She and I, Volume 2

"She and I volume two" (continued 4)

Reading edition

It was so now with myself in, regard to Saint Canon’s.

Horner’s engagement, Lady Dasher’s contemplated removal, the idea of the curate’s incubus—all of which would have once filled me with surprise, astonishment, delight—I only looked upon with half-amused interest.

Even the intelligence that Miss Spight had joined the sisterhood organised by Brother Ignatius, hardly affected me as it would formerly have done.

I belonged to another world now, as it were; and, the announcements of births—Mrs Mawley had already presented her lord and master with a little pledge of her affection—and bridals, and burials, at the two last of which I might once have assisted, hardly awoke a passing interest in me!

I was too far removed from the orbit in which these phenomena were displayed.

I felt that there were not many now in whom I felt concern at Saint Canon’s.

No exceptions, you ask?

Certainly, there were exceptions.

I am astonished at your making the observation.

How could I otherwise “prove the rule,” eh?

Min told me that Monsieur Parole d’Honneur was as gay and as full of anecdote as of yore. She also told me, too, that the kind-hearted Frenchman having chanced to meet her out one day, long before she had been able to hear from me directly, had, in the most delicately-diplomatic way, led the conversation round to America, so that he might tell her that I was not only well, but doing well!

This was at the time I had written a rapturous note to him, after my first interview with my friend, “Brown of Philadelphia,”—before, you may be tolerably certain, that philanthropical polisher had “sloped to Texas” with the capital Parole d’Honneur endowed me with.

He did not mention that latter fact of his generosity to Min, however; but, she knew of it, for I told her of it when we parted, and she then said that she thanked him in her heart for his kindness to me, and would always “love” him for it—so she said!

The vicar and Miss Pimpernell—also “exceptions,”—I heard, were just as usual; the former as much liked as ever by rich and poor alike, in the parish; the latter, trotting about still, with her big basket and creature comforts for those whom she spiritually visited.

Old Shuffler, too, wobbled on, as he had wobbled on as far back as I could recollect, Min told me; and rolled his sound eye, and stared with his glass one, as glassily as then.

I heard also that “Dicky Chips” was as frolicsome and light-hearted a bullfinch as when Min first had him, and had learnt several new tricks.

But, poor old Catch—my dog—whom I had so loved, had died in my absence; not from old age, for he was but young, having only seen his fifth birthday; but, “full of honours,” as every one liked him and respected him who knew of his sagacity and faithfulness, and saw his honest brown eyes and handsome high cast head.

Dear old doggy!

I had had him from the time he was a month old; and he and I had hardly ever been, parted from that time until I went to America.

He used to accompany me wherever I went, by day; and sleep across my room door at night.

He never had had a harsh word from me but once, that I remember; and, that was respecting a certain little matter connected with a stray sheep, about which we happened to differ on the occasion.

Poor Catch! I can fancy I hear his eager bark now. It was a welcome to which I looked forward on my return to England, as only secondary to the pleasure I would have in meeting Min; and, I confess, when I heard of his loss, I mourned him more than I had ever mourned one whom the world calls “friend,” before. He was faithful always; changing never. How many reputed “friends” will you find to act thus?

I think that Lord Byron’s recollection of his trusty dog must have absolved him from a hundred character blots. Do you remember those lines he wrote to the memory of “Boatswain,” on the monument he erected in his honour at Newstead Abbey? I would like them on Catch’s tomb, if I only knew where the dear old fellow lies; for, what “Boatswain” was to Byron, so was he to me:—

“In life the foremost friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still his master’s own, Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth!”

Min’s news did not come all at once.

It was spread over an expanse of many months, during which I was rambling over the States;—reporting this speaker and that;—studying “life and character” in every way—from the inspection of negro camp-meetings, where coloured saints expounded doctrinal views that would have made Wilberforce shudder, to participating in a presidential election, wherein I had the opportunity of seeing the inherent rottenness of the Transatlantic “institution” thoroughly exposed.

When I was thus bustling about, amidst so many varied phases of life, I could not very well sympathise with the quiet doings of Saint Canon’s.

But, on my return to my Brooklyn lodgings, when once more appointed to regular newspaper work at the office of the journal with which I was connected in New York, the old home longings returned also as strong as ever—stronger, as time went on!

I got in the habit of again marking my almanack, as Robinson Crusoe notched his post, every day; saying to myself the while, that I was brought one day nearer to my darling as the sun went down; one day nearer as it rose on the morrow:—one day nearer to the date of my exile being ended!

I remained in America much longer than I intended.

However, as Mrs Clyde did not carry out her threat of closing our correspondence at the end of the first year of our quasi-engagement, I had still Min’s dear letters to encourage me and cheer me on.

I do not know what I should have done without them.

There was no benefit to be derived from my going back until the Government appointment, which the vicar had the promise of for me, should be vacant. But, this, the wretched old gentleman who continued to hold it, would not give up until he reached the age of superannuation, when he would be forced to retire—in which respect he was not unlike many old field officers in the army, and “flag” ditto in the navy, who will persist in remaining on the “active list” of both services long past the age of usefulness, to the prevention of younger men from getting on!

O “seniority!”

Thou art the curse of all classes of officialdom in England—“civil” and “military” alike!

By-and-by, however, when my patience had become exhausted, and I was seriously thinking of starting home with the few hundred dollars I had made on the American press, the vicar wrote for me to come.

The old gentleman—might his “shadow never be less,” I devoutly wished—had betaken himself to his plough after an arduous official service of forty years. He only retired, however, because he received a pension amounting to his full salary, for which he had striven and kept me out of his shoes so long. Putting the thought of this on one side, the secretaryship was now mine, as soon as I arrived to claim it—the sooner that was, the better, the vicar added, as if I needed any stimulus to return to home and my darling!

What a delightful, darling letter Min sent to me, too!

She told me that I was to start off immediately—“at once, sir,”—on receipt of her tender little missive. She was expecting me, looking for me, awaiting me!

She had learnt all the songs I liked; had prepared the dresses in which I had said she looked best; would greet me, oh, so gladly!

I was to keep my promise and arrive on Christmas-eve, when her mother would be happy to see me; and she—well, she didn’t know yet whether she would speak to me or not:—it, really, depended whether I was “good!”

I took my passage in a steamer leaving the next day; but, instead of getting home on Christmas-eve, I only arrived at Liverpool a day before the close of the year—six days late! However, I was in England at last, in the same dear land that held my darling; and she would forgive me, I knew, when she saw how glad I was to get back to her dear little self. “Naughty Frank!” she would say—“I won’t speak to you at all, sir!”

And, wouldn’t she?

Oh, dear no!

All the way up to town from the fair city on the Mersey, the railway nymphs, whom I had previously noticed on my journey to Southampton, were as busy as then, with their musical strains.

The burden of their present song, echoing through my heart, was,—

“Going to see Min! Going to see Min! Going to see Min, without delay! Going to see Min! Going to see Min! Soon! Soon!! Soon!!”

The last bars chiming in when the buffers joined the chorus with a “jolt, jolt, jolt.”

As the train glided, at length—after some six hours of reeling and bumping and puffing along, the railway nymphs never slackening their song for an instant, into the Euston-square station—I saw the kind vicar and dear little Miss Pimpernell awaiting me on the platform.

It was just like their usual kindness to come and meet me thus!

I had telegraphed to them from Liverpool, telling them the time when I might hope to be in London; and, there they were to the minute, although I had never expected them, having only informed them of my coming, in order that they might let my darling know that I was on my way to her.

I jumped out of the carriage before it stopped, in defiance of all the company’s bye-laws; and, advanced to clasp their outstretched hands. But—

What was it, that I could read in the grave kind face of the one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side? What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never vibrated since?

Min was dead!

Chapter Thirteen.

“Death.”

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done, The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun— For ever and for ever with those just souls and true— And what is life, that we should moan? Why make we such ado?

What! Min dead—my darling whom I had hurried home to see once more, the whisper of whose calling I had heard across the expanse of vast Atlantic in eager entreaty; and whose tender, clinging affection I had looked forward to, as the earnest of all my toils and struggles, my longing hopes, my halting doubts, my groans, my tears!

It could not be.

I would not believe it. God could not be so cruel as man; and what man would do such a heartless deed?

It was false. Could I not hear her merry, rippling laughter, as she came forth heart-joyous to greet me; see the dear, soul-lit, grey eyes beaming with happiness and love; feel her perfumed violet breath as she raised her darling little rosebud of a mouth to mine—as I had fancied, and pictured it all, over and over again, a thousand times and more?

Hark! was not that her glad voice speaking now in silvery accents—“O, Frank!” nothing more; but, a world of welcome in the simple syllables?

Dead!

How could she be dead, when I was waiting to hear from her truth-telling, loving lips what she had written to tell me already—that she trusted me again, as she had trusted me in those old, old days that had passed by never to return; and, loved me still in spite of all?

Dead! It was a lie. They wanted to deceive me. They were joking with me!

Min, my darling, dead? It could not be. It was impossible!

Did they take me for a fool?

I could laugh at the idea.—What did they mean by it?

Min, dead!—God in heaven—how could they torture me so!

But, it was true.

I cannot bear to speak of it all now, it unmans me. It makes me, a great strong man, appear as a little sobbing child!

I do not know what went on for days after I realised what had happened to me. I was mad, I believe; for they said I had lost my senses.

And even now, sometimes, I feel as if I were not myself, when I recall the past with all its empty dreams—in which I almost attained to paradise—that were ruthlessly swept away in one fell swoop by the agony of hell I suffered on being conscious of my loss.

No, I am not myself. There is something missing in me—something that completed my identity; and, without which, I am not even a perfect atom on the ocean of time—as I will be nothing in, the labyrinth of eternity!—For,—

“The waves of a mighty sorrow Have whelmed the pearl of my life; And there cometh for me no morrow, To solace this desolate strife!”

When I was able to bear the narration, I was told all.

Min had caught a violent cold only a week before the Christmas-eve on which she expected me; and, in spite of all that science and love could do, she died before the dawn of the new year. She had looked forward to seeing me to the last, hoping against hope. She knew, she had said, that I would keep my word and come when she sent for me. But, when Christmas-eve arrived without my coming, she did not seem disappointed. She then said that God had willed it otherwise:—something must have arisen to prevent my arrival:—we would meet again in the Great Hereafter:—she would leave a message for me, to reconcile me to our brief separation, ere we met once more.

And, with that thought of me in her great loving heart, with that blessed reliance in her Saviour’s promise, and with a smile of ecstatic bliss on her lips, she “fell asleep”—without my seeing her, O my God!

Perhaps, on recollecting many of the incidents of my story, and calling to mind the tone and manner in which I have described them, you may have thought me then merry and light-hearted, where now I am moody and sombre?

True; but, life is made up of grave and gay.

It is hackneyed to say that “the clown that grins before the audience, who laugh with and at the merryandrew and his antics, is frequently weeping behind his mask;” yet, it is often the case.

Life is hysterical and spasmodic.

Many of us, believed by surface-studying people to be the gayest of the gay, have in reality a dull, rending pain gnawing us inwardly the while—like as the fox was gnawing the Spartan boy’s entrails; and, like him again, we are too proud—for what is courage but pride?—to speak of our suffering. We do not “wear our hearts” on our sleeve “for daws to peck at!”

The “consolation of religion,” you suggest?

Bah! How can I be consoled, when I have been bereft of all that made existence dear, receiving nothing in return—nothing but doubt and uncertainty, and a despair unspeakable?

Could comfort accrue to me, when I wandered back along the pathway of memory, catching sunny glimpses of the rosy future which my imagination had marked out, and then comparing these with the dreary outlook that now was mine?

When I think of what might have been and now can never happen, I rave!

I should count my loss a “gain,” you say?

I cannot, I cannot!

Saint Paul might have so truly exemplified the position of earthly misery as opposed to heavenly reward; but, I am powerless to give the deduction a personal application.

You tell me to look above, and have faith in the hope of rejoining her?

She is there, I know—that is, if there be a just God, a heaven, and angels in paradise; but, how can I, sinner as I am and as I have been, dream of climbing up to such a height?

It is an impossibility. I dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness. Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of my approach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I should touch it and defile her!

Do you know, that, the acutest pang that thrills through my heart, arises from the consciousness, that, while she was here, I was unworthy of her—as I would be doubly so were I now able to take the wings of the morning and reach the uttermost parts of heaven where she dwells.

Learn, O brothers! loving, like myself, hopelessly, unsuccessfully:—learn by me, by my blighted life, my lost present, my vanished hopes of heaven, that, the worst possible use to which you can put the divine image in which you are clothed, is “to go to the devil” for a woman’s sake! Should she be deserving of your affection, as in most cases she will probably be—ten times more than you are of hers—this is one of the most inferior proofs that you can give of it; while, should she be unworthy of it, as may happen, you are a dolt for your pains—to put the motive of action at no higher level.

And O sister women, daughters of England, fair to look upon, tender-hearted, ministering! think, that although no man that ever lived, but one, is perfectly worthy of a pure woman’s love, many an erring brother may be recalled from his down-treading steps to hell, to higher, nobler duties by your influence; as many a soul is damned, both here and hereafter through your default!

Bear with me yet a little longer. I shall soon be done. It is a relief to me thus to unbosom myself. Like Aenone—“while I speak of it, a little while, my heart may wander from its deeper woe.”

Min taught me to pray; and I have prayed; but, the most fervent spirit that ever breathed out its conscience to its Maker could never hope to undo the past.

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” It was all very well for him who had faced Azrael, and looked upon himself as a dying man, to speak thus!

Beautiful as is the sentiment contained in the words, are they true?

I know that a brave man, one who does not credit an eternity and has not the slightest thought on the subject of future salvation or future punishment, can, when quitting the only world of his knowledge, look upon his approaching end with a courage and an apathetic calm which resemble the smiling fortitude wherewith the ancient gladiators uttered their parting salutations to Nero—when, in expectation, they waited for the fatal thumb to be turned down, in token of their doom.

I can well believe that an earnest Christian, likewise, regards his instant dissolution, with equanimity and, even joy—through contemplation of the everlasting happiness in which he devoutly trusts.

Still, how do both, the irreligious man and the hopeful believer, bear the loss of those dear to them—they themselves being left behind, forsaken, to grieve over their vacant chairs, their despoiled folds?—Has not Death his sting for them; the grave, its awful triumph?—

I do not always speak like this, however; nor are my thoughts ever bitter and despairing.

“Fret not thyself,” says the Psalmist, “lest thou be moved to do evil;” and, I try not to fret when I remember the message my darling left for me with Miss Pimpernell—who watched by her dying bed and told me what she had said, in her very own dear, dear words. It is then that I haunt the old scenes with which her presence will ever be associated in my mind; and, weave over again the warp and woof of vanished days.

The trim market gardens dwindling down in the distance, thickly planted, as of yore; the winding country lanes intersecting, which twist and turn in every direction of the compass, and yet find their way down to the silent river that hurries by their outlets; the old stone, buildings, about whose origin we used to perplex ourselves—all remind me of her and happiness!

The very scent of the hedgerows, a pot-pourri of honeysuckles and roses, and of red, pink and white hawthorn, brings back to me her sayings when we walked and talked together there—long, long ago, it seems, although it was but yesterday.

And, in the Prebend’s Walk memory is more and more busy still, as I pace along its weary length solitary, alone—for, even my poor old dog had died during my absence; and what were those idle, fair-weather acquaintances, whom the world calls “friends,” to me in my grief! I am better without their company: it makes my mind unhealthy.—

So, I walk, alone with my heart and its grief!

The stately lime-trees bend as I pass them by; and, seem to sigh for her who is gone, never to return. The ruined fosse, stagnant and moss-covered, speaks of ruin and desolation. The crumbling walls that once encircled the Prebend’s residence, also reveal the slowly-sure power of the destroyer’s hand, more and more apparent each year that rolls over them.

But, the church, Norman—turretted and oaken-chancelled, is fullest of these bitter-sweet memories of my darling.

All its old-fashioned surroundings appear in keeping with my feelings:—the carved galleries, the quaint, up-standing pulpit with its massive sounding board, the monumental tablets on the walls, the open-raftered roof; and, when, sitting in the high box-pew, where I first saw her, the organ gives forth its tremulous swell—before some piercingly pitched note from the vox humana stop, cries out like a soul in agony like mine—I can almost believe I see her again sitting opposite me, her sweet madonna face bent down over her Bible, or upturned in adoration, as I then noticed it!

I feel that her unseen presence is near me, watching me from the spirit world above; or else, hovering by me, to guide my errant footsteps on the pathway to heaven and lead my thoughts, through the recollection of her faith and purity, and love, to things on high.

Would that I felt her presence always:—would that my thoughts, my actions, my life, were such as she would have had them!

It was after I had gone to the old church for the first time—it was weeks before I could have the resolution to go—that Miss Pimpernell gave me my darling’s message; touching with a tender touch on her last moments here.

She told me she had never seen or heard of so peaceful an end as hers—such fervent faith, such earnest reliance on her Saviour. She seemed to have a presentiment from the first, of her death; and, when she was told there was no hope of her recovery, she only grieved for those she left behind; and for me and my disappointment, my old friend said, chief of all.—

“I know he will be sorry,”—she said at the last.—“But, tell him that I loved him and trusted him to the end. Tell him good-bye for me, and to be good—not for my sake only, but, for God’s!”

These were the last words she uttered.

She died, Miss Pimpernell said, with a soft sigh of contentment and a smile of seraphic happiness on her face; and, the face of the dead girl—she added sobbing—looked like the face of an angel in its purity and innocence, and with the stamp of heaven on its lifeless clay.

She is buried in the churchyard where she and I so often mused and spoke of those who had gone before—little thinking that she would be so soon taken, and I, left desolate to mourn her loss.

Her grave is a perfect little garden.

Loving eyes watch it, loving hands tend it. A little, green, velvet-turfed mound is in the midst, planted round with all the flowers that she loved—snowdrops and violets in the early part of the year, roses and lilies in summer, little daisies always—for she used to say she liked them because others generally despised them.

I go there twice a day, morning and night. Her mother knows of my visits; but, we never meet, even there! She does not interfere with me; and I have buried the feud of the past in Min’s grave. There my heart finds only room for love and grief, ebbing and flowing in unison; coupled with a hope, which becomes more and more assured, now that I have received her message, that we shall yet meet again in that promised land where there is no death and no parting, only a sweet forgetfulness of the ills of life, and a remembrance of all its joy—the happy land of which my dream foretold in the early days of our love.

When I breathe the bloom of the flowers that rise from my darling’s resting-place in the early summer time, I almost experience peace! Her sainted presence must be watching over me, I am convinced; and, my soul expands with a desire and a resolve, so to guard my life, that I may hereafter obtain “the crown incorruptible” that now, I know, she’s wearing!

This is in summer.

But, in winter—winter which is connected by a thousand close and closer associations with her, I cannot so be content!—

It was at Christmas tide that I first spoke to her:—Christmas when we parted. On Christmas-eve we were to have met again:—it was Christmas when she died—

—In winter?—

Ay de mi!

Chapter Fourteen.

“Desolation.”

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By sighs, or groans or tears; Because all words, tho’ cull’d with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat!

The Christmas bells, they are ringing; but ringing no gladness to me! Ringing, and ringing, and ringing; a death-peal, which fain would I flee.

The feathery flakes are falling from the dull-grey, pall-like sky; falling, and falling, and falling; and, slowly they gather and lie.

The snowy-white mantle it covers, the churchyard and meadow and lea, as now by her grave I am kneeling;—yet, nothing but darkness I see!

The little red robin is carving a cross on her grave with his feet; as he hops from the head-stone and carols, his requiem low and sweet.

All nature is hushed, and the stillness, of earth and of air and sky, though pierced by the song of the robin, but whispers a long “good-bye!”

Good-bye to my darling! ’Tis ended; gone are the hopes of my life—O God! that our fates were blended, and finished this desolate strife!

The End.