Yet through all the gossip, and through much that might have been called at other times commonplace cant of religion, there was spread a tender earnestness, and the whole air seemed to be enchanted with the fragrance of that fading rose. Each one spoke more gently, more lovingly to each, for the thought of her.
It was now a bright September morning, and the early frosts had changed the maples in the pine-woods to scarlet, and touched the white birches with gold, when one morning Miss Roxy presented herself at an early hour at Captain Kittridge’s.
They were at breakfast, and Sally was dispensing the tea at the head of the table, Mrs. Kittridge having been prevailed on to abdicate in her favor.
“It is such a fine morning,” she said, looking out at the window, which showed a waveless expanse of ocean. “I do hope Mara has had a good night.”
“I’m a-goin’ to make her some jelly this very forenoon,” said Mrs. Kittridge. “Aunt Roxy was a-tellin’ me yesterday that she was a-goin’ down to stay at the house regular, for she needed so much done now.”
“It’s ‘most an amazin’ thing we don’t hear from Moses Pennel,” said Captain Kittridge. “If he don’t make haste, he may never see her.”
“There’s Aunt Roxy at this minute,” said Sally.
In truth, the door opened at this moment, and Aunt Roxy entered with a little blue bandbox and a bundle tied up in a checked handkerchief.
“Oh, Aunt Roxy,” said Mrs. Kittridge, “you are on your way, are you? Do sit down, right here, and get a cup of strong tea.”
“Thank you,” said Aunt Roxy, “but Ruey gave me a humming cup before I came away.”
“Aunt Roxy, have they heard anything from Moses?” said the Captain.
“No, father, I know they haven’t,” said Sally. “Mara has written to him, and so has Mr. Sewell, but it is very uncertain whether he ever got the letters.”
“It’s most time to be a-lookin’ for him home,” said the Captain. “I shouldn’t be surprised to see him any day.”
At this moment Sally, who sat where she could see from the window, gave a sudden start and a half scream, and rising from the table, darted first to the window and then to the door, whence she rushed out eagerly.
“Well, what now?” said the Captain.
“I am sure I don’t know what’s come over her,” said Mrs. Kittridge, rising to look out.
“Why, Aunt Roxy, do look; I believe to my soul that ar’s Moses Pennel!”
And so it was. He met Sally, as she ran out, with a gloomy brow and scarcely a look even of recognition; but he seized her hand and wrung it in the stress of his emotion so that she almost screamed with the pain.
“Tell me, Sally,” he said, “tell me the truth. I dared not go home without I knew. Those gossiping, lying reports are always exaggerated. They are dreadful exaggerations, — they frighten a sick person into the grave; but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper, — you must see and know how things are. Mara is not so very — very” — He held Sally’s hand and looked at her with a burning eagerness. “Say, what do you think of her?”
“We all think that we cannot long keep her with us,” said Sally. “And oh, Moses, I am so glad you have come.”
“It’s false, — it must be false,” he said, violently; “nothing is more deceptive than these ideas that doctors and nurses pile on when a sensitive person is going down a little. I know Mara; everything depends on the mind with her. I shall wake her up out of this dream. She is not to die. She shall not die, — I come to save her.”
“Oh, if you could!” said Sally, mournfully.
“It cannot be; it is not to be,” he said again, as if to convince himself. “No such thing is to be thought of. Tell me, Sally, have you tried to keep up the cheerful side of things to her, — have you?”
“Oh, you cannot tell, Moses, how it is, unless you see her. She is cheerful, happy; the only really joyous one among us.”
“Cheerful! joyous! happy! She does not believe, then, these frightful things? I thought she would keep up; she is a brave little thing.”
“No, Moses, she does believe. She has given up all hope of life, — all wish to live; and oh, she is so lovely, — so sweet, — so dear.”
Sally covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Moses stood still, looking at her a moment in a confused way, and then he answered, —
“Come, get your bonnet, Sally, and go with me. You must go in and tell them; tell her that I am come, you know.”
“Yes, I will,” said Sally, as she ran quickly back to the house.
Moses stood listlessly looking after her. A moment after she came out of the door again, and Miss Roxy behind. Sally hurried up to Moses.
“Where’s that black old raven going?” said Moses, in a low voice, looking back on Miss Roxy, who stood on the steps.
“What, Aunt Roxy?” said Sally; “why, she’s going up to nurse Mara, and take care of her. Mrs. Pennel is so old and infirm she needs somebody to depend on.”
“I can’t bear her,” said Moses. “I always think of sick-rooms and coffins and a stifling smell of camphor when I see her. I never could endure her. She’s an old harpy going to carry off my dove.”
“Now, Moses, you must not talk so. She loves Mara dearly, the poor old soul, and Mara loves her, and there is no earthly thing she would not do for her. And she knows what to do for sickness better than you or I. I have found out one thing, that it isn’t mere love and good-will that is needed in a sick-room; it needs knowledge and experience.”
Moses assented in gloomy silence, and they walked on together the way that they had so often taken laughing and chatting. When they came within sight of the house, Moses said, —
“Here she came running to meet us; do you remember?”
“Yes,” said Sally.
“I was never half worthy of her. I never said half what I ought to,” he added. “She must live! I must have one more chance.”
When they came up to the house, Zephaniah Pennel was sitting in the door, with his gray head bent over the leaves of the great family Bible.
He rose up at their coming, and with that suppression of all external signs of feeling for which the New Englander is remarkable, simply shook the hand of Moses, saying, —
“Well, my boy, we are glad you have come.”
Mrs. Pennel, who was busied in some domestic work in the back part of the kitchen, turned away and hid her face in her apron when she saw him. There fell a great silence among them, in the midst of which the old clock ticked loudly and importunately, like the inevitable approach of fate.
“I will go up and see her, and get her ready,” said Sally, in a whisper to Moses. “I’ll come and call you.”
Moses sat down and looked around on the old familiar scene; there was the great fireplace where, in their childish days, they had sat together winter nights, — her fair, spiritual face enlivened by the blaze, while she knit and looked thoughtfully into the coals; there she had played checkers, or fox and geese, with him; or studied with him the Latin lessons; or sat by, grave and thoughtful, hemming his toyship sails, while he cut the moulds for his anchors, or tried experiments on pulleys; and in all these years he could not remember one selfish action, — one unlovely word, — and he thought to himself, “I hoped to possess this angel as a mortal wife! God forgive my presumption.”
CHAPTER XL
THE MEETING
Sally found Mara sitting in an easy-chair that had been sent to her by the provident love of Miss Emily. It was wheeled in front of her room window, from whence she could look out upon the wide expanse of the ocean. It was a gloriously bright, calm morning, and the water lay clear and still, with scarce a ripple, to the far distant pearly horizon. She seemed to be looking at it in a kind of calm ecstasy, and murmuring the words of a hymn: —
“Nor wreck nor ruin there is seen,
There not a wave of trouble rolls,
But the bright rainbow round the throne
Peals endless peace to al
l their souls.”
Sally came softly behind her on tiptoe to kiss her. “Good-morning, dear, how do you find yourself?”
“Quite well,” was the answer.
“Mara, is not there anything you want?”
“There might be many things; but His will is mine.”
“You want to see Moses?”
“Very much; but I shall see him as soon as it is best for us both.”
“Mara, — he is come.”
The quick blood flushed over the pale, transparent face as a virgin glacier flushes at sunrise, and she looked up eagerly. “Come!”
“Yes, he is below-stairs wanting to see you.”
She seemed about to speak eagerly, and then checked herself and mused a moment. “Poor, poor boy!” she said. “Yes, Sally, let him come at once.”
There were a few dazzling, dreamy minutes when Moses first held that frail form in his arms, which but for its tender, mortal warmth, might have seemed to him a spirit. It was no spirit, but a woman whose heart he could feel thrilling against his own; who seemed to him like some frail, fluttering bird; but somehow, as he looked into her clear, transparent face, and pressed her thin little hands in his, the conviction stole over him overpoweringly that she was indeed fading away and going from him, — drawn from him by that mysterious, irresistible power against which human strength, even in the strongest, has no chance.
It is dreadful to a strong man who has felt the influence of his strength, — who has always been ready with a resource for every emergency, and a weapon for every battle, — when first he meets that mighty invisible power by which a beloved life — a life he would give his own blood to save — melts and dissolves like smoke before his eyes.
“Oh, Mara, Mara,” he groaned, “this is too dreadful, too cruel; it is cruel.”
“You will think so at first, but not always,” she said, soothingly. “You will live to see a joy come out of this sorrow.”
“Never, Mara, never. I cannot believe that kind of talk. I see no love, no mercy in it. Of course, if there is any life after death you will be happy; if there is a heaven you will be there; but can this dim, unsubstantial, cloudy prospect make you happy in leaving me and giving up one’s lover? Oh, Mara, you cannot love as I do, or you could not” —
“Moses, I have suffered, — oh, very, very much. It was many months ago when I first thought that I must give everything up, — when I thought that we must part; but Christ helped me; he showed me his wonderful love, — the love that surrounds us all our life, that follows us in all our wanderings, and sustains us in all our weaknesses, — and then I felt that whatever He wills for us is in love; oh, believe it, — believe it for my sake, for your own.”
“Oh, I cannot, I cannot,” said Moses; but as he looked at the bright, pale face, and felt how the tempest of his feelings shook the frail form, he checked himself. “I do wrong to agitate you so, Mara. I will try to be calm.”
“And to pray?” she said, beseechingly.
He shut his lips in gloomy silence.
“Promise me,” she said.
“I have prayed ever since I got your first letter, and I see it does no good,” he answered. “Our prayers cannot alter fate.”
“Fate! there is no fate,” she answered; “there is a strong and loving Father who guides the way, though we know it not. We cannot resist His will; but it is all love, — pure, pure love.”
At this moment Sally came softly into the room. A gentle air of womanly authority seemed to express itself in that once gay and giddy face, at which Moses, in the midst of his misery, marveled.
“You must not stay any longer now,” she said; “it would be too much for her strength; this is enough for this morning.”
Moses turned away, and silently left the room, and Sally said to Mara, —
“You must lie down now, and rest.”
“Sally,” said Mara, “promise me one thing.”
“Well, Mara; of course I will.”
“Promise to love him and care for him when I am gone; he will be so lonely.”
“I will do all I can, Mara,” said Sally, soothingly; “so now you must take a little wine and lie down. You know what you have so often said, that all will yet be well with him.”
“Oh, I know it, I am sure,” said Mara, “but oh, his sorrow shook my very heart.”
“You must not talk another word about it,” said Sally, peremptorily, “Do you know Aunt Roxy is coming to see you? I see her out of the window this very moment.”
And Sally assisted to lay her friend on the bed, and then, administering a stimulant, she drew down the curtains, and, sitting beside her, began repeating, in a soft monotonous tone, the words of a favorite hymn: —
“The Lord my shepherd is,
I shall be well supplied;
Since He is mine, and I am His,
What can I want beside?”
Before she had finished, Mara was asleep.
CHAPTER XLI
CONSOLATION
Moses came down from the chamber of Mara in a tempest of contending emotions. He had all that constitutional horror of death and the spiritual world which is an attribute of some particularly strong and well-endowed physical natures, and he had all that instinctive resistance of the will which such natures offer to anything which strikes athwart their cherished hopes and plans. To be wrenched suddenly from the sphere of an earthly life and made to confront the unclosed doors of a spiritual world on the behalf of the one dearest to him, was to him a dreary horror uncheered by one filial belief in God. He felt, furthermore, that blind animal irritation which assails one under a sudden blow, whether of the body or of the soul, — an anguish of resistance, a vague blind anger.
Mr. Sewell was sitting in the kitchen, — he had called to see Mara, and waited for the close of the interview above. He rose and offered his hand to Moses, who took it in gloomy silence, without a smile or word.
“‘My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,’” said Mr. Sewell.
“I cannot bear that sort of thing,” said Moses abruptly, and almost fiercely. “I beg your pardon, sir, but it irritates me.”
“Do you not believe that afflictions are sent for our improvement?” said Mr. Sewell.
“No! how can I? What improvement will there be to me in taking from me the angel who guided me to all good, and kept me from all evil; the one pure motive and holy influence of my life? If you call this the chastening of a loving father, I must say it looks more to me like the caprice of an evil spirit.”
“Had you ever thanked the God of your life for this gift, or felt your dependence on him to keep it? Have you not blindly idolized the creature and forgotten Him who gave it?” said Mr. Sewell.
Moses was silent a moment.
“I cannot believe there is a God,” he said. “Since this fear came on me I have prayed, — yes, and humbled myself; for I know I have not always been what I ought. I promised if he would grant me this one thing, I would seek him in future; but it did no good, — it’s of no use to pray. I would have been good in this way, if she might be spared, and I cannot in any other.”
“My son, our Lord and Master will have no such conditions from us,” said Mr. Sewell. “We must submit unconditionally. She has done it, and her peace is as firm as the everlasting hills. God’s will is a great current that flows in spite of us; if we go with it, it carries us to endless rest, — if we resist, we only wear our lives out in useless struggles.”
Moses stood a moment in silence, and then, turning away without a word, hurried from the house. He strode along the high rocky bluff, through tangled junipers and pine thickets, till he came above the rocky cove which had been his favorite retreat on so many occasions. He swung himself down over the cliffs into the grotto, where, shut in by the high tide, he felt himself alone. There he had read Mr. Sewell’s letter, and dreamed vain dreams of wealth and worldly success, now all to him so void. He felt to-day, as he sat there and watched the ships go by, how utterly nothing
all the wealth in the world was, in the loss of that one heart. Unconsciously, even to himself, sorrow was doing her ennobling ministry within him, melting off in her fierce fires trivial ambitions and low desires, and making him feel the sole worth and value of love. That which in other days had seemed only as one good thing among many now seemed the only thing in life. And he who has learned the paramount value of love has taken one step from an earthly to a spiritual existence.
But as he lay there on the pebbly shore, hour after hour glided by, his whole past life lived itself over to his eye; he saw a thousand actions, he heard a thousand words, whose beauty and significance never came to him till now. And alas! he saw so many when, on his part, the responsive word that should have been spoken, and the deed that should have been done, was forever wanting. He had all his life carried within him a vague consciousness that he had not been to Mara what he should have been, but he had hoped to make amends for all in that future which lay before him, — that future now, alas! dissolving and fading away like the white cloud-islands which the wind was drifting from the sky. A voice seemed saying in his ears, “Ye know that when he would have inherited a blessing he was rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” Something that he had never felt before struck him as appalling in the awful fixedness of all past deeds and words, — the unkind words once said, which no tears could unsay, — the kind ones suppressed, to which no agony of wishfulness could give a past reality. There were particular times in their past history that he remembered so vividly, when he saw her so clearly, — doing some little thing for him, and shyly watching for the word of acknowledgment, which he did not give. Some willful wayward demon withheld him at the moment, and the light on the little wishful face slowly faded. True, all had been a thousand times forgiven and forgotten between them, but it is the ministry of these great vital hours of sorrow to teach us that nothing in the soul’s history ever dies or is forgotten, and when the beloved one lies stricken and ready to pass away, comes the judgment-day of love, and all the dead moments of the past arise and live again.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 234