More than one strange incident happened at Arden that soft July night.
Mr. Fielding was seated in his library in the evening, after all the
Sunday work was over. He did not work very hard either on Sundays or on
any other occasions--the good, gentle old man. But yet he liked to sit,
as he had been wont to do in his youth when he had really exerted
himself, on those tranquil Sunday nights. His curate had dined with him,
but was gone, knowing the Rector’s habit; and Mr. Fielding was seated in
the twilight, with both his windows open, sipping a glass of wine
tenderly, as if he loved it, and musing in the stillness. The lamp was
never lighted on Sunday evenings till it was time for prayers. Some
devout people in the parish were of opinion that at such moments the
Rector was asking a blessing upon his labours, and “interceding” with
God for his people--and so, no doubt, he was. But yet other thoughts
were in his mind. Long, long ago, when Mr. Fielding had been young, and
had a young wife by his side, this had been their sacred hour, when they
would sit side by side and talk to each other of all that was in their
hearts. It was “Milly’s hour,” the time when she had told him all the
little troubles that beset a girl-wife in the beginning of her career;
and he had laughed at her, and been sorry for her, and comforted her as
young husbands can. It was Milly’s hour still, though Milly had gone out
of all the cares of life and housekeeping for thirty years. How the old
man remembered those little cares--how he would go over them with a soft
smile on his lip, and--no, not a tear--a glistening of the eye, which
was not weeping. How frightened she had been for big Susan, the cook;
how bravely she had struggled about the cooking of the cutlets, to have
them as her husband liked them--not as Susan pleased! And then all those
speculations as to whether Lady Augusta would call, and about Letty
Somers, and her foolish, little kind-hearted ways. The old man
remembered every one of those small troubles. How small they were, how
dear, how sacred--Milly’s troubles. Thank Heaven, she had never found
out that the world held pangs more bitter. The first real sorrow she had
ever had was to die--and was that a sorrow? to leave him; and had she
left him? This was the tender enjoyment, the little private, sad
delight of the Rector’s Sunday nights; and he did not like to be
disturbed.
Therefore, it was clear the business must be of importance which was
brought to him at that hour. “Your reverence won’t think as it’s of my
own will I’m coming disturbing of you,” said Mrs. Solmes, the
housekeeper; “but there’s one at the door as will take no denial. She
says she aint got but a moment, and daren’t stay for fear her child
would wake. She’s been in a dead faint from yesterday at six till now.
The t’oud woman as lives at oud Sarah’s, your reverence; the Scotchy, as
they calls her--her as had her granddaughter killed last night.”
“God bless me!” said Mr. Fielding, confused by this complication. He
knew Jeanie had not been killed; but how was he to make his way in this
twilight moment through such a maze of statements? “Killed!” he said to
himself. It was so violent a word to fall into that sacred dimness and
sadness--sadness which was more dear to him than any joy. “Let her come
in,” he added, with a sigh. “Lights? no! I don’t think we want lights. I
can see you, Mrs. Solmes, and I can see to talk without lights.”
“As you please, sir,” said the housekeeper; “but them as is strangers,
and don’t know your habits, might think it was queer. And then to think
how a thing gets all over the village in no time. But, to be sure, sir,
it’s as you please.”
“Then show Mrs. Murray in,” said Mr. Fielding. He had never departed
from his good opinion of her, notwithstanding that she was a Calvinist,
and looked disapproval of his sermons; but that she should come away
from her child’s sick-bed, that was extraordinary indeed.
And then in the dark, much to the scandal of Mrs. Solmes, Mrs. Murray
came in. Even the Rector himself found it embarrassing to see only the
tall, dark figure beside him, without being able to trace (so
short-sighted as he was, too) the changes of her face. “Sit down,” he
said, “sit down,” and bustled a little to get her a chair--not the one
near him, in which, had she been alive, his Milly would have sat--(and
oh! to think Milly, had she lived, would have been older than Mrs.
Murray!)--but another at a little distance. “How is your child?” he
asked. “I meant to have gone to see her to-night, but they told me she
was insensible still.”
“And so she is,” said the grandmother, “and I wouldna have left her to
come here but for something that’s like life and death. You’re a good
man. I canna but believe you’re a real good man, though you are no what
I call sound on all points. I want you to give me your advice. It’s a
case of a penitent woman that has done wrong, and suffered for it. Sore
she has suffered in her bairns and her life, and worse in her heart.
It’s a case of conscience; and oh! sir, your best advice----”
“I will give you the best advice I can, you may be sure,” said Mr.
Fielding, moved by the pleading voice that reached him out of the
darkness. “But you must tell me more clearly. What has she done? I will
not ask who she is, for that does not matter. But what has she done; and
has she, or can she, make amends? Is it a sin against her neighbour or
against God?”
“Baith, baith,” said the old woman. “Oh, Mr. Fielding, you’re an
innocent, virtuous man. I ken it by your face. This woman has been airt
and pairt in a great wrong--an awfu’ wrong; you never heard of the like.
Partly she knew what she was doing, and partly she did not. There are
some more guilty than her that have gone to their account; and there’s
none to be shamed but the innocent, that knew no guile, and think no
evil. What is she to do? If it was but to punish _her_, she’s free to
give her body to be burned or torn asunder: oh, and thankful, thankful!
Nothing you could do, but she would take and rejoice. But she canna move
without hurting the innocent. She canna right them that’s wronged
without crushing the innocent. Oh, tell me, you that are a minister, and
an old man, and have preached God’s way! Many and many a time He suffers
wrong, and never says a word. It’s done now, and canna be undone. Am I
to bear my burden and keep silent till my heart bursts, or must I
destroy, and cast down, and speak!”
The woman spoke with a passion and vehemence which bewildered the gentle
Rector. Her voice came through the dim and pensive twilight, thrilling
with life and force and vigour. In that atmosphere, at that hour, any
whisper of penitence should have been low and soft as a sigh. It should
have been accompanied by noiseless weeping, by the tender humility which
appeals to every Christian soul; but such was not the manner of this
strange confession. Not a tear was in the eye of the penitent. Mr.
Fielding felt, though he could not see, that her eyes, those eyes which
had lost none of their brightness in growing old, were shining upon him
in the darkness, and held him fast as did those of the Ancient Mariner.
Suddenly, without any warning, he found himself brought into contact,
not with the moderate contrition of ordinary sinners, but with tragic
repentance and remorse. He could not answer for the first moment. It
took away his breath.
“My dear, good woman,” he said, “you startle me. I do not understand
you. Do you know what you are saying? I don’t think you can have done
anything so very wrong. Hush, hush! compose yourself, and think what you
are saying. When we examine it, perhaps we will find it was not so bad.
People may do wrong, you know, and yet it need not be so very serious.
Tell me what it was.”
“That is what I cannot do,” she said. “If I were to tell you, all would
be told. If it has to be said, it shall be said to him first that will
have the most to bear. Oh, have ye been so long in the world without
knowing that a calm face often covers a heavy heart! Many a thing have I
done for my ain and for others that cannot be blamed to me; but once I
was to blame. I tell ye, I canna tell ye what it was. It was this--I did
what was unjust and wrong. I schemed to injure a man--no, no me, for I
did not know he was in existence, and who was to tell me?--but I did the
wrong thing that made it possible for the man to be injured. Do you
understand me now? And here I am in this awful strait, like Israel at
the Red Sea. If I let things be, I am doing wrong, and keeping a man out
of his own; if I try to make amends, I am bringing destruction on the
innocent. Which, oh, which, tell me, am I to do?”
She had raised her voice till it sounded like a cry, and yet it was not
loud. Mrs. Solmes in the kitchen heard nothing, but to Mr. Fielding it
sounded like a great wail and moaning that went to his heart. And the
silence closed over her voice as the water closes over a pebble, making
faint circles and waves of echo, not of the sound, but of the meaning of
the sound. He could not speak, with those thrills of feeling, like the
wash after a boat, rolling over him. He did not understand what she
meant; her great and violent pain bewildered the gentle old man. The
only thing he could take hold of was her last words. That, he reflected,
was always right--always the best thing to advise. He waited until the
silence and quietness settled down again, and then he said, his soft old
voice wavering with emotion, “Make amends!”
“Is that what you say to me?” she said, lifting up her hands. He could
see the vehement movement in the gloom.
“Make amends. What other words could a servant of God say?”
He thought she fell when he spoke, and sprang to his feet with deep
anxiety. She had dropped down on her knees, and had bent her head, and
was covering her face with her hands. “Are you ill?” he said. “God bless
us all, she has fainted! what am I to do?”
“No; the like of me never faints,” she answered; and then he perceived
that she retained her upright position. Her voice was choked, and
sounded like the voice of despair, and she did not take her hands from
her face. “Oh, if I could lie like Jeanie,” she went on, “quietly, like
the dead, with nae heart to feel nor voice to speak. My bit little lily
flower! would she have been broken like that--faded like that, if I had
done what was right? But, O Lord my God, my bonnie lad! what is to
become of him?”
“Mrs. Murray! Mrs. Murray!” said Mr. Fielding, “let me put you on that
sofa. Let me get you some wine. Compose yourself. My poor woman, my good
woman! All this has been too much for you. Are you sure it is not a
delusion you have got into your mind?”
The strange penitent took no notice of him as he stood thus beside her.
Her mind was occupied otherwise. “How am I to make amends?” she was
murmuring; “how am I to do it? Harm the innocent, crush down the
innocent!--that’s all I can do. It will relieve my mind, but it will
throw nothing but bitterness into theirs. The prophet he threw a
sweetening herb into the bitter waters, but it would be gall and
wormwood I would throw. The wrong’s done, and it canna be undone. It
would but be putting off my burden on them--giving them my pain to
bear; and it is me, and no them, that is worthy of the pain.”
“Mrs. Murray,” said the Rector, by this time beginning to feel alarmed;
for how could he tell that it was not a madwoman he had beside him in
the dark? “you must try and compose yourself. I think things cannot be
so bad as you say. Perhaps you are tormenting yourself for nothing. My
dear good woman, sit down and rest, and compose yourself, while I ring
the bell for the lamp.”
Then she rose up slowly in the darkness between him and the window, and
took her hands from her face. She did not raise her head, but she put
out her hand and caught his arm with a vigour which made Mr. Fielding
tremble. “I was thinking if I had anything else to say,” she said, in a
low desponding tone, “but there’s nothing more. I cannot think but of
one thing. If you’ve nothing more to say to me, I’ll go away. I’ll slip
away in the dark, as I came, and nobody will be the wiser. Mr. Fielding,
you’re a real good man, and that was your best advice?”
“It’s my advice to everybody, in ordinary circumstances,” said Mr.
Fielding. “If you have done wrong, make amends--the one thing
necessitates the other. If you have done wrong, make amends. But, Mrs.
Murray, wait till the lamp comes and a glass of wine. You are not fit
to go back to your nursing without something to sustain you. Sit down
again.”
“I am fit for a great deal more than that,” she said; “but no, no, nae
lights. I’ll go my ways back. I’ll slip out in the dark, as I slipped
in. I’m like the owls--I’m dazzled by the shinin’ light. That’s new to
me, that always liked the light; but, sir, I thank ye for your goodness.
I must slip away now.”
“You are not fit to walk in this state,” he said, following her
anxiously to the door; “take my arm; let me get out the pony--I will
send you comfortably home.”
Mrs. Murray shook her head. She declined the offer of the old man’s arm.
“I have mair strength than you think,” she said; “and Jeanie must never
know that I have been here. Oh, I’m strengthened with what you said. Oh,
I’m the better for having opened my heart; but I’ll slip out, as long as
there are none to see.”
And, while the gentle Rector stood and wondered, she went out by the
open window, as erect and vigorous as if no emotion could touch her.
Swiftly she passed into the darkness, carrying with her her secret. What
was it? Mr. Fielding sunk into his chair with a sigh. Never before had
any interruption like this come into Milly’s hour.