The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald [important books to read .txt] 📗

the state of her health, would have made her aware in some degree of her moral condition; and, if her thoughts had not been centred upon herself, she would, in her care for others, have learned her own helplessness; and the devotion of her good husband, not then accepted merely as a natural homage to her worth, would have shown itself as a love beyond her deserts, and would have roused the longing to be worthy of it. She saw now that he must have imagined her far better than she was: but she had not meant to deceive him; she had but followed the impulses of a bright, shallow nature.

But that last epithet bids me pause, and remember that my father has taught me, and that I have found the lesson true, that there is no such thing as a shallow nature: every nature is infinitely deep, for the works of God are everlasting. Also, there is no nature that is not shallow to what it must become. I suspect every nature must have the subsoil ploughing of sorrow, before it can recognize either its present poverty or its possible wealth.

When her husband died, suddenly, of apoplexy, she was stunned for a time, gradually awaking to a miserable sense of unprotected loneliness, so much the more painful for her weakly condition, and the overcare to which she had been accustomed. She was an only child, and had become an orphan within a year or two after her early marriage. Left thus without shelter, like a delicate plant whose house of glass has been shattered, she speedily recognized her true condition. With no one to heed her whims, and no one capable of sympathizing with the genuine misery which supervened, her disease gathered strength rapidly, her lamp went out, and she saw no light beyond; for the smoke of that lamp had dimmed the windows at which the stars would have looked in. When life became dreary, her fancies, despoiled of the halo they had cast on the fogs of selfish comfort, ceased to interest her; and the future grew a vague darkness, an uncertainty teeming with questions to which she had no answer. Henceforth she was conscious of life only as a weakness, as the want of a deeper life to hold it up. Existence had become a during faint, and self hateful. She saw that she was poor and miserable and blind and naked,—that she had never had faith fit to support her.

But out of this darkness dawned at least a twilight, so gradual, so slow, that I cannot tell when or how the darkness began to melt. She became aware of a deeper and simpler need than hitherto she had known,—the need of life in herself, the life of the Son of God. I went to see her often. At the time when I began this history, I was going every other day,—sometimes oftener, for her end seemed to be drawing nigh. Her weakness had greatly increased: she could but just walk across the room, and was constantly restless. She had no great continuous pain, but oft-returning sharp fits of it. She looked genuinely sad, and her spirits never recovered themselves. She seldom looked out of the window; the daylight seemed to distress her: flowers were the only links between her and the outer world,—wild ones, for the scent of greenhouse-flowers, and even that of most garden ones, she could not bear. She had been very fond of music, but could no longer endure her piano: every note seemed struck on a nerve. But she was generally quiet in her mind, and often peaceful. The more her body decayed about her, the more her spirit seemed to come alive. It was the calm of a gray evening, not so lovely as a golden sunset or a silvery moonlight, but more sweet than either. She talked little of her feelings, but evidently longed after the words of our Lord. As she listened to some of them, I could see the eyes which had now grown dim with suffering, gleam with the light of holy longing and humble adoration.

For some time she often referred to her coming departure, and confessed that she “feared death; not so much what might be on the other side, as the dark way itself,—the struggle, the torture, the fainting; but by degrees her allusions to it became rarer, and at length ceased almost entirely. Once I said to her,—

“Are you afraid of death still, Eleanor?”

“No—not much,” she replied, after a brief pause. “He may do with me whatever He likes.”

Knowing so well what Marion could do to comfort and support, and therefore desirous of bringing them together, I took her one day with me. But certain that the thought of seeing a stranger would render my poor Eleanor uneasy, and that what discomposure a sudden introduction might cause would speedily vanish in Marion’s presence, I did not tell her what I was going to do. Nor in this did I mistake. Before we left, it was plain that Marion had a far more soothing influence upon her than I had myself. She looked eagerly for her next visit, and my mind was now more at peace concerning her.

One evening, after listening to some stories from Marion about her friends, Mrs. Cromwell said,—

“Ah, Miss Clare! to think I might have done something for Him by doing it for them! Alas! I have led a useless life, and am dying out of this world without having borne any fruit! Ah, me, me!”

“You are doing a good deal for him now,” said Marion, “and hard work too!” she added; “harder far than mine.”

“I am only dying,” she returned—so sadly!

“You are enduring chastisement,” said Marion. “The Lord gives one one thing to do, and another another. We have no right to wish for other work than he gives us. It is rebellious and unchildlike, whatever it may seem. Neither have we any right to wish to be better in our way: we must wish to be better in his.”

“But I should like to do something for him; bearing is only for myself. Surely I may wish that?”

“No: you may not. Bearing is not only for yourself. You are quite wrong in thinking you do nothing for him in enduring,” returned Marion, with that abrupt decision of hers which seemed to some like rudeness. “What is the will of God? Is it not your sanctification? And why did he make the Captain of our salvation perfect through suffering? Was it not that he might in like manner bring many sons into glory? Then, if you are enduring, you are working with God,—for the perfection through suffering of one more: you are working for God in yourself, that the will of God may be done in you; that he may have his very own way with you. It is the only work he requires of you now: do it not only willingly, then, but contentedly. To make people good is all his labor: be good, and you are a fellow-worker with God in the highest region of labor. He does not want you for other people—_yet_.”

At the emphasis Marion laid on the last word, Mrs. Cromwell glanced sharply up. A light broke over her face: she had understood, and with a smile was silent.

One evening, when we were both with her, it had grown very sultry and breathless.

“Isn’t it very close, dear Mrs. Percivale?” she said.

I rose to get a fan; and Marion, leaving the window as if moved by a sudden resolve, went and opened the piano. Mrs. Cromwell made a hasty motion, as if she must prevent her. But, such was my faith in my friend’s soul as well as heart, in her divine taste as well as her human faculty, that I ventured to lay my hand on Mrs. Cromwell’s. It was enough for sweetness like hers: she yielded instantly, and lay still, evidently nerving herself to suffer. But the first movement stole so “soft and soullike” on her ear, trembling as it were on the border-land between sound and silence, that she missed the pain she expected, and found only the pleasure she looked not for. Marion’s hands made the instrument sigh and sing, not merely as with a human voice, but as with a human soul. Her own voice next evolved itself from the dim uncertainty, in sweet proportions and delicate modulations, stealing its way into the heart, to set first one chord, then another, vibrating, until the whole soul was filled with responses. If I add that her articulation was as nearly perfect as the act of singing will permit, my reader may well believe that a song of hers would do what a song might.

Where she got the song she then sung, she always avoids telling me. I had told her all I knew and understood concerning Mrs. Cromwell, and have my suspicions. This is the song:—

“I fancy I hear a whisper As of leaves in a gentle air: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the tree up there?— The tree that heals the nations, Growing amidst the street, And dropping, for who will gather, Its apples at their feet?

“I fancy I hear a rushing As of waters down a slope: Is it wrong, I wonder, to fancy It may be the river of hope? The river of crystal waters That flows from the very throne, And runs through the street of the city With a softly jubilant tone?

“I fancy a twilight round me, And a wandering of the breeze, With a hush in that high city, And a going in the trees. But I know there will be no night there,— No coming and going day; For the holy face of the Father Will be perfect light alway.

“I could do without the darkness, And better without the sun; But, oh, I should like a twilight After the day was done! Would he lay his hand on his forehead, On his hair as white as wool, And shine one hour through his fingers, Till the shadow had made me cool?

“But the thought is very foolish: If that face I did but see, All else would be all forgotten,— River and twilight and tree; I should seek, I should care, for nothing, Beholding his countenance; And fear only to lose one glimmer By one single sideway glance.

“‘Tis but again a foolish fancy To picture the countenance so. Which is shining in all our spirits, Making them white as snow. Come to me, shine in me, Master, And I care not for river or tree,— Care for no sorrow or crying, If only thou shine in me.

“I would lie on my bed for ages, Looking out on the dusty street, Where whisper nor leaves nor waters, Nor any thing cool and sweet; At my heart this ghastly fainting, And this burning in my blood,— If only I knew thou wast with me,— Wast with me and making me good.”

When she rose from the piano, Mrs. Cromwell stretched out her hand for hers, and held it some time, unable to speak. Then she said,—

“That has done me good, I hope. I will try to be more patient, for I think He is teaching me.”

She died, at length, in my arms. I cannot linger over that last time. She suffered a good deal, but dying people are generally patient. She went without a struggle. The last words I heard her utter were, “Yes, Lord;” after which she breathed but once. A half-smile came over her face, which froze upon it, and remained, until the coffin-lid covered it. But I shall see it, I trust, a whole smile some day.

 

CHAPTER XXXIX.

ANCESTRAL WISDOM.

 

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