Part 27 (1/2)
CHAPTER XII.
A dreary sunless December day had drawn to a close, prematurely darkened by a slow drizzling rain, that brought the gloom of early night, where sunset splendours should have lingered, and deepened the sombre desolation that mantled the parsonage. In antic.i.p.ation of the arrival of the new minister, who was expected the ensuing week, the furniture had been removed and sold, the books carefully packed and temporarily stored at the warehouse of a friend, and even the trunks containing the wearing apparel of the occupants had been despatched to the railway depot, and checked for transmission by the night express.
The melancholy preparations for departure were completed, friends had paid their final visits, and only Esau the s.e.xton waited with his lantern, to lock up the deserted house, and take charge of the keys.
The last mournful tribute had been offered at the grave in the churchyard, where the beloved pastor slept serenely; and the cold leaden rain fell upon a ma.s.s of beautiful flowers, which quite covered the mound, that marked his dreamless couch.
Since that farewell visit to her brother's tomb, Mrs. Lindsay seemed to have lost her wonted fort.i.tude and composure, and was pacing the empty library, weeping bitterly, giving vent to the long-pent anguish which daily duties and business details had compelled her to restrain.
Impotent to comfort, Regina stood by the mantlepiece, gazing vacantly at the wood fire on the hearth, which supplied only a dim fitful and uncertain light in the bare chill room, once the most cosy and attractive in the whole cheerful house.
How utterly desolate everything appeared now, with only the dreary monotone of the wintry rain on the roof, and the occasional sob that fell from the black-robed figure walking to and fro.
It had been such a happy, peaceful, blessed home, where piety, charity, love, taste, refinement, and education all loaned their charms to the store of witchery, which made it doubly sad to realize that henceforth other feet would tread its floors, other voices echo in its garden and verandahs.
To the girl who had really never known any other home (save the quiet convent courts) this parsonage was the dearest spot she had yet learned to love; and with profound sorrow she now prepared to bid adieu for ever to the haven where her happiest years had pa.s.sed like a rosy dream.
The dreary deserted aspect of the house recalled to her mind--
”How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed”--
of Charles Lamb's quaint tender ”Old familiar faces,” as full of melancholy pathos as human eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with unshed tears; and from it her thoughts gradually drifted to another poem, which she had first heard from Mr. Lindsay during the week of his departure, and later from the sacred lips that were now placidly smiling beneath the floral cross and crown in the neighbouring churchyard.
To-night the words recurred with the mournful iteration of some dolorous refrain; and yielding to the spell she leaned her forehead against the chimney-piece, and repeated them sadly and slowly:
”'We sat and talked until the night Descending, filled the little room; Our faces faded from the sight-- Our voices only broke the gloom.
We spake of many a vanished scene, Of what we once had thought and said, Of what had been, and might have been, And who was changed, and who was dead; And all that fills the hearts of friends, When first they feel with secret pain, Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, And never can be one again.
The very tones in which we spake Had something strange, I could but mark; The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark.'”
Attracted by the rhythm, which softly beat upon the air like some m.u.f.fled prelude striking only minor chords, Mrs. Lindsay came to the hearth, and with her arm resting on the girl's shoulder, stood listening.
”How dearly my Dougla.s.s loved those lines.”
”And on the night before he died, Mr. Hargrove repeated them, asking me afterward to select some sweet solemn sacred tune with an organ accompaniment, and sing them for him. But what music is there that would suit a poem, which henceforth will seem as holy as a psalm to me?”
”Perhaps after a while you and I may be able to quiet the pain, and set it to some sweet old chant. Just now our hearts are too sore.”
”After a while? What hope has after a while? It cannot bring back the lost; and does memory ever die? After a while has not given me my mother; after a while has not taught me to forget her, or made me more patient in my waiting. After a while I know death will come to us all, and then there will be no more heartache; but I can't see that there is any comfort in after a while, except beyond the grave.
Mrs. Lindsay, I do not wish to be wicked or rebellious, but it seems very hard that I must leave this dear quiet home, and be separated from you and Mr. Lindsay whom I dearly love, and go and live in a city, with that cold, hard, harsh, stern man, of whom I am so much afraid. He may mean well, but he has such unkind ways of showing it.
You have no idea how dreadful the future looks to me.”
She spoke drearily, and in the fitful flashes of the firelight the young face looked unnaturally stern.
”My dear child, you must not despond; at your age one must try to see only the bright side. If I expected to remain in America, I would not give you up without a struggle; would beg your mother's permission to keep you until she claimed you. But I shall only wait to learn that Dougla.s.s has arranged for my arrival. As you know, my sister and brother-in-law are in Egypt, and if I were with them in Cairo, I could hear more regularly and frequently from my dear boy. I wish I could keep you, for you have grown deep into my heart, but my own future is too uncertain to allow me to involve any one else in my plans.”
”I understand the circ.u.mstances, but if mother only knew everything, I believe she would not doom me to the care of that man of stone. Oh, if you could only take me across the ocean, and let me go to Venice to mother.”
Mrs. Lindsay tightened her arm around the erect slender figure, and gently stroked back the hair from her temples.