself; who, from the
first hour she came, made no progress in the good graces of the ruling
powers; who proved a ceaseless bone of contention, a perpetual thorn;
who, after wasting away for nearly two years, still remained a stranger,
an intruder, an alien.
But, with all his faults, Ernest was not one of this stamp: anxiety,
care, suspicion, distrust, all grew and flourished, it is true, but so
also did love. Oh! if Mina had but known that, she could have borne all
the rest; but she feared he repented, and that idea poisoned her
existence, added venom to the old man’s sneering words, gave effect to
his sarcasms, power to his taunts.
Ernest had been so little accustomed to female society, that the idea of
being communicative and frank to his wife never crossed his mind; he
never once opened his lips to her concerning his affairs, his hopes, his
fears. He did not know that both his aunt and father had enlightened
Mina as to his actual desires, informed her why he kept hanging on about
Paradise, warned her of the small chance he had of his wishes being
gratified, and told her that, when disappointment came, he would have no
one to thank but himself and her; he did not know that there was not a
threat or taunt his parent had not tried to induce her to depart; he
only saw the whole of the results and a portion of the means; he could
scarcely have conceived the point of view from which he was exhibited to
her, the way in which she was represented to herself,—it was a living
death, a wearing out of an unprofitable existence, a drooping, and
fading and suffering, that two years’ probation at Paradise.
Still she did not die, to Sir Ernest’s inexpressible chagrin, to his
sister’s wonderment. How she lived, neither could tell; but, by some
inexplicable means, she managed to do so. Janet, the withered domestic,
and Janet’s husband perhaps, could have given some useful information on
the subject, about medicines and nourishment and sundry delicacies,
procured, Mina knew not how, and conveyed to her by the hands of the
faithful housekeeper with such tact and secresy, that Mrs. Close never
suspected her _protegée_ was not existing on air intermixed, at remote
periods, with small portions of food she compelled herself to swallow
when in the presence of the baronet, who never wearied of sneering at
her lack of appetite, and of hoping she would soon fade away to nothing
and remove herself to the graveyard at Lorton, where he trusted, ere
long, to have the funeral service read over her.
For he feared the influence she seemed to be gaining over his sister’s
miserly soul; and he feared still more to take the decided step of
turning her out of doors, lest that should irritate Mrs. Close and
induce her to quarrel with him and enrich her; for, if Ernest were
sinfully waiting for his dead father’s shoes, Sir Ernest was longing as
eagerly for his dead sister’s gold-embroidered slippers,—money, money!
to hoard, to gain, to grasp, to possess. That was the thought of the
inhabitants of Paradise; Mammon was the god of that house. How sick Mina
became of the sacrifices which were made to it, of the worship paid
thereto, no words can describe; how she longed to go, how she longed to
die, how she prayed and strove and suffered, it would be vain to attempt
to tell.
At length, to Sir Ernest’s unutterable rage, a son was born, to be
baronet after his father’s and grandfather’s demise; a son, to inherit
the unprofitable entailed estate, to cut out Henry in the title, to
prevent him or his children ever affixing Sir to his name and Baronet
after; a son, to be a ceaseless obstacle to his desires, a triumph to
the heart of his gloomy eldest born and to that of his pale-faced wife.
This was poor Mina’s crowning sin: it was the last drop in her already
overflowing cup of iniquity. His indignation could no longer be
restrained, and he accordingly saluted the young mother’s ears with such
a frantic outburst of ungoverned passion as chilled the blood in her
veins and froze the marrow in her bones.
She had never previously conceived such a tempest of fury; and the shock
brought on, first, a nervous attack and then a slow wasting fever, and,
for weeks and weeks, Mina hovered between life and death, between
earth’s sorrows and heaven’s peace. The principle of vitality must have
been strong, however, for at length she recovered,—recovered to a
consciousness of her misery, to a knowledge of her infant’s death, to a
conviction of her utter desolation, to pain and sorrow and agony.
That was the first great trial she was called on to endure in that
house, and she abandoned herself to such utter despair, she so
obstinately refused to be comforted, she sank so completely under the
blow, she was so thoroughly prostrated by the shock, that even the
baronet’s rugged sister was softened by her grief, and not merely
administered to her scraps of consolation, but also, upon one occasion,
so far forgot her economy as to stand for nearly fifteen minutes
striving to induce her to swallow some delicacy, which she had
absolutely ordered Janet to prepare for the invalid (at Sir Ernest’s
expense); but Mina would not eat: she refused to do that or anything but
lie either sullenly silent for hours at a time, or else weep and wail
and sob, as though her very heart were breaking. There was a maddened
bitterness in her grief, that Ernest could not bear to look upon, that
even the baronet dreaded to behold, that caused some to say her
intellect was affected, and others to believe, if an opportunity were
given to her, she would commit suicide. But, at last, the fit passed;
her sobs ceased; she arose and walked about the house as usual, worn to
an utter skeleton, paler almost than an ordinary corpse: she had
exhausted her grief and her constitution; and all who looked on her
said, she was merely waiting her time to die.
Ernest saw life could not last much longer, if some means were not
adopted to secure the prolongation of that which assuredly was little of
a boon to its possessor; and, perhaps, Colin Saunders’ vehement entreaty
of “Tak’ her awa’, for the love of the gude God, sir, tak’ her awa’ for
a bit,” had a share in deciding him to try whether a sight of her native
land, and the air of the Highland hills, might not produce some good
effect.
He would have done anything then to keep her alive; even run the risk of
leaving his father’s house for ever: so much more people think of the
maladies of the body than those of the mind, of that which can kill than
of that which can pain. He had resigned himself to the idea of her
suffering for a time, but he could not endure the mention of losing her
for ever.
What agony of mind he had passed through during her illness no one
suspected, save Janet, the old domestic, Janet and Colin Saunders: it
seemed to have aged him years, that period when she grew so trebly dear
to him, when she tossed and raved and moaned; and he watched beside her,
frequently during entire nights, with no companion save his own sad
fears and half frantic thoughts. He showed all his love by stealth, as
if it were a thing to be ashamed of, a folly to speak of; and, because
he did everything for her silently, because the affection he felt for
her lay hid in his heart and was never evinced by outward demonstration,
Mina fancied he repented his choice, and could not, would not,
understand him. His soul was to her a treasury unlocked, a volume in a
foreign tongue, an enigma unsolved. They wanted some kindly translator,
some subtle, rapid interpreter of unexpressed feelings, some one blessed
by heaven with sense and tact and goodness to open their eyes and show
them both to each other as they were, not as they seemed to be.
“Do not keep her in that wretched place,” Henry had written to his
brother the moment he heard of his marriage; “come out to us and bring
her with you, and we will try to make both happy: Paradise is no home
for any woman. If you cannot make up your mind to India, take your young
wife away to some cottage in Wales, and I will provide the funds for you
to live comfortably, because for luxury I know you do not care. For my
own part, I had rather have taken my dear Ellen home to the humblest
cabin; I should have preferred begging bread for us both by the
road-side, to dooming her to cross the threshold of that dreadful house.
Let money be no obstacle, Ernest; it ought to be none between brothers,
more especially where the happiness of a wife is concerned.”
And a handsome order accompanied the missive, as earnest of its truthful
sincerity; but the miser’s eldest son had set his soul on winning wealth
unbounded, and he would not vacate Paradise: he struggled still on for
the prize; he almost sacrificed Mina in endeavouring to obtain it. But
then he stopped; he wanted money now for her sake as well as for his
own, and he could not kill her in attempting to possess himself of it.
No, he would go away for a time to the Highlands; the doctors
recommended her native air: well, she should have it.
“My dear sir,” wrote Allan Frazer from Edinburgh, in answer to Mr.
Ivraine’s letter of inquiry, addressed to Craigmaver, “there is no place
to be let in our neighbourhood just at present, from a castle down to a
shieling; but that can make no possible difference in your proposed
journey northwards, as I know nothing which would grieve me more than to
think that, so long as I have a house in the Highlands, my cousin should
make any other in Scotland her home. Mrs. Frazer is at Craigmaver, and,
as I have written to tell her of your intended visit, she will be quite
ready to receive you any hour after the receipt of this: I shall be
detained in Edinburgh for a few weeks on business, but will hurry to
Craigmaver as soon as possible, to see my cousin once again and to have
the pleasure of being introduced to her husband.
“Yours, very faithfully,
“ALLAN FRAZER.”
Whilst Ernest was perusing this epistle, Mina was holding a brief
dialogue with the solitary female domestic, who ministered to the wants
of the inmates of Paradise.
“I cannot imagine, Janet,” she said, “where or how you contrived to get
all those things for me when I was so ill; I never yet had an
opportunity of thanking you for all the care you took of me: but how did
you manage? do tell me.”
“Lor’ bless you, ma’am,” replied the woman, “I did not manage at all: I
had no trouble; it was all Mr. Ivraine’s doing.”
“My husband’s!” echoed Mina, in a tone of almost incredulous pleasure.
“Yes, ma’am; ever since you came to the house, he has been striving to
make matters more comfortable for you: it was little any one could do
here: but still he was always asking me what would be good for you, or
what I thought you would like, and if I fancied such and such a thing
had been of any use to you. Many a time my heart was sorry for you
both,—to see you wasting and him fretting: it would have made one almost
cry to watch how he stuck by you in that fever, never leaving you for a
minute, never thinking of sleeping, or eating, or walking, or anything
excepting you. But, dear me, ma’am, I did not mean to distress you;
don’t cry, poor young lady! do not take on so; I am sure I had no
intention of saying a word to hurt you.”
“Hurt me!” echoed Mina, the tears pouring down her cheeks; “oh! you have
made me so happy, so very happy: I love you for it;” and the baronet’s
daughter-in-law, moved by some irresistible impulse, flung her arms
round the old woman’s neck and fairly kissed her. She had never yet
managed even to touch the shrunken cheek of her wealthy well-born aunt,
but she did press her lips warmly, over and over again, on the old
housekeeper’s hard, weather-beaten, coarse-featured face: she did not
know why she could not avoid kissing Janet: but it was a sort of comfort
to her to lay her head on the shoulder of any woman and weep there; and,
as tears are decidedly infectious amongst females in all grades of
society, Janet forthwith began to cry too, and water her young
mistress’s hair abundantly, whilst she enlivened and varied the course
of the stream by moans and exclamations and sobs and ejaculations, and
oh lors! and poor dears! and so forth innumerable.
At last Mina concluded her part of this performance, and, raising her
head commenced,
“Oh! I never knew anything about that; I must go to Ernest and——”
“Oh! please ma’am,” interrupted the housekeeper, “do not mention to Mr.
Ivraine that I told you, for he never likes even the merest trifle he
does to be repeated; and he might be angry, for he cannot bear to seem
to make a fuss even about those he is the fondest of. I am sure the
morning master Harry went away, he came back, after walking to the coach
with him, just as if nothing had happened; but we all knew that parting
nearly broke his heart, for his very soul was bound up in him, and I
have never seen a smile on his face since. He was always the same from
the time he was quite a lad,—silent and thoughtful, never liking to
speak much or have much said to him, and having a fancy for doing
everything quietly and making no work about it. You won’t tell him,
ma’am, will you?”
“No,” Mina promised, and the woman departed satisfied; but she did not
carry away with her the joy she had unconsciously given: it remained to
gladden the young wife’s path for a time; and, if unfortunate
circumstances had not arisen, it might have proved the first glimmer of
a guiding light for ever.
She was still standing where Janet had left her, thinking about how he
must care for her after all, and how, when he was so anxious for her to
live, he could not be repenting his marriage as much as she had feared,
when Ernest himself entered the apartment.
He came in with a lighter tread than usual, and Mina looked up to greet
him with a happier smile on her face than he had ever seen there since
their marriage. It fell like a ray of warm sunshine on his heart and
seemed to be reflected back in his countenance as he said,
“I have good news for you, Mina; I have made arrangements for us to go
to Craigmaver for a little time: the change will improve your health, I
hope.”
She shrunk back at the words, and the smile faded from her lips, and her
voice was absolutely tremulous as she repeated,
“To Craigmaver! do you mean to Allan’s house?”
“Yes,” replied her husband, with an expression of the most intense
mortification; “I thought you would be glad: are you not?”
She could not throw him back then; she had recovered her usual
self-possession; she would have given the world for courage to say,
“I can live or go happily anywhere with you, save there;” but how could
she reject his proffered kindness, how could she say, “I had rather
remain at Paradise;” what good reason could she assign for her
repugnance to revisit a place, the very name of which had once sounded
in her ears like the mention of some blessed isle of rest. She
remembered what Malcolm had said about women never agreeing with each
other; she thought that now she was married and ill and careworn,
perhaps Cecilia might be less bitter towards her; she reflected that
time, perhaps, might even have softened and improved her character. She
could not refuse to go; she could not resist the inclination of
answering him as she saw he wished to be answered, even though her words
were not exactly true; she could not overcome long habits of reserve
towards him all at once, so the little sentence, “Yes, very glad,”
passed her lips, to be repented of in after days in bitterness of heart
and in agony of soul.
But still, spite of her attempt at dissimulation, Ernest felt vexed and
disappointed,—he scarcely knew why. He had, perhaps, expected her to
seem rejoiced as he once, in other years, had beheld her, at the idea of
revisiting that place, of seeing her own land once again. Allan’s frank
invitation had gratified his feelings, and, consequently, he came to his
wife, anticipating some hasty expression of surprised pleasure, some
joyful thanks, something very different from what he actually
encountered.
Mina saw he was annoyed, and strove, by speaking gratefully of his
consideration and trying to look what she had stated she felt, “glad,”
to soothe his ruffled spirit; but all would not do: the first reception
of his intelligence had been unfavourable, and no after endeavours could
remove the effect that reception left on his mind. After a little, he
went with a heavier step out of the apartment, and Mina dropped into a
chair and wept bitterly. What would she not have given to be able to
recal that interview, to have had a similar opportunity given to her
again of unsaying what she had said, of doing what she had not done!
What would she have given—what would she not have given? that were a
better question. Heaven knows, opportunities of such a kind do not come
so frequently in a lifetime, that any should be neglected; and yet half
the miseries and misfortunes and misunderstandings in this world may be
traced to permitting that tide to ebb, which, if taken at the full,
would have led to peace, happiness, confidence.
I wonder whether, in the statistics of broken hearts and blighted
existences, two-thirds of the number might not safely be attributed to
“neglected opportunities,”—“leaves on the stream that can never return:”
and, alas! who is there, when lying on the bed of death, that can deny
that his whole career, from infancy to age, has not been one continued
series of permitting the good to glide past his hand; of seeing the
right path one moment too late; of finding that the bark he ought to
have sailed in is one which, having just pushed off, he could not jump
into; of discovering the man he might have been of incalculable benefit
to, was the one he hurried away from; of uttering words he had better
never have spoken, and hiding feelings that it would have been well to
display; of flitting past the sterling coin, in a disappointing search
after its worthless counterfeit; of working for earth and neglecting
heaven; of flinging great advantages from him and labouring like a
galley slave to make disappointments for himself. Oh! the chances of
existence seem to come at rare intervals in our impatient reckoning of
time; yet there is not one in ten thousand who, at the hour of death,
with light from eternity streaming in and illuminating his mortal
vision, will not acknowledge, with bitterness of soul, that life has
been unto him but one endless opportunity, neglected for good, improved
for evil.
Bread of sorrow Mina Ivraine had cast on the waters, and, before many
days, it returned to her again. For joy or for grief we are always
planting and reaping. The husbandman takes heed of the kind of seed he
casts into the ground, so that, when he comes to cut it down, he may not
be stung by thistles or disappointed with weeds; and why should we
sowers for eternity not likewise look to the words we speak, the
thoughts we foster, the feelings we cherish, the deeds we do, so that,
when the great harvest day comes, we may not have cause to glance with
dismay over the fruit which hath been brought forth abundantly, over the
crop which the rains and the suns of many summers have caused to ripen
and produce an hundredfold.