THE LAST ENEMY.
It did not require any very great amount of pressing to induce Miss
Derno to exchange her lodgings in Robertson Terrace for rooms at
Roundwood. She was ready enough to make the attempt, at all events, for
there is something in human nature which rebels at the idea of dying
among strangers, and paying extra rent for a death.
“I shall only be a burden and a trouble to you,” she said, in answer to
Phemie, “only be a nuisance in your house—you had better leave me where
I am.” But still her eyes belied her lips; they looked wistfully at Mrs.
Stondon, while she replied—
“I had not better leave you, and I will not. It is but little I can do
for you now, but let me have the satisfaction of doing that little. Say
you will come—it is all I ask, we will manage everything else, if only
you can bear to leave Hastings and come with us.”
“But I have so many belongings,” hesitated the other; “my cousin, and
maid, and—and—have you mentioned the matter to Major Morrice?”
“Yes, and he has agreed to make Roundwood his head-quarters for the
present too,” answered Phemie, cheerfully; but as she said this, Miss
Derno looked first in the sweet face bent down over her, and then turned
away and sighed.
Would it ever come to that?—when she was lying cold and dead—would
Gordon Morrice grow in time to love Phemie, and would Phemie learn to
love him? The possibility of such a result flashed upon the poor
invalid’s mind in a moment; and if tears did blind her eyes, who can
wonder?
She had loved the man, and he could never be anything to her now; but
another might be much to him, and if that other should be Mrs. Stondon,
why better Mrs. Stondon than anyone else, for then her memory would not
quite pass away; they would think of her sometimes in the quiet
eventide—remember the woman who had loved them both.
There is many an idea that seems unpleasant enough at first, which yet
grows, as time passes by, familiar and agreeable; the face of a possible
contingency appears strange when it looks in suddenly through the
windows of our soul, but by degrees that strangeness wears off, and we
become accustomed to its presence, and should miss it were it to leave
its wonted place.
Our plans and our ideas come to seem to us finally like friends; we
sketch them, we fill them in, we add a touch here, make some improvement
there, and then, when we have finished and perfected them, we cannot
bear to part with our ideals—cannot endure that the touch of reality
should level our dream-castles with the ground.
Miss Derno found this to be the truth, at any rate. At first the idea of
Phemie and Gordon Morrice growing near and dear to one another disturbed
and troubled her; but as the days went by—as she beheld the objectless
routine of Mrs. Stondon’s life—as she saw how the sorrows she had passed
through were graven on her heart—how deep the iron had entered into her
soul; as she watched her flitting hither and thither, anticipating every
want of her sick visitor, and moving heaven and earth to compass her
recovery, Miss Derno began to hope—she who had done with hope in this
world for herself—that some day Phemie might marry Gordon Morrice, and
put the irremediable past, with its sin, its suffering, its repentance,
away from her like a garment which, having been worn, is laid aside for
ever.
That Phemie should not marry again—that in the very prime of her life
she should thrust hope and love and joy aside—that she should live for
other people’s children, and preside over a desolate and lonely
household, seemed to Miss Derno terrible, and she took many an occasion
to talk to Mrs. Stondon about the past and about the future, trying her
mind on various subjects, but finding that only two strings in the
instrument returned their full tone to her delicate touch.
She would speak fully about the past, about her husband, about—well,
there is no use in standing over nice in the terms one employs—her
lover; repentance, and affection; her regret for her husband, her regard
for Basil.
“Why should I tell you any falsehood about the matter?” Phemie said, one
day; “it is all dead and gone—the love, the shame, the struggle, the
remorse. I did love Basil Stondon, but I love him no longer; the moment
I saw his wife I was cured, and being cured, I wonder how any man can
love another man’s wife. I could not love another woman’s husband. I
could not,” she repeated, seeing a look of incredulity in Miss Derno’s
face.
“And yet you say you have done with life?”
“What has that to do with the matter?”
“Much. No person has done with life till he has met with some fatal
disappointment in it. If you shut yourself up here, seeing no one,
visiting no one, receiving no one, not even your intimate
acquaintances—both Basil and his wife will be apt to think you are a
disappointed woman, and after a while the world may think so too.”
“What would you have me do?” Phemie inquired.
“I would have you act as if your life were before, not behind you; as
though there were still some happiness left in existence, even though
Basil be married, and Georgina mistress of Marshlands. I would not have
you leave the world and take a kind of social veil, burying yourself
among these cousins of yours, and forgetting that a woman of property
has scarcely a right to reside in such strict privacy as you propose.
When your time of mourning is over, go out, see people, visit, take an
interest in what is going on around you, and you will find as the years
pass that happiness comes with occupation, and that the worst remedy in
the world for a wound is always to be keeping your hands upon it and
pulling the sore open.”
“I have occupied myself,” Phemie answered. “I have planned schools. I
have visited the poor. I have relieved the sick. I have devoted myself
to my family.”
“My dear Mrs. Stondon, you must do more. You must amuse yourself. You
must devote yourself to the good work of getting strong, mentally and
bodily; of taking joy out of the days as they come and go; of being
interested—really interested—in your fellows. Do it at first from pride.
Put it out of anyone’s power to say Mrs. Stondon is a broken-hearted and
a disappointed woman.”
“That can never be said with any truth of me,” answered Phemie, “for I
am not disappointed, and I am not broken-hearted; and if Basil had never
seen Georgina Hurlford, it would not have made any difference between
us. After that—after that letter, I would never marry any one—I never
would.” And Phemie covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
“What letter are you talking about?” asked Miss Derno.
“I am talking of the one my husband left for me. I will show it to you.
I have never shown it before to any person.” And Mrs. Stondon rose and
left the room, returning in a few minutes, however, with the letter,
which has previously been copied into these pages.
“Read that,” she said, “and never speak again as if I could marry a
second time. Oh! if I had but known; if I had but known!”
If she had but known! Ah, Phemie, not alone by you have those words been
spoken. Tremblingly, despairingly, when it was too late, white lips have
murmured that sentence—faltering tongues uttered it hopelessly.
If she had but known! Is not that the burden of most human lamentations,
of most mortal regret? What might we not all, men and women alike, have
made of our lives, which are now past and gone, squandered and lost to
us, if we had but known—oh, God! if we had but known!
Silently Miss Derno folded up the letter and gave it back to her friend.
Quietly and thoughtfully she looked out at the landscape which lay
before her, clad in its autumn robes of gold and russet, of red and
brown, then she said—
“Dear Phemie—let me call you Phemie—if he could speak to you now, he
would bid you be happy; and you will try to be happy for our sakes—for
his and for mine—for love of your dead husband and your dead friend.”
“I will try.”
“And supposing, Phemie, that in the future some good and faithful man
should come, praying you to be his wife, and that you hesitate whether
to say yea or nay, will you think of this letter and of me, and remember
that both told you it would be no treachery to those you loved in the
past for you to be happy in the future?”
Then in a moment Phemie’s grief broke out again.
“You will have it, then?” she said. “Well, then, you shall, only never
mention the matter to me more. If I had loved less, I should have
suffered less. Basil Stondon was so dear to me, that no man could ever
win my heart again. This is the simple truth; and it is the truth, also,
that I would not marry Basil Stondon were he single to-morrow, and came
praying to me—praying as——”
She could not finish her sentence. The memory of all he had prayed—of
the grief he had tried to bring upon her—of all the shame he had striven
in his selfish recklessness to compass—rushed in a full tide through
Phemie’s heart, and choked her utterance.
“She will think differently some day,” Miss Derno mentally argued; but
the sick woman felt disappointed, nevertheless. She would have liked to
join their hands, to speak out fully to both of them, to bid them be
happy, yet not quite forgetful of her, and then, as such was God’s will,
to go.
It was not to be, however; though Phemie grew to like Major Morrice
greatly, though he learned to watch her coming and going and made such
inquiries as induced Miss Derno to believe he suspected the truth, so
far at least as Basil Stondon was concerned—it was not to be. The sick
woman’s disease went on apace, but never a bit nearer to one another
came the pair. The months went by—it was the dead time of the year, the
days were dull and dark, and the roll of the sea as it came in on the
shore could be heard all the night long at Roundwood. There were many
storms, and it was a trying season altogether—trying even to those in
health, to the dwellers in great cities, and doubly trying to the ailing
and dying far away in the country, who had nothing to do save think
about their ailments, and nothing to look at save nature dressed in her
deepest suit of mourning.
At last the year turned: and one day, when the sun came struggling
forth, Phemie said—
“We shall soon have spring here.”
“I wish I might live to see it—oh, I wish I might,” answered Miss Derno.
“Why, surely, dear, you have no expectation of leaving us so soon?” Mrs.
Stondon began; but a look in her friend’s face made her stop and
hesitate. “I had hoped,” she went on, “that the mild weather would do
you good—that we perhaps might go abroad—and——”
“Ah, Phemie love, you must go abroad alone; only I wish I might live
till the spring. I think I should go away more certain about the next
world if I could only once again see the flowers springing and the
leaves budding in this.”
Greatly Miss Derno took, in those days, to Mr. Aggland. He could supply
her with a verse or an extract at any instant. He had the whole Bible
almost off by heart, and was able to finish out whatever thought was
trembling through her mind with text and quotation.
Sometimes Phemie would say, half-reproachfully, “I think you like better
to have my uncle with you than me.” To which Miss Derno was wont to
reply,
“You know you do not believe what you are saying; but still it is very
pleasant to have everything put into shape for one in a moment. There is
not a thought crosses my mind, not a doubt perplexes me, but I find the
same thought has occupied and the same doubt perplexed some other human
being long before I was born. Your uncle makes me not feel so lonely in
my mind, Phemie—that is the secret of my liking to have him near me.”
And it was but natural that this should be so—that the texts, the
quotations, the scraps of poetry, the verses of pathetic songs should,
as Miss Derno said, render the mental road she was travelling less
solitary and weary.
Long time had passed since Mr. Aggland led the quire at Tordale, and his
voice was not so true or full as formerly; but still, in the evenings,
the invalid loved to lie and listen to the hymns and the songs with
which his memory was stored.
It is one thing to hear religious and serious subjects spoken of at
great length, till the brain grows weary and the mind wandering—to have
a full meal forced upon weak digestion at stated intervals—and another
to have the cup of refreshment touch the lips whenever they are parched
and feverish.
When there is too much thrust upon the patient the power of assimilation
ceases, and the food which was intended to nourish turns to poison in
the system; and, more especially when the act of dying is spread over a
long period, the sufferer wearies of the constant recurrence to
spiritual topics and longs for rest—longs for time to think out one fact
ere another is placed before him for consideration.
This was Miss Derno’s case at all events. She could not have borne any
one beside her who would constantly have been praying or constantly
reading. This excitement, beneficial doubtless in some cases, would have
driven her distracted; but she loved to talk in the evenings to Mr.
Aggland on those subjects which had always dwelt next to his heart.
He had thought under the shadow of the everlasting hills about that land
“where sorrow cometh never.” Walking round his farm, he had reflected on
many things besides wheat and turnips, sheep and harvest time. He had
considered his life, and felt, though at the period Carlyle was as a
sealed book to him, life was no idle dream, but a solemn reality—his
own—all, as the great writer says, “he had to front Eternity with.”
A man of this nature was just the person Miss Derno needed to be near
her in the hour of her bitterest trial: one who could remind her that
“God is better than his promise, if He takes from man a long lease and
gives him a freehold of a greater value;” who never remained silent for
lack of words, as so many of us do, but could always fit in the right
sentence in the right place; whose “mynde to him a kyngdome was,” and
who felt himself monarch over every idea it contained.
Who was more fitted to remind the dying woman that “Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?” Who could better bring in the
quotation, “Religion troubles you for an hour—it repays you by
immortality?”
Did she shrink from the path before her—he was able to quote Moir—
“When spectral silence pointeth to decay,
How preacheth wisdom to the conscious breast?
Saying—‘Each foot that roameth here shall rest.
To God and Heaven, Death is the only way.’”
Were she wavering and doubtful, he would say—
“Oh! my friend,
That your faith were as mine—that thou couldst see
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction—couldst behold
The strifes and tumults of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest.”
He could assure her, when she felt loth to leave the world—
“That there is nothing beautiful in this,
The passioned soul has clasped—but shall partake
Its everlasting essence—not a scent
Of rain-drench’d flower, nor fleece of evening cloud
Which blended with a thought that rose to heaven,
Shall ever die.”
Never weary was he of talking about the fair land where—
“Unbroken droop the laden boughs, with heavy fruitage bent;
Of incense and of odours strange, the air is redolent;
And neither sun, nor moon, nor stars dispense their changeful light,
But the Lamb’s eternal glory, makes the happy city bright.”
Never did he tire when his theme was of that City “whose inhabitants no
census has numbered; through whose streets rush no tides of business;
that city without grief or graves—sins or sorrows; whose walls are
salvation, and whose gates are praise.”
Softly, in the firelight, while she leaned back in her chair, and
listened to his voice, he would recite—
“There is rest without ony travaille,
And there is pees without ony strife,
And there is bright sommer ever to see,
And there is never winter in that countrie,
And there is great melody of angels’ songe,
And there is preysing Him amonge,
And there is alle manner friendship that may be,
And there is ever perfect love and charitie,
And there is wisdom without folye,
And there is honestie without vileneye.”
Was she timorous—“Death,” he assured her, “is but a shadow from the rock
eternity.”
But why multiply examples? why go on to tell at greater length how the
whole burden of his discourse was—
“But since our souls’ now sin-obscured light
Shines through the lanthorn of our flesh so bright;
What sacred splendour will this star send forth
When it shall shine without this vail of Earth?”
She had to travel a darksome road, but he brightened the way for her. He
was so sure himself, concerning the certainty of the truths he uttered,
that it seemed impossible for her to doubt. A man himself who had never
much regarded the ways, nor manners, nor fashions of this present world,
he was able to give her, who had lived in the world all her life, many
hints as to where she was going astray, in what errors she was
indulging.
He brought her the first snowdrop that put its head above ground; he
searched all the banks and hedgerows for the “pale primrose;” he told
her when and where the birds were building, and how many eggs there were
in the blackbird’s nest.
Well, she had her wish! She lived to touch snowdrops and primroses; to
hear the birds singing, and see the trees putting forth; she lived till
nature put off her winter clothing, and the sun shone over the earth
once more; then——
“Gordon, I feel I shall soon have to go now,” she said, one morning.
“Thank you for staying with me to the last.”
She put her arms round his neck, and drew his face down to hers.
“If all had gone well,” she whispered, “we should now have been man and
wife for sixteen years. I wonder would that have made this parting any
easier?”
Over and over and over again Major Morrice kissed her, but it was a
minute before he could steady his voice sufficiently to answer—
“You know I wanted you to be my wife even at the end.”
“I know it,” she sighed; “but Gordon, if you marry, as I hope you may,
you will not feel it so hard to put another in the place I did not quite
fill, as——”
“Oh, my love, my love! was it for my sake you refused?” and the man’s
tears fell upon her like rain; “as if I could ever put another in your
place; as though my life were not over to all intents and purposes now.”
“I want Phemie,” was the only answer she made, and Phemie drew near.
“You will be friends when I am gone,” she went on, speaking thickly and
with difficulty. “You will not grow to be quite strangers to one another
as time goes by. You will let Gordon talk about me to you, won’t you,
dearest. And Gordon,” he stooped his head, and Phemie drew back—“if ever
you think—in time—do not let any thought of me—remember I wished——”
Fortunate was it for Phemie that she had no idea of what caused Major
Morrice’s face to flush so painfully in an instant—what made him look
aside as she arranged the pillows for her who would so soon have done
with earth—for her who was passing swiftly to that land where no kindly
offices avail—where love, and tenderness, and regret, and unselfishness
are equally useless and vain.
All the day long they never left her; all the day long she lay waiting
for death to come, and it was quite evening ere she went.
Beside her were some flowers, fresh gathered in the morning, withered
and dying.
“The flower fadeth,” she said, feebly, turning towards Mr. Aggland; and,
answering her thoughts, he answered—
“But the word of our God shall stand for ever.” A few minutes more and
it was all over.
“Comfort him for me, Phemie,” were her last words; and with her hand
clasped in that of the man she had loved so faithfully, she fell asleep.
She lived, as she had desired, till the flowers sprang and the trees
budded; and she left this world certain about the next.
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” said Mr. Aggland,
thoughtfully, as he lingeringly left the room.