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A Noble Life, a novel by Dinah M. Mulock Craik |
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Chapter 12 |
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_ Life, when we calmly analyze it, is made up to us all alike of three simple elements--joy, sorrow, and work. Some of us get tolerably equal proportions of each of these; some unequal--or we fancy so; but in reality, as the ancient sage says truly, "the same things come alike to all." The Earl of Cairnforth, in his imperfect fragment of a life, had had little enough of enjoyment; but he knew how to endure better than most people. He had, however, still to learn that existence is not wholly endurance; that a complete human life must have in it not only submission but resistance; the fighting against evil and in defense of good; the struggle with divine help to overcome evil with good; and finally the determination not to sit down tamely to misery but to strive after happiness--lawful happiness, both for ourselves and others. In short, not only passively to accept joy or grief, but to take means to secure the one and escape the other; to "work out our own salvation" for each day, as we are told to do it for an eternity, though with the same divine limitation--humbling to all pride, and yet encouraging to ceaseless effort--"for it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure." That self-absorption of loss, which follows all great anguish; that shrinking up unto one's self, which is the first and most natural instinct of a creature smitten with a sorrow not unmingled with cruel wrong, is, with most high natures, only temporary. By-and-by comes the merciful touch which says to the lame, "Arise and walk;" to the sick, "Take up thy bed and go into thine house." And the whisper of peace is, almost invariably, a whisper of labor and effort: there is not only something to be suffered, but something to be done. With the earl this state was longer in coming, because the prior collapse did not come to him at once. The excitement of perpetual expectation--the preparing for some catastrophe, which he felt sure was to follow, and the incessant labor entailed by his wide enquiries, in which he had no confidant but Mr. Mearns, the clerk, and him he trusted as little as possible, lest any suspicion or disgrace should fall upon Helen's husband--all this kept him in a state of unnatural activity and strength. But when the need for action died away; when Helen's letters betrayed nothing; and when, though she did not return, and while expressing most bitter regret, yet gave sufficiently valid reasons for not returning in her husband's still delicate health--after June, Lord Cairnforth fell into a condition, less of physical than mental sickness, which lasted a long time, and was very painful to himself, as well as to those that loved him. He was not ill, but his usual amount of strength--so small always--became much reduced; neither was he exactly irritable --his sweet temper never could sink into irritability; but he was, as Malcolm expressed it, "dour," difficult to please; easily fretted about trifles; inclined to take sad and cynical views of things.
Hardened at the core Lord Cairnforth could never be; no man can whose heart has once admitted into its deepest sanctuary the love of One who, when all human loves fail, still whispers, "We will come in unto him, and make our abode with him"--ay, be it the forlornest bodily tabernacle in which immortal soul ever dwelt. But there came an outer crust of hardness over his nature which was years before it quite melted away. Common observers might not perceive it--Mr. Cardross even did not; still it was there. The thing was inevitable. Right or wrong, deservedly or undeservedly, most of us have at different crises of our lives known this feeling-- the bitter sense of being wronged; of having opened one's heart to the sunshine, and had it all blighted and blackened with frost; of having laid one's self down in a passion of devotedness for beloved feet to walk upon, and been trampled upon, and beaten down to the dust. And as months slipped by, and there came no Helen, this feeling, even against his will and his conscience, grew very much upon Lord Cairnforth. In time it might have changed him to a bitter, suspicious, disappointed cynic, had there not also come to him, with strong conviction, one truth --a truth preached on the shores of Galilee eighteen hundred years ago --the only truth that can save the wronged heart from breaking-- that he who gives away only a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose his reward. Still, the reward is not temporal, and is rarely rewarded in kind. He--and He alone--to whom the debt is due, repays it; not in our, but in his own way. One only consolation remains to the sufferers from ingratitude, but that one is all-sufficing: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these little ones, ye have done it unto Me." All autumn, winter, and during another spring and summer, Helen's letters--most fond, regular, and (to her father) satisfactory-- contained incessant and eager hopes of return, which were never fulfilled. And gradually she ceased to give any reason for their non-fulfillment, simply saying, with a sad brevity of silence, which one, at least, of her friends knew how to comprehend and appreciate, that her coming home at present was "impossible." "It's very true," said the good minister, disappointed as he was: "a man must cleave to his wife, and a woman to her husband. I suppose the captain finds himself better in warm countries--he always said so. My bairn will come back when she can--I know she will. And the boys are very good--specially Duncan." For Mr. Cardross had now, he thought, discovered germs of ability in his youngest boy, and was concentrating all his powers in educating him for college and the ministry. This, and his growing absorption in his books, reconciled him more than might have been expected to his daughter's absence; or else the inevitable necessity of things, which, as we advance in years, becomes so strange and consoling an influence over us, was working slowly upon the good old minister. He did not seem heart-broken or even heart-wounded--he did his parish work with unfailing diligence; but as, Sunday after Sunday, he passed from the Manse garden through the kirk-yard, where, green and moss-covered now, was the one white stone which bore the name of "Helen Lindsay, wife of the Reverend Alexander Cardross," he was often seen to glance at it less sorrowfully than smilingly. Year by year, the world and its cares were lessening and slipping away from him, as they had long since slipped from her who once shared them all. She now waited for him in that eternal reunion which the marriage union teaches, as perhaps none other can, to realize as a living fact and natural necessity. But it was different with the earl. Sometimes, in an agony of bitterness, he caught himself blaming her--Helen--whom her old father never blamed; wondering how much she had found out of her husband's conduct and character; speculating whether it was possible to touch pitch and not be defiled; and whether the wife of Captain Bruce had become in any way different from, and inferior to, innocent Helen Cardross. Lord Cairnforth had never answered her letter--he could not, without being a complete hypocrite; and she had not written again. He did not expect it--scarcely wished it--and yet the blank was sore. More and more he withdrew from all but necessary associations, shutting himself up in the Castle for weeks together--neither reading, nor talking much to any one, but sitting quite still--he always sat quite still--by the fireside in his little chair. He felt creeping over him that deadness to external things which makes pain itself seem comparatively almost sweet. Once he was heard to say, looking wistfully at Mrs. Campbell, who had been telling him with many tears, of a "freend o' hers" who had just died down at the clachan, "Nurse, I wish I could greet like you." The first thing which broke up in his heart this bitter, blighting frost was, as so often happens, the sharp-edged blow of a new trouble. He had not been at the Manse for two or three weeks, and had not even heard of the family for several days, when, looking up from his seat in church, he was startled by the apparition of an unfamiliar face in the pulpit--a voluble, flowery-tongued, foolish young assistant, evidently caught haphazard to fill the place which Mr. Cardross, during a long term of years, had never vacated, except at communion seasons. It gave his faithful friend and pupil a sensation almost of pain to see any new figure there, and not the dear old minister's, with his long white hair, his earnest manner, and his simple, short sermon. Shorter and simpler the older he grew, till he often declared he should end by preaching like the beloved apostle John, who, tradition says, in his latter days, did nothing but repeat, over and over again, to all around him, his one exhortation--he, the disciple whom Jesus loved-- "Little children, love one another." On inquiry after service, the earl found that Mr. Cardross had been ailing all week, and had had on Saturday to procure in haste this substitute. But, on going to the Manse, the earl found him much as usual, only complaining of a numbness in his arm. "And," he said, with a composure very different from his usual nervousness about the slightest ailment, "Now I remember, my mother died of paralysis. I wish Helen would come home." "Shall she be sent for?" suggested Lord Cairnforth. "Oh no--not the least necessity. Besides, she says she is coming." "She has long said that." "But now she is determined to make the strongest effort to be with us at the New Year. Read her letter--it came yesterday; a week later than usual. I should have sent it up to the Castle, for it troubled me a little, especially the postscript; can you make it out? part of it is under the seal. It is in answer to what I told her of Duncan; he was always her pet, you know. How she used to carry him about the garden, even when he grew quite a big boy! Poor Helen!" While the minister went on talking, feebly and wanderingly, in a way that at another time would have struck the earl as something new and rather alarming, Lord Cairnforth eagerly read the letter. It ended thus: "Tell Dunnie I am awfully glad he is to be a minister. I hope all my brothers will settle down in dear old Scotland, work hard, and pay their way like honest men. And bid them, as soon as ever they can, to marry honest women--good, loving Scotch lassies--no fremd (archaic: strange, foreign) folk. Tell them never to fear for 'poortith cauld,' as Mr. Burns wrote about; it's easy to bear, when it's honest poverty. I would rather see my five brothers living on porridge and milk-- wives, and weans, and all--than see them like these foreigners, counts, barons, and princes though they be. Father, I hate them all. And I mind always the way I was brought up, and that I was once a minister's daughter in dear and bonnie Cairnforth." "What can she mean by that?" said Mr. Cardross, watching anxiously the earl's countenance as he read. I suppose, what Helen always means, exactly what she says." "That is true. You know we used always to say Helen could hold her tongue, though it wasn't easy to her, the dear lassie; but she could not say what was not the fact, nor even give the impression of it. Therefore, if she were unhappy, she would have told me?" This was meant as a question, but it gained no answer. "Surely," entreated the father, anxiously, "surely you do not think the lassie is unhappy?" "This is not a very happy world," said the earl, sadly. "But I do believe that if any thing had been seriously wrong with her Helen would have told us." He spoke his real belief. But he did not speak of a dread far deeper, which had sometimes occurred to him, but which that sad and even bitter postscript now removed, that circumstances could change character, and that Helen Cardross and Helen Bruce were two different women. As he went home, having arranged to come daily every forenoon to sit with the minister, and to read a little Greek with Duncan, lest the lad's studies should be interrupted, he decided that, in her father's state, which appeared to him the more serious the longer he considered it, it was right Helen should come home, and somebody, not Mr. Cardross, ought to urge it upon her. He determined to do this himself. And, lest means should be wanting--though of this he had no reason to fear, his information from all quarters having always been that the Bruce family lived more than well--luxuriously--he resolved to offer a gift with which he had not before dared to think of insulting independent Helen--money. With difficulty and pains, not intrusting this secret to even his faithful secretary, he himself wrote a few lines, in his own feeble, shaky hand, telling her exactly how things were; suggesting her coming home, and inclosing wherewithal to do it, from "her affectionate old friend and cousin," from whom she need not hesitate to accept any thing. But though he carefully, after long consideration, signed himself her "cousin," he did not once name Captain Bruce. He could not. This done, he waited day after day, till every chance of Helen's not having had time to reply was long over, and still no answer came. That the letter had been received was more than probable, almost certain. Every possible interpretation that common sense allowed Lord Cairnforth gave to her silence, and all failed. Then he let the question rest. To distrust her, Helen, his one pure image of perfection, was impossible. He felt it would have killed him--not his outer life, perhaps, but the life of his heart, his belief in human goodness. So he still waited, nor judged her either as daughter or friend, but contented himself with doing her apparently neglected duty for her-- making himself an elder brother to Duncan, and a son to the minister, and never missing a day without spending some hours at the Manse. For almost the first time since her departure, Helen's regular monthly letter did not arrive, and the earl grew seriously alarmed. In the utmost perplexity, he was resolving in his own mind what next step to take--how, and how much he ought to tell of his anxieties to her father--when all difficulties were solved in the sharpest and yet easiest way by a letter from Helen herself--a letter so unlike Helen's, so un-neat, blurred, and blotted, that at first he did not even recognize it as hers. "To the Right Honorable the Earl of Cairnforth: "My Lord,--I have only just found your letter. The money inclosed was not there. I conclude it had been used for our journey hither; but it is gone, and I can not come to my dearest father. My husband is very ill, and my little baby only three weeks old. Tell my father this, and send me news of him soon. Help me, for I am almost beside myself with misery! "Yours gratefully, "Helen Bruce "---- Street, Edinburg." Edinburg! Then she was come home! The earl had opened and read the letter with his secretary sitting by him. Yet, dull and not prone to notice things as the old man was, he was struck by an unusual tone of something very like exultation in his master's voice as he said, "Mr. Mearns, call Malcolm to me; I must start for Edinburg immediately." In the interval Lord Cairnforth thought rapidly over what was best to be done. To go at once to Helen, whatever her misery was, appeared to him beyond question. To take Mr. Cardross in his present state, or the lad Duncan, was not desirable: some people, good as they may be, are not the sort of people to be trusted in calamity. And Helen's other brothers were out and away in the world, scattered all over Scotland, earning, diligently and hardly, their daily bread. There was evidently not a soul to go to her help except himself. Her brief and formal letter, breaking down into that piteous cry of "help me," seemed to come out of the very depths of despair. It pierced to the core of Lord Cairnforth's heart; and yet--and yet--he felt that strange sense of exultation and delight. Even Malcolm noticed this. "Your lordship has gotten gude news," said he. "Is it about Miss Helen? She's coming home?" "Yes. We must start for Edinburg at once, and we'll bring her back with us." He forgot for the moment the sick husband, the newborn baby-- every thing but Helen herself and her being close at hand. "It's only forty-eight hours journey to Edinburg now. We will travel post; I am strong enough, Malcolm; set about it quickly, for it must be done." Malcolm knew his master too well to remonstrate. In truth, the whole household was so bewildered by this sudden exploit--for the wheels of life moved slowly enough ordinarily at Cairnforth--that before any body was quite aware what had happened, the earl and his two necessary attendants, Malcolm and Mr. Mearns--also Mrs. Campbell--Helen might want a woman with her--were traveling across country as fast as the only fast traveling of that era--relays of post-horses day and night--could carry them. Lord Cairnforth, after much thought, left Helen's letter behind with Duncan Cardross, charging him to break the tidings gradually to the minister, and tell him that he himself was then traveling to Edinburg with all the speed that, in those days, money, and money alone, could procure. Oh, how he felt the blessing of riches! Now, whatever her circumstances were, or might have been once, misery, poverty, could never afflict Helen more. He was quite determined that from the time he brought them home, his cousin and his cousin's wife should inhabit Cairnforth Castle; that, whether Captain Bruce's life proved to be long or short, worthy or unworthy, he should be borne with, and forgiven every thing--for Helen's sake. All the journey--sleeping or waking, day or night--Lord Cairnforth arranged or dreamed over his plans, until at ten o'clock the second night he found himself driving along the familiar Princes Street, with the grim Castle rock standing dark against the moonlight; while beyond, on the opposite side of what was then a morass, but is now railways and gardens, rose tier upon tier, like a fairy palace, the glittering lights of the old town of Edinburg. _ |
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