Kitabı oku: «Weighed and Wanting», sayfa 20
CHAPTER XXXV.
IN LONDON
It was much too early to do anything when they arrived. Nor could Hester go to her uncle's house: it was in one of the suburbs, and she would reach it before the household was stirring. They went therefore to Addison square. When they had roused Sarah, the major took his leave of Hester, promising to be with her in a few hours, and betook himself to his hotel.
As she would not be seen at the bank, with the risk of being recognized as the sister of Cornelius and rousing speculation, she begged the major when he came to be her messenger to her uncle, and tell him that she had come from her father, asking him where it would be convenient for him to see her. The major undertook the commission at once, and went without asking a question.
Early in the afternoon her uncle came, and behaved to her very kindly. He was chiefly a man of business, and showing neither by look nor tone that he had sympathy with the trouble she and her parents were in, by his very reticence revealed it. His manner was the colder that he was studiously avoiding the least approximation to remark on the conduct or character of the youth—an abstinence which, however, had a chilling and hopeless effect upon the ardent mind of the sister. At last, when she had given him her father's cheque, with the request that he would himself fill it up with the amount of which he had been robbed, and he with a slight deprecatory smile and shrug had taken it, she ventured to ask what he was going to do in regard to her brother.
"When I take this cheque," answered her uncle, "it indicates that I treat the matter as a debt discharged, and leave him entirely in your father's hands. He must do as he sees fit. I am sorry for you all, and for you especially that you should have had to take an active part in the business. I wish your father could have come up himself. My poor sister!"
"I cannot be glad my father could not come," said Hester, "but I am glad he did not come, for he is so angry with Cornelius that I could almost believe he would have insisted on your prosecuting him. You never saw such indignation as my father's at any wrong done by one man to another—not to say by one like Cornelius to one like you, uncle, who have always been so kind to him! It is a terrible blow! He will never get over it—never! never!"
She broke down, and wept bitterly—the more bitterly that they were her first tears since learning the terrible fact, for she was not one who readily found such relief. To think of their family, of which she was too ready to feel proud, being thus disgraced, with one for its future representative who had not even the commonest honesty, and who, but that his crime had been committed against an indulgent relative, would assuredly, for the sake of the business morals of his associates, if for no other reason, have been prosecuted for felony, was hard to bear! But to one of Hester's deep nature and loyalty to the truth, there were considerations far more sad. How was ever such a child of the darkness to come to love the light? How was one who cared so little for righteousness, one who, in all probability, would only excuse or even justify his crime—if indeed he would trouble himself to do so much—how was one like him to be brought to contrition and rectitude? There was a hope, though a poor one, in the shame he must feel at the disgrace he had brought upon himself. But alas! if the whole thing was to be kept quiet, and the semblance allowed that he had got tired of business and left it, how would even what regenerating power might lie in shame be brought to bear upon him? If not brought to open shame, he would hold his head as high as ever—be arrogant under the protection of the fact that the disgrace of his family would follow upon the exposure of himself. When her uncle left her, she sat motionless a long time, thinking much but hoping little. The darkness gathered deeper and deeper around her. The ruin of her own promised history seemed imminent upon that of her family. What sun of earthly joy could ever break through such clouds! There was indeed a sun that nothing could cloud, but it seemed to shine far away. Some sorrows seem beyond the reach of consolation, in as much as their causes seem beyond setting right. They can at best, as it seems, only be covered over. Forgetfulness alone seems capable of removing their sting, and from that cure every noble mind turns away as unworthy both of itself, and of its Father in heaven. But the human heart has to go through much before it is able to house even a suspicion of the superabounding riches of the creating and saving God. The foolish child thinks there can be nothing where he sees nothing; the human heart feels as if where it cannot devise help, there is none possible to God; as if God like the heart must be content to botch the thing up, and make, as we say, the best of it.
But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.
"But what can be done when—so and so?" says my reader; for, whatever generalities I utter, his hurt seems not the less unapproachable of any help. You think, I answer, that you see all round your own sorrow; whereas much the greater part of the very being you call yours, is as unknown to you as the other side of the moon. It is as impossible you should understand it therefore, its sorrow, as that you should understand God, who alone understands you. Be developed into the divine idea of you; for your grief's sake let God have his way with you, and not only will all be well, but you shall say, "It is well."
It was a sore and dreary time for Hester, alone in the room where she had spent so many happy hours. She sat in a window, looking out upon the leafless trees and the cold gloomy old statue in the midst of them. Frost was upon every twig. A thin sad fog filled the comfortless air. There might be warm happy homes many, but such no more belonged to her world! The fire was burning cheerfully behind her, but her eyes were fixed on the dreary square. She was hardly thinking—only letting thoughts and feelings come and go. What a thing is life and being, when a soul has become but the room in which ghosts hold their revel; when the man is no longer master of himself, can no more say to this or that thought, thou shall come, and thou shall go; but is a slave to his own existence, can neither cease to be, nor order his being—able only in fruitless rebellion to entangle himself yet more in the net he has knotted around him! Such is every one parted from the essential life, who has not the Power by which he lives one with him, holding pure and free and true the soul he sent forth from the depths of his being. I repent me of the ignorance wherein I ever said that God made man out of nothing: there is no nothing out of which to make anything; God is all in all, and he made us out of himself. He who is parted from God has no original nothingness with which to take refuge. He is a live discord, an anti-truth. He is a death fighting against life, and doomed to endless vanity; an opposition to the very power by whose strength yet in him he opposes; a world of contradictions, not greedy after harmony, but greedy for lack of harmony—his being an abyss of positive negation. Not such was Hester, and although her thoughts now came and went without her, they did not come and go without God; and a truth from the depths of her own true being was on its way to console her.
How would her lover receive the news?—that was the agitating question; what would he thereupon do?
She could not at once write to acquaint him with the grief and disgrace that had fallen upon them, for she did not know where precisely he was: his movements were not fixed; and she dreaded the falling of such a letter as she would have to write into any hands except his own.
But another, and far stronger reason against writing to him, made itself presently clear to her mind: if she wrote, she could not know how he received her sad story; and if his mind required making up, which was what she feared, he would have time for it! This would not do! She must communicate the dread defiling fact with her own lips! She must see how he took it! Like Hamlet with the king at the play, "If he but blench, I know my course!" she said. If he showed the slightest change towards her, the least tendency to regard his relation to her as an entanglement, to regret that he had involved himself with the sister of a thief, marry her he should not! That was settled as the earth's course! If he was not to be her earthly refuge in this trouble as in any other, she would none of him! If it should break her heart she would none of him! But break her heart it would not! There were worse evils than losing a lover! There was losing a true man—and that he would not be if she lost him! The behaviour of Cornelius had perhaps made her more capable of doubt; possibly her righteous anger with him inclined her to imagine grounds of anger with another; but probably this feeling of uncertainty with regard to her lover had been prepared for by things that had passed between them since their engagement, but upon which regarding herself as his wife, she had not allowed herself to dwell, turning her thought to the time when, as she imagined, she would be able to do so much more for and with him. And now she was almost in a mood to quarrel with him! Brought to moral bay, she stood with her head high, her soul roused, and every nerve strung to defence. She had not yet cast herself for defence on the care of her Father in heaven, who is jealous for the righteousness of those who love righteousness. But he was not far from her.
Yet deeper into the brooding fit she sank. Weary with her journey and the sleepless night, her brain seemed to work itself; when suddenly came the thought that, after so long a separation, she was at last in the midst of her poor. But how was she to face them now! how hold up her head amongst them! how utter a word of gentlest remonstrance! Who was she to have dared speak to them of the evil of their ways, and the bad influence of an ill-behaved family! But how lightly they bore such ills as that which was now breaking her down with trouble and shame! Even such of them as were honest people, would have this cousin or that uncle, or even a son or the husband in for so many months, and think only of when they would have him out again! Misfortune had overtaken them! and they loved them no less. The man or the woman was still man or woman, mother or husband to them. Nothing could degrade them beyond the reach of their sympathies! They had no thought of priding themselves against them because they themselves had not transgressed the law, neither of drawing back from them with disgust. And were there not a thousand wrong things done in business and society which had no depressing effect either on those who did them, or those whose friends did them—only because these wrongs not having yet come under the cognizance of law had not yet come to be considered disgraceful? Therewith she felt nearer to her poor than ever before, and it comforted her. The bare soul of humanity comforted her. She was not merely of the same flesh and blood with them—not even of the same soul and spirit only, but of the same failing, sinning, blundering breed; and that not alone in the general way of sin, ever and again forsaking the fountain of living water, and betaking herself to some cistern, but in their individual sins was she not their near relative? Their shame was hers: the son of her mother, the son of her father was a thief! She was and would be more one with them than ever before! If they made less of crime in another, they also made less of innocence from it in themselves! Was it not even better to do wrong, she asked herself, than to think it a very grand thing not to do it? What merit was there in being what it would be contemptible not to be? The Lord Christ could get nearer to the publican than the Pharisee, to the woman that was a sinner than the self-righteous honest woman! The Pharisee was a good man, but he thought it such a fine thing to be good that God did not like him nearly so well as the other who thought it a sad thing to be bad! Let her but get among her nice, honest, wicked poor ones, out of this atmosphere of pretence and appearance, and she would breathe again! She dropped upon her knees, and cried to her Father in heaven to make her heart clean altogether, to deliver her from everything mean and faithless, to make her turn from any shadow of ill as thoroughly as she would have her brother repent of the stealing that made them all so ashamed. Like a woman in the wrong she drew nigh the feet of her master; she too was a sinner; her heart needed his cleansing as much as any!
And with that came another God-given thought of self-accusing. For suddenly she perceived that self had been leading her astray: she was tender towards those farther from her, hard towards the one nearer to her! It was easy to be indulgent towards those whose evil did not touch herself: to the son of her own mother she was severe and indignant! If she condemned him, who would help his mother to give him the love of which he stood in the sorer need that he was unworthy of it? Corney whom she had nursed as a baby—who used to crow when she appeared—could it be that she who had then loved him so dearly had ceased and was loving him no more? True, he had grown to be teasing and trying in every way, seeming to despise her and all women together; but was not that part of the evil disease that clung fast to him? If God were to do like her, how many would be giving honour to his Son? But God knew all the difficulties that beset men, and gave them fair play when sisters did not: he would redeem Corney yet! But was it possible he should ever wake to see how ugly his conduct had been? It seemed impossible; but surely there were powers in God's heart that had not yet been brought to bear upon him! Perhaps this, was one of them—letting him disgrace himself! If he could but be made ashamed of himself there would be hope! And in the meantime she must get the beam out of her own eye, that she might see to take the mote or the beam, whichever it might be, out of Corney's! Again she fell upon her knees, and prayed God to enable her. Corney was her brother, and must for ever be her brother, were he the worst thief under the sun! God would see to their honor or disgrace; what she had to do was to be a sister! She rose determined that she would not go home till she had done all she could to find him; that the judgment of God should henceforth alone be hers, and the judgment of the world nothing to her for evermore.
Presently the fact, which had at various times cast a dim presence up her horizon without thoroughly attracting her attention, became plain to her—that she had in part been drawn towards her lover because of his social position. Certainly without loving him, she would never have consented to marry him for that, but had she not come the more readily to love him because of that? Had it not passed him within certain defences which would otherwise have held out? Had he not been an earl in prospect, were there not some things in him which would have more repelled her, as not manifesting the highest order of humanity? Would she, for instance, but for that, have tried so much to like his verses? Clearly she must take her place with the sinners!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A TALK WITH THE MAJOR
While she meditated thus, major Marvel made his appearance. He had been watching outside, saw her uncle go, and an hour after was shown to the room where she still sat, staring out on the frosty trees of the square.
"Why, my child," he said, with almost paternal tenderness, "your hand is as cold as ice! Why do you sit so far from the fire?"
She rose and went to the fire with him. He put her in an easy chair, and sat down beside her. Common, pudgy, red-faced, bald-headed as he was, she come to him, and that out of regions of deepest thought, with a sense of refuge. He could scarcely have understood one of her difficulties, would doubtless have judged not a few of her scruples nonsensical and over-driven; yet knowing this it was a comfort to her to come from those regions back to a mere, honest, human heart—to feel a human soul in a human body nigh her. For the mere human is divine, though not the divine, and to the mere human essential comfort. Should relations be broken between her and lord Gartley, she knew it would delight the major; yet she was able to look upon him as a friend in whom she could trust. Unity of opinion is not necessary to confident friendship and warm love.
As they talked, the major, seeing she was much depressed, and thinking to draw her from troubled thought, began to tell her some of the more personal parts of his history, and in these she soon became so interested that she began to ask him questions, and drew from him much that he would never have thought of volunteering. Before their talk was over, she had come to regard the man as she could not have imagined it possible she should. She had looked upon him as a man of so many and such redeeming qualities, that his faults must be over-looked and himself defended from any overweighing of them; but now she felt him a man to be looked up to—almost revered. It was true that every now and then some remark would reveal in him a less than attractive commonness of thinking; and that his notions in religion were of the crudest, for he regarded it as a set of doctrines—not a few of them very dishonouring to God; yet was the man in a high sense a true man. There is nothing shows more how hard it has been for God to redeem the world than the opinions still uttered concerning him and his so-called plans by many who love him and try to obey him: a man may be in possession of the most precious jewels, and yet know so little about them that his description of them would never induce a jeweller to purchase them, but on the contrary make him regard the man as a fool, deceived with bits of coloured glass for rubies and sapphires. Major Marvel was not of such. He knew nothing of the slang of the Pharisees, knew little of the language of either the saints or the prophets, had, like most Christians, many worldly ways of looking at things, and yet I think our Lord would have said there was no guile in him.
With her new insight into the man's character came to Hester the question whether she would not be justified in taking him into her confidence with regard to Cornelius. She had received no injunctions to secrecy from her father: neither he nor her mother ever thought of such a thing with her; they knew she was to be trusted as they were themselves to be trusted. Her father had taken no step towards any effort for the rescue of his son, and she would sorely need help in what she must herself try to do. She could say nothing to the major about lord Gartley, or the influence her brother's behaviour might have on her future: that would not be fair either to Gartley or to the major; but might she not ask him to help her to find Corney? She was certain he would be prudent and keep quiet whatever ought to be kept quiet; while on the other hand her father had spoken as if he would have nothing of it all concealed. She told him the whole story, hiding nothing that she knew. Hardly could she restrain her tears as she spoke, but she ended without having shed one. The major had said nothing, betrayed nothing, only listened intently.
"My dear Hester," he said solemnly, after a few moments' pause, "the mysteries of creation are beyond me!"
Hester thought the remark irrelevant, but waited. "It's such a mixture!" he went on. "There is your mother, the loveliest woman except yourself God ever made! Then comes Cornelius—a—well!—Then comes yourself! and then little Mark! a child—I will not say too good to live—God forbid!—but too good for any of the common uses of this world! I declare to you I am terrified when left alone with him, and keep wishing for somebody to come into the room!"
"What about him terrifies you?" asked Hester, amused at the idea, in spite of the gnawing unrest at her heart.
"To answer you," replied the major, "I must think a bit! Let me see! Let me see! Yes! it must be that! I am ashamed to confess it, but to a saint one must speak the truth: I believe in my heart it is simply fear lest I should find I must give up everything and do as I know he is thinking I ought."
"And what is that?"
"Turn a saint like him."
"And why should you be afraid of that?"
"Well, you see, I'm not the stuff that saints—good saints, I mean, are made of; and rather than not be a good one, if I once set about it, I would, saving your presence, be the devil himself."
Hester laughed, yet with some self-accusation.
"I think," she said softly, "one day you will be as good a saint as love can wish you to be."
"Give me time; give me time, I beg," cried the major, wiping his forehead, and evidently in some perturbation. "I would not willingly begin anything I should disgrace, for that would be to disgrace myself, and I never had any will to that, though the old ladies of our village used to say I was born without any shame. But the main cause of my unpopularity was that I hated humbug—and I do hate humbug, cousin Hester, and shall hate it till I die—and so want to steer clear of it."
"I hate it, I hope, as much as you do, major Marvel," responded Hester. "But, whatever it may be mixed up with, what is true, you know, cannot be humbug, and what is not true cannot be anything else than humbug."
"Yes, yes! but how is one to know what is true, my dear? There are so many differing claims to the quality!"
"I have been told, and I believe it with all my heart," replied Hester, "that the only way to know what is true is to do what is true."
"But you must know what is true before you can begin to do what is true."
"Everybody knows something that is true to do—that is, something he ought to lose no time in setting about. The true thing to any man is the thing that must not be let alone but done. It is much easier to know what is true to do than what is true to think. But those who do the one will come to know the other—and none else, I believe."
The major was silent, and sat looking very thoughtful. At last he rose.
"Is there anything you want me to do in this sad affair, cousin Hester?" he said.
"I want your help to find my brother."
"Why should you want to find him? You cannot do him any good!"
"Who can tell that? If Christ came to seek and save his lost, we ought to seek and save our lost."
"Young men don't go wrong for the mere sake of going wrong: you may find him in such a position as will make it impossible for you to have anything to do with him."
"You know that line of Spenser's.—
Entire affection hateth nicer hands'?"
asked Hester.
"No, I don't know it; and I don't know that I understand it now you tell it me," replied the major, just a little crossly, for he did not like poetry; it was one of his bugbear humbugs. "But one thing is plain: you must not expose yourself to what in such a search would be unavoidable."
The care of men over some women would not seldom be ludicrous but for the sad suggested contrast of their carelessness over others.
"Answer me one question, dear major Marvel," said Hester: "Which is in most danger from disease—the healthy or the sickly?"
"That's a question for the doctor," he answered cautiously; "and I don't believe he knows anything about it either. What it has to do with the matter in hand I cannot think."
Hester saw it was not for her now to pursue the argument. And one would almost imagine it scarce needed pursuing! For who shall walk safe in the haunts of evil but those upon whom, being pure, evil has no hold? The world's notions of purity are simply childish—because it is not itself pure. You might well suppose its cherished ones on the brink of all corruption, so much afraid does it seem of having them tainted before their time. Sorry would one be, but for the sake of those for whom Christ died, that any woman should be pained with the sight of evil, but the true woman may, even like God himself, know all evil and remain just as lovely, as clean, as angelic and worshipful as any child in the simplest country home. The idea of a woman like Hester being in any sense defiled by knowing what her Lord knows while she fills up what is left behind of the sufferings of Christ for her to suffer for the sake of his world, is contemptible. As wrong melts away and vanishes in the heart of Christ, so does the impurity she encounters vanish in the heart of the pure woman: it is there burned up.
"I hardly see what is to be done," said the major, after a moment's silence. "What do you say to an advertisement in The Times, to the effect that, if C. R. will return to his family, all will be forgiven?"
"That I must not, dare not do. There is surely some other way of finding persons without going to the police!"
"What do you think your father would like done?"
"I do not know; but as I am Corney's sister, I will venture as a sister may. I think my father will be pleased in the end, but I will risk his displeasure for the sake of my brother. If my father were to cast him off, would you say I was bound to cast him off?"
"I dare say nothing where you are sure, Hester. My only anxiety would be whether you thoroughly knew what you were about."
"If one were able to look upon the question of life or death as a mere candle-flame in the sun of duty, would she not at least be more likely to do right than wrong?"
"If the question were put about a soldier I should feel surer how to answer you," replied the major. "But you are so much better than I—you go upon such different tactics, that we can hardly, I fear, bring our troops right in front of each other.—I will do what I can for you—though I greatly fear your brother will never prove worth the trouble."
"People have repented who have gone as far wrong as Corney," said Hester, with the tears in her voice it not in her eyes.
"True!" responded the major; "but I don't believe he has character enough to repent of anything. He will be fertile enough in excuse! But I will do what I can to find out where he is."
Hester heartily thanked him, and he took his leave.
Her very estrangement from him, the thought of her mother's misery and the self-condemnation that must overtake her father if he did nothing, urged her to find Cornelius. But if she found him, what would come of it? Was he likely to go home with her? How would he be received if he did go home? and if not, what was she to do with or for him? Was he to keep the money so vilely appropriated? And what was he to do when it was spent? If want would drive him home, the sooner he came to it the better! We pity the prodigal with his swine, but then first a ray of hope begins to break through the darkness of his fate.
To do nothing was nearly unendurable, and she saw nothing to do. She could only wait, and it took all the patience and submission she could find. She wrote to her father, told him what there was to tell, and ended her letter with a message to her mother:—"Tell darling mother," she said, "that what a sister can do, up to the strength God gives her, shall be done for my brother. Major Marvel is doing his best to find him."
Next day she heard from her father that her mother was slowly recovering; and on the following day that her letter was a great comfort to her; but beyond this he made no remark. Even his silence however was something of a relief to Hester.
In the meantime she was not idle. Hers was not the nature even in grief to sit still. The moment she had dispatched her letter, she set out to visit her poor friends. On her way she went into Mrs. Baldwin's shop and had a little talk with her, in the course of which she asked if she had ever heard anything more of the Frankses. Mrs. Baldwin replied that she had once or twice heard of their being seen in the way of their profession; but feared they were not getting on. Hester was sorry, but had many more she knew better to think of.
There was much rejoicing at her return. But there were changes—new faces where she had left friends, and not the best news of some who remained. One or two were in prison of whom when she left she was in great hope. One or two were getting on better in the sense of this world, but she could see nothing in themselves to make her glad of their "good luck." One who had signed the pledge some time before she went, had broken out fearfully, and all but killed his wife. One of whom she had been hopeful, had disappeared—it was supposed with another man's wife. In spite of their sufferings the evil one seemed as busy among them as among the world's elect.
The little ones came about her again, but with less confidence, both because she had been away, and because they had grown more than they had improved. But soon things were nearly on the old footing with them.
Every day she went among them. Certain of the women—chiefly those who had suffered most with least fault—were as warmly her friends as before. Amongst them was just one who had some experience of the Christian life, and she had begun to learn long before Hester came to know her: she did not seem, however, to have gained any influence even with those who lived in the same house; only who can trace the slow working of leaven?
