Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem,
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
SHAKSPEARE'S SONNET.
How awful is the feeling with which morning breaks in a house where
sudden grief and desolation has been wrought. Like Adam and Eve in the
garden, we shrink from each other, as if we feared to read our own
feelings in the faces of others, whose sufferings only embitter our own.
The stillness of the past night broken by household sounds usually so
familiar as to attract no attention, recall the mind to the fact that
another day has opened on our life, showing more clearly the sorrow of
the night before.
Poor Amy! Mabel's love had thrown a kind of halo round the orphan child,
and those who did not love her for her own, loved her for Mabel's sake.
Old John went heavily to his work, to move the benches and other signs
of the last evening's simple pleasure.
"Miss Mabel shall not see them again," he said to himself; "I cannot
give her much comfort--but I may spare her a little pain."
Mr. Ware and his sister had gone home, after affording all the comfort
and assistance in their power.
Mrs. Lesly had been persuaded to lie down, for, terrified and ill, she
needed repose, and Mabel, in grief, as in gladness, always took the
lead.
Lucy, exhausted and spiritless, too weary to get up, and too irresolute
to undress, had thrown herself upon her bed, and fallen asleep.
When she again opened her eyes, the noon-day light was streaming in upon
her bed, and, to her great surprise, Mabel was standing by her; she was
pale as the dead, and her countenance gave evidence of the agony of the
last few hours--but there was a pale light in her eyes, and a still
repose about her, that seemed to hallow the grief they concealed.
"I am glad you are awake," she said, in a voice scarcely above a
whisper--"I feared you might be ill--you slept so long."
Lucy's eyes were swollen with weeping and watching, and she looked at
her for a moment in despairing silence; at last she raised herself, and
seizing Mabel's hand, grasped it eagerly.
"Oh, Mabel, Mabel," said she, "what have I done--where can I hide my
face?"
And she sank again upon the bed, and buried her face in the pillow.
"You meant me no harm," replied her cousin--"at least, not much--and I
forgive you from my heart. My grief is too heavy for resentment. But
get up, Lucy, and do not distress me still more by giving way in this
manner."
"Oh, how I despise myself! to think that I am lying here while you are
waiting on me."
"Well, dear Lucy, get up now, for you will be better doing something,
and I cannot help pitying you here alone."
"Then tell me something I can do for you. Oh, I will do anything, but I
cannot get up to sit as I did last night."
"This is Saturday," replied Mabel, "and there are many things you can do
for me, which will enable me to be entirely with my poor Amy. Shall I
leave them to you?"
"Oh, yes," cried Lucy, jumping up, and throwing her arms round her; "you
are an angel--I cannot forgive myself--yet you forgive me before I ask
you."
Mabel kissed her silently, and gliding from the room, was soon again by
her sister's bed.
Amy was feverish, and perpetually wanted something to drink, but it was
touching to see how gently she asked for it, and how earnestly she
seemed to try to repress her own fretfulness, with her large blue eyes
fixed on her sister's face, as if trying to read her approval of every
checked complaint.
"It was very naughty of me," she whispered, "to get into the swing,
Mabel dear, when you told me not in the morning. Will you forgive me?"
"You are in pain, love," said Mabel, tremulously; "and I cannot call you
naughty now."
"Then I am glad you have taught me not to want to be told--but I shall
not be happy till you just say you forgive me."
"My own darling, I forgive you a thousand times--would that I could
suffer instead of you."
"If I had not done wrong, I should not so much mind," said Amy,
thoughtfully; "but give me a little water, dear."
Mabel held the water to her lips, and Amy looked at her earnestly as her
hand trembled.
"Do not cry, Mabel dear," said she, in a feeble voice, "I shall very
soon be well again."
And weary with the pain she was bearing, without a murmur, she closed
her eyes.
Mabel's restrained tears fell fast, for well she knew that years to come
might find her the same helpless invalid as she now lay before her.
The surgeon had given little hope, even in the first moment, when it is
seldom withheld; and she threw herself upon her knees, and covered her
face with her hands. Amy's fortitude and patience, while it deeply moved
her, made her thankful to find that her early lessons had not been
bestowed in vain.
Meanwhile Lucy roused herself with a stronger desire to be really useful
than she had felt for years. Mrs. Lesly had gone to sit with her two
children, so that she required nothing from her. She felt Mabel could
not more effectually have forgiven her than by allowing her to assist
in her duties, for it prevented her feeling the remorse of the evening
before. She ran down stairs with cups and waiters from the sick room,
which, if allowed to accumulate, give such real discomfort to the
sufferer, and even busied herself in helping Betsy in the kitchen, spite
of the sulkiness with which her services were accepted.
But idle habits are not easily thrown aside with the distaste for them;
and, as the day wore on, she began to feel so fatigued that she could
not think how Mabel managed to do everything she did on ordinary
days--when, spite of her desire to please her, she felt her strength
fail in a few hours.
"But I have not been brought up like Mabel," she thought, too willing to
throw the blame on others, if by so doing she at all removed it from
herself. "How can she ever get through it," she said to herself, eying
disconsolately the large basket of clean linen, caps, and frills, which
Betsy had just laid down before her, saying that Miss Lesly had said
she would be kind enough to sort them.
She forced herself, however, to attempt it with many a sigh over its
difficulties. She had scarcely finished her task, when she saw Clair
coming up to the house, and, feeling a better conscience from her
exertions, for her spirits were easily elated, she went down stairs to
meet him.
When she entered the sitting-room, where, not venturing to knock or
ring, he had already seated himself, she found him with his head buried
in his hands, which rested on the table before him. He looked up as she
entered, and a momentary shudder passed over him, which she could not
help perceiving. His face was deadly pale, and his features drawn
together, and bearing the traces of deeper thought than that in which he
usually indulged. He had indeed done many things more careless, and ten
times as wrong, but the consequences had never followed so rapidly nor
been so heart-rending.
"Oh, you have suffered," exclaimed Lucy, "and what a night I have
passed!"
"If you can see Miss Lesly," returned Clair, scarcely heeding her
observation, "ask her, in mercy, to see me for a few minutes."
His first thoughts are of Mabel, thought Lucy, with ready jealousy, not
one kind word for me.
"Will you?" said he, seeing her hesitate, "will you ask her to see me?
What does she say? How does she bear it? Does she reproach me?"
"What question shall I answer first?" said Lucy, with a little of her
returning levity.
Clair bit his lip, and looked at her with surprise, but Lucy quickly
recovering herself, said quietly,
"She bears it as we might have expected from her, she never spoke of
you--and forgave me before I dared ask for forgiveness, and she would
not suffer her servant to reproach me to her."
"Then there is some hope for me," he exclaimed, "but oh! how ten times
more killing is it to have injured one who will not return an injury by
an unkind word. Last night she looked at me with such pity in her
beautiful eyes, that I could have worshipped her. But do go."
Lucy burst into tears.
"What!" thought she, "was I earning for Mabel, when I was trying to shew
how much more nerve and spirit I possessed?"
Clair sat in silence, he did not spring to her side and take her hand,
soothing her, as only a lover knows how; and she left the room to seek
Mabel with feelings of indescribable remorse. Having delivered her
message to Betsy, she locked herself in her room, and once more gave way
to the most passionate grief.
Clair was left only a short while alone, before Mabel entered the room.
One glance at her pale cheek and sorrowful countenance, was sufficient
to tell, at once, how great the suffering had been, and how it had been
borne.
"Ah, Miss Lesly," he began, hurriedly, "can you ever look upon me again
without shuddering? I, who have been the cause of this dreadful,
desolating blow. Is it possible you can ever forgive me? but I know you
can; were I the vilest person on this earth you would forgive me, if I
asked it, but never will you look on me without lamenting the horrid
scene I shall always recall. Yet, I must hear your forgiveness, and oh!
if you could know what I have suffered, in these few last wretched
hours, you would pity me."
"I should not do you justice, Captain Clair," replied Mabel, trying to
speak steadily, "if I did not pity the pain you must feel in having been
the most unwilling cause of such an accident; but you must not forget
that it was unintentional: and I forgive you, from my heart, for any
share you may have had in this unhappy accident."
"They tell me," said he, shuddering, "that she never can be quite well
again. Oh!" cried he, throwing himself on his chair and groaning
heavily, "that I should have lived to be such a curse."
"You are but the instrument in a Hand mightier than your own," replied
Mabel.
"Few punishments can be so great," replied Clair, bitterly, "as to be
chosen for the instrument of justice. It is only the worst soldier in
the army that is forced to inflict death on his condemned brother. You
will hate the instrument that has been raised to afflict you?"
"Should I not then be rebellious against the Hand that raised it?"
replied Mabel. "But, for my sake and your own, command your feelings. I
dare not think, yet, and you would force me to do so. Why this has been
suffered I must not ask now, for my faith may be too small for argument,
while grief has almost robbed me of my senses. But I can see that you
may have been made the unwilling cause, possibly that you may _think_.
Do not forget the merit of suffering, for, if it chastens, it often
purifies the heart; and do not let poor Amy's health and hopes in life
be offered up for nothing, for there is a nobler self within you, which
sorrow for our loss may call forth--shake off all that sullies your
character--all its littleness or frivolity--and be yourself. Devote your
life to some higher purpose, and to nobler aims--go forth to the world
again, a blessing to those around you--and then," said she, sinking her
voice as her eye lost its brilliant fire, "and then Amy, on her sick
bed, will feel that her loss has been your advantage."
Clair almost held his breath while she spoke, and then exclaimed, with a
soldier's energy, as his eye seemed to have caught the fire which had
died in hers,
"I will, I will! You have doubly forgiven, for you have bestowed
thoughts which inspire me with hope. You," said he, as he respectfully
raised her hand to his lips, "you have more than forgiven, and I bless
you from my very soul."
Mabel gently withdrew her hand, and, excusing herself from staying
longer, left him to indulge the new reflections which her words had
awakened.