A RAY OF HOPE
PRESENTLY Juliet made an attempt to check her passionate sobs. She
remembered how distressed her mother would be if she saw her thus
giving way, and for her mother's sake, she tried to rally strength and
courage. She rose from her knees, slowly removed her walking dress,
bathed her face with elaborate care, and did her utmost to remove every
trace of agitation. She succeeded in regaining a calm demeanour; but
the burden which pressed so heavily on her heart was not lightened,
and she looked forward to the future with despair. How could she go
on living, when she knew that everyone, save the dear mother who had
always been too fond and indulgent towards her, condemned and despised
her? The ban of shame she had brought upon herself seemed more than she
could bear.
When she went downstairs, the table in the dining-room was laid for
their early dinner, and Salome stood at the window watching for Hannah.
Mrs. Tracy, busy with her knitting, sat in her easy-chair by the fire.
"See, mother," said Juliet, speaking with forced brightness, "I have
matched your wool exactly, and it did not cost so much as you thought."
Mrs. Tracy looked at her keenly as she spoke. Despite her airy manner,
there was a sound in Juliet's voice which told her mother she had been
weeping, and her pink eyelids further confirmed the fact. A sharp pang
emote the mother's heart. Instinctively she divined, in some degree,
what had happened. But she asked no questions.
Hannah came in looking harassed, and her glance hardened as it rested
on Juliet. It was not a cheerful meal which they took together. The
talk was disjointed and constrained. Juliet hardly knew how to eat a
morsel, though for her mother's sake, she tried bravely.
When they had finished, but whilst they still sat at the table, Hannah
suddenly said, addressing no one in particular, "I have resigned my
post at the high school. I shall not teach there after Christmas."
"You do not mean that?" exclaimed her mother, in amazement. "This is
surely a very hasty resolve."
"Nothing was farther from my thoughts a few months ago, certainly,"
said Hannah, with deliberation. "But I am not responsible for the
circumstances which have led to it."
She glanced at Juliet as she spoke.
"My satisfaction in teaching at the high school has been destroyed for
me," she continued. "I cannot forget what has happened, cannot lose my
sense that the thought of it is in the minds of others. I feel, if I do
not hear, what is being said."
An uncomfortable silence followed. Juliet's head was bent. She was
quivering with pain and indignation. Her mother dared not look at her.
Hannah went on in her cold, firm tones—
"Miss Tucker understands my feeling, and she approves of what I have
done, although she is very sorry. She advises me to apply for the
headmistress-ship of a school at Leeds. It is not exactly a high
school, but worked on the same lines. I hope, with her recommendation,
I may obtain it."
"You need not go away, Hannah," exclaimed Juliet, starting up
impetuously. "I will go away. It is better I should. I never ought to
have come home. I am only a disgrace to you all now."
"If you go, I go also," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy excitedly. "You shall not
leave me again, Juliet."
"That can easily be managed," said Hannah coolly. "Should I get
this school, there will be an opening for Salome too; for there are
boarders, and I shall need her to take charge of the housekeeping. So
you and Juliet could live together where you please. That would be
quite to her mind, I imagine."
"Let it be so, then," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy vehemently. "I, for one,
shall be very happy. But, Hannah, I must say I think you are acting
wrongly. You ought to stand by your sister, now she is under such a
cloud, and help to bring things right. If you give up your post and go
away, people will think the case worse than it is. They will imagine
there is indeed cause for shame—"
"So there is, mother," broke in Juliet, "cause enough for shame. I am a
girl who has lost her character, and for such there is no help!"
"Don't speak like that, Juliet. You will break my heart!" cried her
mother, with tears. "It is not so bad as that; but if your own sister
turns against you, people will think—anything."
"I do not turn against Juliet," said Hannah; "but since she has made
my position here unendurable, I am surely at liberty to seek one
elsewhere. I hope she has learned wisdom. She ought to know that she
cannot escape the consequences of her wrong-doing."
"Of course she knows that," said Salome; "but I do think you are hard
upon Juliet, Hannah. You forget that she is very sorry for what she has
done."
"People generally are sorry when they have brought trouble on
themselves," said Hannah coldly. "I am sorry if my words offend you;
but for me black is black and white, white; and I can only regard
Juliet's conduct in one way."
She rose as she spoke and went slowly from the room, holding herself
very erect.
Salome had laid her hand with a timid, caressing touch on Juliet's
shoulder; but the girl shook it off impatiently. She could not endure
even kindness now. She looked at her mother, whose tears were falling
fast and she hated herself.
"It is a pity I ever was born," she said bitterly; "I am naught but a
cause of trouble!"
And she too quitted the room. Thus the miserable scene ended.
The agitation it had caused her was more than Mrs. Tracy's enfeebled
frame could sustain without suffering. A severe nervous headache
confined her to her room all the following day. In the afternoon, she
felt inclined to sleep, and Juliet left her to herself.
Hannah and Salome had gone out together, and Juliet was sitting alone
in the dining-room, when she heard a rap at the front door, and
presently discovered to her dismay that Ann was conducting a visitor to
the drawing-room. Who could it be? She was not left long in doubt. Ann
speedily appeared with a card, on which Juliet read with astonishment
the name of Mr. Mainprice.
"Did you not tell him mother could see no one?" demanded Juliet.
"I did, miss; but he asked if you were at home, and said he would like
to speak to you."
"Oh!" Juliet's face grew crimson.
Ann looked at her with the utmost curiosity, and slowly quitted the
room.
Juliet stood motionless. Why did he come and ask to see her? He must
know that she would shrink from seeing him. For he knew all about it.
From Salome, from his sister, from Mrs. Hayes, he had heard the worst
that could be told of her. She would not see him. She would send Ann to
him with an excuse.
But though she said this to herself, Juliet made no movement to summon
Ann. She stood irresolute, with strangely mingled emotions contending
within her. Pride urged her to avoid this man, whom she could not
face without shame; but within her stricken heart another voice made
itself heard, the voice of sorrow and penitence craving the presence
of someone who should understand, who could sympathise, whose words
might have help and healing for her bitter wound. More than once
during the past days, the strong yet gentle face of Arthur Mainprice
had risen before her mental vision, and she had felt that he was one
who might help her, if she could ever find courage to pour into his
ear the burden of her heart. But it had seemed to her that the fitting
opportunity for doing so would never come.
And now it had come! Mr. Mainprice was awaiting her in the next room.
Should she go to him and tell him all? Had she the courage for it?
It was but for a few seconds that she hesitated, though it seemed to
her longer. There had not been time for Mr. Mainprice to grow impatient
when she opened the drawing-room door and advanced to him, looking so
changed from the bright, saucy, self-confident girl who had inspired
him with interest at Lynton, that his heart gave a deep throb of pity
as he looked at her, and there was more fervour of sympathy than he
knew in his warm hand-clasp and the glance of his frank, kindly eyes.
To Juliet, who had prepared herself for a cool reception, the pure
friendliness of his greeting was as a sudden burst of warm sunshine on
a frosty day. It took her so by surprise that she forgot herself, and
stood looking at him for a few moments without speaking, but with such
a pathetic, appealing look in her childlike eyes as he never forgot.
They caused him a sensation so acute as to threaten his self-control,
and to save it, he began to speak hastily and with some nervousness.
"I have called," he began—"Mrs. Hayes asked me to bring your sister
this book. It is just a list of the different charities available for
the poor in London. She wants to look up something in it, I believe."
"Oh yes," said Juliet, taking the book and looking at it vaguely;
"Salome is always wanting to know about these things. Thank you. I will
give it to her. But won't you sit down?"
He took a chair, for he had no wish to go away immediately. Juliet
seated herself opposite to him. She sat gazing at her hands folded
together on her lap, and for some moments neither spoke. He had time to
observe her more closely, and to mark the look of age which, despite
its youthful contour and her childlike, appealing glance, had crept
into her face.
Then he said, "I am sorry to hear that your mother is suffering to-day.
It is nothing serious, I trust?"
"Only a bad headache. She was excited and troubled yesterday, and this
is the consequence. She can bear so little now. It will be long ere she
recovers from the effects of her illness."
There was a pause, and then Juliet added in a low, distinct voice, "You
know what made her ill?"
He did not profess to misunderstand her.
"It was her anxiety for you," he said.
"It was because I was so wicked and ungrateful," said Juliet.
He was silent.
"Mr. Mainprice," said Juliet, speaking tremulously, "you once warned me
against following my own way. You said it would not bring me happiness.
You were right. I have taken my own way, and it has brought me the most
hopeless misery. You said you were sorry for me. Well, you may be sorry
for me now, for my life is quite blighted."
Her words ended in a sob.
"Not hopeless, not blighted," he said quickly. "Nothing blights a life
but sin."
"But it is sin," she protested. "I never used to think myself a sinner,
but I know that I am one now. And the worst of it is, I have not marred
my own life only; I have hurt my mother and my sisters too."
"Yes, yes; I understand just how you feel," he said, and the grave,
kind tones seemed to promise help. "Mind, I do not say that you have
not sinned. I would rather counsel you to cherish that sense of sin.
For it is the hardness of heart that cannot discern between good and
evil, which sins without suffering and does evil without pain, that is
the hopeless state. We may even be thankful for the wrong-doing that
leads to the broken heart and the contrite spirit."
"I cannot be thankful for my wrong-doing," said Juliet; "it has spoiled
my life, it will spoil the lives of others. Sometimes I think that I
would not mind if it were only I who suffered, for I deserve it. There
are hours when I feel so to hate myself that I long for punishment."
"Then cannot you accept the sad results of your sin as a punishment
sent to you by your loving Father?"
"I could, I could," sobbed Juliet, "if it would make me better! But
when people look on me so hardly, when I know they are saying unkind
things of me, it makes me feel bad. I may hate myself, certainly, but I
hate them too. I am ready to go on being wicked."
"But who would be so unkind to you?" he asked. "Surely you exaggerate
the unkindness."
Juliet shook her head sorrowfully.
"But He, the Divine Brother, the Saviour of sinners, will help you to
overcome, in spite of every hindrance which the coldness of others may
raise. Surely you see now, as you never did before, the meaning of the
Divine Sacrifice offered for sin! You feel the need of it in your own
life?"
"Yes, yes," murmured Juliet; "and oh, I will try to be different. But
tell me what I must do. I cannot leave mother; she would be miserable
if I went away from her. Yet if I stay with her—she is so indulgent to
me—I fear I shall fall into the old self-willed ways again."
"You must arm yourself against that which you fear. Do you know Dante's
'Purgatorio'?"
Juliet smiled faintly.
"I have read scarcely any books except novels," she said.
"No?" he said, with a smile. "Then you have a wide and rich field
before you, and I advise you to begin to explore it without delay.
But what I was going to say about the 'Purgatorio' is this: Dante
represents the souls in purgatory as loving and courting the pain
which is to purge them from their sin. There is an intimate connection
between their sin and its punishment. Many of the sinners are depicted
as enjoying that which their penitent will now eagerly desires—the
exact opposite of their sin. Thus the proud willingly go bowed to the
earth; gluttons delight in the pangs of hunger, and the slothful urge
themselves onward in perpetual haste. Do you catch the idea? Can you
apply it to yourself?"
"Ah, I see!" exclaimed Juliet, with kindling eyes. "You mean that I
should now choose the opposite of that which I chose before—my own way."
"Just so," he said. "You have tasted the bitterness and sorrow which
come of making self the centre of one's life. Now strive to get out of
yourself. Make it your aim to mortify self. Desire to do the will of
another rather than your own. Above all, seek to do the will of God."
Juliet had ceased to shed tears. Her face though sad was calm. She was
silent for some moments after he had spoken, then she turned her eyes
upon him with a look of perfect, childlike self-surrender, and said, "I
will. I will try to do what you say; but you will help me? I shall see
you sometimes, and you will help me?"
"Alas! I am afraid I cannot help you much," he said, with a troubled
look, "nor shall I be able to see you. You knew, did you not, that
I was only here for a short time? The Bishop of Durham has just
appointed me to a living in the North of England, and I go there almost
immediately."
Juliet's countenance fell. She sat looking at her hands in silence. It
may be pardoned her that at that moment she could perceive the fact
only as it affected herself. It never occurred to her to utter words of
polite congratulation or goodwill.
"You will have better help than mine," he said, after a pause. "I shall
think of you and pray for you. And I know that it will be well with
you. You will gain the victory over yourself. Your life will yet be
the better, your character the stronger and purer, for this painful
experience."
"I will try," said Juliet again.
There was another brief pause of silence, and then he rose and held out
his hand.
"You will help me; you do help me," said Juliet suddenly, in her
ardent, impetuous way as they clasped hands; "this talk with you has
helped me. I shall remember all that you have said. And it will always
help me to remember that you think kindly—that you do not despair of
me."
With these, her last words, ringing in his ears, he went away. Yet he
was sad as he thought of her. Her young, fair face, as he had seen
it clouded with sorrow and shame, haunted his memory. He had a keen
perception of how hard she had made her life, and of the trials that
must beset her in the future from friction within her own home circle,
from the coldness of so-called friends, and from the hard, censorious
judgment of the world. He was a man of large and tender heart, and he
yearned to save her from these troubles. But it might not be. She must
bear her own burden, a burden surely none the lighter that it was the
fruit of her own self-will.
Yet, as he thought of her thus sadly, the gloom of Juliet's inner
life was broken by the first ray of light and hope which had entered
it since she awoke to the horror of her wrong-doing and its results.
The knowledge that this good and noble man, whom she had always
secretly revered, had such hope for her, such belief in her future,
made it possible for her self-despising, self-despairing soul to look
heavenward, and with new faith and hope struggle upward from the slough
into which it had fallen.