It was near Christmas, and New York had the sense of its festivity in
all her streets and avenues. The store windows were green and gay, and
the sidewalks crowded with buyers. The crisp, frosty air and bright
sunshine--full of promise and exhilaration--touched even Rose Van
Hoosen, and made her consciously subject to the pervading influence.
She had been to see her father and mother, who had just returned from
Europe, and she was going to the loneliness of her own handsome home.
No letter had come to her from her husband; but his lawyer brought her
every month the liberal income which had been left in his charge for
the maintenance of the Van Hoosen household.
As yet she had lived in seclusion, but her mother had advised a
different course. "You must give some small but extremely fine
dinners and entertainments, Rose," she said. "Nothing stops gossip
like hospitality. People will want to come to your little parties,
and they will pooh-pooh all ill-natured reports, for their own sake.
To-morrow we will talk over this plan, and arrange the most suitable
functions."
"But they will wonder at Antony's absence, mamma."
"They will hardly take it into account. His indifference and his
refusal to dance were always cold water on your social efforts. As far
as they are concerned, he is better away. And what more promising
excuse can you have than that gold has been found on his place. It
has a rich sound, and, of course, he has to look after it. No one will
think further than that. How are Harry and his wife getting on?"
"I think Yanna has quite spoiled Harry. Will you believe that I used
to meet him driving with the baby last summer; and he trotted to
meeting every Sunday with Yanna. I can tell you, mother, that your day
is over. Yanna has Harry quite under her thumb now, or I am much
mistaken."
"And the Cora Mitchin affair?"
"I should say it is dead and buried. I do not see the girl's name at
any theatre, and her picture is not staring you in the face from every
window this season. She has been retired evidently."
"We shall see. Now, Rose, throw aside this nonsensical air of
seclusion and sorrow. Get some pretty costumes, and prepare gradually
to open your house. A woman with your income aping the recluse is
ridiculous."
"You do me so much good, mamma."
"Well, my dear, there is nothing for wrong but to try and put it
right. I think you have been to blame, but there is no use going about
the world to accuse yourself. You must try and make your peace with
your husband. It is such bad form, this quarreling. Send for Yanna and
Miss Alida, and ask their advice--just to flatter them. You _must_
have the support of your family."
"I do not speak to either of them. I have made a business of offending
them. Yanna was the inventor of the Duval romance; and Alida Van
Hoosen thinks her thoughts. They have been living together."
"I am awfully sorry you have offended them. Can you not be friends
with Yanna?"
"I don't want to be friends with her. I have quarreled with Harry,
too. The idea of Harry coming to tell me my sins! I suppose Yanna sent
him. Well, he heard the truth about his own sins, for once in his
life! Mamma, I have quarreled with every one but you."
As she was speaking, Harry entered. He took his mother in his arms,
and then turned to Rose. "Good morning, Rose," he said pleasantly. But
Rose looked past him, and without a word in reply, she left the
house.
"I am sorry you have quarreled with your sister, Harry," said Mrs.
Filmer. "If ever she needed your countenance and aid, it is now."
"It is not my fault. Has she told you about the last----?"
"I have heard a dozen versions of the affair. Poor girl!"
"Mother, you ought not to condone her sins."
"You made no objections to my condoning your sins, Harry--much more
flagrant ones, too. And I do not think your wife need to put on so
many airs about poor Rose."
"Rose has wantonly wounded Yanna's feelings very often."
"Poor feelings! I wonder how they endured the pretty Cora's
extravagances of every kind."
"Mother!"
"Well, Harry, there is no use in our quarreling. Where is Antony?"
"In Arizona."
"It is a great shame. I shall make your father go and see him."
"There is no necessity. A word of contrition from Rose will bring him
home. Without that word, nothing will bring him. You had better get
Rose to write to him. A dozen words will do."
"She will never write one."
"Then she had better get a divorce."
"And lose all Antony's money!"
"She has behaved shamefully to Antony. I will not talk any more about
her."
"However, she is going to entertain quietly; and her own family _must_
support her. You may tell your wife I said so."
"Did you have a pleasant summer, mother?"
Then Mrs. Filmer began a long complaint of the weather, and the weary
hours her husband spent in the libraries, and the exorbitant charges,
and the dreadful laundry work, and finally she opened one of her
trunks, and took out of it some presents for Yanna and the child. So
the morning went rapidly away, and Harry stayed to lunch with his
father and mother, and then went downtown and attended to some
business for them; so that the day was all broken up and spoiled, and
he resolved to go home and take Yanna her presents.
When he entered the parlor of his own home, he was astonished to see
Yanna sitting at a little Dutch table, drinking tea with a woman in
the regulation dress of the Salvation Army--astonished to see that she
had been weeping; and still more lost in amazement when the guest
stood up and faced him, for it was undoubtedly Cora Mitchin.
She looked with grave eyes straight at Harry, who had paused in the
middle of the room, and said: "Mr. Filmer, I came here to-day to ask
Mrs. Filmer's pardon. You may see that she has forgiven me."
"Miss Young," said Adriana, rising, "it is my wish that you tell Mr.
Filmer all that you have told me. He will be glad to hear it." And
then she went quietly out of the room, leaving the two alone. For a
moment Harry was angry. He did not like standing face to face with his
transgression; and he was quite inclined to escape from the position
in some way or other, when Cora said:
"May I tell you what has happened?"
"Is there any use now? If I can do anything, Cora----"
"No! no! Mrs. Filmer asked me to tell you. May I?"
Harry sat down, but not very graciously; and the young woman stood by
the table, with her hand grasping the back of the chair from which
Yanna had just risen. She was a very pretty young woman, and her
peculiar dress was by no means unbecoming. If it had been, Harry
perhaps might have been less willing to listen; though, as it was, he
had a wandering idea that Cora was playing a trick--that she might
have taken a wager she would enter his house and drink tea with his
wife--that she might have wondered at him for not seeking her out, and
contrived this plan to engage his attention. In fact, he did not at
all believe in any confession Cora had made to his wife; and he was
resentful of her presence under any guise on his hearthstone. So,
though he sat down to listen, he did it ungraciously, and his voice
was irritable as he said:
"I do not understand your little game, Cora; and I wish you would
explain it as quickly as possible."
"Do you remember Mary Brady, one of the ballet girls?"
"Yes."
"She is dead. She sent for me one night in July. She was dying without
a friend, and without a cent. I did what I could. I did what there was
no one else to do, I tried to pray with her, and to tell her about a
pitiful God and Christ."
"You!"
"Me. For I am the child of parents who loved God, and I have two
little sisters whom I have sinned for, lest they should become
sinners. I know I ought to have trusted God, but I thought He was
never coming to help me--and so I took the devil's help. No one knows
what the devil's wages are until they have earned them. Mary has taken
his last coin, which is--death."
"Poor little girl! She was a merry sprite."
"Mirth was part of her bargain. She was dying while she was
laughing"--and the face of the speaker was so instinct with grief that
Harry suddenly found that all his suspicions were vanishing, and an
irrepressible interest was taking their place.
"Well, Cora?"
"My name is Hannah--Hannah Young. My father and mother gave me that
name, in the old meeting-house at Newburyport. It was the name
registered in God's Book, and I would not see it on a play-bill; so I
called myself--the other one. As I was telling you, I tried to talk to
poor Mary, as I knew my mother would have talked to me. Alas! alas! it
was too late!"
Harry looked up startled and uneasy.
"She had suffered so long and so cruelly, without anything to help or
to relieve her pain. I brought her cold water and fruits and a doctor,
and I told her that Christ saw all her trouble and pitied her, but she
only said, 'It is not true! If He loved me He would have sent me
help, when help might have saved me.' Then I got the Gospel, and I
read it to her, and she cried wearily, 'I have heard it all before! I
know He was loving and good, but that is all so long ago!' I said,
'Mary, if you could only pray!' and she asked angrily, 'To whom? To
the fine ladies on Broadway, or to the men who preach now and then in
the mostly closed churches?' I told her, 'Christ waits in this very
room,' and she began to wail and cry out, 'It is not true! It is not
true! Christ would have touched and healed me long ago!' Yes, in her
very last moments she whispered, 'He does not know.' I shall never
forget her eyes; no, not as long as I live. She went quite hopeless
down the hard road to the grave; but I do believe now that the moment
she touched the other side Jesus met and comforted her."
Harry did not answer. His eyes were cast down, and he was holding his
right hand in his left, with a nervous, restless motion.
"After Mary's death I could not be the same. I felt that I would
rather hire myself out to wash dishes than earn another sinful penny.
The day of her burial I went back to her room to pay the pittance due
for its wretched shelter; and I sat and talked with the woman who
owned the house a long time, so it was growing dark when I turned out
of the court into the main street. It was a poor, quiet street, and
the people were sitting on their doorsteps, or leaning out of their
windows; and I saw a little crowd coming toward me, and they were
singing. And as I met them, they ceased; and a woman a little in
front, with an open Bible in her hand, cried out:
"'_Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest._' And her clear, sweet call went down into my heart,
and I began to weep and to pray as I walked through the streets; and
after I got to my room, I locked the door and threw myself on my
knees, on my face, and pleaded with Christ to forgive me and save me
from my sins and myself. Oh! how I longed and wept for the purity I
had lost and the faith I had cast aside! I was weary, fainting, but I
would not rise. In a little while, I could not rise. I felt that the
Savior was in the room. It seemed to me at first as if He would not be
entreated, as if He would go away. But I had hands that clasped his
feet, and caught his robe, and I would not let Him go until He forgave
me."
"You knew that you were forgiven? How?"
"I knew it by the joy that filled my heart. I did not feel my body at
all. I walked up and down, clasping my hands and saying, 'Christ, I
thank Thee! Christ, I thank Thee!' And when the dawn began to break, a
great, a wonderful peace came all over me; and I lay down and slept
such a happy sleep; and when I awakened, I knew that the old life had
passed away, and that I was a different woman. Do you believe me, Mr.
Filmer?"
"Yes," answered Harry, very softly, "I believe you."
"Then I went to the Salvation Army. Such gifts as God had given me, I
gave back to Him. And I have been very happy ever since."
"What made you come here to my wife?"
"I had wronged her. Against her my sin was great and particular. I
came to her, and I told her what I have told you. She wept with me.
She forgave me freely. She made me tea with her own hands; she did
more than that--she ate and drank with me. It was as if Christ again
put His hand upon the leper, or went to be guest in the house of a man
that was a sinner. I shall never forget her goodness. I wanted you to
know----"
"What?"
"That there is mercy for sin--that there is joy and gladness in
repenting--that God is 'the lover of souls.'"
"It is a strange thing to hear you talk in this way to me."
"I talk to you now because I shall not accuse you at the Day of
Judgment. I have been forgiven, and I have forgiven you. But, oh! if
you remain unforgiven, will you accuse me then?"
"No; I only am to blame."
"Now I will go. It is not likely we shall meet again until the Day of
Judgment. At that Day, I shall be glad that I have spoken; and I hope
that you will be glad that you have listened."
Harry tried to answer, but he knew not what to say. His soul was in a
chaos of emotion. There seemed to be no words to interpret it; and
before he could find words, the woman was gone, and the door was shut,
and he was quite alone.
He did not wish to see Yanna just then; and she, being a wise wife,
probably divined this feeling, for she did not intrude herself or her
opinions on the event at that time. She knew what Hannah Young would
say to him, and she understood that such words need neither commentary
nor explanation. She was rather satisfied than otherwise, when she
heard Harry go out; and as she had promised to dine with Miss Alida,
she went there alone--there being already an understanding that Harry
should come for her at eleven o'clock.
So their next meeting was in a company who were discussing Browning
with an extraordinary animation. Miss Alida stopped in the middle of
her declaration "that she would rather have her teeth drawn than be
compelled to read _Sordello_," to smile a welcome; and Yanna's look of
pleasure drew him to her side; where he stood leaning on her chair and
watching Professor Snowdon, who was holding a book open at the
likeness of the poet.
"What a brave countenance!" he cried. "How honest, and thoughtful, and
kindly! And what a pleasant shrewdness in the eyes! It is a perfect
English face."
"Oh, indeed!" said a scholarly man who stood by Miss Alida; "if Browning
had an English body, his soul was that of some thirteenth-century
Italian painter. Does he not say of himself:
'Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it--"Italy."'
Now it is a prejudice with me, that if an Englishman is to open his
heart to us, we ought to find _England_ written there. Shakespeare,
who is at home with all people, is never so mighty and so lovable as
when depicting the sweet-natured English ladies who became his
'Imogenes,' 'Perditas,' and 'Helenas,' or dallying with his own
country wild-flowers, or in any way exalting England's life and
loveliness, majesty and power."
"And pray, sir," asked the Professor, "who but a man with an English
heart could have written that home-yearning song:
'Oh to be in England
Now that April's there;
And whoever wakes in England,
Sees, some morning unaware,
That the lowest boughs, and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole, are in tiny leaf;
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough,
In England--now!'"
"There is somewhere a still finer home-thought," said Harry. "I
remember learning it when I was at college;" and as Adriana looked
backward and smiled, and the Professor nodded approval, and Miss Alida
said, "Let us have the lines, Harry," he repeated them without much
self-consciousness, and with a great deal of spirit:
"'Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the westward died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest north-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and
grey;
"Here and there did England help me,--how can I help England?"--say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.'"
There was a hearty response to Harry's effort, and then Miss Alida's
favorite minister--who had been silent during the whole discussion,
much to her disappointment--spoke.
"A poet's nature," he said, "needs that high reverence which is to the
spirit what iron is to the blood; it needs, most of all, the
revelation of Christianity, because of its peculiar temptations,
doubts, fears, yearnings, and obstinate questionings. Mr. Browning has
this reverence, and accepts this revelation. He is not half-ashamed,
as are some poets, to mention God and Christ; and he never takes the
name of either in vain. He does not set up a kind of pantheistic
worship. No one has ever told us, as Browning has in his poem of
'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' how hard it is to be a Christian. Do
you remember its tremendous dream of the Judgment Day:
'When through the black dome of the firmament,
Sudden there went,
Like horror and astonishment,
A fierce vindictive scribble of red
Quick flame across; as if one said
(The angry Scribe of Judgment), There,
Burn it!'
And who can read the pleading of the youth who has chosen the world,
and not recognize the amiable young man of to-day, unable to put the
cup of pleasure utterly away, but resolving to let
'the dear remnant pass
One day--some drops of earthly good
Untasted.'
Do you want to know the end of this choice? Browning has told us in
words no young man should be ignorant of."
"Go on, Doctor," said the Professor. "It will do us all good."
"God reserves many great sinners for the most awful of all
punishments--impunity. We can despise the other life, until we are
refused it. This youth got the world he desired. A Voice tells him it
is--
'Flung thee freely as one rose
Out of a summer's opulence,
Over the Eden barrier whence
Thou art excluded. Knock in vain!'
He is made welcome to so rate earth, and never to know
'What royalties in store
Lay one step past the entrance door.'
So he tries the world, tries all its ways, its intellect, and art; and
at last, when everything else fails, he tries love. Surely love will
not offend; and he looks upward to _The Form_ at his side for
approval. But its face is as the face of the headsman, who shoulders
the axe to make an end. Love? Asking for love, when He so loved the
world as to give His only beloved Son to die for love. Then lost and
bewildered, and weary to death, the youth cowers deprecatingly, and
prays that at least he may not know all is lost; that he may go on,
and on, still hoping 'one eve to reach the better land.'" And the
minister's eyes were full of tears, and his voice was full of despair,
and there was a moment's intense silence. Harry broke it. "Surely,
sir," he said, "the poet did not leave the youth in such hopeless
distress?"
"He knew his God better," was the answer. "I will tell you in the
youth's own words what happened:
'Then did _The Form_ expand, expand--
I knew Him thro' the dread disguise,
As the whole God within his eyes
Embraced me!'"
"If you are not tired of Browning," said the Professor, in a
singularly soft voice for him, "I will give you from him a picture of
the world in the highest mood it has ever known, or perhaps ever will
know--under the Cross. It is only the 'Epitaph in the Catacombs':
'I was born sickly, poor, and mean,
A slave; no misery could screen
The holders of the pearl of price
From Caesar's envy; therefore twice
I fought with beasts, and three times saw
My children suffer by his law;
At last my own release was earned;
I was some time in being burned,
But at the close a hand came through
The fire above my head; and drew
My soul to Christ; whom now I see.
Sergius, a brother, writes for me,
This testimony on the wall:
For me, I have forgot it all.'
Could any picture be more perfect? Christ has made of the poor sick
slave a hero; and he speaks dispassionately from the other side. At
last his release was earned. He was some time in being burned. Sergius
writes--it is not he--he has forgot it all. These words light up an
infinite picture, and surely the poet, who with one light stroke can
smite such a statute from the rock, is a Master crowned, and worthy of
our love."
Every face was illuminated, every soul expanded, and the Professor,
burning with his own enthusiasm, laid down the book. Then Miss
Alida, smiling, but yet with tears in her large gray eyes, turned
to a pretty young woman who had a roll of music in her lap. "Mrs.
Dunreath," she said, "we cannot bear any more of Mr. Browning's
strong wine; give us one of your songs of Old Ireland--some that you
found in Munster, among the good lay monks and brothers. And the
lady lifted her mandolin, and touched a few strings to her strange
musical recitative:
"A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer;
Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear.
There is honey in the trees, where her misty vales expand;
And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fanned;
There is dew at high noontide there, and springs in the yellow sand
On the fair hills of holy Ireland!
"Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground;
The butter and the cream do wondrously abound;
The cresses on the water, and the sorrels are at hand;
And the cuckoo's calling daily his note of music bland:
And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song in the forest grand.
On the fair hills of holy Ireland!"
The song made a charming let-down from the loftier tension; and some
one said that it was just the sweet lament for the good time past,
suitable for a race which like the Irish "had seen better days."
"But," said Miss Alida, "you would never find an old Dutch or Norse
song so destitute of hope or self-reliance. Their spirit is one that
does not look back to the dead and gone; or even forward for some
expected Helper. They sing the present, and the best possible present.
That is the noblest kind of song, and there will be hope for Ireland
when she sings no longer about the _having been_, but determines _to
be_."
However, in spite of all diversions, Browning had the evening; for no
one could escape from his influence. And all the way home Harry spoke
of Miss Alida's minister, and of the poem he had quoted from. He was
longing to say, "How strangely the experience of the youth in the poem
fitted into Hannah Young's fear that Christ would go away and not
forgive her, until the moment of pardon revealed Him through the
dread disguise a God of mercy and forgiveness!" He wished also to
speak for himself, but it was very difficult to do. In the first
place, Adriana was tremblingly afraid of explanations. She passed from
one person to another, and one subject to another with so much haste
and interest that it was finally clear to Harry she did not wish him
to allude to the great event of the day.
But his heart was full of love and sorrow, and as he walked by her
side from the carriage to the drawing-room he came to a decision.
Adriana stood a moment before the fire, and there Harry unclasped her
cloak, drew her head towards him, and kissed her fondly.
"Yanna!" he whispered, "Yanna, truest and best of wives! I love you,
and I love only you! I have wandered often, but never have I been
happy away from you. Forgive me once more. The things I have heard
to-day I shall never forget. Never will I be less worthy of your love
than I am at this hour; never again!"
And she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. No earthly words
were loving enough and happy enough, but something exquisite and
certain passed from eye to eye, and from heart to heart--some
assurance in that language of love whose sweet symbols happiness uses
so well. And Adriana knew that her true affection and noble patience
had conquered; and that the slow, calm years would flow on henceforth
in glad content, bringing them in their season all things good.