CONCLUSION.
There is nothing colder than a night-vigil; be the curtains drawn never
so closely, the fire piled never so high, there still comes an hour at
the turn of the night when the cold steals inside the draperies, and
takes up its position on the hearth alongside the watcher, seeming to
say, “I have as good a right to the heat as you,” and it absorbs the
heat accordingly.
What is that shiver which tells us, spite of fires and closed doors,
that the turn of the night has come; that chill which creeps through the
body, even in the summer time, if we are keeping our solitary watch by
the sick-bed, or travelling hour after hour through the darkness?
Some people say that the hour before dawn is the coldest, and this is
possible; but it is not cold with the peculiar chilliness of which I am
now speaking, and which produces precisely the same effect upon the
nerves as the sudden withdrawal of pressure at the gas-works produces in
a room.
In a moment the lights of the soul seem to burn dim, while that strange
cold crosses the threshold and takes possession of the watcher’s spirit.
None perhaps, save those who have habitually watched through the night,
worked at a trade or a profession, or sat in attendance on the sick,
will understand exactly what I am trying to write about, and yet the
effects of this atmospheric change must have been felt some time or
other by all men and all women to whose fate it has fallen ever to keep
a solitary vigil, or to walk alone at night either through London or the
country, or beside the desolate sea-shore.
It is at that hour they come fully to comprehend why intramural burials
are so pernicious—it is then the sewers give forth their effluvia, and
the scent of flowers grows heavy and oppressive—it is then we close the
window to keep the smell of the seringa from entering our chamber, and
cast away the lilies that seemed once so sweet—then we take desponding
views of sickness and of the future, and shrink alike from the work of
this world, and the rest of the unseen!
Through the night, Mr. Aggland and Phemie and the nurse watched Basil
Stondon, and when the hour to which I have referred came, Phemie arose,
and, wrapping her shawl more closely round her, moved to the side of the
sleeper and took up her position there.
As she did so, the lights in her heart were burning dim. She feared the
worst—she believed he would not recover, and that the end was very near.
She had persuaded Georgina to lie down, promising to call her should
there be any decided change for the worse. The nurse was dozing on a
sofa behind the door; Mr. Aggland, seated by the fire, was reading
Jeremy Taylor’s sermon concerning the “Foolish Exchange;” and there was
a great stillness in the room as well as that peculiar cold, while
Phemie softly drew a chair to the bedside in order to watch the sleeper
more closely.
Eighteen years, or thereabouts, have elapsed since first in the church
at Tordale, when the summer sun was shining on the earth, you, reader,
were introduced to Phemie Keller. Should you care in that which is the
darkest and coldest hour of all the night to gaze upon her again?
Those authors who, commencing with heroines of eighteen, take leave of
them when they quit the church-door at twenty, have a great advantage
over the other members of their craft who are compelled to talk of women
when they have passed the Rubicon of female attractiveness.
Youth is so pretty, so fresh, so engaging, so full of poetry and romance
and gaiety! And once youth is gone, when there are lines on the brow,
and memories in the heart, and graves in the past, how shall the
interest of the story be kept up—the reader led on to follow the path of
maid, or wife, or widow into middle age?
Still, as lives are lived after twenty, so the tale of those lives must
be told; and, although eighteen years have gone, Phemie’s beauty has not
quite departed with them—it is not a thing of the past to this present
day.
She wears her widow’s cap, and the glory of auburn hair still remains
thick and glossy, sunshiny and wonderful, as of old. It may not be the
young hair that first attracted Captain Stondon, but it is a woman’s
hair for all that—soft, luxuriant, beautiful as ever.
What more, you ask, what more? Oh! friends, we cannot both eat our cake
and have it. We may not go through the years, and enjoy them, we may
live through the years, and learn experience out of them, and remain
just as we were at the beginning.
How would you wish it to be? We came upon her first a girl—a farmer’s
adopted daughter—dressed in a large-patterned, faded gown—in a coarse
straw bonnet—unacquainted with the usages of society—a child of the
hills, who had her dreams of fortune, and admiration, and love,
nevertheless, just like your daughters, sir, and yours, and yours.
Once again you look upon her, but draw back, declaring this cannot be
Phemie Keller! And yet the change which seems so wonderful to you has
come gradually upon her, and it is the past which seems to her
incredible, rather than the present.
A self-possessed and still beautiful woman—a saint rather then a
Hebe—with lilies abiding in her pure face rather than roses—with
features regular and perfect as of old.
Should you not like that face to be near you when you lie dying? I
should. It gives the idea of all passion, all envy, all jealousy, all
uncharitableness, having been taken out of it by the grace of God.
She still wears black. Till she is laid in her coffin, I do not think
Phemie will ever cease to do so; but black, as Duncan Aggland somewhat
cynically remarked, is becoming to her, and few people would wish to see
Mrs. Stondon differently attired.
As for the rest, she has, as she had ever, lovely hands, and a stately
figure, and a gracious presence; somewhat thin she may be, somewhat too
slight for her height; but yet her admirers dispute this fact, and
declare Mrs. Stondon to be perfection.
This shall be as you please, reader; for those who love Phemie best,
affirm it is not for her outward beauty, they delight in this woman,
whose story is almost told; but rather because there is that in her
which they can trust and honour, which they have searched for elsewhere
in vain.
She has come forth from the fire purified, and the face which looks on
Basil Stondon is the face of one who, having passed through deep waters,
has found rest for her soul at last.
Yet her thoughts were not happy as she sate by the bed gazing on the
sleeper.
She sate thinking about him, and about men like him. She marvelled how
the world would go on, if all in it were as weak, as helpless, as
vacillating as he. She wondered, if he recovered, how it would be with
him and Georgina. And she could not help going on to speculate what her
lot might have proved had it been cast with such a husband, instead of
with the true, good man who had stood between her and the world—who had
loved her better than himself—who had remembered her in the hour of his
bitterest agony,—and who had left her with his wealth no restriction
save to make herself happy if she could.
People think about strange things when they watch by sick-beds. It is
not always the malady which absorbs them—not always the end they sit
considering; rather, oftentimes, they speculate about the patient,
wondering concerning him and life, and his allotted part in the great
drama—how far his existence has been useful—how far, according to their
light, the world would have been better or worse had such an one never
existed.
Very vaguely Phemie recalled the years of Basil’s life since he and she
met, and marvelled whether his future, if he were spared, would be as
purposeless as his past had been.
There lay a great sorrow at her heart—a sorrow too deep for tears—as she
looked on the face of the man she had loved so long and so intensely.
Sleep always is a wonderful state to contemplate—except in the case of a
child. The man’s troubles are forgotten—his schemes laid aside—his
thoughts are far away from the concerns of his every-day life;—and his
body shares in the great change likewise—the keen eyes are closed—the
windows of the brain are closely shaded—the lips open to utter no biting
sarcasm—no ready excuse—no words of censure—no sentence of
explanation;—the features remain quiet—the over-wrought nerves are
still.
Never a movement is there, either in the restless fingers or in the
hands, that are so seldom unemployed. Almost feigning death, the sleeper
remains so quiet that the watcher longs to wake him—to bring him back
from himself and rest, to his fellows and the rush and bustle and hurry
of life.
Time after time Phemie rose and bent over the sick man, to assure
herself he was still breathing. Softly as the summer wind touches the
leaves, she laid her fingers on his wrist, to feel if the pulse were
still beating; till, at length satisfied there was no cause for
immediate apprehension, she leaned back in her chair and waited—waited,
for whatever might be the result.
He had aged more than she. There were deeper lines on his face than on
hers—thin and white were his cheeks—worn and wasted his body—his hair
was all tangled—his beard and moustache untrimmed. Basil, the young
strong man, was gone, and there lay there in his stead another Basil to
him who had walked with her among the heather and across the fells.
The night wore on, and through the closed blinds dawn peeped with grey
eyes into the sick-chamber; then, in due time, the sun began to rise,
and Phemie turned wearily to greet his beams.
How would it be in that room when the sun set? Would she then have
looked her last on Basil Stondon living. Should she thenceforth have to
think of him as dead?
She crossed the room and, putting the curtains aside, looked out. It was
a lovely morning in the early spring, and the birds were singing their
fiercest—piping fit to burst their little throats for joy that it was
daylight once again. All the east towards which she gazed was glorious
with colour, and the distant sea lay like a lake reflecting back the
sky.
Sadly, and with a gesture of utter weariness, Mrs. Stondon dropped the
curtains and returned to her post. Her eyes were dazzled with the bright
sunlight, and for the moment she could not see that Basil was awake and
looking at her.
“Phemie,” he said; and then she knew he was saved. And while the sun
rose higher and higher in the heavens—while the songs of the birds grew
louder and more frantic—while the sea rolled gently in upon the
shore—while every tree, and leaf, and shrub, and flower looked bright
and glad in the light of morning—a great cry of exceeding joy ascended
to the Throne of God; for the man was left to make a better thing of his
life—to be a spendthrift of his time and a waster of his happiness, a
faithless steward and a thankless unprofitable servant, never more.
She did not let him see his wife for a time. The illness had been too
sharp to allow of sudden surprises—of much conversation during
convalescence; but, as the days passed by, Phemie talked to him about
his wife—about their unhappy disagreements—and openly and without
reserve, as though she had been speaking of some other person, about
herself.
Not without tears did she speak of that past Eden in which they had
eaten of the fruit which brings forth death. Not unmoved did she talk of
her own shortcomings—of her own repentance. From the old text she
preached the sermon of their lives but as no good sermon ends without
holding out some hope for him who turns from the evil of his ways, and
seeks even at the eleventh hour to cleave to the right—so Phemie, having
faith that every word she spoke was true, assured Basil it was certain
he might yet know happiness, and come in time to think of the story I
have told but as a trouble that had been borne—as sorrow which had been
endured.
She made him comprehend, after much difficulty, how faulty he had been
in his conduct towards his wife. Never did she weary of repeating to him
her belief that it was in his own power to make or to mar the peace of
every future hour.
“You have never understood each other—you have never tried to comprehend
her—you have never allowed her to understand you; but now, as you must
travel through your lives together, do try to travel peaceably.”
“And your future, Phemie,” he asked—“what of that?”
“It shall be happy, too,” she answered. “We do not look for a land
without shadows when the noontime is over; but the land on which the
evening light is shining may be very beautiful for all that.”
And she laid her hand in his which he stretched out towards her; and the
man and the woman who had loved one another so much when their high noon
of life threw no shadow, looked steadfastly at one another, and
discoursed silently, he to her, she to him.
In that hour, heart told to heart all it had suffered—all it felt strong
enough to do. Without a word being spoken, each knew what was passing
through the other’s mind; and as their fingers locked together and then
were withdrawn, Phemie comprehended that Basil had sworn to God he would
strive in the future to make atonement for the past.
As he might have gripped a man’s hand in order to confirm a promise, to
render verbal assurance unnecessary, Basil grasped with thin fingers the
soft, small white hand, which she put in his.
And thus they buried the old love for ever; and so Basil returned from
the darkness of the valley of death—death physical and mental—to take
his place in the world, and to fulfil the duties which his wealth and
his station entailed upon him.
As for Phemie, what more is there to tell, save that she is now a happy,
and a contented, and a useful woman; still beautiful, and still a widow.
Suitors come to her, suitors such as she dreamed of when she built
castles in the air among the Cumberland hills, but Phemie’s answer to
one and all is—No.
If she could live her life over again with her present experience; if
she could retrace the old road with a knowledge of its snares and its
pitfalls, she would choose a second time as she chose the first, and
take for her husband the man to whom she would strive to be a faithful
and loving wife—the man who in the first chapter of this story, after
toiling under the noontide heat, came suddenly within view of Tordale
church, and who beside Strammer Tarn, amid the purple heather, within
sound of the plashing waterfall, where ivy and lichens covered the face
of the rocks, and ferns and foxglove grew between the stones, and the
stream laved the mosses and the tender blades of grass, wooed and won,
young, vain, fanciful, blue-eyed, auburn-haired Phemie Keller.
THE END.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.