Part 19 (1/2)
CHAPTER IX.
The long sultry August day was drawing to a close, and those who had found the intense heat almost unendurable watched with delight the slow hands of the clock, whose lagging fingers finally pointed to five. The sky seemed bra.s.s, the atmosphere a blast from Tophet; and the sun, still standing at some distance above the horizon, glared mercilessly down over the panting parched: earth, as if a recent and unusually copious shower of ”meteoric cosmical matter” had fallen into the solar furnace, and prompted it by increased incandescence to hotly deny the truth of Helmholtz's a.s.sertion: ”The inexorable laws of mechanics show that the store of heat in the sun must be finally exhausted.” Certainly to those who had fanned themselves through the tedious torture long remembered as the ”hot Sunday,” the science-predicted period of returning glaciers and polar snows where palms and lemons now hold sway, seemed even more distant than the epoch suggested by the speculative. In proportion to the elevation of the mercurial vein which mounted to and poisoned itself at 100 degrees, the religious, the devotional, pulse sank lower, almost to zero; consequently, although circ.u.mstances of unusual interest attracted the congregation to the church, where Mr. Lindsay intended to preach his farewell sermon, only a limited number had braved the heat to shake hands with the young minister, who ere another sunrise would have started on his long journey to the pagan East.
At the parsonage it had been a sad day, sad despite the grave serenity of Mr. Hargrove, the quiet fort.i.tude of Mr. Lindsay, and the desperate attempts of the mother to drive back tears, compose fluttering lips, and steady the tones of her usually cheerful voice.
For several days previous, Mr. Hargrove had been quite indisposed, and as his nephew would leave home at eleven p.m., the customary Sunday night service had been omitted.
As the afternoon wore away, the family trio a.s.sembled on the shaded end of the north verandah, and with intuitive delicacy, Regina shrank from intruding on the final interview which appeared so sacred.
Followed by Hero, she went through the shrubbery, and down a walk bordered with ancient cedars, which led to a small gate that opened into the adjoining churchyard.
In accordance with a custom long since fallen hopelessly into desuetude, but prevailing when the venerable church was erected, it had been placed in the centre of a s.p.a.cious square, every yard of which had subsequently become hallowed as the last resting-place of families who had pa.s.sed away, since the lofty spire rose like a huge golden finger pointing heavenward. An avenue of n.o.ble elms led from the iron gate to the broad stone steps; and on either side and behind the church swelled the lines of mounds, some white with marble, some green with turf, now and then a heap of mossy sh.e.l.ls--not a few gay with flowers--all scrupulously free from weeds, and those most melancholy symptoms of neglect, which even in public cemeteries too often impress the beholder with gloomy premonitions of his own inevitable future, and recall the solemn admonition of the Talmud: ”Life is a pa.s.sing shadow. Is it the shadow of a tower, or of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight,--away flies the bird, and there remains neither bird nor shadow.”
Has the profoundly religious sentiment of reverence for the domains of death lost or gained by the modern practice of munic.i.p.al monopoly of the right of sepulture? Who, amid the pomp and splendour of Greedwood or Mount Auburn, where human vanity builds its own proud monument in the mausoleums of the dead,--who, in hurrying along the broad and beautiful avenues thronged with noisy groups of chattering pedestrians, and with gay equipages that render the name ”City of silence” a misnomer, converting it into a _quasi_ Festa ground, a scene for subdued Sunday _Fete Champetre_,--who, pa.s.sing from these magnificent city cemeteries, into some primitive old-fas.h.i.+oned churchyard, such as that of V----, has not suddenly been almost overpowered by the contrast presented: the deep brooding solemnity, the holy hush, the pervading indwelling atmosphere of true sanct.i.ty that distinguishes the latter?
Could any other than the simple ancient churchyard of bygone days have suggested that sweetest, purest, n.o.blest elegy in our mother tongue? Do not our hearts yearn with an intense and tender longing toward that church, at whose font we were baptized, at whose communion-table we reverently bowed, before whose altar we breathed the marriage vows, from whose silent chancel we shall one day be softly and slowly borne away to our last, long sleep? Why not lay us down to rest, where the organ that pealed at our wedding and sobbed its requiem over our senseless clay may still breathe its loving dirges across our graves in winter's leaden storms, or in fragrant amber-aired summer days? Would worldly vampires, such as political or financial schemes, track a man's footsteps down the aisle, and flap their fatal numbing pinions over his soul so securely even in the Sanctuary of the Lord, if from his family pew his eyes wandered now and then to the marble slab that lay like a benediction over the silver head of an honoured father or mother, or the silent form of a beloved wife, sister, or brother?
Is there a woman so callous, so steeped in folly, that the tinsel of Vanity Fair, the paraphernalia of fas.h.i.+on, or all the thousand small fiends that beleaguer the female soul, could successfully lure her imagination from holy themes, when sitting in front of the pulpit, she yet sees through the open windows where b.u.t.terflies like happy souls flutter in and out the motionless chiselled cenotaph that rests like a sentinel above the pulseless heart that once enshrined her image, called her wife, and beat in changeless devotion against her own; or the little gra.s.sy billow sown thick with violets that speak to her of the blue eyes beneath them, where in dreamless slumber that needs no mother's cradling arms, no maternal lullaby, reposes the waxen form, the darling golden head of her long-lost baby? What spot so peculiarly suited for ”G.o.d's acre” as that surrounding G.o.d's temple?
A residence of dearly four years' duration at the parsonage had rendered this quiet churchyard a favourite retreat with Regina, and, divesting the graves of all superst.i.tious terrors, had awakened in her nature only a most profound and loving reverence for the precincts of the dead.
To-day, longing for some secluded spot in which to indulge the melancholy feelings that oppressed her, she instinctively sought the church, yielding unconscious homage to its hallowed and soothing influence. Pa.s.sing slowly and carefully among the head-stones, she went into the church, to which she had access at all times by a key, which enabled her to enter at will and practise on the small organ that was generally used in Sabbath-school music.
Fancying that it might be cooler in the gallery, she ascended to the organ loft, and while Hero stretched himself at her feet, she sat down on one of the benches close to the open window that looked toward the ma.s.s of trees which so completely embowered the parsonage, that only one ivy-crowned chimney was visible. Low in the sky, and just opposite the tall arched window behind the pulpit, the sun burned like a baleful Cyclopean eye, striking through a ma.s.s of ruby tinted gla.s.s that had been designed to represent a lion, and other symbols of the Redeemer, who soared away above them.
Are there certain subtle electrical currents sheathed in human flesh that link us sometimes with the agitated reservoirs of electricity trembling in the bosom of yet distant clouds? Do not our own highly charged nervous batteries occasionally give the first premonition of coming thunderstorms? Long before the low angry growl that came suddenly from some lightning lair in the far south, below the sky-line, Regina antic.i.p.ated the approaching war of elements, and settled herself to wait for it.
Not until to-day had she realized how much of the pleasure of her life at the parsonage was derived from the sunny presence and sympathizing companions.h.i.+p which she was now about to lose, certainly for many years, probably for ever.
Although Mr. Lindsay's age doubled her own, he had entered so fully into her fancies, humoured so patiently her girlish caprices, with such tireless interest aided her in her studies, that she seemed to forget his seniority, and treated him with the quiet affectionate freedom which she would have indulged toward a young brother. Next to the memory of her mother, she probably gave him the warmest place in her heart, but she was a remarkably reserved, composed, and undemonstrative child, by no means addicted to caresses, and only in moments of deep feeling betrayed into an impulsive pa.s.sionate gesture, or a burst of emotion.
Sincerely attached to the entire household, who had won not merely her earnest grat.i.tude, but profound respect and admiration, she was conscious of a peculiar clinging tenderness for Mr. Lindsay, which rendered the prospect of his departure the keenest trial that had hitherto overtaken her; and when she thought of the immense distance that must soon divide them, the laborious nature of the engagement that would detain him perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration was about as refres.h.i.+ng as a draught from Phlegethon; while the distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous muttering that deepened with every repet.i.tion, and already began to shake the windows in its reverberations. Two ladies in deep mourning, who had been hovering like black spectres around a granite sarcophagus, where they deposited and arranged the customary Sabbath arkja of white flowers, concluded their loving tribute to the sleeper, and left the churchyard; and save the continual challenge of the thunder drawing nearer, the perfect stillness ominous and dread, which always precedes a violent storm, seemed brooding in fearful augury above the home of the dead.
With one foot resting on Hero's neck, Regina sat leaning against the window facing, very pale, but bravely fighting this her first great battle with sorrow. Her face was eloquent with mute suffering, and her eyes were full of shadows that left no room for tears.
”Going away to India, perhaps for ever!” was the burden of this woe that blanched even her lovely coral lips until their curves were lost in the pallor of her rounded cheek and dimpled chin. ”Going away to India;” like some fateful rune presaging dire disaster, it seemed traced in characters of flame across the glowing sky, and over the stony monuments that studded the necropolis.
Suddenly Hero lifted his head, sniffed the air, and rose, and almost simultaneously Regina heard the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside, and the low utterances of a voice which she recognized as Hannah's.
”I never told you before, because I was afraid that in the end you would cheat me out of my share of the profit. But I have watched and waited, and bided my time as long as I intend to, and I am too old to work as I have done.”
”It seems to me a queer thing you have hid it so long, so many years, when you might have turned it into gold. The old General ought to pay well for the paper. Let's see it.”
The response was in a man's voice, harsh and discordant, and, leaning slightly forward, Regina saw the old servant from the parsonage standing immediately beneath the window, fanning herself with her white ap.r.o.n, and earnestly conversing in subdued tones with a middle-aged man, whose flushed and rather bloated face still retained traces of having once been, though in a coa.r.s.e style, handsome. In length of limb, and compact muscular development he appeared an athlete, a very son of Anak; but habitual dissipation had set its brutalizing stamp upon his countenance, and the expression of the inflamed eyes and sensuous mouth was sinister and forbidding, as if a career of vice had left the stain of irremediable ruin on his swarthy face.
As he concluded his remark and stretched out his hand, Hannah laughed scornfully.
”Do you take me for a fool? Who else would travel around with a match and a loaded fuse in the same pocket? I haven't it with me; it is too valuable to be carried about. The care of that sc.r.a.p of paper has tormented me all these years, worse than the tomb devils did the swine that ran down into the sea to cool off; and if I have changed its hiding-place once, I have twenty times. If the old General doesn't pay well for it, I shall gnaw off my fingers, on account of the sin it has cost me. I was an honest woman and could have faced the world until that night--so many years ago; and since then I have carried a load on my soul that makes me--even Hannah Hinton, who never flinched before man or woman or beast--a coward, a quaking coward! Sin stabs courage, lets it ooze out, as a knife does blood.
Don't bully me, Peleg! I won't bear it. Jeer me if you dare.”
”Never fear, Aunt Hannah. I have no mind to do theatre on a small scale, and show you Satan reproving sin. After all, what is your bit of _pet.i.t larceny_, your thin slice of theft, in comparison with my black work? But really I don't in the least begrudge my sins, if only I might have my revenge,--if I could only get Minnie in my power.”