sister-in-law had scarcely reached the place of her retreat when she was
seized with the terrible malady, all alone as she was, without a friend
near her. Your dear mother could not quit the sick children; but she
sent the London nurse on to Manton directly. From her account of the
state in which she found her patient, serious apprehensions are
entertained for the poor lady's life._'"
"Oh, she'll recover too," said the baronet philosophically.
But the unhappy Emma did not recover. She had had her last warning--had
thrown away her last opportunity of returning to that God whom she from
childhood had neglected and forgotten. Her harvest was over, her summer
was ended, and she was not saved. She was not one who could be charged
with any gross violation of the commandments of the Lord; but they had
never had a place in her heart. The seed of the Word had not perished
on the cold ice of unbelief, or the burning lava of passion, but on the
track beaten and trodden down by selfishness--the highway of folly, on
which the soft breath of counsel, or the keen blast of trial, had
stirred nothing but the light dust of vanity.
*CHAPTER XVII.*
*DARKENING CLOUDS.*
It was not to be expected that Flora, though shocked by the sudden
event, should deeply lament the death of her sister-in-law. As Sir Amery
observed, Emma had passed the life of a zoophyte, with this difference,
that the ocean anemone clings to something beyond self, be it only a
rock or a seaweed. Lady Legrange wore black velvet instead of violet,
clasped a bracelet of jet round her wrist, and, except for these
reminders, might almost have forgotten that such a being as Emma Vernon
had ever existed.
It was about a month after the death of her sister-in-law, on a dull
morning in the beginning of March, that Flora sat alone in her boudoir,
arranging some early primroses and violets. Sir Amery had been absent
for two or three days on a visit to a nobleman in the country, but was
expected home in the evening. As it was the birth-day of his wife,
Flora felt sure that he would not fail to return.
"None of these are worth preserving," she said to herself as she put
aside the fading flowers; "how soon they have lost their fragrance, and
all their beauty is gone! Poor flowers--this heated room, the smoky
atmosphere of London, has made them quickly wither; they would have
bloomed longer on their own green bank!" Flora sighed as her mind
pursued the train of association called up. "How I once delighted at
this season to find the first violets in the copse, and carry them home
to my mother! How bright and cheerful all things looked to me then;
there was a freshness of enjoyment which, I suppose, only belongs to
youth--yet I am but twenty-two years old to-day! There are no garlands
now hanging on my myrtle; I wonder if the plant is living still! My
mother will not forget the anniversary; she will have thought of her
Flora in her prayers! I made so sure of a letter to-day;" and Flora
stood pensively looking at the fading blossoms, when the door unclosed,
and a servant entering, announced a well-known name.
"Mr. Ward--can it be! Oh, how good in you," commenced Flora, hastening
with unaffected delight to greet her old friend; but the aspect of the
venerable clergyman, as he kindly but gravely returned her greeting,
awoke a feeling of alarm in the bosom of Lady Legrange.
"You bring bad tidings--my mother!" she exclaimed, still grasping the
hand of the old man, and looking up anxiously into his face.
"Mrs. Vernon is not so well as we all wish her to be," replied Mr. Ward,
quietly but sadly meeting the daughter's earnest gaze.
"She wished you to come to me--?"
"She does not know of my coming, but I thought it best to let you hear
all, and an interview is so much more satisfactory than a letter--"
"Oh, tell me all!" cried Flora in agony. "My mother--is she very--is
she dangerously ill?"
Mr. Ward broke to the daughter, as gently as he could, that, in the
preceding night, Mrs. Vernon had been suddenly and alarmingly attacked
by a malady which threatened her life. He did not say--it was
unnecessary that he should say what Flora too surely divined--that the
overtaxed powers of her mother's frame were at length giving way; that
her exertions during the illness of the children had, it was feared,
irreparably injured herself; and that it was very doubtful whether, on
his return to Wingsdale, he would find the sufferer yet alive.
Flora could not hesitate now; even the fear of displeasing her husband
was swallowed up in a more terrible fear. She wrote a few hurried lines
for Sir Amery to receive on his arrival, hastily made her slight
preparations for the journey, and under the escort of her kind old
friend, and accompanied by her maid, with a very heavy heart she set out
for the home of her much-loved parent.
The journey by railroad occupied about three hours; long, painful hours
were they to Flora. She could not but contrast this return to Laurel
Bank with her last. Then, indeed, she had not been without anxiety, and
even a shadow of self-reproach, but the prevailing feeling of her heart
had been all-absorbing happiness. She loved and was beloved again, and
might have expressed herself in the language of the great poet--
"Come what sorrow may,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
Which one short moment gives me in his sight."
But her fair bud of hope had not blossomed into happiness. God had
given her her heart's desire, but _withal sent leanness into her soul_.
Flora had learned by experience the hollowness of mere human felicity.
"He builds too low who builds beneath the skies." And the change in the
appearance of nature harmonized with the alteration in Flora's feelings.
On that last journey to Laurel Bank she had beheld earth laughing in the
sunlight, and decked in all the beauty of summer. The breeze had waved
the broad fields of golden corn, and rustled in the luxuriant foliage of
the groves; the gardens had been gay with a thousand flowers, and the
wild rose had bloomed in the green hedge. Now, the trees reared their
bare dark branches aloft, for the season was a late one; and Winter,
driven from his throne for a few sunshiny days, was returning with
increasing force to chase back the approaching Spring. From the gray
lowering sky above the snow-flakes were beginning to fall, and, before
Flora reached the place of her destination, a brooding storm was
wrapping the world in premature night.
The snow was driving fast into her face, as Flora hurried up the gravel
walk which her footsteps had trodden so often. She opened the door
without ringing, for in that quiet retreat bolts and bars were deemed
unnecessary. The entrance to the dining-room was open; she heard voices
within, and paused an instant to glean from their tone the information
which she longed but dreaded to receive.
"No, Emmie, you must not make a noise,"--it was the voice of Johnny that
spoke; "don't you know dear grandmamma is ill? Come, sit here quietly,
and I'll tell you a little story."
"Then she lives--thank God!" exclaimed Flora to herself, hastening with
noiseless footstep up the stairs. In that house she required no guide.
She proceeded straight towards the chamber of her mother, her heart
palpitating fast. As she reached it the door unclosed softly, very
softly, and Mrs. Vernon's maid appeared with the doctor.
"Miss Flora!" exclaimed the old servant in a subdued tone of surprise.
The doctor glanced sternly at her, and raised his finger, then advanced
silently to Lady Legrange.
"Is she--is she--?" Flora could not finish the sentence.
"My dear lady, she is in God's hands; He may raise her yet. Everything
that can be done shall be done; but I cannot conceal from you that I
entertain serious apprehensions." He spoke in tones too low to be heard
in the chamber of the invalid.
"But I may go to her--nurse her--"
"Pardon me," replied the medical man, courteously but firmly
interposing, "our patient is in a very critical state; the pleasure of
seeing you after so long an absence would cause a degree of excitement
which might be attended with fatal consequences."
Flora said nothing, but pressed her hand against her heart; she felt as
though it would break.
"Ann is most watchful and attentive," pursued the doctor, feeling for
Flora's evident distress, "and Miss Lyddie will not quit the room for a
moment."
"Lyddie!" thought the miserable daughter, with a sharper pang of envy
than her gentle bosom had ever before known; "and she may sit and watch
where I dare not enter; she may look on that loved face which I have
come so far to see; she is the comfort, and I--and I--!" Flora leaned
down her head upon her clasped hands and tried to stifle her sobs.
A miserable night was that for Lady Legrange--the most miserable which
she had ever known. The cold became more and more piercing, yet no
entreaties could induce her either to go to rest or to seek the comfort
of a fire in one of the rooms below. She had a chair brought for her to
the door of her mother's room, and there she sat, trembling and
shivering, counting every stroke of the clock which at intervals--oh!
how long and weary--told the lapse of time. She heard the wind shaking
the casements, as though fiercely demanding entrance, and shrieking
aloft in the chimneys with a wild and wailing noise; and sometimes her
painfully strained ear could catch sounds from the sick-room--a light
step, a soft rustle, a low voice, or, terrible to hear, the faint moans
which told of irrepressible suffering. Flora also, as morning drew nigh,
heard words, words from the lips of her parent, words which reason
guided no longer--but not one word which it could have pained piety to
hear. The unconscious sufferer uttered prayers for mercy, for
pardon--prayers for those who were dear to her heart. Flora wept as she
heard her own name repeated again and again in unconscious
supplications. It seemed as though that which had been the habit of a
life remained now as an instinct; the mind might be darkened, reason
might have fled, but love and piety lingered yet in their accustomed
home, the last to leave the sanctuary which had enshrined them so long.
To apply to a nobler subject the beautiful simile of Moore--
"Like a vase in which roses have once been distilled,
You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
And Flora also prayed; she besought the Lord with a fervour and depth of
feeling beyond any which she ever before had known. Her whole soul was
poured out in prayer. Her self-righteousness crushed in the dust, she
felt herself now to be a sinner indeed, and she came to the Friend of
sinners with a broken and contrite heart. She implored the life of her
mother; she besought the Almighty to grant her an opportunity of being
once more a comfort and blessing to that cherished parent--of repaying
some portion, some little portion, of the deep debt of love which she
owed to her. She prayed for herself, for grace and for strength--alas!
she had proved her own sinfulness and weakness. She had been weighed in
the balance and found wanting; and it was almost with a sensation of
despair that Flora now contemplated the difficulties of her
position--difficulties which had been of her own seeking, and which,
however lightly she had once regarded them, now appeared almost
insuperable. If heavenly love drew her onward and upward, she knew too
well that earthly love would act as a clog on her soul. The partner
whom she had chosen would never aid her weakness in the struggle against
worldliness--rather would he side with the enemy. He would never warm
the coldness of her devotion by the fervour of his own; his prayers and
hers would never rise together to the throne of their Father in heaven.
Flora's soul was full of anguish for her idolized Amery. If it was
grief to think that her mother's gentle spirit might be now on the wing
from this world of sorrow, what was it to think that the spirit of her
husband might never rise, to the bliss of the world which is to come!
If affection shrinks from the death of the body, it shudders over the
death of the soul. Separation in time is to the loving heart a trial
almost too painful to contemplate; what then must be separation
throughout eternity--the sole parting which is indeed _for ever_!
The only time that Flora quitted the door of her mother's apartment was
when she sought that which had once been her favourite sitting-room, to
procure writing materials with which to pen a letter to her husband.
The fast flowing tears which dimmed her eyes and blotted her page hardly
suffered her to complete it. The letter gave a vivid and touching
picture of all the emotions which were agitating her mind. Sorrow,
contrition, tenderness, were expressed in the unstudied language of the
heart. Flora told him whom she dared not deem a Christian how a
Christian could die. She dwelt on her mother's piety; she left her
husband to draw the inferences which she longed to place before him in
such a light as might strike conviction even on his prejudiced soul.
She wept and she prayed over the letter, but the darkness before her was
scarcely illumined by one ray of hope.
*CHAPTER XVIII.*
*THE DARK JOURNEY.*
"Indeed, aunt Flora, you must go to rest; you look so pale and ill, you
almost frighten me," said Lyddie.
The appearance of the girl was much changed. She still looked sickly,
from the effects of her own recent illness, and from her hair having
been close cut during her fever; but the once wild neglected weed had
not been cultivated in vain. Thought and sense were expressed in the
large dark eyes beyond what might have been expected in a girl scarcely
twelve years of age. All the latent tenderness of Lyddie's nature had
been called out by Mrs. Vernon; grateful affection to an earthly
benefactor had become a ruling motive in the orphan's heart, already
strengthened rather than replaced by a motive yet more high and holy.
The task which Flora had deemed hopeless another had performed; the once
wild, wilful, untamed girl, had been brought to the feet of the Saviour.
"I cannot rest," replied Flora, sadly; "and you, Lyddie, you have been
sitting up all the night!"
"No, I have been sleeping on the couch at the foot of the bed, while Ann
watched by dear grandmamma. I could not bear to be far away. Now Ann
is resting for a little on the couch; she has had no sleep these two
nights, you know, and I am ready to call her up in a moment, if
grandmamma should stir ever so little."
"Is my precious mother then sleeping?"
"Yes, she is sleeping now; isn't it a comfort?--she has been so
restless, as if she were in pain; but she is quite peaceful now--so very
peaceful!"
"Oh that I could but look at her!" faltered Flora.
"I think that you might, if you crept in very softly."
"If I were to awaken her!"
"Oh! she does not look as if she would awake!"
The simple words of the child sent a sudden, strange thrill of terror
through Flora's heart! What if that deep sleep were a sleep which could
never be broken! Lady Legrange entered the silent apartment chilled
with the cold, faint and dizzy with watching, her trembling limbs
scarcely able to support her. The early gleam of morning, dimly seen
through the half-closed shutter, mingled its light with that of the
flickering, expiring night-lamp. The curtains of the invalid's bed were
drawn back to give her air--Lady Legrange again beheld her mother. She
looked on the dear face, which she had not seen for years--ah! what a
change time, sorrow, and sickness, had wrought there! Yet still
beautiful it lay in its perfect stillness, white as the pillow on which
it reclined. Every feature appeared sculptured in marble, in its calm,
unearthly serenity. The lips did not move, the bosom did not heave,
there was no quiver in the closed eyelids! Flora bent to listen: she
could not distinguish the slightest sound--oh! the relief that even a
moan would have brought to her then!
A little feather lay on the crimson coverlet; Flora raised it with a
trembling hand, placed it almost close to the lips of her mother, and
then watched it as a perishing castaway might watch a distant sail, the
one dim speck of hope on the dark waste of waters. It moved!--yes,
yes--it moved! It was not the morning breeze that stirred the down; the
breath of life had not passed away from those pallid lips; they might
yet speak a blessing--they were not closed for ever!
Flora retired from the room with noiseless step, shedding silent tears
of thankfulness and joy.
The doctor came, but would not disturb the sleeper. Every hour of quiet
repose, he said, would do more to restore the sufferer than all the
remedies which art could devise. He believed, he trusted, that the
crisis was past. Should this slumber continue every hope might be
indulged; but the house must be kept perfectly quiet.
And perfectly quiet it was kept. Even the sound of children's voices
was hushed, and little feet crept noiselessly down stairs. Johnny took
off his shoes ere he passed his grandmother's room. Flora still
continued at her melancholy post--watching at the door which she feared
to enter, weeping, praying, and reviewing her past life with deep
humility and contrition.
The sun had reached his noonday height, though remaining invisible
behind the clouds, which had been ceaselessly pouring down their white,
flaky showers upon the earth, when, with a rapid step and flushed
countenance, Johnny hurried towards Lady Legrange. He needed not the
gesture of her finger on her lip; he uttered not a word, spoke not a
question, but he thrust into her hand an open paper which had just been
brought from the telegraph office. Flora felt dizzy and confused; she
passed her hand across her eyes before she could read the paper, and
when she had read it every object appeared swimming around her. It was
brief, as such messages always are, but how terrible in its stern
brevity,--
"_Sir Amery has been thrown from his horse. Return home without delay,
if you would find him alive._"
That was all that was written, but it was enough--enough to wring the
heart, to fill the cup of anguish to overflowing! Flora started from
her seat--she was pale as death; but she uttered no cry--but one object
was before her now. Oh! for the lightning's wing to fly back to her
husband!
When the spirit is burning with an impatience which would make the
swiftness of the eagle appear slow, how intolerable are the petty
difficulties, the unavoidable delays which constantly interpose. Where
was a conveyance to be found in Wingsdale to take Flora to the station,
which was barely two miles distant? Johnny, a willing messenger,
started off in the snow-storm; but though the boy exerted his utmost
speed, it appeared a weary age to Flora before he returned. He came
back heated and tired, with disappointment in his glowing face. The
conveyance which Flora had employed on the previous day had returned to
the town, ten miles distant; the doctor, who alone boasted a little
carriage in Wingsdale, was out, and might not return before evening; the
farmer's horse had fallen lame;--there was no vehicle of any kind to be
procured.
"Then I will go on foot. Oh! that I had not delayed!" cried Flora,
wringing her hands; "I might have been at the station by this time."
In vain the wondering maid of Lady Legrange ventured to expostulate with
her mistress, pointed to the cloudy sky and the fast descending snow. No
earthly persuasion could stay the wife, not even the anxieties of the
daughter. These anxieties, indeed, had been in a certain measure
relieved; Mrs. Vernon had awoke calm and refreshed, and had dictated to
Lyddie a message of affection to be sent to her Flora, little dreaming
that at that moment the same roof covered them both.
Flora, accompanied only by her maid, set out on her gloomy journey. The
violence of the wind was so great, that umbrellas were left behind as
useless, while the falling snow so obscured the view, that the
travellers could see but a few yards before them. To Flora, however, the
path was so well known that she could have found her way blindfold. The
fields were one white level, save where, beside the glistening hedges,
the wind had drifted the snow into heaps. Flora's feet sank into the
white mass at each step, she toiled with difficulty along the path; yet
urged on by love and fear, she paused not for a moment even to take
breath, or to shake the snowflakes from her mantle. She thought not of
weariness, she thought not of suffering;--her whole soul was wrapped up
in her husband. Surely the road had lengthened since she last trod
it--would she never arrive at the place of her destination!
At length--at length the station is in sight, the little red-brick
building, standing alone where the telegraph posts, with their straight
black wires, stand in sharp defined outline against the white
back-ground. Ha! there is a sound! Flora starts with an exclamation of
distress--it is the shrill scream of the railway whistle--a long black
object is rolling away into the distance, swift and swifter! Flora gazes
after it with straining eyes, then sinks exhausted on a snow-heap beside
the road; no need to hasten on now--she has missed the train--she too
late!
Slowly and sadly, conscious now of utter weariness and exhaustion, Flora
made her way to the station. "When may the next train be expected?" was
her eager question when she arrived there.
"The next? about three hours hence."
How sank Flora's heart at the reply! Those hours might have been spent
beside her mother might be so still; but no, fainting nature refused the
effort; not the smallest hazard must be run of missing the next--the
latest train. Flora warmed her shivering frame at the fire in the one
bare little waiting-room at the station, then seated herself by the
small table, and leaning her arms upon it, bowed down upon them her
drooping head. She remained so long in this position that her maid
believed that she slept. Then Flora arose, and paced up and down like a
caged leopard, looked at her watch again and again, and gazed
impatiently out on the snow. The railway man was whistling an air; it
struck painfully on the lady's ear; in her utter misery it seemed
strange to Flora that any human being could be happy.
An express train rushed past with a roar like thunder, awakening for a
moment a hope which vanished like itself into darkness. Flora sat long
with her eyes fixed on the telegraph-paper, as though she could draw
from the lines, which she knew by heart, the information which their
brevity denied. Alas! her fears supplied its place too well.
The three hours passed--Time does move on, even when his wings are of
lead--but still no sight of the longed-for train.
"It is late," said the railway official; "doubtless its progress has
been delayed by the snow."
Flora could sit still no longer; she was in a fever of restless
expectation, and sorely her patience was tried. The train was long
behind time; night closed in before at length the welcome bell of
preparation was heard. Lady Legrange felt something almost resembling
joy when she found herself seated at last in the train with her maid. A
gentleman, whose features she could scarcely distinguish in the gloom,
was their only fellow-traveller in the carriage. He made some
common-place observation on the weather, which Flora neither
comprehended nor answered. Her thoughts were becoming a wild chaos: she
could not collect them sufficiently even for prayer.
On, on through the darkness and gloom--surely never train moved on so
slowly before!--surely never were so many vexatious delays! Flora wept
no longer; her fount of tears appeared to be dried up. Her brow was
throbbing with a burning pain; a band of iron seemed pressed across her
temples She was scarcely conscious of what was passing around her, when
the weary journey ended at last.