Part 61 (1/2)
_”Dec. 16th._--A blessed letter from Jane. She says, 'Letter writing on ordinary subjects is a sad waste of time and very unpardonable among His people.' And so it is; and my weak hope, daily disappointed, that there may be something in her letter, only shows how inferior I am to my beloved friend. She says, 'I should like to fix another hour for us two to meet at the Throne together: will five o'clock suit you? We dine at six; but I am never more than half an hour dressing.'
”The friends.h.i.+p of this saint, and her bright example, is what Heaven sends me in infinite mercy and goodness to sooth my aching heart a little: for _him_ I shall never see again.
”I have seen him this very evening.”
”It was a beautiful night: I went to look at--the world to come I call it--for I believe the redeemed are to inhabit those very stars hereafter, and visit them all in turn--and this world I now find is a world of sorrow and disappointment--so I went on the balcony to look at a better one: and oh it seemed so holy, so calm, so pure, that heavenly world I gazed and stretched my hands towards it for ever so little of its holiness and purity; and, that moment I heard a sigh. I looked, and there stood a gentleman just outside our gate, and it was _him._ I nearly screamed, and my heart beat so. He did not see me: for I had come out softly, and his poor head was down, down upon his breast; and he used to carry it so high, a little, little, while ago--too high some said; but not I. I looked, and my misgivings melted away, it flashed on me as if one of those stars had written it with its own light in my heart--'There stands Grief; not Guilt.' And before I knew what I was about I had whispered 'Alfred!' The poor boy started and ran towards me: but stopped short and sighed again. My heart yearned; but it was not for me to make advances to him, after his unkindness: so I spoke to him as coldly as ever I could, and I said, 'You are unhappy.'
”He looked up to me, and then I saw even by that light that he is enduring a bitter, bitter struggle: _so_ pale, _so_ worn, _so_ dragged!--Now how many times have I cried, this last month? more than in all the rest of my life a great deal.--'Unhappy!' he said; 'I must be a contemptible thing if I was not unhappy.' And then he asked me should not I despise him if he was happy. I did not answer that: but I asked him why he was unhappy. And when I had, I was half frightened; for he never evades a question the least bit.
”He held his head higher still, and said, 'I am unhappy because I cannot see the path of honour.'
”Then I babbled something, I forget what: then he went on like this--ah, I never forget what _he_ says--he said Cicero says 'AEquitas ipsa lucet per se; something significat* something else:' and he repeated it slowly for me--he knows I know a little Latin; and told me that was as much as to say 'Justice is so clear a thing, that whoever hesitates must be on the road of wrong. And yet,' he said bitterly, '_I_ hesitate and doubt, in a matter of right and wrong, like an Academic philosopher weighing and balancing mere speculative straws.' Those were his very words. 'And so,' said he, 'I am miserable; deserving to be miserable.'
*Dubitatio cogitationem significat injuriae.
”Then I ventured to remind him that he, and I, and all Christian souls, had a resource not known to heathen philosophers, however able. And I said, 'Dear Alfred, when I am in doubt and difficulty, I go and pray to Him to guide me aright: have you done so?' No, that had never occurred to him: but he would, if I made a point of it; and at any rate he could not go on in this way. I should soon see him again, and, once his mind was made up, no shrinking from mere consequences, he promised me. Then we bade one another good night and he went off holding his head as proudly as he used: and poor silly me fluttered, and nearly hysterical, as soon as I quite lost sight of him.”
_”Dec. 17th._--At church in the morning: a good sermon. Notes and a.n.a.lysis. In the evening Jane's clergyman preached. She came. Going out I asked her a question about what we had heard; but she did not answer me. At parting she told me she made it a rule not to speak coming from church, not even about the sermon. This seemed austere to poor me. But of course she is right. Oh, that I was like her.”
_”Dec. 18th._--Edward is coming out. This boy, that one has taught all the French, all the dancing, and nearly all the Latin he knows, turns out to be one's superior, infinitely: I mean in practical good sense.
Mamma had taken her pearls to the jeweller and borrowed two hundred pounds. He found this out and objected. She told him a part of it was required to keep him at Oxford. 'Oh indeed,' said he: and we thought of course there was an end: but next morning he was off before breakfast and the day after he returned from Oxford with his caution money, forty pounds, and gave it mamma; she had forgotten all about it. And he had taken his name off the college books and left the university for ever.
The poor, gentle tears of mortification ran down his mother's cheeks, and I hung round her neck, and scolded him like a vixen--as I am. We might have spared tears and fury both, for he is neither to be melted nor irritated by poor little us. He kissed us and coaxed us like a superior being, and set to work in his quiet, sober, ponderous way, and proved us a couple of fools to our entire satisfaction, and that without an unkind word! for he is as gentle as a lamb, and as strong as ten thousand elephants. He took the money back and brought the pearls home again, and he has written 'SOYEZ DE VOTRE SIECLE' in great large letters, and has pasted it on all our three bed-room doors, inside. And he has been all these years quietly cutting up the _Morning Advertiser,_ and arranging the slips with wonderful skill and method. He calls it 'digesting the _Tiser!'_ and you can't ask for any _modern_ information, great or small, but he'll find you something about it in this digest.
Such a folio! It takes a man to open and shut it. And he means to be a sort of little papa in this house, and mamma means to let him. And indeed it is so sweet to be commanded; besides, it saves thinking for oneself, and that is such a worry.”
_”Dec. 19th._--Yes, they have settled it: we are to leave here, and live in lodgings to save servants. How we are to exist even so, mamma cannot see; but Edward can: he says we two have got popular talents, and _he knows the markets_ (what does that mean, I wonder), and the world in general. I asked him wherever he picked it up, his knowledge: he said, 'In the _'Tiser.'_ I asked him would he leave the place where _she_ lives. He looked sad, but said, 'Yes: for the good of us all.' So he is better than I am; but who is not? I wasted an imploring look on him; but not on mamma: she looked back to me, and then said sadly, 'Wait a few days, Edward, for--_my_ sake.' That meant for poor credulous Julia's, who still believes in him. My sweet mother!”
_”Dec. 21st._--Told Mamma to-day I would go for a governess, to help her, since we are all ruined. She kissed me and trembled; but she did not say 'No;' so it will come to that. He will be sorry. When I do go, I think I shall find courage to send him a line: just to say I am sure _he_ is not to blame for withdrawing. Indeed how could I ever marry a man whose father I have heard my father call----” (the pen was drawn through the rest).
_”Dec. 22nd._--A miserable day: low spirited and hysterical. We are really going away. Edward has begun to make packing-cases: I stood over him and sighed, and asked him questions: he said he was going to take unfurnished rooms in London, send up what furniture is absolutely necessary, and sell the rest by auction, with the lease of our dear, dear house, where we were all so happy once. So, what with his 'knowledge of the markets, and the world,' and his sense, and his strong will, we have only to submit. And then he is so kind, too: 'Don't cry, little girl,' he said. 'Not but what I could turn on the waters myself if there was anything to be gained by it. _Shall_ I cry, Ju,' said he, 'or shall I whistle? I think I'll whistle.' And he whistled a tune right through while he worked with a heart as sick as my own, perhaps. Poor Edward!”
_”Dec. 23rd._--My Christian friend has her griefs, too. But then _she_ puts them to profit: she says today, 'We are both tasting the same flesh-crucifying but soul-profiting experience.' Her every word is a rebuke to me: torn at this solemn season of the year with earthly pa.s.sions. Went down after reading her letter, and played and sang the _Gloria in Excelsis_ of Pergolesi, with all my soul. So then I repeated it, and burst out crying in the middle. Oh shame! shame!”
_”Dec. 24th._--Edward started for London at five in the morning to take a place for us. The servants were next told, and received warning; the one we had the poorest opinion of, she is such a flirt, cried, and begged mamma to let her share our fallen fortunes, and said she could cook a little and would do her best. I kissed her violently, and quite forgot I was a young lady till she herself reminded me; and she looked frightened at mamma. But mamma only smiled through her tears and said, 'Think of it quietly, Sarah, before you commit yourself.'”
”I am now sitting in my old room, cold as a stone: for I have packed up some things: so the first step is actually taken. Oh, if I but knew that he was happy! Then I could endure anything. But how can I think so? Well, I will go, and never tell a soul what I suspect, and he cannot tell, even if he knows: for it is his father. Jane, too, avoids all mention of her own father and brother more than is natural. Oh, if I could only be a child again!
”Regrets are vain; I will cease even to record them; these diaries feed one's selfishness, and the unfortunate pa.s.sion, that will make me a bad daughter and an ungrateful soldier of Him who was born as to-morrow: to your knees, false Christian! to your knees!”
”I am calmer now; and feel resigned to the will of Heaven; or benumbed; or something. I will pack this box and then go down and comfort my mother; and visit my poor people, perhaps for the last time: ah me!
”A knock at the street door! his knock! I know every echo of his hand, and his foot. Where is my composure now? I flutter like a bird. I will not go down. He will think I love him so.
”At least I will wait till he has nearly gone.
”Elizabeth has come to say I am wanted in the drawing-room.
”So I _must_ go down whether I like or no.