MARGARET'S CONFLICT.
Margaret had sent Philip back to the Ampezzo Valley as soon as she
reached Berne, and before Rachel Goldsmith could join her there. The
feeling that she had left her husband apparently in anger--though it
was no ordinary anger that had possession of her--made her anxious that
their son should return to him as soon as possible. Philip was
disinclined to leave her; but they talked together quietly and fully of
this terrible discovery, and of all its consequences, and she pointed
out to him what, in her eyes, his path of duty clearly was. He must
accept the past, with all its present outgrowth, and not make the
harvest more bitter than it was by ineffectual reproaches and regrets.
What did it really matter, for the brief span of this life, whether he
passed through the world as a poor man or rich, distinguished or
obscure? He was running the race set before him, and far other eyes
than those of man were witnessing his career. Margaret, from her lofty
point of view, was nearer Philip in his youthful idealism than Sidney
could be, and his mother's counsels gave to him the courage and
hopefulness which seemed to his father so strange and pathetic.
But Margaret herself was passing through the fiercest and most painful
crisis of her life. The blow that had fallen had struck at the deepest
roots of her being. It seemed as if she had linked her whole
existence, down to its innermost fibers, with a nature absolutely at
variance with it. This husband, whom she loved so perfectly, had been
living all these years beside her a life of base treachery and
dissimulation. She marveled as she thought of his daily intercourse
with her maid Rachel, Sophy Goldsmith's aunt, and of his constant
friendliness toward Andrew. How could he bear to see their grief and
suspense, nay, even pretend to share it, and to pursue the search after
their lost child? Was it possible that human nature contained such
depths of duplicity? He had kept silence amid all their mourning, and
made his silence seem full of sympathy. To be guilty of such infamy,
for any reason whatever, seemed inexplicable to her. But to do it for
the sake of money and position! If he had not owned it with his own
lips, no force of accumulated evidence could have compelled her into
belief.
Yet her heart was very tender toward him. His sin seemed to stain her
own soul, so closely was she bound to him; for still she loved him.
Rather she felt as if she loved him with a deeper fullness, because of
her unutterable pity for his misery. She did not know for certain what
he would do; but she would hope, even against hope, that he would pass
through this gulf that lay between them, and reach her on the clear
heights from which she looked down upon his wrong-doing. He was fallen
indeed; but she would rather be his wife than fill any other position
in the world. He could never be less dear to her than he had always
been.
She blamed herself for her too great reticence and silence as to her
own spiritual experience. It was so sacred, and yet so natural to her,
that she had rarely attempted to put it into words. If she loved her
husband's soul it must show itself in deeds, not speech. Her love to
God, her discipleship toward Jesus Christ, must be displayed in the
same way; if those around her could not see it in her daily life, it
would be useless to proclaim it. What she felt herself she attributed
to others. God was nearer to every soul than any fellow-creature could
be, and his dealings with each soul was wrapped in a veil impenetrable
to the understanding or comprehension even of those closest and dearest
to it. What God was saying to her husband's soul she could not know.
And no action of Sidney's life had taught her that they were worlds
apart in their spiritual experience.
Now she saw in a new light that sin which Christ denounced above all
sins--hypocrisy. In a book she had read a short time before she had
come across these sentences: "Howbeit now I know well that Jesus came
not to prophesy smooth things, but to teach us the truth. Therefore
was it most needful that he should speak the truth, and nothing less
than the truth, concerning the Pharisees, to the intent that the eyes
of all mankind might be opened, even to the generation of generations,
that they might discern that the sin of sins is hypocrisy. For other
sins wound, but this sin slayeth, the conscience. Peradventure, also,
Jesus foresaw that a time might come when certain even among his own
disciples would err as the Pharisees erred, shutting their eyes against
the truth, as being unfit and not convenient. He, also, that came to
redeem all the children of men from all evil, was it not most necessary
that he should make clear in the sight of all men what was the greatest
evil? For if men knew it not, how could he redeem them from it?"
This had been Sidney's crowning sin. He had so acted a part that,
unawares, he had grown to consider it his real nature; it had almost
ceased to be hypocrisy, save in the sight of God, whose eye saw the
false foundation on which the building was raised. For surely Sidney
had not altogether feigned his enjoyment of the privileges and duties
of Christianity. He had gone with her to the table of the Lord; he had
given generously, not only of his wealth, but of his time and talents,
to the service of his fellow-men. He had taken his stand in public
life as a religious man. "Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous
unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." This was
the condemnation of her Lord against the man who was dearer to her than
her own soul.
She felt that she was right in facing this crisis alone, free from the
distracting affection of Sidney. To have stayed near him would have
taxed her strength too heavily; for all life was under an eclipse! Was
it not an abiding darkness, which could not pass away on this side of
the grave? Was he not in an abyss of gloom, into which she must go
down, and dwell with him there? Gloom and sorrow and remorse she would
share with him, but not the infamy of a new sin.
Even in the deepest abyss God would be with her. This was the hope she
clung to. She recalled the vision she once had of the love of God.
There was absolutely no limit, no change, in that Divine love, though
it might take the form of an apparent vengeance. "Even in hell thou
art there!" she said, and she felt strong enough to go down to the
nethermost depths, if underneath her she were still to feel the
Everlasting Arms.
The nethermost depth to her would be to separate herself from Sidney.
But if he persisted in carrying out his threat, and being guilty of
this new iniquity, even if her heart broke she would no longer live
with him. She knew what the world would say of it: that it was only a
foolish woman's jealousy and prejudice, a straining at a gnat, if she
could not forgive so boyish a sin as that of which he would seem to
have been guilty. But she took no account of the world. If he
persisted in his threatened injustice to Sophy's memory, if he brought
this bitter shame upon the heads of her dear old friends, it would be a
base act of perfidy, showing him absolutely unrepentant toward God and
man. It would be impossible to her to resume her former wifehood with
him.
Rachel Goldsmith could not be ignorant of the fact that her beloved
mistress was passing through some great sorrow. But she was a reticent
woman, with great natural refinement, and she said nothing either to
express her own sympathy or to lead Margaret to confide her troubles to
her. She was older than her mistress by fifteen years, and she cared
for no one in the world so much as for Margaret and her two sons.
Philip and Hugh had grown up under her eyes, and she was almost like a
second mother to them. To her strong affection was added that loyal
and faithful respect with which an old servant looks upon the future
masters.
Margaret spent most of her time in her own room in the hotel at Berne,
through the windows of which she could see the wonderful range of snowy
Alps, that stretched across the horizon, and, catching the evening
light, looks so unearthly in its marvelous purity and beauty. It
seemed to her as if beyond those white and rosy peaks lay "the land
that is very far off." That strong yearning to be gone thither, safely
shut in from the vanities and vexations of life, so often expressed in
old Latin hymns, had taken possession of her, and it seemed to her as
if she had only to will, to rise up, and cross over the invisible
threshold of the other life. Should she go or stay? The choice was
almost given to her. Would she depart at this moment, and be forever
with the Lord? Or would she stay to fight the sore battle her beloved
ones were engaged in? "Let me stay!" she said half aloud.
At that moment Rachel entered the room quietly with a letter. It was a
thick packet, addressed to her in her husband's handwriting, and
Margaret opened it with trembling fingers. A number of yellow,
time-stained pages fell from it as she seized a little note written by
Sidney.
"My Margaret," he said, "I have seen my son, and I will acknowledge
him. But unless you stand by me my punishment will be greater than I
can bear. I am like a man walking in darkness amid pitfalls, without
guidance. I will be guided by you. Do not forsake me, my wife. The
letter I enclose was written thirty years ago by Sophy to Rachel.
Would to God it had been sent to her then! To-night we expect to find
Martin, who has fled from us to the mountains."
Margaret gathered up the scattered leaves, and called to Rachel, who
was just leaving her again alone.
"Rachel!" she cried, "I can tell you my sorrow and my secret now. It
concerned you more than me, perhaps. And yet, no; it cannot, it
cannot. We have found out what has become of Sophy."
"Oh, it is Mr. Martin!" exclaimed Rachel; "God bless him! I knew he
would find it out some day; and how shall we ever thank him for it,
Andrew and me?"
"Hush! hush!" said Margaret; "it is too dreadful. Rachel, he sends you
this letter, which Sophy wrote to you before she died, thirty years
ago, and he says, 'Would to God it had been sent to you then!' Take it
away to read it: I cannot bear to see you reading it."
Rachel carried the faded letter away. She was an old woman now, with
white hair, and eyes that were failing a little, and needing a brighter
light than when Sophy had written that long letter. But she remembered
Sophy's handwriting well, and tears blinded her dim eyes. Oh, what
anguish of heart would have been saved them if this letter had but
reached them thirty years ago! It was the suspense of the long, long
years that had broken Andrew's spirit, and made an old man of him while
still in the prime of life. Many fathers lose a beloved child by
death, and they lay them in the grave, and go their way, and presently
the sharp grief is healed. But he had lost her more cruelly, by that
crudest way, an unaccountable and mysterious disappearance. It was
well to make the discovery of her fate even now; but if it had only
been made thirty years ago!
Rachel read the letter slowly, gathering in its many new impressions
vaguely, like one puzzled and bewildered. It seemed a confusion to
her. Who could this Sidney be of whom Sophy wrote--this young man who
had deserted her in a passion, as it appeared, just the thoughtless
passion of a young man? Sophy's temper had often been very provoking,
and she freely confessed that she had provoked him out of all patience.
Sidney? She knew only one man of that name.
And he was Sidney Martin, her master, the husband of her idolized
mistress. He was the rich man, the magistrate, the member of
Parliament, who belonged to quite another world from that lower world
in which she and Andrew lived, the world to which Sophy had belonged.
To think of him in connection with this young man, Sophy's husband, who
had deserted her, was impossible; it was an unjustifiable liberty--a
crime.
She put the letter down and took up some sewing, as if she could think
more clearly while her fingers were busy. But her hands trembled too
much, and a crowd of memories came rushing through her brain. O Sophy!
Sophy! how sad an end to come to with your willful ways and foolish
fancies! Dying there, alone, among strangers, who did not know what
you were saying with your dying lips! No hand you knew to hold your
hand as it grew cold, and no voice you could understand to speak words
of comfort as you went down, step by step, into the chill river of
death! Alone! utterly alone!
Then she read the letter again. And now the name came clearly to
her--Sidney Martin. There must be some other man, then, of that name.
It was incredible that Mr. Martin, who had joined them in their search
and inquiry with such friendly sympathy, could have held the knowledge
of her fate in his own heart. She thought of all his kindness to
Andrew and herself--a kindness that had never failed. Yet--Sidney
Martin! And a secret marriage! It was he, too, who had sent her this
letter, and a strange message with it. If this could be true, what
would be the end of it?
She made her way to Margaret's room with trembling limbs and a sinking
heart. Margaret was still sitting where she had left her, with her
face toward the window; but it was dark, and the long range of
mountains, that seemed only a little while ago the glistening boundary
of a brighter world, lay pallid as death against the somber sky.
"Miss Margaret!" cried Rachel in a voice of sorrowful uncertainty.
Margaret stood up and stretched out her arms, and the two women clung
to one another in a passionate embrace, which seemed to knit together
all the joys and sorrows of their lifelong affection. Rachel knew that
her dreaded surmise was true.