REVELATIONS.
[Illustration] "IS it not time the post should arrive, Dorothy?"
"Almost," I replied, rising from my chair, and leaning over the
balustrade of the balcony that I might gaze as far as possible along
the road to Lauterbrunnen, "but I do not see her yet."
The feminine pronoun I thus vaguely employed referred, as Edmund knew,
to the girl who usually appeared at this hour with a huge letter bag
strapped to her back, and sundry small packages depending therefrom, or
carried in her hands, as she found most convenient.
We were on the balcony, Edmund and I, he reclining in a long, deep,
easy chair. As moved back to my place at the little table, my eyes fell
on my brother, and I perceived, with a thrill of pain, how very white
and worn he was looking in the clear, bright light of the morning.
How hollow were his cheeks, how sharpened his features; what a sad
pathetic look there was in his sunken eyes! Was it my fancy, or had his
face wasted rapidly during the past week? Alas! Alas! I feared it was
no fancy; there were too many tokens that my brother's strength was
declining.
It was now September, and for ten weeks we had enjoyed the beauty
of this lovely retreat. In that time we had become well acquainted
with the mountain forms on which we daily looked. Every buttress and
pinnacle of the snowy range was familiar to us, and we loved them under
all aspects, whether shining forth in the clear light of early morning,
or dimly seen through a veil of mist, or rising from a sea of billowy
clouds, or when their summits were gilded with the ineffable glory of
the sunset afterglow. We had learnt to love the clouds, which wrought
such weird, fantastic, wonderful effects, scarcely less than the
mountains.
How lovely it was to watch in the morning, ere yet the sun had gained
much power, the ghost-like mist stealing up the valley till it wrapped
itself as a winding sheet about the sides of the mountains, and then to
see, as the sun rose above the highest peak, how the mist shrank away,
and dispersed in broken wreaths! Or to mark the devotion with which a
fleecy cloudlet would woo some lordly peak, now nestling close to its
side, and anon timidly retreating, floating higher, and brooding over
the object of its love, fading, then gathering anew, constant to the
last moment of its brief existence. Or, when night fell, to watch, as
the moon slowly rose behind the mountain wall, some bird-like cloud
hovering above, illumined by its rising beams, and growing ever more
luminous, till the bright disc glided into sight, and the mystery was
at an end.
Edmund enjoyed these visions, as few can enjoy them. They fired his
imagination, and set his poetic fancy in play. He was so happy during
the first few weeks of our stay that I could not but be happy too. We
met with pleasant people in the pension, and often had a merry party
about us as we wandered through the pine woods, or rested in shade of
the trees. I do not know when I first perceived that my brother was
not making the progress I had expected. A marked improvement seemed to
set in after our arrival at the pension, but, unhappily, it was only a
temporary improvement. Soon, my brother's strength once more declined.
There was not much change from day to day, but gradually Edmund's walks
grew shorter and shorter; he ceased to speak of the longer excursions
we should take when he was strong enough, and at last, grew too languid
to climb the green slopes to the pine woods at the back of the house,
and preferred to pass the day resting in his chair on the balcony if
the day were warm, or lying, wrapped in rugs, on the couch in his room
when the air was keen. And the wearying cough, which had never entirely
ceased, became more and more troublesome. Heavy grew my heart beneath
the weight of these bitter facts, but still I clung to hope. I could
not, I would not, acknowledge that the hopes with which I had started
on my journey to Switzerland were doomed to disappointment.
"Edmund," I said now, as I bent to draw his wraps more closely about
him, "I think that if Ralph Dugdale does not soon appear, we had better
leave this place. It is getting too cold for you to remain at such a
height. The air this morning was a trifle too keen, even for me, and it
has an edge to it still, although the sun is so warm."
"I do not think the cold hurts me as long as the air is so dry," he
replied, "and we shall surely hear from Ralph in a day or two."
I went back to my place, and began to read to Edmund a new poem with
which I was delighted. It has since become well-known, and a favourite
with many readers.
"She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best, made of sunshine and snow,
Drop to shade, melt to nought, in the long-trodden ways,
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days—
My Kate.
"Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face,
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth—
My Kate.
"Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence, and fancied she spoke;
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone—
My Kate."
When I had read these three verses, I paused, and turning, to my
brother asked, "Does that remind you of anyone?"
"Yes," he answered, without a moment's hesitation.
"Of whom?"
"Tell me first of whom you are thinking," he returned.
"Oh, I was thinking of Grace West. This poem exactly describes her."
"Yes," said Edmund, quietly; "I, too, thought of Mrs. West."
"Dear me! How strange that we should think of the same person!"
"Not at all strange. We could but think of the same. Where would you
find another woman like Mrs. West?"
I made no reply, not because I did not share my brother's high estimate
of our friend; but I was wondering at the abrupt, constrained manner in
which he spoke.
At that moment I heard someone tapping at my bedroom door. Stepping
into my room, I hastened to open the door.
"Letters, mademoiselle."
It was the Swiss chambermaid, and she smiled as she gave me the
letters, knowing how welcome they would be. There were two, and both
were for me. As I carried them to the balcony, I was conscious only
that one was from Mrs. Lyell.
"No letter from Ralph?" asked Edmund, turning to me with an anxious
glance.
I shook my head. My mind was too preoccupied to think of offering him
consolation. As I sat down and began to open Mrs. Lyell's letter, the
other letter fell unheeded on my lap, the address upwards.
Mrs. Lyell's letter was very kind, as her letters always were. It
showed no diminution of the affectionate interest she took in me, and
yet there was that in the letter which stung me. Did Mrs. Lyell really
think it would please me to know that Rose Carsdale—for thus Mrs. Lyell
now spoke of her—was so kind and attentive, and that she and Leonard
came in almost every day? Yes, I could not doubt my old friend's
sincerity; but oh! how bitter to me was the thought that those three,
Mrs. Lyell, Miss Carsdale, and Leonard, were always together! Too well
I knew what a quiet, unobtrusive third person Mrs. Lyell could be; how
she would sit absorbed in her book or thinking her gentle thoughts,
and hear nothing that others said in her presence, except when it was
especially addressed to her.
Dark and bitter grew my spirit as I read over and over again the words
of the letter, making the most of every suggestion that could feed
my jealousy. For I had not been able to forget Leonard Glynne. How
could I, in a life that afforded so much leisure for dreaming, with no
active duties save the simple services Edmund required at my hand? It
was harder to forget him here than it had been at Ventnor, for he had
talked to me much of his experiences when travelling in Switzerland,
and every day some novel incident of our Swiss life, some fern or
flower, would remind me of his words.
"Your letter seems to be very interesting." Edmund's voice thus roused
me from my unhappy meditations.
I coloured as I awoke to the consciousness that he had been watching me
intently for some minutes. There was a shadow on his brow as he spoke.
He seemed vexed with me for caring so much about the letter.
"Yes, it is interesting," I answered; "it is from Mrs. Lyell, and she,
of course, has a good deal to tell me that I care to hear."
"You cannot care much about your other correspondent," he said, in a
tone that betrayed some irritation, "since you can read an old woman's
letter two or three times before you take a glance at hers."
"Hers! Whose?" I asked, looking at the letter that lay in my lap. "Oh,
it is from Grace West!" I added, as recognised the small, delicate
writing, clear as copperplate. "Did you see that it was from her?"
"I-I fancied it looked like her writing," he said, rather falteringly.
"Why, she is at Interlaken!" I exclaimed, as I began to read the
letter. "They are all there, Mr. and Mrs. Dugdale, and Ralph too. Ralph
is coming on here to-morrow. There's good news for you."
But my brother did not look so pleased as I expected. He did not
smile, nor even turn towards me; he sat with downcast eyes, his face
very pale. Instinctively, I felt that he was putting some restraint on
himself.
"Is Ralph coming alone?" he asked, very quietly.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so. Grace says nothing of anyone else coming. Did
you think that she might accompany him?"
"Well, yes, I fancied that she might like to see this place."
I discerned that it cost my brother an effort to answer my question
with an appearance of indifference.
"I wish she would come," I remarked; "but Grace and her parents are
going on to Grindelwald. It is a favourite place of Mrs. Dugdale's.
She says it would be nice if we could meet there. Would you like it,
Edmund?"
The faint glow which instantly kindled in his cheeks gave me a truer
answer than his careless, "Perhaps; we must think about it."
Then the truth flashed on me. There was little to demonstrate it;
Edmund had guarded well his secret, yet at that moment I knew
intuitively that Grace West was to him what Leonard Glynne was to me.
Stay, let me speak the truth as I know it now—my brother loved Grace
with a pure, strong, selfless love of which I was incapable.
I recognised the fact beyond all doubt. One memory after another
revived to confirm it, till I wondered that I had been blind to it
so long. Grace was some years older than my brother, but that was
no hindrance to his loving her. He was the man to be attracted by a
woman's spiritual rather than physical beauties. He had a high ideal of
womanly excellence, and the woman he chose must be one whom he could
reverence as well as admire. How could he help loving her? I say to
myself now. "We needs must love the highest when we see it." And all
who could really understand Grace, not everyone could, failed not to
love and honour her.
But I was hardly conscious of loving Grace at that moment. The truth
came home to me with a sharp and selfish pain. All my latent jealousy
was roused. Amidst my trials and disappointments, I had ever consoled
myself with the thought that my brother at least was all my own.
He needed me if no other did; I was everything to him. What a blow
shattered this belief when I discovered that another had the first
place in his heart! Grace West stood between us.
I cared not whether Edmund noticed how abruptly I left him. It was
not yet time to prepare for the midday meal, but I went away and shut
myself in my own room till the bell sounded.
Edmund did not call me back.
"He will not miss me," I thought, "he will like to sit alone and think
of Grace, and count on seeing her at Grindelwald."
After luncheon, Edmund lay down for a while, hoping to get a little
sleep. Unhappy and restless, I wandered forth alone, carefully avoiding
the company of any of the ladies who were lodging in the pension.
Instinctively I chose the easier, the downward way, and descended one
of the steep little paths that ran down the mountain side into a little
valley lying between the mountains to the right of our pension. It was
a pleasant path I followed, and soon led me into the shade of pine
trees. Steeper and steeper grew the way as I drew nearer to the torrent
that roared through the valley, being fed by a glacier at its head.
Gradually my walking was exchanged for climbing; but by the help of my
alpenstock, I was able to press on, scrambling through bushes and over
boulders till at last I gained the high bank above the stream.
Here I found myself in a wilderness of lovely things, old moss-grown
trees about whose roots the fragile oak-fern and sturdier beech-fern
were growing luxuriously; patches of ground on which the low
whortleberry bush grew thickly, tempting me with a profusion of its
purple black fruit; a few wild strawberries lingering here and there,
finer and redder than any I had seen before; brambles throwing their
amber and vermilion-coloured leaves across the path, and scattered
everywhere flowers of the loveliest and most varied hues—large, silvery
thistles, grand enough to deck a queen, purple gentians, turquoise-blue
forget-me-nots that would put our English ones to shame, with blue and
white campanulas, as fine as any a garden could show.
Wild, angry, rebellious thoughts had been working in my mind as I
made my way down. It was very hard, I told myself, that I should be
robbed of all that was most dear to me in life. One precious love after
another had been taken from me. Howard Steinthorpe had supplanted me
in my sister's affections, death had deprived me of my father, Rose
Carsdale was filling my place with Mrs. Lyell, and charming Leonard
Glynne into forgetfulness of any faint interest he might have felt in
me, and now Edmund, whom I had believed to be my very own, in whose
life I could yesterday have declared that I stood first, had given his
best love to another! How wronged and wretched I felt! There seemed
no longer any place for me in the world. No one loved me best; no one
wanted me. My feelings were none the less bitter that I knew them to be
utterly unreasonable.
There was within me a dim consciousness that when my mental emotion
should subside, my better self would reproach me. For had not Edmund as
much right to feel injured as I? What if he craved the first place in
my heart, could I honestly say that it was his? How many hours of the
past had been filled with thoughts of another! And how often even now
did the image of that other cross my mind!
Only gradually, however, did these considerations bring me to a better
frame of mind. I was still possessed by perverse, angry imaginations
as I strolled amidst the greenness and beauty by the riverside, though
nature's sweet influences were beginning to soften my mood.
Presently I came to a woodcutter's shed beneath the pines, and seated
myself on one of the felled trunks that lay beside it. It was a lovely
spot. A few feet below where I sat rushed the torrent, foaming and
dashing over the stones with a roar which was delightful to my ears. On
the opposite side of the deep gorge, through which the river cut its
way, rose tall pine trees, tapering one above the other, till at a vast
height their delicate pinnacles were pencilled against the sky. Here
and there a bare, precipitous mountain side showed through their sombre
foliage, with other tiny firs fringing its summit.
The sun was shining brilliantly on the stream, but beneath the pines
there was welcome shade, and a deliciously cool breeze blew from the
mountain heights, odorous with the delightful perfume of the pines. The
woodcutter's shed was deserted, and I enjoyed perfect solitude, broken
only by those voices of nature, which, as Keble truly says,—
"Make deep silence in the heart,
For thought to do her part."
In that stillness, I experienced a swift reaction of feeling. My proud
sense of injury gave place to shame and contrition.
I was heartily ashamed of my outburst of temper; I despised myself for
the mean, selfish feelings of which it was the outcome. As I thought of
Edmund now, my heart throbbed with emotion of another kind. To think
that self-love should have made me oblivious of all that this discovery
I had made, meant for him. Poor Edmund, whose life was so uncertain!
My own experience taught me that this love of his must cause him much
silent suffering. It would have done so probably in any case, but his
circumstances were such as would intensify the suffering.
Had he not been the invalid he was, had his position been such as would
justify his seeking Grace's love, I could not believe that he would win
it. From what I had seen of her, and from a few words she had once said
to me, I felt convinced that Grace was one of those with whom to love
once was to love for ever, and that she would not tolerate the idea of
a second marriage. But what of that?
Alas! Alas! I could not hide from myself the truth. Too surely my heart
told me that there could be no such union for Edmund. He was drifting,
drifting away from all the loves of earth. And in the presence of that
sore fact, what did it matter whether Grace or I were the dearest to
him? With the thought came a shower of blinding tears, shutting out all
the beauty that surrounded me.
The tears soon passed. Something prompted me to lift my head, and
look around. Then I saw a glorious sight. From above the mass of dark
pines, which lay behind, looked down on me a mighty, snow-crested
peak, shining in purest radiance against a cloudless sky. It was the
Jungfrau, of which I caught a side view, and peeping over her shoulder
as it were, appeared the unsullied, resplendent dome of the Silberhorn.
Wonderful seemed the vision that broke so suddenly on my view. It
had for me the force of a revelation—a revelation of the majesty and
holiness of God, and my own utter vileness and meanness. What could I
do but cry unto Him who made me and made also the magnificence I beheld?
"Oh, Thou who art all purity, power, love," my heart cried, "have
mercy on me, Thy unworthy creature; deliver me from my low, mean,
selfish feelings, the feelings which I know to be hateful, even whilst
I cherish them. Lift me out of myself. Raise me to a higher, purer,
nobler life. Make of me something better than I am."
I waited, yearning for some response, some whisper from above that
should promise deliverance. As I watched, the clouds slowly drifted
again across the snowy mountain, and its glory vanished from my sight.
The wind rustled the pines, the torrent roared, the foaming water
gleamed in the sunshine; all was as before. Yet was my prayer heard,
for no such prayer is vain.
When I rose and took my way back to the pension by an easier path than
the one I had descended, my heart was quiet, my selfish cravings had
ceased.
As I approached the house, there came into sight on the path which
ascended on the other side of it, a traveller, attended by a peasant
carrying luggage. The gentleman's appearance seemed familiar, and at
the second glance, I recognised Ralph Dugdale.
Apparently, he saw me at the same moment, and we hurried forward to
greet each other.
"I am so glad you have come," I said, warmly, as we shook hands;
"Edmund will be so pleased. We did not expect you till to-morrow."
"Why, how is that? Did not Grace tell you?"
"Yes, but she said to-morrow."
"I expect her to-morrow meant to-day," said Ralph, smiling.
"Oh, to be sure! How stupid of me to make such a mistake! And I misled
Edmund too! But come in."
"First, tell me how your brother is," said Ralph, pausing on the
threshold of the house. "Has he been getting on as you hoped?"
The question, put with evident anxiety, overwhelmed me. Tears rose to
my eyes, my lips quivered; for a moment I could not speak.
Then I said, falteringly, "You will see for yourself."
He looked at me, his eyes full of grave, sad comprehension, and asked
no more. We went indoors.