_ CHAPTER XXXVI. MOTES IN THE SUNSHINE
That sleep was, humanly speaking, Magdalene's salvation.
At the greatest crisis of her life, when reason hung in the balance,--when the sudden influx of joy might have paralyzed the overwrought heart and brain,--at that moment physical exhaustion saved her by that merciful, overpowering sleep.
When she woke, it was to the resurrection of her life and love. Months afterwards she spoke of that waking to Phillis, when she lay in her bed weak as a new born babe, and the early morning light streamed full on the face of her slumbering husband.
They were alone; for Miss Mewlstone had just crept softly from the room. Her movement had roused Magdalene. Herbert, who was utterly worn out by his long watching, had just dropped asleep, with his head resting against the wood-work. He was still sitting in the arm-chair beside her, and only the thin profile was visible.
The previous night had been passed by Magdalene in a semi-conscious state: delirious imaginations had blended with realities. There were flashes and intervals of comparative consciousness, when the truth rushed into her mind; but she had been too weak to retain it long. That she was dreaming or dead was her fixed idea: that this was her husband's greeting to her in paradise seemed to be her one thought. "Strange that the children do not kiss me too," they heard her say once.
But now, as she opened her eyes, there was no blue misty haze through which she ever feebly sought to pierce. She was lying in her own room, where she had passed so many despairing days and nights. The window was open; the sweet crisp morning air fanned her temples; the birds were singing in the garden below; and there beside her was the face so like, yet so unlike, the face from which she had parted four years ago.
For a little while she lay and watched it in a sort of trance; and then in the stillness full realization came to her, and she knew that she was not mad or dreaming. This was no imagination: it was reality.
With incredible effort, for she felt strangely weak, she raised herself on her elbow to study that dear face more closely, for the change in it baffled her. Could this be her Herbert? How bronzed and thin he had grown! Those lines that furrowed his forehead, those hollows in the temples and under the eyes, were new to her. And, oh, the pity of those gray hairs in the place of the brown wavy locks she remembered! But it was when she laid her lips against the scarred wrist that Herbert woke, and met the full look of recognition in his wife's eyes, for which he had waited so long.
Now he could fall upon his knees beside her, and crave that forgiveness for words and acts that had seared his conscience all these years like red-hot iron. But at the first word she stopped him, and drew his head to her breast:
"Oh, Herbert, hush! What! ask forgiveness of me, when I have sinned against you doubly,--trebly,--when I was no true wife, as you know? Oh, do not let us ask it of each other, but of God, whom we have so deeply offended! He has punished us; but He has been merciful too. He has taken our children because we did not deserve them. Oh, Herbert! what will you do without them?--for you loved Janie so!" And then for a little while the childless parents could only hold each other's hands and weep, for to Herbert Cheyne the grief was new, and at the sight of her husband's sorrow Magdalene's old wounds seemed to open and bleed afresh; only now--now she did not weep alone.
When Miss Mewlstone entered the room, shortly afterwards, she found Magdalene lying spent and weary, holding her husband's hand.
Joy had indeed returned to the White House, but for a long time it was joy that was strangely tempered with sorrow. Upstairs no sound greeted Herbert from the empty nurseries; there were no little feet pattering to meet the returned wanderer, no little voices to cry a joyous "Father!" And for years the desolate mother had borne this sorrow alone.
As the days passed on, Magdalene regained her strength slowly, but neither wife nor husband could hide from each other the fact that their health was broken by all they had gone through. Herbert's constitution was sadly impaired for the remainder of his life: he knew well that he must carry with him the consequences of those years of suffering. Often he had to endure intense neuralgic agony in his limbs and head; an unhealed wound for a long time troubled him sorely. Magdalene strove hard to regain strength, that she might devote herself to nurse him, but, though her constitution was superb, she had much to bear from her disordered nerves. At times the old irritability was hard to vanquish; there were still dark moods of restlessness when her companionship was trying; but it was now that Herbert proved the nobleness and reality of his repentance.
For he was ever gentle with her, however much she might try him. Some talk he had had with her doctor had convinced him that she was not to blame for these morbid moods; that the nerves had become disorganized by those years of solitary misery. "We must bear all our troubles together," as he often told her; and so he bore this, as he did the trial of his children's loss, with grave fortitude, and a patience that surprised all who knew him.
And he was not without his reward, for, the dark fit over, Magdalene's smile would greet him like sunshine after a storm, and she would thank him with tears and caresses for his forbearance.
"I can't think what makes me still so horrid, when I am so happy," she said once to him, when the first year of their reunion had passed. "I do my best to fight against these moods, but they seem stronger than myself and overcome me. Do not be so good to me next time, Herbert; scold me and be angry with me, as you used in the old days."
"I cannot," he answered, smiling. "I never loved you in the old days as I do now. I would not change my wife, in spite of all the trouble she gives me, for any other woman upon earth. You believe this, love, do you not?" looking at her beautiful face anxiously, for it had clouded a little at his last words.
"Yes, but I do not like to trouble you: it is that that frets me. I wanted to be a comfort to you, and never to give you a moment's uneasiness; but I cannot help myself, somehow. I love you, I don't believe you know yet how I love you, Herbert; but it seems as if I must grieve you sometimes."
"Never mind; I will hear your trouble and my own too," he answered, cheerily; and in this way he always comforted her. But to Magdalene her own self ever remained a mystery; the forces of her own nature were too strong for her, and yet she was not a weak woman. She had expected that in her case love and happiness would have worked a miracle, as though miracles were ever effected by mere human agencies,--that she would rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of her past, reborn, rejuvenated, with an inexhaustible fund of moral strength.
Now she had Herbert, all would go smoothly; she would no longer mourn for her little ones. Since her husband was there to comfort her, with his constant presence to sustain her, all must be well; never again would she be nervous, irritable, or sarcastic. Poor Magdalene! she was creating heaven for herself upon earth; she was borrowing angels' plumes before the time; she had forgotten the conditions of humanity, "the body of the flesh," which weighed down greater souls than hers.
There are Gethsemanes of the spirit to the weary ones of earth, hours of conflict that must be lived through and endured. Nature that groaneth and travaileth cannot find its abiding place of rest here. To the end of time it seems to be written in enduring characters that no human lot shall be free from suffering: sooner or later, more or less,--that is all! Magdalene had still to learn this lesson painfully: that she was slow in learning it, proved the strength and obduracy of her will. True, she was rarely sarcastic,--never in her husband's presence, for a word or a look from him checked her, and she grew humble and meek at once. It was her unruly nerves that baffled her; she was shocked to find that irritable words still rose to her lips; that the spirit of restlessness was not quelled forever; that thunder still affrighted her; and that now and then her mind seemed clouded with fancied gloom.
She once spoke of this to Miss Middleton, with tears in her eyes.
"It is so strange," she said. "Herbert is different, but I am still so unchanged."
"The conditions of your health are unchanged, you mean," answered Elizabeth, with that quiet sympathy that always rested people. "This is the mistake that folk make: they do not distinguish between an unhealthy mind and a diseased soul: the one is due to physical disorganization, the other to moral causes. In your case, dear Mrs. Cheyne, one may safely lay the blame on the first cause."
"Oh, do you think so?" she asked, earnestly. "I dare not cheat my conscience in that way: it is my bad temper, my undisciplined nature, that ought to bear the blame."
"No; believe me," answered Elizabeth, for they had grown great friends of late, "I have watched you narrowly, and I know how you try to conquer this irritability; there is no black spot of anger in your heart, whatever words come to your lips. You are like a fretful child sometimes, I grant you that, who is ailing and unconscious of its ailment. When you would be calm, you are strangely disturbed; you speak sharply, hoping to relieve something that oppresses you."
"Oh, yes!" sighed Magdalene; "and yet Herbert never speaks crossly to me."
"He never will, for he knows what you suffer. Well, dear friend, what of this? This is a cross that you must carry perhaps all your life. You are not the only one who has to bear the torment of disordered nerves: it must be borne with resignation, as we bear other troubles. Once you felt you could not love God; you ceased to pray to Him; now you love Him a little. Go on loving; thank him for your husband's patience, and pray that you may have patience with yourself. One is weary of always living with one's self, I know that well," finished Elizabeth, with a charming smile.
Mr. Drummond would have verified Miss Middleton's opinion that Magdalene was not so unchanged as she believed herself to be.
At his first interview with her after Herbert Cheyne's return, he could almost have sworn that she was a different woman.
Phillis, who spent all her spare time at the White House,--for they both made much of Herbert's "good angel," as he still called her jestingly,--was sitting alone with Mrs. Cheyne when Archie was announced.
His old enemy greeted him with a frank smile.
"This is kind of you, Mr. Drummond," she said, quite warmly. "How I wish my husband were not out, that I could introduce him to you! I have told him how good you have tried to be to me, but that I was ungrateful and repulsed you."
Archie was shaking hands with Phillis, who seemed a little disturbed at his entrance. He turned around and regarded the beautiful woman with astonishment. Was this really Mrs. Cheyne? Where was the hard, proud droop of the lip, the glance of mingled coldness and
hauteur, the polished sarcasm of voice and manner? Her face looked clear and open as a child's; her eyes were brilliant with happiness.
Magdalene was in one of her brightest moods when she was most truly herself.
"I have met him just now. He stopped and introduced himself. We had quite a long talk outside of Mrs. Williams's cottage. I called upon him there, you know, but he had good reasons for refusing my visits. Mrs. Cheyne, you must allow me to congratulate you most earnestly. You will own now that Providence has been good to you."
"I will own that and everything," returned Magdalene, joyously. "I will own, if you like, that I treated you shamefully, and took a pleasure in tormenting you; and you were so patient,--oh, so patient, Mr. Drummond! I could have called you back sometimes and apologized, but I would not. In my bitter moments I felt it was such a relief to mock at people."
"Never mind all that. Let bygones be bygones. I wish I could have served you better." And then, as he changed the subject, and spoke feelingly about the miracle of her husband's restoration, Mrs. Cheyne looked at him rather wistfully.
"Oh, how good you are!" she said, softly. "Do you know, the world seems full of good people to me now; and yet once it appeared too bad a place for any one to live in. We create our own atmosphere,--at least so Herbert tells me. But you are looking thin, Mr. Drummond,--thin and pale. You must be working too hard."
"Oh, as to that, hard work never hurts any one," he replied, carelessly; but there was something forced in his tone.
Phillis, who had been sitting apart quite silently, raised her eyes involuntarily from her work. Was it her fancy, or had some undefinable change passed over him? They had seen him so little of late. Since all this had happened at the White House he had called once or twice; and once Nan had been there, and he had spoken to her much as usual. No one would have detected any difference in his manner, except that he was a little grave and preoccupied. Nan had not noticed anything; but then she was singularly blind in such matters. Had she not vaguely hinted that his visits were on Phillis's account?--that mere hint conveying exquisite pain to Phillis.
Now, as she stole a glance at him, the conviction was strong within her that the arrow had gone deep. He certainly looked a little thin and care-worn, and something of a young man's vigor and hopefulness seemed temporarily impaired. But, as it happened, that girlish scrutiny was not unperceived by Archie. In a moment he was on the alert. His eyes challenged hers boldly, and it was Phillis who flushed and looked conscious.
It was as though he said to her, "Ah! you think you know all about it. But you need not trouble yourself to be sorry for me; you do not know what a man's strength can do. And I am determined to bear this by myself, and to myself; for in silence there is power."
It certainly seemed as though a new strength had come to Archie. He had been a man who was prone to speak much of his feelings. Irritable and sensitive, he had demanded much sympathy from his womankind. His was a nature that craved support in his work; but now, not even to Grace, could he speak of this trouble that had befallen him.
Was it a trouble, after all, this vague shadow that lay about his path? No one but he himself knew the sweetness and graciousness of the dream that had come to him. It had only been a dream, after all; and now he was awake. The vision he had conjured up to himself had faded into unreality. She was not his second self: never by look or word had he wooed her; she was only the woman he could have loved. This was how he put it; and now he would bury this faint hope that was still-born,--that had never had breathed into it the breath of life. And if for a little while his future should be cloudy and bereft of its sunshine, was he the only one to whom "some days must be dark and dreary"?
Phillis's unspoken sympathy drooped under this stern repression; and yet in her heart she reverenced him all the more for this moral strength,--for there is nothing a true woman abhors more than weakness in a man. After this silent rebuff, Archie took himself well in hand, and began to speak of other things: he told Mrs. Cheyne, being certain now of her interest, of his sister's intended marriage, and how he and Mattie were going down to the wedding.
"He is a very good fellow, this intended brother-in-law of mine,--a sort of rough diamond; but hardly good enough for Isabel," he said. "Oh, yes, he is very rich. My poor little sister will have her head turned by all her magnificence; for his parents are so generous: they quite load her with gifts." And he smiled to himself at the notion of the little sister, just fresh from her narrow school-room life, rejoicing over her trousseau and her handsome house, and driving away from the church in her own carriage. No wonder his father and mother were pleased. As for the bridegroom-elect, Archie spoke of him with half-contemptuous amusement: "Oh, he was a good fellow,--no one wished to deny that;" but there was a want of culture and polish that grated upon the susceptibilities of the Oxford fellow.
Phillis listened with undivided interest--especially when he mentioned Grace.
"Mattie and I are in hopes that we shall bring her back with us; but, at all events, my mother has promised to spare her at Christmas." This time he addressed himself to Phillis.
"Oh, that will be nice for you!" she returned a little eagerly. "You have told us so much about her that I quite long to know her."
"I should say you would suit each other perfectly," he replied, as he rose to take his leave. "Sometimes you remind me of her, Miss Challoner; and yet you are not really alike. Good-bye, if I do not see you again before we go to Leeds." And Phillis gave him her hand, and a cordial smile.
But when he had gone out of the room, his hostess accompanying him--for she had a word for his private ear,--Phillis sat down, and thought over those last words with a strange feeling of pleasure: "Sometimes you remind me of her, Miss Challoner." Was it possible that he could trace any resemblance between her and this dearly-beloved sister, this Grace, whom he seemed to regard as absolute perfection?
"Oh, I hope she will come! I am sure we shall be such friends," she said to herself: and from this time Phillis looked anxiously for Grace Drummond's arrival. _