_LIGHT IN DARKNESS._
Oh, trust me, never fell
By love a spirit or earthly or of heaven:
Rather by love they are regenerate.
Love is the happy privilege of mind--
Love is the reason of all living things.
Margaret's work was not over. In that transcendent moment when death
was staring her in the face she had made a certain resolution, and
the security that followed the danger did not make her shrink from
carrying it out. Strange but true; the words in which she had striven
with the desperate spirit of evil that had taken possession of Jane
Rodgers actually represented her state of mind at the time. Margaret
had thrown herself out of herself. With the renovating power of the
intensest pity she had looked into the troubled spirit which was
revealing itself in all its unutterable depths of misery, and she had
resolved to save it even from itself. Hence it was that instead of the
abject cries self-pity would have drawn from the proudest heart at this
supreme crisis, her words had been calm, self-contained, spoken with an
authority which to the half-crazed brain of the desperate woman was so
strange as to seem mysterious and supernatural.
This it was that had saved Margaret at least from severe bodily harm.
In sheer astonishment the woman's hand had been stayed, and before the
wicked impulse could return help was at the door. The help had come so
strangely that Jane's superstitious fears were confirmed. She began to
think her mistress possessed some secret power. The idea cowed her. She
became abject in her dread. She looked upon the woman she had injured
as one surrounded by invisible protectors, ready at a moment's notice
to come to her assistance.
Even on that first evening Margaret had read a part at least of this in
her landlady's face. The sullen frown did not leave Jane's brow, but
the defiance had gone. It was a change for the better, yet Margaret
was not satisfied; she wanted more than this. She had felt on that
night like one in actual contact with the wild powers of darkness,
struggling at the very mouth of the bottomless pit for a lost soul; and
the impression continued. With the perseverance of a dominant idea that
haunts the mind it followed her through her sleep. She seemed to hear
the despairing cries of a dying soul; she seemed to see the mocking
smiles of fiends who were waiting, like the vultures of the sandy
wastes, till the last convulsive throes should be over to claim the
lost thing for their own; she seemed to feel the last speechless agony,
the outer darkness of despair.
Once she awoke, for the oppression was choking her, and when the waking
reality of the dream came back in all its fulness she rose and knelt
by her bed. "Thou hast saved _me_, my God," she prayed; "give _me_ the
power of saving, of helping to salvation, this wandering spirit." After
that she was calmer; she was able to lie and watch, as she scarcely
cared to sleep again, for the breaking of the morning, and to think and
plan about the best method of carrying out her noble work.
"Love is the antidote of hatred," thought Margaret; "I will teach this
woman to love, and perhaps love may be a ladder of life to her soul."
The morning broke slowly. She threw open her window and watched how it
spread itself over sea and sky. Then there was a stir in the village.
Windows and doors were opened, carts began to move heavily in the
streets, and the steps of passing laborers could be distinctly heard.
Margaret bowed her head upon her hand. "They come from homes," she
murmured; "they will go back to them to-night. My home is not."
But a rosy light spread itself over the sea; the waves that were
rolling steadily in to the shore caught on their rebound a glow as
of sapphire. It was the sun, and the sun brought hope. Then came
movement in the house; it showed that Jane was astir. Margaret's mind
went back to its planning. After a few moments' thought she wrapped
her dressing-gown round her and crept on tip-toe to the door of the
room where Martha Foster slept. The old woman was sleeping the sleep of
the righteous. Margaret closed the door of communication; and then she
rang the bell. Before her landlady could harden her heart against her
Margaret wished to make some impression. While the scene of the past
night was still fresh in her mind she might be more ready to hear the
words of love and forgiveness Margaret had prepared herself to utter.
Some minutes passed before Jane appeared. She was at a loss to imagine
what the object of her mistress could be. Jane had awoke that morning
like one who has been under the power of a fearful nightmare. She could
scarcely believe at first that she _was_ herself, and that she was
actually free from crime. But when she did, she felt for the first time
in her life an emotion of earnest thankfulness to the Power, visible or
invisible, which had withheld her hand.
For Jane had always been a prudent woman. As a general rule her
passions had been kept in check by some stronger motive-power.
Cupidity, self-love, interest, a strong desire for that paradise of a
certain class, respectability and independence, keen common sense that
showed the folly of a momentary gratification of passion, followed by a
life-long repentance,--these had hitherto kept her from all the grosser
forms of sin.
But this time they had all been too weak. The hatred had been
nourished in her heart till it had grown into a master-passion; fear
of her treachery being discovered, indignation and disgust at the
new happiness that seemed to be opening out before the object of her
hatred, had added their fearful impulse to her heated soul, and then
came the storm, the darkness, the opportunity.
In the cool clear morning Jane shuddered. If she had carried out her
dark purpose, what would she have been that morning? In all probability
a hunted criminal. She was thankful for her escape, but not yet truly
penitent for the sin. The soul from which one baffled demon has been
banished is ready for the seven if it be not occupied and filled with
some better guest.
Jane obeyed Margaret's call after a few moments' delay. She knocked
at the bedroom door, opened it and stood on the threshold, a quiet,
respectable-looking person, but there was a sullen frown on her brow.
"Did you please to want anything, ma'am?" she asked. Her broom was in
her hand--a hint, as it were, that she was in no mood to be delayed.
"Only to speak to you, Jane," said Margaret. "Come here; Mrs. Foster
seems to be fast asleep and I have shut the door, or if you like I
can speak to you in the next room, but we may not have so good an
opportunity again."
Jane looked down: "What might you wish to say to me, ma'am?"
There was a forced unconcern in her manner that was not particularly
encouraging, but Margaret would not despair. She held out her hand with
a smile: "I fear you distrust me, Jane. Why," she continued in a tone
of such deep sadness that the landlady's heart, in spite of herself,
was touched--"why will you persist in being my enemy? God is my witness
that I would do you good."
"You ain't got nothing to do with me," said Jane, in a stifled voice.
"If I choose to go to the bad, what's that to you or anybody else? I
won't try to hurt _you_ again, if that's what you want to know, and
only that I was mad I wouldn't have done it last night."
"I know you were mad--I felt it then; and then I resolved that I would
save you from yourself. You are mistaken, my poor woman; it is much,
very much, to me, whether, as you express it, you go to the bad. Jane,
I believe it has been given to me to save you, and, God helping me, I
will do it."
She spoke with a quiet determination that had marvellous power. Her
dream was with her once more. She seemed to see the wild, unholy
tumult; she seemed to be holding, clinging to the wretched life that
death in death was swallowing up.
And Jane watched her with a curious emotion, very strange and utterly
incomprehensible to herself.
The hard, selfish side of life had chiefly presented itself to the
landlady, both as regarded her own nature and the nature of those
with whom she had come into contact. This divine self-forgetfulness,
this pure love of the erring even because of its miserable errors, was
something so new as to be a kind of revelation to her soul. A good she
had conceived impossible seemed to be opening itself out as not only
possible, but real. And the revelation had a renovating power. There
came over her a remembrance of the time when she had been "joyful and
free from blame."
It brought a sudden softness to her heart. But she would not give
way to it. She seized her broom and half turned, so as to hide her
face from Margaret's gaze. "What's the use of talking?" she said in a
stifled voice; "talking won't make me no better. I hated you; why can't
you hate me and be done with it?"
"Because I do _not_ hate you, Jane; because, on the contrary, my soul
is filled with earnest longing for your good. It came to me here in
last night's darkness as I thought of your words that perhaps I had
given some cause for these feelings of yours. I have wrapped myself up
in my own sorrows and have neglected to enter with a woman's sympathy
into your troubles and joys. For--I know it--we must not and cannot
live to ourselves. Selfishness brings its own punishment."
Jane looked down: "I have no troubles in particular, not to interest
anybody but--"
It had come over her in an irresistible flood, the remembrance of her
_one_ happy time. Ah! it is a great fact, mysterious but true--misery
and hopeless wretchedness make half the criminals that fill our jails,
that prowl undetected about our streets. To the happy goodness is easy.
Jane broke down suddenly, and throwing herself on her knees buried her
face in the bed-clothes: "If _he_ had been true to me I'd have been
another woman. Oh! God was cruel. I was getting soft when he was coming
and going with his pleasant ways: it was too short--" Her voice was
choked with sobs. "I've been bad--bad from that day. I'm getting worse,
and God has left me. What'll I do? what'll I do?"
Margaret's eyes filled with tears. She stooped down and drawing one of
the woman's reluctant hands from the hidden face, held it in her own.
"I thought so," she said gently, as if speaking to herself: "there is
always a background." Then to the weeping woman: "Think of it--you and
I, my poor Jane, living here together, and shutting up our troubles in
our own hearts. No wonder we grew hard and selfish. But it is over, is
it not? You will help me to bear, and I will teach you to love. This is
what you want to take you out of yourself. Look up, Jane; be of good
courage."
But she only wept the more bitterly. "I can't," she said; "my heart is
like stone."
Margaret touched the heated face with cool, soft fingers.
"What do these tears mean?" she said gently. "They come from a heart
that is becoming soft, if it is not soft already. Yes, I feel it
too. We ought to be drawn out of ourselves. It is necessary to our
happiness, to the healthy life of our souls. We grow morbid here in our
solitude, with our thoughts toward inward. Since my darling little one
was taken from me I too have been getting hard, Jane, or perhaps you
and I might have understood each other better. But I thank God there is
still time before us. You must let me into the secrets of your life. I
will tell you what my sufferings have been, that there may be a true
sympathy between us; then we must look out from our own sorrows to
the great world of suffering around us, and whether the future bring
happiness or grief, it need not be altogether bereft of the treasures
of love and sympathy."
Jane listened, and her tears ceased. The words of Margaret were like
oil on the troubled waters. They brought hope, they suggested possible
comfort in a future that but a few moments before had been black with
the utter blackness of despair.
For humanity is not ever entirely bad. I think no living, breathing
creature can be said to be hopelessly depraved. Sin, it is said, brings
its own punishment, but the heaviest punishment sin can bring is the
agonizing suffering it inflicts upon the soul. To be without hope of
that beautiful attribute we call goodness would be misery unimaginable.
Yet this was what Jane had been feeling that morning, and Margaret's
words were like rays of light pointing to a possible redemption. "If
I'd aught in the whole world to care about," she said, "I'd try and be
better, but--"
And then she stopped suddenly, for Jane was eminently practical, and an
idea had flashed in upon her brain.
"Have you no friends?" asked Margaret.
"I was thinking of the child," she said.
"What child?"
"He married my young sister," she answered, speaking slowly and with
apparent difficulty, "and I hated him and her too; but afterward I was
glad, for he treated her bad. She died of a broken heart, they say. I
never went nigh her, though she sent to beg me hard. That's three years
agone next Whitsuntide. They had three or four children; all died but
one, a boy two years old when sister died. The father, he went off,
no one knows where, and Willie--that's his name, they say--was put in
the workhouse. I seen him once"--her voice grew broken again--"a fine
little chap, like his father, and for a bit I felt inclined to bring
him home, but that look of his made me hard and I came away."
Margaret smiled a brooding, motherly smile: "God is good to you, Jane.
He has not left you, as you said. He has given you little Willie. You
must find him, and I think he will soon teach you to love."
Jane had almost forgotten, in the new sweetness of speaking about her
own feelings, to whom she had been addressing herself. Margaret's words
reminded her, and she was struck with a sudden sense of wonder, almost
of awe.
"Why do you care for me?" she said in a low tone. "I've insulted you,
I've acted wrong by you, I've tried to do you a mischief, and you
listen to me, you take an interest that nobody ever did before, and
you're not afraid of me, either," she continued confusedly. "There's
them, I believe, as won't allow a hair of your head to fall. There must
be a reason for it."
"Only the reason that I told you, Jane. I want to save you from
yourself; but Mrs. Foster is moving, and I don't wish our conversation
to be overheard. I must hear more about little Willie at another time."
She held out her hand: "We are friends, are we not?"
Jane took it in an awkward, bewildered kind of way. Then, as she looked
into her mistress's face and read nothing but forgiveness there, her
feelings became quite too much for her. Throwing her apron over her
head, she rushed out of the room crying like a little child. For the
spirit of a little child had come into the hard heart.
Her night had been dark as pitch, but already the fair dawning had
gleamed out of the east.