Rutledge Part 60

"Till every pulse beat true to airs divine."

It must be hard, indeed, to "stand and wait," to feel that energy and strength are going before life goes, and that there is nothing left to do, only to endure. Such a trial, it seemed to me, would be the worst of all: as long as there is work there is a panacea, but take away that, and the burden grows intolerable. G.o.d spare me that! And I hurried on through my many duties with double thankfulness that they were so many.

The short winter afternoon was all too short for them--it was almost sundown when I started to cross the common on my return from a distant cottage. There was but one thing more to do to-night; the school-children were waiting for me to go into the church and practice their Christmas-hymn with them, and it was late already, so I quickened my pace. I found my young pupils waiting for me around the gate of the churchyard; they hailed me with acclamations, and cl.u.s.tering round my skirts, followed me into the church. They were too well taught to continue their chattering there, even if they had been unrestrained by my presence, but I could not but believe the scene must have struck them with some reverence, thoughtless and trifling though too many of them were. The lowering sun streamed in through the stained gla.s.s of the western windows, and lit up gorgeously the sombre church, illuminating the joyful Christmas words above the altar, touching cross and star and tablet with soft light, and laying rich and warm upon the glossy wreaths that were twined round font and chancel, desk and pillar. Coming from the cold air and wintry landscape, into such a mellow, warm, green sanctuary, where there seemed no winter and no chill, I could understand the feeling that checked the children's mirth so suddenly, and made them look wistfully and silently around; and when their sweet, young voices followed mine in the Christmas-hymn, and when the organ yielded its full tones to my touch, arch and rafter, pavement and aisle seemed to stretch away into infinity; the light that filled the church was the glory of heaven; the sweet music, the voices of the angels; and time and earth seemed to fade and recede, and floating down that path of glory, I could almost have touched the open gates of heaven--almost have mingled in the white-robed throng within. The chains of sin and sense fall off--the sounds of warfare die away--the terrors of the conflict with the hosts of h.e.l.l are all forgotten; if one's soul could follow in the wake of one's longing at such a moment as this, death would indeed be conquered--the king of terrors be cheated of his prey.

The glory had faded from the west, and dullness and gloom had crept into the church before the young choir dispersed. It seemed as if the very spirit of music had possessed the children; hymn after hymn, anthem and carol, and never tired or flagging. As at last I rose to go, and bent forward to shut the organ, one of them whispered eagerly:

"There's somebody been below there in the church! I hear steps going down the aisle; and hark! The door just opened and shut again."

"No matter," I said, a little startled. "Some one has heard the music, and come in to listen. Follow me quietly, children: it is almost dark; we have stayed too late."

The little group separated at the church door; bidding them good-night, and taking by the hand the child whose way lay partly with mine going home, I took the path toward the village. It gave me, I confess, a little uneasiness to see how faint the daylight was, and the conjecture--who could have been in the church so long and so silent, recurred again and again uncomfortably. It was too late to trust little Rosy to go home alone, so, though it took me a full half mile beyond my own road, I kept on with her; and beguiling her with a Christmas story as we went, soon succeeded in forgetting foolish fears, _malgre_ the twilight and the lonesome road. At last we reached the little gate of Rosy's home, and stooping to kiss her as I left her at it, I was turning away, when a carriage drove quickly past toward Brandon. It was a strange carriage, and it gave me a sort of start; I could not quite recover my composure for some minutes; but then strangers came so seldom through the village at this season, it was not very wonderful after all that I had been startled. However, I reflected, it was not improbably some one on the way from northward, detained by the freezing of the river, and hurrying on to catch the evening train from Brandon; and with that, dismissed the subject from my mind.

When I reached home, I hurried into the study, anxious to explain to Mr.

Shenstone the cause of my long absence, and to make amends for it by enlivening his evening. I found him alone; Mrs. Arnold had not been able to leave her room for several days, and the study was in darkness, and tea had not been thought of.

"Why, how dismal you look, sir!" I exclaimed, as I came in. "I beg you will excuse my staying till this hour; but the children were so in love with their own voices, that I could not get them away; and that little gipsy of a Rosy had to be escorted all the way home. Kitty should have brought you lights, sir; shall I ring?"

"No, not just yet; I am in no hurry. Sit down; are you not tired? I have wondered at your being so late. You have missed a visitor."

"A visitor? No! Why, who?"

"One whom I little expected to see, and much less expected to have had so short a visit from. I confess it has quite startled and unsettled me, seeing him so unexpectedly and for such a moment. But he could not stay over night, and the Brandon train leaves at half-past six, he says.

He was sorry you were away."

"Mr. Rutledge has been here?"

"Yes."

"And gone?"

"And gone."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"Be not amazed at life. 'Tis still The mode of G.o.d with his elect, Their hopes exactly to fulfill, In times and ways they least expect."

Coventry Patmore.

The winter pa.s.sed heavily away: no change for the better relieved our fears for Mr. Shenstone, and, before spring, poor Mrs. Arnold died, and left me alone with the burden of care and dread. All that time is like a sad, slow dream; I cannot tell the days apart as I look back upon them--the one fear that grew daily colored all events alike. It was like no other approaching death that I had ever seen. I knew he was longing for his release; but what would be release to him would be my sentence of banishment--my separation from the only friend I had, the severing of the only tie I knew.

Still it seemed vague and far off, and the warm spring days came slowly on, and crept into June, before either he or I knew how very few he had yet to live. The doctor had at last to tell me what every one else knew--that Mr. Shenstone could not live a week. I do not think that he himself, though knowing well that the time was at hand, had been aware how very near it was. I knew it was not too near for his desires; but one earthly care vexed the holy calm of his death-bed.

"I must see Arthur before I die. Write to him again, and beg him to come quickly. He could not have realized what I meant him to understand when you wrote last, or he would have been here before."

I wrote again urgently, and told him in the plainest words what the necessity for his coming was, and how anxiously Mr. Shenstone desired an interview before he died; that it was the one ungratified wish that disturbed his last moments; the letter was hurriedly dispatched, and yet day after day pa.s.sed and no answer came. It was cruel to see the momentary eagerness with which the dying man's eye lighted up at each new sound without, and to hear the faint sigh with which he sank back at the fresh disappointment.

I had my own interpretation of this silence; but I dared not tell him.

Through the winter his letters had been irregular; it was now some weeks since any had come; I did not feel a doubt but that he had gone abroad again, and, in the hurry of departure, had omitted to write. Something that Mrs. Fielding (the pretty Janet Emerson, married and living at New Orleans, but on a visit to her old home, who had found me out and come to see me a month or so before) had said, confirmed my suspicions.

"I heard from Paris a week or so ago," she said, "that your cousin, Miss Churchill, and Mr. Rutledge are really to be married. Upon my word, you must excuse me; but it is a shame. I grudge him to her. Ah! _mechante_, if you had made the proper use of that evening in the library that I gave you, she would not have had him."

I had not told Mr. Shenstone this; nor dared I tell him that there was hardly a hope that his friend was still in America. A week had elapsed since my letter had been sent; the end was surely approaching--we could not shut our eyes to that. That morning, Mr. Shenstone had, with great pain and difficulty, refusing my a.s.sistance, himself written a few lines to Mr. Rutledge, and, sealing it, had committed it to my hands, charging me to deliver it to him as soon as he should come. From the moment that that was done, he had put off all care, and given himself wholly up to the exercises of religion and the preparations for death. Of my future he had never spoken much. G.o.d would direct my lot mercifully, he was sure; he left me, his sole earthly care, with faith, to G.o.d's protection. He desired that for the present I should remain, with the two servants, in the house, till some other home presented, or till the parsonage was required for his successor.

It was a holy, religious day; such peace as soothed the last hours of his life told well for the service in which he had spent it. It was not like death--it was like the coming of a blessing that had been long prayed for. We had with him received the sacrament, and heard the faint words that told his triumph and his hope, and stood waiting around him, almost following him to the courts of heaven, almost forgetting with him, the world in which our path still lay; when through the window, open to the sunset of a June evening, there came the sound of a hurried arrival.

"It is Arthur," murmured the dying man, faintly, turning his eyes on me.

"Go and bring him to me."

I hurried to the door and down the path. "You have not a moment to lose," I said, without a word of preparation or salutation. "He can hardly live an hour, and he desires to see you."

"Good heaven! Has it indeed come to that!" he exclaimed, following me up the stairs. I left him at the door; for half an hour they were alone together, then Mr. Rutledge opened the door and called me hastily to come in. I obeyed; but only in time to receive the last blessing of the dying saint, and, kneeling in unspeakable sorrow by his bedside, to feel his hand rest tenderly on my head, with a silent benediction, even after his departing soul had carried its supplication and its intercession to the very presence of the Divine Benefactor.

Two days had pa.s.sed since the funeral; there was no more anxiety to engross, no more watching to employ me; the blank idleness that is the earliest pain after a great loss, was just then creeping over me with its worst power. There was nothing more to do--the house was settled to its ordinary ways, and I sat alone in my little room in the deepening twilight, with a sadder sense of my loneliness than I had had before. It was not time yet for me to think of what was to become of me; I had a right to rest a little before I faced any greater change, yet hara.s.sing thoughts of my homelessness and desolation crowded on me to make my present trial heavier. There was no one on earth I had a right to call my friend, save only the humble ones who could offer me nothing but grat.i.tude and affection, and who were as unable to direct and help me, as I was to direct and help myself. It was long before I could summon courage enough to say that I must decide upon some change, and to resolve that it must be done now. There was no right and no propriety in staying longer here than till I had arranged some other home; indeed for some reasons this was the last roof that I should stay under now. But my resolves came quick when they did come--I saw that the sooner I began my new life the better; it would be like another death if I waited till a few months hence before I left this dear home; now, in this time of change and restlessness, I could best bear the pain. To-morrow, I had resolved, I would go out and try to find some cottage or some rooms, where, with Kitty to attend me, I could make the best of my slender fortune, and remain quietly at least for the present, when a knock at the door aroused me. The servant said: "Mr. Rutledge is in the study, Miss, and desires to see you for a few moments."

"Ask him to excuse me to-night," I began; but no, it was as easy now as it would ever be, so telling the woman to say I would be down in a moment, I shut the door and tried to prepare myself. There was a good deal to help me to be calm; some pride and some humility--a prayer--and the remembrance of my sorrow--and the gulf that lay between the present and the past; and I went downstairs quite self-possessed and quiet.

The study was so dusky I could hardly see my visitor's face as he rose to meet me. I longed to keep the dusk, but said:

"Do you mind twilight, sir? My head aches a little, but if you prefer it, I will send for candles."

"Not at all," he said, sitting down opposite me in the window. "I am sorry to hear you are not well. Kitty told me, when she admitted me, that it was doubtful whether you could come down; but I fancied you would not have the least hesitation in declining to see me if you were not able."

"I did think, sir, when you were first announced, that I would beg you to excuse me; but I remembered that possibly you might be returning to the city to-morrow, and this might be my last chance of seeing you, so I made an effort to come down."

There was a moment's pause, which I broke by saying:

"I wanted to see you, sir, about the change in my plans, which, as Mr.

Shenstone's nearest friend, you would, perhaps, be kind enough to sanction."

"It was about that that I came this evening."

"You are very kind, sir, and so I may go at once to the subject. You know, of course, of Mr. Shenstone's legacy; that, with my own property, is sufficient to provide very comfortably for Kitty and myself. I propose making my arrangements to leave here within a fortnight, keeping Kitty with me; but for the other servant, Mary, I would ask your advice.

She has been some time in the family, and is a faithful person. Would it be best to leave her in the house till it is otherwise occupied, or to provide a place for her, and close the house? You know, as I shall have the packing up and settling of all at the last, it is necessary I should know your wishes."

"I do not quite comprehend. I had understood from Mr. Shenstone that it was his wish that you should remain for the present here. Did he not express the same to you?"

"He did, sir, but it was a mistaken kindness. I had rather go now; and I do not think there can be any wrong in disregarding a request which he only meant as an indulgence and a respite, and would not have insisted on if he had known my reasons."

"Can I know them?"

"They are so many, sir, it would not be worth while to trouble you."