The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 73

'I often had a savage frantic abhorrence of it, but I always brought myself to do it, and it did me good; it would have done more if it had been less mechanical. But it often was only the instinct of not degrading myself like the lowest prisoners.'

'Well, there was your conduct to the officials.'

'Oh! one could not help being amenable to them, they were so kind.

Besides, these demons never came over me except when I was alone.'

'And one thing more, Leonard; did these demons, as you well call them, invade your devotions?'

'Never,' he answered readily; then recalling himself--'not at the set times I mean, though they often made me think the comfort I had there mere hypocrisy and delusion, and be nearly ready to give over what depended on myself. Chapel was always joy; it brought change and the presence of others, if nothing else; and that would in itself have been enough to banish the hauntings.'

'And they did not interfere with your own readings?' said the Doctor, preferring this to the word that he meant.

'I could not let them,' said Leonard. 'There was always refreshment; it was only before and after that all would seem mockery, profanation, or worse still, delusion and superst.i.tion--as if my very condition proved that there was none to hear.'

'The hobgoblin had all but struck the book out of Christian's hand,'

said Dr. May, pressing his grasp on Leonard's shuddering arm. 'You are only telling me that you have been in the valley of the shadow of death; you have not told me that you lost the rod and staff.'

'No, I must have been helped, or I should not have my senses now.'

And perhaps it was the repressed tremor of voice and frame rather than the actual words that induced the Doctor to reply--'That is the very point, Leonard. It is the temptation to us doctors to ascribe too much to the physical and too little to the moral; and perhaps you would be more convinced by Mr. Wilmot than by me; but I do verily believe that all the anguish you describe could and would have been insanity if grace had not been given you to conquer it. It was a tottering of the mind upon its balance; and, humanly speaking, it was the self-control that enabled you to force yourself to your duties, and find relief in them, which saved you. I should just as soon call David conquered because the "deep waters had come in over his soul."'

'You can never know how true those verses are,' said Leonard, with another s.h.i.+ver.

'At least I know to what kind of verses they all lead,' said the Doctor; 'and I am sure they led you, and that you had more and brighter hours than you now remember.'

'Yes, it was not all darkness. I believe there were more s.p.a.ces than I can think of now, when I was very fairly happy, even at Pentonville; and at Portland all did well with me, till last spring, and then the news from Ma.s.sissauga brought back all the sense of blood-guiltiness, and it was worse than ever.'

'And that sense was just as morbid as your other horrible doubt, about which you asked me when we were coming home.'

'I see it was now, but that was the worst time of all--the monotony of school, and the sense of hypocrisy and delusion in teaching--the craving to confess, if only for the sake of the excitement, and the absolute inability to certify myself whether there was any crime to confess--I can't talk about it. And even chapel was not the same refreshment, when one was always teaching a cla.s.s in it, as coming in fresh only for the service. Even that was failing me, or I thought it was! No, I do not know how I could have borne it much longer.'

'No, Leonard, you could not; Tom and I both saw that in your looks, and quite expected to hear of your being ill; but, you see, we are never tried above what we can bear!'

'No,' said Leonard, very low, as if he had been much struck; and then he added, after an interval, 'It is over now, and there's no need to recollect it except in the way of thanks. The question is what it has left me fit for. You know, Dr. May,' and his voice trembled, 'my first and best design in the happy time of Coombe, the very crown of my life, was this very thing--to be a missionary. But for myself, I might be in training now. If I had only conquered my temper, and accepted that kind offer of Mr. Cheviot's, all this would never have been, and I should have had my youth, my strength, and spirit, my best, to devote.

I turned aside because of my obstinacy, against warning, and now how can I offer?--one who has stood at the bar, lived among felons, thought such thoughts--the released convict with a disgraced name! It would just be an insult to the ministry! No, I know how prisoners feel. I can deal with them. Let me go back to what I am trained for. My nerve and spirit have been crushed out; I am fit for nothing else. The worst thing that has remained with me is this nervousness--cowardice is its right name--starting at the sound of a door, or at a fresh face--a pretty notion that I should land among savages!'

Dr. May had begun an answer about the remains of the terrible ordeal that might in itself have been part of Leonard's training, when they reached the house door.

These nerves, or whatever they were, did indeed seem disposed to have no mercy on their owner; for no sooner had he sat down in the warm drawing-room, than such severe pain attacked his face as surpa.s.sed even his powers of concealment. Dr. May declared it was all retribution for his unfriendliness in never seeking sympathy or advice, which might have proved the evil to be neuralgia and saved the teeth, instead of aggravating the evil by their extraction.

'I suspect he has been living on nothing,' said Dr. May, when, in a lull of the pain, Leonard had gone to bed.

'Papa!' exclaimed Gertrude, 'don't you know what Richard's housekeeping is? Don't you recollect his taking that widow for a cook because she was such a good woman?'

'I don't think it was greatly Richard's fault,' said Ethel. 'I can hardly get Leonard to make a sparrow's meal here, and most likely his mouth has been too uncomfortable.'

'Ay, that never seeking sympathy is to me one of the saddest parts of all. He has been so long shut within himself, that he can hardly feel that any one cares for him.'

'He does so more than at first,' said Ethel.

'Much more. I have heard things from him to-night that are a revelation to me. Well, he has come through, and I believe he is recovering it; but the three threads of our being have all had a terrible wrench, and if body and mind come out unscathed, it is the soundness of the spirit that has brought them through.'

A sleepless night and morning of violent pain ensued; but, at least thus much had been gained--that there was no refusal of sympathy, but a grateful acceptance of kindness, so that it almost seemed a recurrence to the Coombe days; and as the pain lessened, the enjoyment of Ethel's attendance seemed to grow upon Leonard in the gentle languor of relief; and when, as she was going out for the afternoon, she came back to see if he was comfortable in his easy-chair by the drawing-room fire, and put a screen before his face, he looked up and thanked her with a smile--the first she had seen.

When she returned, the winter twilight had closed in, and he was leaning back in the same att.i.tude, but started up, so that she asked if he had been asleep.

'I don't know--I have seen her again.'

'Seen whom?'

'Minna, my dear little Minna!'

'Dreamt of her?'

'I cannot tell,' he said; 'I only know she was there; and then rising and standing beside Ethel, he continued--'Miss May, you remember the night of her death?'

'Easter Eve?'

'Well,' continued he, 'that night I saw her.'

'I remember,' said Ethel, 'that Mr. Wilmot told us you knew at once what he was come to tell you.'

'It was soon after I was in bed, the lights were out, and I do not think I was asleep, when she was by me--not the plump rosy thing she used to be, but tall and white, her hair short and waving back, her eyes--oh! so sad and wistful, but glad too--and her hands held out--and she said, "Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope. O Leonard, dear, it does not hurt."'

'It was the last thing she did say.'

'Yes, so Ave's letter said. And observe, one o'clock in Indiana is half-past nine with us. Then her hair--I wrote to ask, for you know it used to be in long curls, but it had been cut short, like what I saw.

Surely, surely, it was the dear loving spirit allowed to show itself to me before going quite away to her home!'

'And you have seen her again?'

'Just now'--his voice was even lower than before--'since it grew dark, as I sat there. I had left off reading, and had been thinking, when there she was, all white but not wistful now; "Leonard, dear," she said, "it has not hurt;" and then, "He brought me forth, He brought me forth even to a place of liberty, because He had a favour unto me."'

'O, Leonard, it must have made you very happy.'

'I am very thankful for it,' he said. Then after a pause, 'You will not speak of it--you will not tell me to think it the action of my own mind upon itself.'

'I can only believe it a great blessing come to comfort you and cheer you,' said Ethel: 'cheer you as with the robin-note, as papa called it, that sung all through the worst of times! Leonard, I am afraid you will think it unkind of me to have withheld it so long, but papa told me you could not yet bear to hear of Minna. I have her last present for you in charge--the slippers she was working for that eighteenth birthday of yours. She would go on, and we never knew whether she fully understood your danger; it was always "they could not hurt you,"

and at last, when they were finished, and I had to make her understand that you could not have them, she only looked up to me and said, "Please keep them, and give them to him when he comes home." She never doubted, first or last.'

Ethel, who had daily been watching for the moment, took out the parcel from the drawer, with the address in the childish writing, the date in her own.

Large tears came dropping from Leonard's eyes, as he undid the paper, and looked at the work, then said, 'Last time I saw that pattern, my mother was working it! Dear child! Yes, Miss May, I am glad you did not give them to me before. I always felt as if my blow had glanced aside and fallen on Minna; but somehow I feel more fully how happy she is!'

'She was the messenger of comfort throughout to Ave and to Ella,' said Ethel, 'and well she may be to you still.'

'I have dreaded to ask,' said Leonard; 'but there was a line in one letter I was shown that made me believe that climate was not the whole cause.'