THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
Shall I forget on this side of the grave?
I promise nothing: you must wait and see,
Patient and brave.
(O my soul, watch with him and he with me!)
Shall I forget in peace of Paradise?
I promise nothing: follow, friend, and see,
Faithful and wise.
(O my soul, lead the way he walks with me!)
--CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
A few days after the invalid had safely reached Ventnor, Dinah wrote
one of her pleasant, chatty letters to Malcolm. She told him that David
had borne the long journey fairly well, and that he and Mr. Carlyon
were charmed with Red Brae. "I wish Cedric could have stayed longer,"
she finished. "He has been such a dear good boy; but I am afraid he is
still very unhappy. Elizabeth heard from Mrs. Godfrey yesterday. Leah
has been ill with influenza, but Mrs. Richardson has nursed her like a
mother. Leah seems devoted to her already. The poor girl told Mrs.
Godfrey that she had never had such a kind friend in her life."
As the weeks went on, Dinah wrote still more cheerily. "The improvement
in David is quite surprising," she said in one of her letters. "Even
Dr. Hewlitt seems astonished. He is able to be out in his bath-chair
every day, and on sunny afternoons he spends hours on the balcony. Mr.
Carlyon is always with him. It is beautiful to see their devotion to
each other. They seem to think alike on every subject. He and Elizabeth
read aloud by turns, and I like to take my work there and listen to
them."
"A happy family party," thought Malcolm a little bitterly, as he put
down the letter. Even now he could have found it in his heart to envy
his rival; but the next moment he dismissed the unworthy thought.
But it was only a temporary rally. Dr. Hewlitt told Dinah privately one
day that there was no real improvement in the patient's condition, and
that at any time there might be a sudden change for the worse; when
they least expected it, haemorrhage or collapse might set in. And the
doctor's fears were verified.
One day, late in March, David seemed unusually well. A gale had blown
all night, but towards morning the wind had lulled and a heavy rain had
set in, and David had expressed some disappointment at having to remain
indoors; but Mr. Carlyon, who considered himself weather-wise, assured
him that the weather would improve later.
The gale had disturbed Elizabeth, and she had found it impossible to
sleep for hours, and when she rose the next morning she felt unusually
weary and depressed. A strange foreboding--a sense of separation and
loss--seemed to oppress her, and no efforts on her part could enable
her to maintain her wonted cheerfulness. Her dejection was so evident
that David noticed it at last, and when Mr. Carlyon had put on his old
mackintosh and gone out for a blow on the parade, he gently rallied her
on her depression.
"What is it, dearest?" he asked rather anxiously. "You are not your
bright self this morning. You are so good and unselfish, darling, that
you never let me see when you are unhappy, but to-day you cannot hide
it from me." Then he took her hands and held them so that he could see
her face.
"I do not know what has come over me," returned Elizabeth in a mournful
voice, "but all night long and this morning my heart has felt as heavy
as lead." Great tears welled in her eyes, and she suddenly laid her
head down on his shoulder. "Oh, David--David, if I could only go too;
life will be so long and difficult without you." He stroked her hair
for a few minutes without speaking. She was thinking of the parting
that must surely come, and he must find some word to comfort her. "If I
could only feel that you were near me," she whispered, "even though I
could not see you or hear your voice--that you were still loving me and
watching over my poor life!"
"Dearest," he returned tenderly, "I have often had these thoughts. More
than once my father and I have spoken of it. It is his idea that
nothing can divide us from those we love. Continuity of
life--continuity of love, that is his creed."
"Is it yours too, David?"
"Dear Elizabeth," returned the young man simply, "the future is so
veiled in mystery and silence that one hardly knows what one believes,
except that all will be well with us. It seems to me that even in
paradise we must still love our dear ones and pray for them, so tossed
and buffeted by the waves of this troublesome world: but more than that
I dare not say. I think I must always love you--there as well as here."
Then she smiled at him through her tears.
"Dear love," he went on a moment later, "there is something I have
often wanted to say, and yet the words were difficult to utter.
Elizabeth, life is long as you say, and your great loving heart must
not remain unsatisfied. Do not mourn for me too long--do not refuse
comfort that may be offered to you, if you can be happy, dear."
But here Elizabeth's hand was laid over his lips.
"No--no, you shall not say it--I will not hear it;" and Elizabeth's
eyes were wide with trouble. "David--David--" and then she could say no
more for her wild weeping.
"Hush--hush, my darling--I cannot bear this," and David's lips grew so
white that Elizabeth in alarm controlled herself. But as she gave him a
restorative, he held out his feeble hand to her. "Forgive me if I said
too much," he pleaded; "I thought perhaps it might be a comfort
afterwards. Dear Elizabeth, be true to yourself as you have been true
to me, and may God bless and reward you for all your goodness to me and
mine!" David spoke with strange solemnity, for, though neither of them
guessed it then, this was their last farewell before the parting of the
ways.
The evening passed tranquilly. Elizabeth seemed less dejected, but her
head ached, and she sat silently beside David, while Mr. Carlyon went
on with the book they were reading. Once, when there was a pause, she
looked up and saw David's rapt gaze fixed on the sunset, while a look
of almost unearthly beauty seemed to transform his emaciated features.
She would have spoken to him; but he made a gesture as though for
silence, and again that awful sense of separation seemed to pass
between them. Mr. Carlyon put down his book, and looked too at the
wondrous pageant of the sea and sky. "The bridegroom has run his race,"
murmured David in a strange voice. "What regal robes of gold and
crimson! Father, this is the best sunset we have seen yet."
"Ay, that it is, David," returned Mr. Carlyon; "but you are looking
weary, my boy, and I must be getting you to bed. Will you ring for
Nurse Gibbon, Elizabeth?" But as she did so she noticed how feebly
David walked, and how heavily he leant on his father's arm.
Half an hour later, as Elizabeth was standing on the balcony enjoying
the cool spring air, she heard Mr. Carlyon call her loudly. Then a bell
rang, and she and Dinah rushed into David's room. One look at the
changed, livid face told them the truth. Dinah sent off for the doctor,
and she and Elizabeth tried all possible remedies, but in vain. Sudden
collapse had set in. David could not speak; but for one moment his
dying eyes rested on Elizabeth's face, and his last act of
consciousness was to try to put her hand in his father's.
"I understand, David," Elizabeth stooped and whispered into his dull
ear. "Yes, we will take care of each other, and comfort each other;"
and then a faint, flickering smile seemed to cross his face, but the
next moment unconsciousness set in. For hours Elizabeth knelt beside
him with her arm supporting the pillow under his head, while on the
other side the stricken father offered up supplications for his dying
son. When his voice quavered and broke with human weakness, and Dinah
begged him to spare himself, he shook his gray head. "Maybe he hears
me--I will go as far as I can with him down the valley of the shadow of
death," And then he folded his trembling hands together. "Oh,
David--David, would God I had died for thee, my son--my son!"
"It was very sudden," wrote Dinah to Malcolm the next morning. "Dear
David had seemed so much better that day; but Dr. Hewlitt had warned us
of probable collapse and heart-failure."
"He had only left us half an hour, and Mr. Carlyon was reading the
Evening Psalms to him, when he saw a change in him and called to us."
"I am sure David knew us when we went in, but he could not speak, and
then unconsciousness came on. The end was so quiet that we hardly knew
when he left us. We have telegraphed to Theo; there is much to be done.
Dear Elizabeth is very good and calm. She and Mr. Carlyon are never
apart; he can do nothing without her."
"He looks quite aged and broken, and no wonder: he has known so much
trouble, and David was his only son."
Dinah secretly marvelled at Elizabeth's wonderful self-control and
calmness. During those trying days no one saw her shed tears: it seemed
as though her grief was too deep and sacred for outward manifestation.
But when Dinah gently hinted at her surprise, Elizabeth looked at her
almost reproachfully.
"I thought you would have understood, Die," she returned in a low
voice. "David, my David, is a saint in paradise, and one must be still
and reverent in one's grief. When one has to mourn all one's life,
there need be no excitement." And then she murmured, "I shall go to
him, but he shall not return to me;" and then, as Dinah took her
sister's hand and kissed it almost passionately in her love and
sympathy, one of the old beautiful smiles lighted up Elizabeth's face.
"I was as one who dreamed," she said later on; and indeed it was a
strange dual life that she lived. There were the quiet hours when she
knelt beside the coffin--when her thoughts seemed winged, and carried
her to the still land where her beloved walked in green pastures and
beside still waters; when in fancy she seemed to hear far-off echoes of
melodious voices; when for David's sake she would feel comforted and at
rest.
"He did not want to die," she would say to herself--"life was sweet to
him--but God gave him grace to offer up his will, and then peace came.
Darling--darling," laying her cheek against the coffin, "you will never
suffer again--no more pain or weariness--no more conflict and
temptation--only fuller life and more faithful service--for His
servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face." Elizabeth
marked those words with a red cross on the margin of her Bible on the
day David died.
But there was another reason for Elizabeth's self-control and
unselfishness. She was anxious on Mr. Carlyon's account. Dinah was
right when she told Malcolm that he was much aged and broken. "I have
lost my Benjamin, the son of my right hand," he had said to her--"God's
hand is heavy upon me;" and though he strove to bear his sorrow with
resignation, his feebleness alarmed them all. Theo, as usual, was
undisciplined in her grief. "He will die too," she lamented.
"Elizabeth, David has gone, and now poor father will follow him. I have
never seen him look so ill. David and he were everything to each other."
"Hush, Theo," returned Elizabeth quietly, "we must give him time. It
has been a great shock. We must not let him know that we are anxious."
And, forgetful of her own trouble, Elizabeth ministered to him with
filial devotion. No one else could induce him to take food. She would
bring the cup of soup, or the glass of wine, and sit beside him as he
took it; or lure him gently to talk to her of David--of his childhood
or boyhood. "No one does him so much good as Miss Templeton," Dr.
Hewlitt observed one day to Dinah. "I confess I was a bit anxious about
him for two days--he has a weak heart, and I did not quite like his
look; but your sister has brought him round."
Elizabeth smiled happily when Dinah told her this.
"I am glad Dr. Hewlitt said that, Die. I do love to take care of him;
it is the only thing I can do for David now."
"Father," she said to him one day--for when they were alone she always
called him by that name--"I think you have still some work to do before
your rest time comes. You are getting better, are you not?"
Then he looked at her with sad wistfulness.
"I think I am not worthy to go yet," he returned humbly. "I must do my
Master's work as long as He gives me strength to do it. Oh, Elizabeth,
they are all there--all but Theo and I--David's mother, and Alice, and
Magdalene, and our little Felicia, and now David has joined them in
that heavenly mansion."
"But you will go too, dear, when the Master says, 'Go up higher,'"
whispered Elizabeth.
Then the slow tears of age gathered in Mr. Carlyon's eyes. "Yes--yes, I
know it; but the flesh is weak, Elizabeth. Pray for me that I may have
patience;" and then he rested his gray head against her as she knelt
beside him, as though the burden of that sorrow were too heavy for him
to bear.
Malcolm was in the churchyard that sunshiny April day when they buried
David in the tranquil spot that he had chosen for his last
resting-place. Not only the people of Rotherwood, but friends from
Staplegrove and Earlsfield, and from the villages for miles round, were
gathered there--for the young clergyman had been much beloved. Very
near the newly-made grave was a tiny grassy mound where little Kit lay;
and at Malcolm's side stood a small, shabbily-dressed man, with pale
watery blue eyes and an air of extreme dejection, nervously fumbling
with the crape band on his hat. Malcolm had just laid a little spray of
violets and lilies of the valley on the mound, as they waited for the
funeral procession.
"She was fond of flowers, Caleb."
"Ay, that she was, sir," brightening up. "Kit loved everything that was
bright and pretty, bless her dear heart! I hope they'll give her lots
of flowers where she's gone, and that they will let her pick them for
herself. You mind her last words to me, Mr. Herrick--'Good-bye, dad, I
am a-going to be an angel, and I mean to be a real splendid one,' and
all the time her poor throat would hardly let her speak."
"Poor little soul," murmured Malcolm compassionately; for Kit had
suffered greatly in her heroic childish fashion. "Hush, here they come,
Caleb."
Malcolm grew quite white when he saw Elizabeth looking like a widow in
her deep mourning and crape veil, leaning on Mr. Carlyon's arm. She had
chosen the two hymns that David's favourite choir-boys were to
sing--"For all the saints who from their labours rest," and "How bright
those glorious spirits shine." They were singing the last when the
breeze caught Elizabeth's veil and blew it aside, and he had a glimpse
of her face. The beauty of her expression--its patient sadness, its
calm faith--moved him strangely. "He is not here," it seemed to
say--"he has gone to a world where there are no more sorrow and
sighing, and God shall wipe away all tears." And then the boys' voices
rang sweetly through the churchyard:
"'Midst pastures green He'll lead His flock,
Where living streams appear;
And God the Lord from every eye
Shall wipe off every tear."
Malcolm lingered behind until the crowd had dispersed, and then he and
Caleb looked down at the flower-decked coffin. Loving hands had lined
the walls of the grave with grasses and spring flowers, Lent lilies and
blue hyacinths, until it looked like a green bower decked with
blossoms. Countless wreaths and crosses and rustic bunches of flowers
lay on the grass waiting until the grave was filled. Malcolm looked at
them all before he went back to town; but all that evening the
remembrance of Elizabeth's rapt, uplifted look remained with him.
"She did not know I was there," he said to himself. But he was wrong.
The very next evening he had a note from Dinah.
"Elizabeth wants me to thank you," she wrote, "for your lovely cross.
She thought it so kind of you to be there with us. We both saw you. Was
it not all peaceful and beautiful? Next Thursday Elizabeth is going to
Stokeley with Mr. Carlyon. He is better, but still very weak and
ailing, and she dare not leave him to Theo. When I am alone, will you
come down for a night? it would be such a comfort to talk to so kind a
friend." And then when Malcolm read this he made up his mind that he
would go to the Wood House as soon as Elizabeth had left for Stokeley.