by Ellen Wood
“No, Amy, I must talk of this — only of this. Does not the very fact of her having owned her fault show how sincerely sorry she is. Think of Frances, the proud Frances, sueing for forgiveness; think how miserable, utterly miserable, she must be to stoop to that. How, almost broken-hearted! Surely, Amy, for the sake of her prayers — all our prayers, for the sake of the love your poor Bertie had for her, you will forgive her.”
“No. Had my boy lived he would have avenged his mother’s wrongs, and hated her, even as I do.”
“Alas, Amy! You hate her. Your heart never used to be so cruel as this.”
“No, it did not. She has made me what I am. Has she not pursued me with her revengeful cruelty for years? Has she not taken my only earthly hope from me, even my husband’s love? And yet you wonder that I am changed — can ask me to forgive her.”
“No, Amy, not taken your husband’s love; he loves you still.”
“If he did, I should not be sitting here, broken hearted and alone, with nothing but my own sorrowful thoughts, and — and you to comfort me.”
“He will forgive you, and take you to his heart in time, Amy.”
“Never! How can I convince him that I love him now? His very kindness chills me — so different to what it was; the changed tone of his voice tells me I have lost his love. He lives; yet is dead to me, — is mine, yet, how far off from me; and she who has wrought me all this misery, done all she has it in her power to do, now sues for forgiveness. Is it possible I can forgive, or clasp her hand in mine again?” The stony look was gradually relaxing, a slight, colour mantled her cheeks, and she concluded, almost passionately,— “No, Anne, I will not forgive her! Will not! Urge me no more. I cannot speak to her, much less see her again.”
“And yet think of her kindness to your boy. He remembered it, and gave her his top when he was dying.”
“You are cruel to remind me of it,” said Amy, taking some fresh flowers off the table she was wreathing into a cross for Bertie; her last sad, mournful, but loving work.
Anne drew near, and passed her arm lovingly round her waist.
“This,” said she, touching the cross, “is the emblem of your faith; and what does it not teach? It tells you that He who died on it to save us miserable sinners forgave even his murderers. ‘Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.’ Not only forgave them, but excused their faults, and interceded for them. Amy, if this is your belief, if you indeed take Him as your model, then forgive, even as he forgave; if not, never dare to lay this sweet white cross on your dead child’s breast; would he not now, a pure and immortal spirit, sorrow at his mother’s want of faith, and hardness of heart.”
Amy’s head drooped; every particle of angry colour fled from her face, while the hard, unforgiving look gradually died away as Anne went on.
“Spare me, Anne! Spare me!” she said.
“No, Amy dear, I must not, although it is as cruel to me to speak to you so harshly as it is for you to listen, and believe me when I say that your child, your little Bertie, was never further off from you than now, when you forgive not another her trespasses, even as you hope your own will be forgiven. Oh, Amy! think — can you kneel night and morning, and repeat that one sentence in your prayers, knowing how utterly you reject it? Can you press a last loving kiss on your child’s pure lips, knowing how you are hugging one darling sin at your heart? Amy, Amy! listen to my warning voice, and forgive even as you hope to be forgiven,” and Anne bent forward and lovingly kissed her forehead.
The spell was broken: as Anne gently withdrew her lips, tears welled up from the poor overcharged heart, and Amy wept, — wept an agony of tears.
“Oh, Anne!” she said presently, “Stop! stop! You will crush my heart. I will forgive her, for the sake of my boy, my darling Bertie.”
“God bless you, dear Amy,” replied Anne, delighted at not only having gained her wish, but at the sight of the tears she was shedding. “These tears will do you good. My heart has ached to see, day after day, your cold, calm, listless face.”
Anne could have cried herself for very joy, to think how nicely things were coming round; as for Robert Vavasour, of course, with Frances to plead for forgiveness, and his wife to throw her arms round his neck, and vow she loved him better than all the world beside, his stubborn heart must give in; so Anne sat quite contented and happy by Amy’s side, and let her weep on. Then, as her watch told her the hour for her husband’s departure drew near, she soothed and comforted Amy’s weak, quivering heart, as well as she was able, and went — for Amy would go at once — as far as Frances Strickland’s room door with her, then flew, rather than walked, to her own. Mr. Hall, carpet-bag in hand, was just coming out, and nearly ran over her as she burst open the door.
“Is it you, Anne?” he said, as he staggered back, “I thought, at least, it was a cannon ball coming.”
“It’s only my head,” she said, laughing, “I was in such a hurry. I felt I should be too late. I ought to have packed up your things before I went to Amy.”
“Ought is a very fine word, but it is generally a late one.”
“I am so sorry,” said Anne in a repentant voice.
“My next wife shall never say she is sorry,” he said smiling.
“What a hardened wretch she will be!”
“Not so,” he replied, “she shall be the most gentle, submissive creature in the world; everything shall be in its right place, and there shall be a right time for everything.”
“Yes, Tom, I know I do try you dreadfully; but, all the same, you will never get another little wife to love you better than I do.”
“True, Anne,” he said, “or one that I could ever love as I love you.”
“And now, Tom, do put down that horrid carpet-bag, I hate to feel you are going to leave me here even for a few days all by myself; and for the first time too. I can’t think what I shall do without you.”
“But it is more than half-past four,” he replied.
“But not railway time, only the poor old pony’s, and I am sure he will not mind waiting just to oblige his mistress.”
Mr. Hall sat down, and placed her by his side. “And now, Anne,” he said, “tell me what success you have had with Mrs. Vavasour? but do not make a long story of it, as I really must be away in another ten minutes.”
“I had a hard matter to persuade her, Tom, but I managed it at last, and she is with Frances now. I feel so happy, because I am sure all will be right; poor Amy! how she did cry.”
“She cried at last, then?”
“Heartily; and I know it will do her a world of good; she looked far happier when I left her than she has done for days.”
“And now, Anne, I really must go and see after the pony, and settle the carpet bag, but I will come back once more, and say good-bye.”
Ten minutes, twenty, slipped by, and Anne began to fear her husband had forgotten his promise; she wondered at his delay, and looked round to see if he had forgotten anything. His sermon, blotting book, small ink-bottle, all had gone. She turned to the chest of drawers and was ransacking them hurriedly, when she heard him come back.
“Why, Tom,” she said, without turning round, “Here are all your handkerchiefs, every one of them! Don’t talk of my carelessness after this,” and she laughingly held them up as a trophy.
But her husband’s face was white, so very white, that Anne’s heart turned sick, and almost stopped beating.
With a faint cry she crept up to him, and with a timid, frightened look, gazed into his face.
“What is it?” she whispered, “are you ill? Oh! tell me! Tell me!”
“No, no. It’s worse, Anne, worse,” he murmured hoarsely.
“Oh! for God’s sake tell me, Tom! or I shall die.”
“It is Vavasour,” he said, as he took her in his arms and held her to his heart. “Forgive me for having frightened you so, Anne. But Vavasour has been shot.”
“Thank God you are well?” said Anne, bursting into tears, “But, oh, Amy! my poor
darling Amy!”
CHAPTER XV.
THE LAST OF LITTLE BERTIE.
“She put him on a snow-white shroud, A chaplet on his head; And gathered only primroses To scatter o’er the dead.
She laid him in his little grave— ’Twas hard to lay him there: When spring was putting forth its flowers, And everything was fair.
And down within the silent grave, He laid his weary head; And soon the early violets Grew o’er his grassy bed.
The mother went her household ways, Again she knelt in prayer; And only asked of Heaven its aid Her heavy lot to bear.” L. E. L.
On leaving Frances Strickland, Amy went to poor Bertie’s room to lay the fair white cross in his coffin, and was bending down over her lost darling in an agony of tears which old Hannah vainly attempted to check, when the sudden, hasty gallop of a horse away from the stables struck her ear. It was the groom going for Dr. Bernard.
Amy’s mind, already unnerved and unstrung, was easily alarmed.
“Alas! Hannah,” said she, drawing near the darkened window “has any accident happened that some-one rides so furiously?”
“My dear Miss Amy,” replied Hannah, forgetting in her tender pity Amy’s new tie, and thinking of her only as the wee child she had so lovingly nursed on her knee, “you must not be frightening yourself this way. What should have happened? God knows you’ve had enough to worry you. There, don’t tremble that way, but let go the blind, and come away from the window.”
But Hannah’s persuasions and entreaties were alike useless. Amy, with fluttering anxious heart still looked out through the deepening shadows of the day, now fast drawing into evening.
Her husband was away. Oh! how she wished she could see him or hear his firm, yet for the last few days mournful step. Her heart had taken a strange fear, which she could neither shake off, nor subdue; a trembling nervous dread of some fast-coming evil.
Mr. Linchmore came up the drive, and for a moment a joyous thrill crept through her as she thought it was her husband; but no, he came nearer still, then disappeared up the terrace with Mr. Hall, and only the groom with the pony carriage was left, standing quietly as it had stood ever since she had so eagerly strained her eyes from the window.
Then once again — as it had done long, long ago — that strange, dull tramp from without smote her ear.
Meanwhile, Anne had nerved her heart as well as she could, and gone sorrowfully enough to break the sad news to Amy.
Not finding her either in her own or Miss Strickland’s room, she guessed she was in poor Bertie’s: besides, she missed the white cross.
“Oh! Tom!” she said, going back to her husband, “What can I do? She is with her poor dead child, surely I need not; and indeed I feel I cannot go there and tell her.”
“No,” replied Mr. Hall, after a moment’s consideration, “perhaps it will be best to try and get Vavasour into his room without her knowledge. I think with caution it might be done. Go and remain near the nursery door, Anne; they will not have to pass it on their way up, and I will go and enjoin silence and caution.”
Anne sped away, and took up the post assigned her, listening eagerly, yet fearfully for the sound of the muffled footsteps, and straining her ears in the direction of the stairs, so that Amy stood before her, almost ere she had heard the opening of the door.
Anne saw at once Amy guessed at some disaster, for she gently but firmly resisted Anne’s endeavours to arrest her footsteps, and said, while she trembled excessively,
“My husband! Is he dead?”
“No. Oh no! Amy darling.”
Then as Amy would have passed on, she whispered, in a voice she in vain attempted to steady,
“Don’t go there Amy! pray don’t!”
But Amy paid no heed, but went and stood at the head of the stairs on the landing.
In vain Mr. Linchmore and Mr. Hall gently tried to induce her to leave; she was deaf to reason.
“I must be here,” she murmured, with pale compressed lips, “I must be here.”
There was no help for it; so they bore him up slowly past her on into his room, and laid him on the bed, and there left him.
“Do you think he will die?” asked Amy, fearfully, as she grasped old Dr. Bernard’s arm tightly, some time later as he sat by the fire.
How he felt for her, that old man, she so young, and so full of sorrow. He drew her hand in his, and stroked it gently and kindly.
“Trust in God, and hope,” was the reply.
“I do trust,” she replied, firmly. “I will try and hope. But, oh! I love him! I love him!” she said.
And this was the one cry for ever, if not on her lips, at her heart.
She sat by the pale insensible form day after day; she knew no fatigue, heeded not the lapse of time. Once only she stole away to imprint a last loving kiss on her dead Bertie’s lips ere they bore away the little coffin to its last resting-place in the cold churchyard; then silently she went back to her old place by her husband’s bed-side. Would he die without one word? without recognising his wife who loved him so entirely? Oh! surely he would speak one loving word if but one; give her one loving look as of old. She felt that her boy’s death was as nothing in comparison to this.
As the love deep and strong welled up in her heart, she felt half frightened at its intensity, while it crept with a great fear as she whispered over and over again, “He will die.” If he would but speak; or say one word.
Alas! the words came at last, but only incoherent murmurings, indistinct unmeaning words. His eyes opened, and wandered about without knowledge, and though they rested on her, knew her not. His burning hands returned not the soft pressure, the loving touch, of hers. Would he die thus, and never know the deep love she had for him; the tenderness, devotion of her heart? She groaned in utter anguish and misery; but patiently sat on.
In vain they tried, those kind friends, to draw her away; or if they did succeed in persuading her to lie down on a mattress on the floor, her large mournful eyes never closed in sleep, but still kept watch on the one loved form; her heart ever fearing he would die — praying that he might not.
And Mrs. Grey, or rather Mrs. Archer, the newly-made mother; where was she? She kept watch, too, over her long-lost son, but without being the slightest help to the poor heart-broken wife, having apparently no thoughts, no words, no looks for anyone but the son who had been lost to her for so long. Fear mingled with her joy; fear like the wife’s lest he should die.
Amy was told part of her story by Mr. Linchmore, and made no objection to the poor mother sharing her watch; she was her husband’s mother, that was enough. What he loved, she would love.
Very silent and motionless Mrs. Archer sat. Amy sometimes wandered about restlessly, or gave way to passionate weeping now; but very patiently, very sorrowfully, the mother sat. They exchanged no words with each other, those two mournful watchers; Mrs. Archer had been told the young girl’s relationship to her son, and sometimes her eyes rested lovingly on the pale, beautiful face.
When Amy went to take a last look at her boy, she took Mrs. Archer’s hand, and drew her away with her, and together they had stood and gazed at the little white marble face. Amy said no word, but as Mrs. Archer moved away, she murmured, —
“Better thus, than lost. Lost for years.”
The shock of all these events proved too much for Anne, and when her husband returned on the Tuesday morning he could not but notice how wan and pale she looked, and so excitable, that the least thing in the world upset her. Instead of the glad, but perhaps sober welcome he expected, she threw her arms round his neck, as she had done at parting, and burst into tears, which she had a hard matter to prevent ending in hysterics. Mr. Hall’s soothing, gentle manner soon calmed her; but she was very nearly giving way again that same evening, when he urged her immediate return home.
“What! leave Amy, Tom, in all her trouble? Oh, no, never!”
“The worry and excitement is too much for you, Anne, I cannot shut my eyes to that fact, and
must not allow you to sacrifice your health for the sake of your friend.”
“My dear, dear husband, do let me stay?”
But the look on her husband’s face convinced her that his resolution was taken, and inflexible. She ceased to coax and persuade, and bethought her what could be done. Frances Strickland was still weak and ill; besides, her companionship was not in any way to be desired for Amy.
“Have I not heard you, Anne,” said Mr. Hall, as if answering her thoughts, “speak of some kind old lady, a great friend of Mrs. Vavasour’s mother? Surely her aid as a companion, though not as a nurse, might be called upon now.”
Of course. Why had not Anne thought of it?
In a few moments, with her usual haste, she was speeding away in search of Mrs. Linchmore, to beg her permission, before she invited Mrs. Elrington. It was given, though with Anne thought anything but a good grace, and the letter written and despatched, and Anne tried to appear content and satisfied that she was leaving; and doing right; and that Amy might not think it unkind. As she packed her box, she was forced to confess she was weak, and that it was perhaps as well she had a husband to look after her some times, and that Mr. Hall was right, as he always was, in wishing her to have rest.
The next few days passed much as the former ones to Amy, being, so to speak, a misery of doubt and hope; but on the morning of the third there came a change — a change for the better. Robert Vavasour slept. Not that dull, insensible sleep, a hovering between life and death, such as it had been when Amy first watched by him, but a soft, natural sleep; the breathing came faint, but regular; the face wore none of its former set, rigid look, but gradually grew into the old, old expression she loved so well. Then Amy knew her husband was better; God had been very merciful; he would not die and leave her desolate and alone; she knew it long before old Dr. Bernard’s anxious face wore that pleasant, cheery smile, or Mrs. Archer had thanked God so fervently on her knees.
Robert Vavasour slept, slept for hours; and during that long sleep Amy and Mrs. Archer arranged their future plans; her husband must not be told of his mother’s existence yet; in the first place, he was not strong enough to bear any excitement, and in the next, the poor, fond mother hoped to win a little of his kindly feeling, if not his love, before she held him to her heart.