And there stood the house of Melmar, resting among its trees, in the
soft sweet darkness of the June night.
Perhaps Cameron’s heart failed him as he came so near--at least Cosmo
reached the house first. The foliage was so thick around that the
darkness seemed double in this circle round the house. You could only
see the colorless, dark woods, stretching back into the night, and the
gleam of blue sky over head, and the lighted windows in the house
itself--lights which suggested no happy household meeting, but were
astray among different windows in the upper story, telling their own
silent tale of illness and anxiety. Cosmo, standing before the door
which he knew so well, could only tell that Tyne was near by the low,
sweet tinkle of the water among the sighing leaves, and was aware of all
the summer flush of roses covering that side of the house by nothing
save the fragrance. He stood there gazing up for a moment at one light
which moved about from window to window with a strange restlessness, and
at another which burned steadily in Marie’s bed-chamber. He knew it to
be Marie’s chamber by instinct. A watch-light, a death-light, a low,
motionless flame, so sadly different from the wavering and brightening
of that other, which some anxious watcher carried about. Cosmo’s heart
grew sad within him as he thought of this great solemn death which was
coming on Marie. Poor Marie, with her invalid irritability, her little
feverish weakness, her ill-bestowed love! To think that one so tender
and wayward, from whom even reason and sober thought were not to be
expected, should, notwithstanding, go forth alone like every other soul
to stand by herself before her God, and that love and pity could no
longer help her, let them strain and struggle as they would! The
thought made Cosmo’s heart ache, he could not tell why.
Madame Roche met them at the door. She was not violently affected as
Cosmo feared--she only kept wiping from her eyes the tears which
perpetually returned to fill them, as he had seen his own mother do in
her trouble--and perhaps it is the common weeping of age which has no
longer hasty floods of youthful tears to spend upon any thing. She gave
a cry of joy when she saw Cameron.
“Ah, my friend, it is kind--God will reward you!” said Madame Roche,
“and you must come to her--there is little time--my child is dying.”
Cameron did not answer a word--he only threw down his hat and followed
her, restraining his step with a painful start when he heard it ring
against the pavement. Cosmo followed, not knowing what else to do, to
the door of the sick room. He did not enter, but as the door opened he
saw who and what was there. And strange to her son sounded the voice
which came out of that sad apartment--the voice of the Mistress reading
with her strong Scottish accent and old fashioned intonation, so
different from the silvery lady’s voice of Madame Roche, and the sweet
tones of Desirée. Spread out before her was the big Bible, the family
book of old Huntley of Melmar, and she was seated close by the bedside
of the sufferer, who lay pallid and wasted, with her thin hands crossed
upon the coverlet, and her whole soul in an agony of _listening_ not to
be described. Close by the Mistress, Desirée was kneeling watching her
sister. This scene, which he saw only in a momentary glance before the
door was closed, overpowered Cosmo. He threw himself down upon a
window-seat in the long corridor which led to this room, and covered his
face with his hands. The sudden and unexpected appearance of his mother
brought the young man’s excitement to a climax. How unjust, unkind,
ungenerous now seemed his own fears!
Madame Roche was one of those women who fear to meet any great emergency
alone. In the first shock of dismay with which she heard that Marie’s
life was fast hastening to its end, she wrote to Cosmo; and before it
was time for Cosmo to arrive--while indeed it was impossible that he
could even have received her letter--the poor mother, with an instinct
of her dependent nature, which she was not aware of and could not
subdue, hastened to send for the Mistress to help her to bear that
intolerable agony in which flesh and heart faint and fail--the anguish
of beholding the dying of her child. The Mistress, who under similar
circumstances would have closed her doors against all the world, came,
gravely and soberly to the call of this undeniable sorrow. In face of
that all the bitterness died out of her honest heart. Madame Roche had
already lost many children. “And I have all mine--God forgive me--I ken
nothing of _that_ grief,” cried Mrs. Livingstone, with a sob of mingled
thankfulness and terror. It was not her vocation to minister at
sick-beds, or support the weak; yet she went without hesitation, though
leaving Huntley to do both. And even before Madame Roche sent for her,
Desirée, who understood her character, had run over by herself early in
the morning, when, after watching all night, she was supposed asleep, to
tell the Mistress that her mother had written to Cosmo. So there was
neither cause nor intention of offense between the sad family at Melmar
and that of Norlaw. When she came to Marie’s sick-bed, the Mistress
found that poor sufferer pathetically imploring some one to tell her of
the unknown world to which she was fast approaching--while Madame Roche,
passionately reproaching herself for leaving her daughter uninstructed,
mingled with her self-accusations, vague words about heaven and
descriptions of its blessedness which fell dull upon the longing ears of
the anxious invalid. The harps and the white robes, the gates of pearl
and the streets of gold were nothing to Marie--what are they to any one
who does not see there the only presence which makes heaven a reality?
The Mistress had no words to add to the poor mother’s anxious eager
repetition of all the disjointed words, describing heaven, which abode
in her memory--but instead, went softly down stairs and returned with
the big Bible, the old, well remembered book, which never failed to
produce a certain awe in Madame Roche--and this was how it happened that
Cosmo found his mother reading to Marie.
When Cameron entered the room, the Mistress, who had not paused,
continued steadily with the reading of her gospel. He, for his part, did
not interrupt her--he went to the other side of the bed and sat down
there, looking at the white face which he had never seen since he saw it
in St. Ouen, scarcely less pale, yet bright enough to appear to his
deluded fancy a star which might light his life. That was not an hour or
place to think of those vain human dreams. Sure as the evening was
sinking into midnight, this troubled shadow of existence was gliding on
toward the unspeakable perfection of the other life. A little while, and
words would no more vail the face of things to this uninstructed soul--a
little while--but as he sat by Marie’s death-bed the whole scene swam
and glimmered before Cameron’s eyes--“A little while and ye shall not
see me--and again a little while and ye shall see me.” Oh these
ineffable, pathetic, heart breaking words! They wandered out and in
through Cameron’s mind in an agony of consolation and of tears. He heard
the impatient anxious mother stop the reading--he felt her finger tap
upon his arm urging him to speak--he saw Marie turn her tender, dying
eyes toward him--he tried to say something but his voice failed him--and
when at last he found utterance, with a tearless sob, which it was
impossible to restrain, the words which burst from his lips with a
vehement outcry, which sounded loud though it was nearer a whisper, were
only these:--“Jesus! Jesus! our Lord!”
Only these!--only that everlasting open secret of God’s grace by which
He brings heaven and earth together! The gentle, blue eyes, which were
no longer peevish, brightened with a wistful hope. There was comfort in
the very name; and then this man--who labored for the wretched--whom
himself could not force his human heart to love, because his Master
loved them--this man, whom poor Marie never suspected to have loved her
in _her_ selfish weakness with the lavish love of a prodigal, who throws
away all--this man stood up by the bedside with his gospel. He himself
did not know what he said--perhaps neither did she, who was too far upon
her way to think of words--but the others stood round with awe to hear.
Heaven? No, it was not heaven he was speaking of--there was no time for
those celestial glories, which are but a secondary blessing; and Cameron
had not a thought in his heart save for this dying creature and his
Lord.
Was it darker out of doors under the skies? No; there was a soft young
moon silvering over the dark outline of the trees, and throwing down a
pale glory over this house of Melmar, on the roof, which glimmered like
a silver shield; and, in the hush, the tinkling voice of Tyne and the
breath of the roses, and a sweet white arrow of moonlight, came in, all
mingled and together, into the chamber of death. Yet, somehow, it is
darker--darker. This pale figure, which is still Marie, feels it so, but
does not wonder--does not ask--is, indeed, sinking into so deep a quiet,
that it does not trouble her with any fears.
“I go to sleep,” she says faintly, with the sweetest smile that ever
shone upon Marie’s lips, “I am so well. Do not cry, mamma; when I wake,
I shall be better. I go to sleep.”
And so she would, and thus have reached heaven unawares, but for the
careless foot which pushed the door open, and the excited figure which
came recklessly in. At sight of him, Cameron instantly left the
bedside--instantly without a word, quitted the room--and began to walk
up and down the corridor, where Cosmo stood waiting. Pierrot began
immediately to address his wife:--His wife!--his life!--his angel! was
it by her orders that strangers came to the house, that his commands
were disobeyed, that he himself was kept from her side? He begged his
adored one to shake off her illness, to have a brave spirit, to get up
and rouse herself for his sake.
“What, my Marie! it is but courage!” cried her husband. “A man does not
die who will not die! Up, my child! Courage! I will forsake you no
more--you have your adored husband--you will live for him. We shall be
happy as the day. Your hand, my angel! Have courage, and rise up, and
live for your Emile’s sake!”
And all the peace that had been upon it fled from Marie’s face. The
troubled eagerness of her life came back to her. “Yes Emile!” she
whispered, with breathless lips, and made the last dying effort to rise
up at his bidding and follow him. Madame Roche threw herself between,
with cries of real and terrified agony; and the Mistress, almost glad to
exchange her choking sympathy for the violent, sudden passion which now
came upon her, went round the bed with the silence and speed of a ghost,
seized his arm with a grip of imperative fury not to be resisted, and,
before he was aware, had thrust him before her to the door. When she had
drawn it close behind her, she shook him like a child with both her
hands. “You devil!” cried the Mistress, transported out of all decorum
of speech by a passion of indignation which the scene almost warranted.
“You dirty, miserable hound! how daur you come there? If you do not
begone to your own place this instant--Cosmo, here! She’s gone, the poor
bairn. He has nae mair right in this house, if he ever had ony--take him
away.”
But while this violent scene disturbed the death calm of the house, it
did not disturb Marie. She had seen for herself by that time, better
than any one could have told her, what robes they wore and what harps
they played in the other world.