A JOURNEY.
Behold us now, about an hour later, at our tea-table. Mr. Carmel, as he
had promised, came in and talked, as usual, agreeably; but, if he had
any particular news to tell us, he had not yet begun to communicate it.
"You found your old quarters awaiting your return. We have lost our
interesting stranger," I said; "I wish you would tell us all you know
about him."
Mr. Carmel's head sank; his eyes were fixed, in painful thought, upon
the table. "No," he said, looking up sharply, "God knows all, and that's
enough. The story could edify no one."
He looked so pained, and even agitated, that I could not think of
troubling him more.
"I had grown so attached to this place," said Mr. Carmel, rising and
looking from the window, "that I can scarcely make up my mind to say
good-bye, and turn my back on it for ever; yet I believe I must in a few
days. I don't know. We soldiers, ecclesiastics, I mean, must obey
orders, and I scarcely hope that mine will ever call me here again. I
have news for you, also, Miss Ethel; I had a letter from your mamma, and
a note from Mr. Ware, last night, and there is to be a break-up here,
and a movement townward; you are to come out next season, Miss Ethel;
your mamma and papa will be in town, for a week or so, in a few days;
and, Miss Grey, she hopes you will not leave her on account of the
change."
He paused; but she made no answer.
"Oh! darling Laura, you won't leave me?" I exclaimed.
"Certainly not, dear Ethel; and whenever the time for parting comes,"
she said very kindly, "it will cost me a greater pang than perhaps it
will cost you. But though I am neither a soldier nor an ecclesiastic, my
movements do not always depend upon myself."
Unrestrained by Mr. Carmel's presence, we kissed each other heartily.
"Here is a note, Miss Grey, enclosed for you," he murmured, and handed
it to Laura.
In our eagerness we had got up and stood with Mr. Carmel in the recess
of the window. It was twilight, and the table on which the candles
burned stood at a considerable distance. To the light Laura Grey took
her letter, and as she read it, quite absorbed, Mr. Carmel talked to me
in low tones.
As he stood in the dim recess of the window, with trains of withered
leaves rustling outside, and the shadow of the sear and half-stript elms
upon the court and window, he said, kindly and gently:
"And now, at last, Miss Ethel forsakes her old home, and takes leave of
her humble friends, to go into the great world. I don't think she will
forget them, and I am sure they won't forget her. We have had a great
many pleasant evenings here, and in our conversations in these happy
solitudes, the terrors and glories of eternal truth have broken slowly
upon your eyes. Beware! If you trifle with Heaven's mercy, the world, or
hell, or heaven itself, has no narcotic for the horrors of conscience.
In the midst of pleasure and splendour, and the tawdry triumphs of
vanity, the words of Saint Paul will startle your ears like thunder. It
is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of
the heavenly gift, and the good word of God, and the powers of the world
to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.
The greater the privilege, the greater the liability. The higher the
knowledge, the profounder the danger. You have seen the truth afar off;
rejoice, therefore, and tremble."
He drew back and joined Miss Grey.
I had been thinking but little, for many weeks, of our many
conversations. Incipient convictions had paled in the absence of the
sophist or the sage--I knew not which. When he talked on this theme, his
voice became cold and stern; his gentleness seemed to me to partake of
an awful apathy; he looked like a man who had witnessed a revelation
full of horror; my fancy, I am sure, contributed something to the
transformation; but it did overawe me. I never was so impressed as by
him. The secret was not in his words. It was his peculiar earnestness.
He spoke like an eye-witness, and seemed under unutterable fear himself.
He had the preacher's master-gift of alarming.
When Mr. Carmel had taken his leave for the night, I told Laura Grey my
adventure in the wood of Plas Ylwd. I don't think I told it quite as
frankly as I have just described it to you. The story made Miss Grey
very grave for a time.
She broke the silence that followed by saying, "I am rather glad, Ethel,
that we are leaving this. I think you will be better in town; I know I
shall be more comfortable about you. You have no idea, and I earnestly
hope you never may have, how much annoyance may arise from an
acquaintance with that plausible, wicked man. He won't venture to force
his acquaintance upon you in town. Here it is different, of course."
We sat up very late together, chatting this night in my room. I did not
quite know how I felt about the impending change. My approaching journey
to London was, to me, as great an event as her drive to the ball in her
pumpkin-coach was to Cinderella. Of course there was something dazzling
and delightful in the prospect. But the excitement and joy were like
that of the happy bride who yet weeps because she is looking her last on
the old homely life, that will always be dear and dearer as the
irrevocable separation goes on. So, though she is sure she is passing
into paradise, it is a final farewell to the beloved past. I felt the
conflict; I loved Malory better than I could ever love a place again.
But youth is the season of enterprise. God has ordained it. We go like
the younger son in the parable, selfish, sanguine, adventurous; but the
affections revive and turn homeward, and from a changed heart sometimes
breaks on the solitude a cry, unheard by living ear, of yearning and
grief, that would open the far-off doors, if that were possible, and
return.
Next day arrangements took a definite form. All was fuss and
preparation. I was to go the day following; Mr. Carmel was to take
charge of me on the journey, and place me safely in the hands of Mrs.
Beauchamp, our town housekeeper. Laura Grey, having wound up and settled
all things at Malory, was to follow to town in less than a week; and, at
about the same time, mamma and papa were to arrive.
A drive of ten miles or so brought us to the station; then came a long
journey by rail. London was not new to me; but London with my present
anticipations was. I was in high spirits, and Mr. Carmel made a very
agreeable companion, though I fancied he was a little out of spirits.
I was tired enough that night when I at length took leave of Mr. Carmel
at the door of our house in ---- Street. The street lamps were already
lighted. Mrs. Beauchamp, in a black silk dress, received me with a great
deal of quiet respect, and rustled up-stairs before me to show me my
room. Her grave and regulated politeness contrasted chillily with the
hearty, and sometimes even boisterous welcome of old Rebecca Torkill.
Mamma and papa were to be home, she told me, in a few days--she could
not say exactly the day. I was, after an hour or so, a great deal
lonelier than I had expected to be. I wrote a long letter to Laura, of
whom I had taken leave only that morning (what a long time it seemed
already!), and told her how much I already wished myself back again in
Malory, and urged her to come sooner than she had planned her journey.