The Master-Christian Part 73

"That is not like you, dear friend!" he said, his rich voice trembling with the pity he felt for her. "That is not like your brave spirit! You look only at one aspect of grief--you see the darkness of the cloud, but not its brighter side. If I were to say that he whom you loved so greatly has perhaps been taken to save him from even a worse fate, you would be angry with me. You loved him--yes; and whatever he did or attempted to do, even to your injury, you would have loved him still had he lived! That is the angel half of woman's nature. You would have given him your fame had he asked you for it,--you would have pardoned him a thousand times over had he sought your pardon,--you would have worked for him like a slave and been content to die with your genius unrecognized if that would have pleased him. Yes I know! But G.o.d saw your heart--and his--and with G.o.d alone rests the balance of justice.

You must not set yourself in opposition to the law; you,--such a harmonious note in work and life,--must not become a discord!"

She did not speak. Her hand lay pa.s.sively in his, and he went on.

"Death is not the end of life. It is only the beginning of a new school of experience. Your very grief,--your present inaction, may for all we know, be injuring the soul of the man whose loss you mourn!"

She sighed.

"Do you think that possible--?"

"I do think it very possible," he answered. "Natural sorrow is not forbidden to us,--but a persistent dwelling on cureless grief is a trespa.s.s against the law. Moreover you have been endowed with a great talent,--it is not your own--it is lent to you to use for others, and you have no right to waste it. The world has taken your work with joy, with grat.i.tude, with thanksgiving; will you say that you do not care for the world?--that you will do nothing more for it?--Because one love--one life, has been taken from you, will you discard all love, all life? Dear friend, that will not be reasonable,--not right, nor just, nor brave!"

A wistful longing filled her eyes.

"I wish Manuel were here!" she said plaintively. "He would understand!"

"Manuel is with Cardinal Bonpre in London," replied Cyrillon. "I heard from Aubrey yesterday that they are going about together among the poor, doing good everywhere. Would you like to join them? Your friend Sylvie would be glad to have you stay with her, I am sure."

She gave a hopeless gesture.

"I am not strong enough to go--" she began.

"You will be strong enough when you determine to be," said Cyrillon.

"Your frightened soul is making a coward of your body!"

She started and drew her hand away from his gentle clasp.

"You are hars.h.!.+" she said, looking at him straightly. "I am not frightened--I never was a coward!"

Something of the old steady light came back to her eyes, and Cyrillon inwardly rejoiced to see it.

"My words seem rough," he said, "but truly they are not so. I repeat, your soul is frightened--yes! frightened at the close approach of G.o.d!

G.o.d is never so near to us as in a great sorrow; and when we feel His presence almost within sight and touch, we are afraid. But we must not give way to fear; we must not grovel in the dust and hide ourselves as if we were ashamed! We must rise up and grow accustomed to His glory, and let Him lead us where He will!"

He paused, for Angela was weeping. The sound of her low sobbing smote him to the heart.

"Angela--Angela!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Have I hurt you so much?"

"Yes, yes!" she murmured between her tears. "You have hurt me!--but you are right--you are quite right! I am selfish--weak--cowardly--ungrateful too;--but forgive me,--have patience with me!--I will try--I will try to bear it all more bravely--I will indeed!"

He rose from her side and paced the room, not trusting himself to speak. She looked at him anxiously and endeavoured to control her sobs.

"You are angry?"

"Angry!" He came back, and lifting her suddenly, but gently like a little child, he placed her in an easy sitting position, leaning cosily among her pillows. "Come!" he said smiling, as the colour flushed her cheeks at the swiftness of his action--"Let the Princesse D'Agramont see that I am something of a doctor! You will grow weaker and weaker lying down all day--I want to make you strong again! Will you help me?"

He looked into her eyes, and her own fell before his earnest, reverent, but undisguisedly tender glance.

"I will try to do what you wish," she said. "If I fail you must forgive me--but I will honestly try!"

"If you try, you will succeed"--said Cyrillon, and bending down, he kissed the trembling little hands--"Ah! forgive me! If you knew how dear your life is--to--to many, you would not waste it in weeping for what cannot be remedied by all your tears! I will not say one word against the man you loved--for YOU do not say it, and you are the most injured;--he is dead--let him rest;--but life claims you,--claims me for the moment;--our fellow-men and women claim our attention, our work, our doing for the best and greatest while we can,--our duty is to them,--not to ourselves! Will you for your father's sake--for the world's sake--if I dared say, for MY sake!--will you throw off this torpor of sorrow? Only you can do it,--only you yourself can command the forces of your own soul! Be Angela once more!--the guiding angel of more lives than you know of!--"

His voice sank to a pleading whisper.

"I will try!" she answered in a low voice--"I promise!--"

And when the Princess D'Agramont entered she was surprised and overjoyed to find her patient sitting up on her couch for the first time in many days, talking quietly with the Perseus she had sent to rescue the poor Andromeda from the jaws of a brooding Melancholia which might have ended in madness or death. With her presence the conversation took a lighter tone--and by-and-by Angela found herself listening with some interest to the reading of her father's last letter addressed to her kind hostess.

"Angela's picture is gone out of Rome"--he wrote--"It was removed from the studio in the sight of an enormous crowd which had a.s.sembled to witness its departure. The Voce Della Verita has described it as a direct inspiration of the devil, and suggests the burning-down of the studio in which it was painted, as a means of purifying the Sovrani Palace from the taint of sulphur and brimstone. La Croix demands the excommunication of the artist, which by the way is very likely to happen. The Osservatore Romano wishes that the s.h.i.+p specially chartered to take it to America, may sink with all on board. All of which kind and charitable wishes on the part of the Vatican press have so augmented the fame of 'The Coming of Christ' that the picture could hardly be got through the crush of people craning their necks to get a glimpse of it. It is now en route via Bordeaux for London, where it is to be exhibited for six weeks. As soon as I have finished superintending the putting by of a few home treasures here, I shall join you in Paris, when I hope to find my dear girl nearly restored to her usual self. It will please her to know that her friend the charming Sylvie is well and very happy. She was married for the second time before a Registrar in London, and is now, as she proudly writes, 'well and truly' Mrs. Aubrey Leigh, having entirely dropped her t.i.tle in favour of her husband's plainer, but to her more valuable designation.

Of course spiteful people will say she ceased to be Countess Hermenstein in order not to be recognized too soon as the 'renegade from the Roman Church,' but that sort of thing is to be expected.

Society never gives you credit for honest motives, but only for dishonest ones. We who know Sylvie, also know what her love for her husband is, and that it is love alone which inspires all her actions in regard to him. Her chief anxiety at present seems to be about Angela's health, and she tells me she telegraphs to you every day for news--"

--"Is that true?" asked Angela, interrupting the reading of her father's letter. "Does Sylvie in all her new happiness, actually think of me so much and so often?"

"Indeed she does!" replied the Princess D'Agramont. "Chere enfant, you must not look at all the world through the cloud of one sorrow! We all love you!--we are all anxious to see you quite yourself again!"

Angela's eyes filled with tears as they rested on her friend's kindly face, a face usually so brilliant in its animated expression, but now saddened and worn by constant watching and fatigue.

"You are far too good to me," she said in a low voice--"And I am most unworthy of all your attention."

Loyse D'Agramont paid no heed to this remark, but resumed reading the Prince Sovrani's epistle--

"Let me see! . . . Sylvie--yes--here it is--'She telegraphs to you every day for news, which is apparently the only extravagance she is guilty of just now. She and her husband have taken rooms in some very poor neighbourhood of London, and are beginning work in real earnest.

Our good Felix and his cherished foundling have been with them into many wretched homes, cheering the broken-hearted, comforting the sick, and a.s.suring all those who doubt it that there is a G.o.d in spite of priest-craft,--and I have received an English paper which announces that Mr. Aubrey Leigh will give one of his famous "Addresses to the People" on the last day of the year. I should like to hear him, though my very slight knowledge of English would be rather against me in the comprehension of what he might say. For all other news you must wait till we meet. Expect me in Paris in a few days, and ask my Angela to rouse herself sufficiently to give her old father a smile of welcome.

My compliments to "Gys Grandit," and to you the a.s.surance of my devoted homage. Pietro Sovrani.'"

The Princesse folded up the letter and looked wistfully at Angela.

"You will give him the smile of welcome he asks for, will you not, little one?" she asked. "You are all he has in the world, remember!"

"I do remember," murmured Angela. "I know!"

"Aubrey and his wife are 'beginning work in real earnest'!" said Cyrillon. "And how much their work will mean to the world! More than the world can at present imagine or estimate! It seems to be a settled thing that the value of great work shall never be recognised during the worker's lifetime, but only afterwards--when he or she who was so n.o.ble, so self-sacrificing, or so fa.r.s.eeing, shall have pa.s.sed beyond the reach of envy, scorn and contumely, into other regions of existence and development. The finest deeds are done without acknowledgment or reward, and when the hero or heroine has gone beyond recall, the whole world stands lamenting its blindness for not having known or loved them better. Donna Sovrani"--and his voice softened--"will also soon begin again to work, like Aubrey and Sylvie, 'in real earnest.' Will she not?"

Angela raised her eyes, full of sadness, yet also full of light.

"Yes," she said. "I will! I will work my grief into a glory if I can!

And the loss of world's love shall teach me to love G.o.d more!"

Loyse D'Agramont embraced her.

"That is my Angela!" she said. "That is what I wanted you to feel--to know--for I too have suffered!"

"I know you have--and I should have remembered it!" said Angela, penitently. "But--I have been frozen with grief--paralysed in brain and heart, and I have forgotten so many things!" She trembled and closed her eyes for a moment,--then went on--"Give me a little time--a few more days!--and I will prove that I am not ungrateful for your love--"

She hesitated, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyrillon,--"or for your friends.h.i.+p."

He bent over the little hand and kissed it reverently, and soon afterwards took his leave, more light of heart, and more hopeful in spirit, than he had been for many days. He felt he could now go on with his work, part of which was the task of distributing the money his father had left him, among the poor of Paris. He considered that to leave money to the poor after death is not half such a Christian act as to give it while alive. Distributors, secretaries, lawyers, and red-tapeism come in with the disposal of wealth after we are gone;--but to give it to those in need with our own hands--to part with it freely and to deny ourselves something in order to give it,--that is doing what Christ asked us to do. And whether we are blessed or cursed by those whom we seek to benefit, none can take away from us the sweet sense of peace and comfort which is ours to enjoy, when we know that we have in some small measure tried to serve our Divine Master, for the "full measure" of content, "pressed down and running over" which He has promised to those who "freely give," has never yet been known to fail.

And Cyrillon Vergniaud was given this happiness of the highest, purest kind, as with the aid of the wondering and reluctant Monsieur Andre Pet.i.tot, he gave poor families comfort for life, and rescued the sick and the sorrowful,--and all he reserved to himself from his father's large fortune was half a million francs. For he learned that most of the money he inherited had come to the late Abbe through large bequests left to him by those who had believed in him as a righteous priest of spotless reputation, and Cyrillon's conscience would not allow him to take advantage of money thus obtained, as he sternly told himself, "on false pretences."