"Tread softly; bow the head,--
In reverent silence bow,
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul
Is passing now."--CAROLINE SOUTHEY.
A little room, scantily but neatly furnished. A low bed. A dying man.
A kneeling girl,--half child, half woman,--with a lovely, miserable
face, and pretty yellow hair.
It was almost dusk, and the sound of the moaning sea without, rising
higher and hoarser as the tide rushes in, comes like a wail of
passionate agony into the silent room.
The rain patters dismally against the window-panes. The wind--that all
day long has been sullen and subdued--is breaking forth into a fury
long suppressed, and, dashing through the little town, on its way to
the angry sea, makes the casements rattle noisily and the tall trees
sway and bend beneath its touch. Above, in the darkening heavens, gray
clouds are scurrying madly to and fro.
"Georgie," whispers a faint voice from out the gathering gloom, "are
you still there?"
"Yes, dear, I am here, quite near to you. What is it?"
"Sit where I can see you, child,--where I can watch your face. I have
something to say to you. I cannot die with this weight upon my heart."
"What weight, papa?"
"The uncertainty about your future," says the dying man, with some
excitement. "How can I leave you, my little one, to fight this cruel
world alone?"
"Do not think of me," says the girl, in a voice so unnaturally calm as
to betray the fact that she is making a supreme effort to steel
herself against the betrayal of emotion of any kind. By and by, will
there not be long years in which to make her moan, and weep, and
lament, and give herself wholly up to that grim giant, Despair? "Put
me out of your thoughts altogether. I shall do very, very well. I
shall manage to live as others have lived before me."
"Your Aunt Elizabeth will take you in for a little while, and
then----then----"
"I shall go out as a governess. I shall get into some kind, pleasant
family, and every one will be very good to me," says the girl, still
in a resolutely cheerful tone. "It will just suit me. I shall like it.
Do you understand me, papa? I shall like it better than anything,
because children are always fond of me."
The father's face grows sadder, even grayer, as she speaks. He sighs
in a troubled fashion, and strokes feebly the little fragile hand that
clings so desperately to his, while the damps of death lie thick upon
his brow.
"A governess," he murmurs, with some difficulty. "While you are only a
child yourself? What a hard, hard fate! Is there no friend to help and
comfort you?"
"I have a friend," replies she, steadily. "You have often heard me
mention her. You remember the name, now,--Clarissa Peyton? She was my
best friend at school, and I know she will do what she can for me. She
will be able to find me some nice children, and----"
"Friendship,"--interrupts he, bitterly,--"it is a breath,--a name. It
will fail you when you most need it."
"Clarissa will not fail me," replies she, slowly, though with a
feeling of deadly sickness at her heart. "And, besides, you must not
think of me as a governess always, papa. I shall, perhaps, marry
somebody, some day."
The dying man's eyes grow a shade brighter; it is a mere flicker, but
it lasts for a moment, long enough to convince her she has indeed
given some poor hope to cheer his last hours.
"Yes; to marry somebody," he repeats, wistfully, "that will be
best,--to get some good man, some kindly, loving heart to protect you
and make a safe shelter for you. There is comfort in the thought. But
I hope it will be soon, my darling, before your spirit is broken and
your youth dulled."
"I shall marry as soon as ever I can," says Georgie, making a last
terrible effort to appear hopeful and resigned. "I shall meet some one
very soon, no doubt,--very soon: so do not fret about me any more. Why
should I not, indeed? I am very pretty, am I not, papa?" In spite of
the lightness of her words, a heavy choking sob escapes her as she
finishes her little set speech. She buries her face in the
bed-clothes, to stifle her rising grief, but her father is almost too
far gone to notice it.
"Yes,--so like your mother," he mutters, somewhat thickly, clutching
aimlessly at the quilt. "Poor Alice!--poor girl! It was that day on
the beach, when the waves were dancing, and the sun----or was
it?----Did the old man ever forgive----?"
He is wandering, dreaming his death-dream of happier days, going back,
even as he sinks into everlasting sleep, to the gilded hours of youth.
The girl presses his hand to rouse him.
"Think of _me_ now," she entreats, despairingly; "it will only be for
a little while,--such a little while,--and then you will be with _her_
forever. Oh, papa! my dear, my dear; smile at me once again. Think of
me happily; let me feel when you are gone that your last hours with me
were peaceful."
His eyes meet hers, and he smiles tenderly. Gently she slips her arms
round him, and, laying her golden head upon the pillow, close to him,
presses her lips to his,--the soft warm lips, that contrast so
painfully with those pale cold other ones they touch. So she remains
for a long time, kissing him softly every now and again, and thinking
hopelessly of the end.
She neither sighs, nor weeps, nor makes any outward sign of anguish.
Unlike most people, she has realized to its fullest the awfulness of
this thing that is about to befall her. And the knowledge has
paralyzed her senses, rendering her dull with misery, and tearless.
Presently the white lids, weary with nights of watching, droop. Her
breath comes more evenly. Her head sinks more heavily against the
pillow, and, like a child worn out with grief and pain, she sleeps.
When next she wakes, gray dawn is everywhere. The wind still moans
unceasingly. Still the rain-drops patter against the panes. She raises
her head affrightedly, and, springing to his feet, bends with bated
breath above the quiet form lying on the bed.
Alas! alas! what change is here? He has not moved; no faintest
alteration can be traced in the calm pose of the figure that lies just
as she last saw it, when sleep o'er came her. The eyes are closed;
the tender smile--the last fond smile--still lingers on his lips; yet,
he is dead!
The poor child stands gazing down upon him with parted lips and
clasped hands, and a face almost as ashen as that marble one to which
her eyes grow with a horror unspeakable. He looks so peaceful--so much
as though he merely sleeps--that for one mad moment she tries not to
believe the truth. Yet she knows it is death, unmistakable and
relentless, upon which for the first time she looks.
He is gone, forever! without another kiss, or smile, or farewell word
beyond those last uttered. He had set out upon his journey alone, had
passed into the other happier land, in the cold silence of the night,
even while she slept,--had been torn from her, whilst yet her fond
arms encircled him.
Impelled by some indefinable desire, she lays her fingers softly on
the hand that lies outside the coverlet. The awful chill that meets
her touch seems to reach even to her heart. Throwing her arms above
her head, with a wild passionate cry, she falls forward, and lies
senseless across the lifeless body.
* * * * *
Misery hurts, but it rarely kills; and broken hearts are out of
fashion. All this unhappiness came to Georgie Broughton about a year
ago, and though brain-fever followed upon it, attacking her with
vicious force, and almost handing her over as a victim to the greedy
grave, yet she had survived, and overcome death, and returned from the
land of shadows, weakened, indeed, but with life before her.
Months passed before she could summon up sufficient energy to plan or
think about a possible future. All this time her aunt Elizabeth had
clothed and fed and sheltered her, but unwillingly. Indeed, so
grudgingly had she dealt out her measure of "brotherly love" that the
girl writhed beneath it, and pined, with a passionate longing, for the
day that should see her freed from a dependence that had become
unspeakably bitter to her.
To-day, sitting in her little room,--an apartment high up in Aunt
Elizabeth's house,--she tells herself she will hesitate no longer,
that she is strong now, quite strong, and able to face the world. She
holds up her delicate little hand between her eyes and the window, as
a test of her returning strength, only to find she can almost see the
light through it,--so thin, so fragile, has it grown. But she will not
be disheartened; and, drawing pen and paper towards her, she tries to
write.
But it is a difficult task, and her head is strangely heavy, and her
words will not come to her. A vague feeling, too, that her letter will
be unsuccessful, that her friend will fail her, distresses and damps
her power to explain her position clearly.
Who can say if Clarissa Peyton will be the same at heart as when last
they parted, with many words of good will and affection, and eyes dark
with tears?
Grief and misery, and too much of Aunt Elizabeth, have already
embittered and generated distrust in her young bosom. She is tired,
too. All day she has toiled, has worked religiously, and gone through
wearying household labor, trying to repay in some faint wise the
reluctant hospitality extended to her. At this moment a sense of utter
desolation overpowers her, and with a brain on fire, and a heart half
broken, she pushes from her the partly-written letter, and, burying
her face in her arms, breaks into low but heavy weeping.
"Papa! papa!" she sobs, miserably. It is the common refrain of all her
sorrowful dirges,--the sadder that no response ever comes to the
lonely cry. Of our dead, if we would believe them happy we must also
believe that they have forgotten us; else how (when we think on our
bleeding hearts) could they keep their bliss so perfect?
Mournfully as Mariana in her moated grange, the poor child laments,
while sobs shake her slender frame. And the day dies, and the sun goes
down, and happily some noise in the house--a step, a voice--arouses
her, and, starting as though from some ugly dream, she takes up her
pen again, and writes eagerly, and without premeditation, to the one
friend in whom she still puts faith.