"It is getting very dark now, and I have been sitting at my open bay window ever since sundown. How fresh and sweet the evening air is, as it comes up from my little flower garden below, laden with the fragrance of June roses and almond blossom! Ah, by the way, I will send over some more of those same roses to my opposite neighbor tomorrow morning,--and there is a beautiful spray of white jasmin nodding in at the cas.e.m.e.nt now, and only waiting to be gathered for him. Poor old man! He must be very lonely and quiet, lying there day after day in his dark little bed-chamber, with no companions save his books and his old housekeeper. But then Dr.
Peyton is with him very often, and Dr. Peyton is such a dear kind soul that he makes every one cheerful! I think they have drawn down the blinds earlier than usual tonight at the little old gentleman"s.
Dr. Peyton says he always likes to sit up in his armchair when the day closes, and watch the twilight gathering over the blue range of the Malvern hills in the distance, and talk dreamy bits of poetry to himself the while, but this evening I noticed the blinds were pulled down almost directly after sunset. And such a lovely sunset as it was tonight! I never beheld anything more glorious! What a wondrous glamour of molten mellow light it threw over all the meadows and cottage gardens! It seemed to me as though the gates of heaven itself were unfolded to receive the returning sun into the golden land of the Hereafter! Dear, dear, I shall get quite poetical in my old age! This is not the first time I have caught myself stumbling unawares on the confines of romance! Miss Lizzie, Miss Lizzie, you must not be fanciful! Do you forget that you are an old maid! Yes, an old maid. Ah, well-a-day, "tis a very happy, contented, peaceful sound to me now; but twenty years ago,--Here comes dear old Dr. Peyton himself up my garden path! He does not seem to walk so blithely tonight as usual,--surely nothing is the matter; I wish I could see his face, but it is much too dark for that, so I"ll go at once and let him in. Now I shall hear news of my opposite neighbor! Ah, I hope he is no worse, poor little old man!"
Gentle reader, I shall not trouble you much in the story I am going to tell, with any personal experiences of my own. But you may as well understand before we proceed farther, that I--Miss Elizabeth Fairleigh--am a spinster on the shady side of forty-five, that I and my two serving-maids occupy a tiny, green-latticed, porticoed, one-storeyed cottage just outside a certain little country town, and that Dr. Peyton, tile one "medical man" of the parish, is a white-haired old gentleman of wondrous kindliness and goodness of heart, who was Pythias to my father"s Damon at college long, long ago, and who is now my best friend and my most welcome and frequent visitor. And on the particular evening in question, I had a special interest in his visit, for I wanted very much to know what only he could tell me,--how matters fared with my neighbor and his patient, the little old man who lay sick over the way.
Now this little old man bore the name of Mr Stephen Gray, and he was a bachelor, so Dr. Peyton said, a bachelor grown, from some cause unknown to my friend, prematurely old, and wizened, and decrepit.
It was long since he had first come to reside in the small house opposite mine, and from the very day of his arrival I had observed him with singular interest, and conjectured variously in my idle moments about his probable history and circ.u.mstances. For many months after his establishment "over the way," this old gentleman used morning and evening to perambulate the little country road which divided our respective dwellings, supporting his feeble limbs with a venerable-looking staff, silver-headed like himself; and on one occasion, when my flower garden happened to look especially gay and inviting, he paused by the gate and gazed so wistfully at its beauties, that I ventured to invite him in, and presented him, bashfully enough, with a posy of my choicest rarities. After this unconventional introduction, many little courtesies pa.s.sed between us, other nosegays were culled from my small parterre to adorn the little old gentleman"s parlour, and more than once Miss Elizabeth Farleigh received and accepted an invitation to tea with Mr Stephen Gray.
But by-and-by these invitations ceased, and my neighbor"s pedestrian excursions up and down our road became less and less frequent. Yet when I sent my maid, as I often did, to inquire after his health, the answer returned alternated only between two inflections,--Mr Gray was always either "pretty well," or "a little better today."
But presently I noticed that my friend Dr. Peyton began to pay visits at my opposite neighbor"s, and of him I inquired concerning the little old man"s condition, and learned to my surprise and sorrow that his health and strength were rapidly failing, and his life surely and irrecoverably ebbing away. It might be many long months, Dr. Peyton said, before the end, it might be only a few weeks, but he had seen many such cases, and knew that no human skill or tenderness had power to do more than to prolong the patient"s days upon earth by some brief s.p.a.ce, and to make the weary hours of feebleness and prostration as pleasant and calm as possible.
When Dr Peyton told me this, it was late autumn, and the little old gentleman lived on in his weakness all through the snow-time and the dim bleak winter days. But when the Spring came round once more, he rallied, and I used often to see him sitting up in his armchair at the open window, arrayed in his dressing-gown, and looking so cheerful and placid, that I could not forbear to nod to him and smile hopefully, as I stood by my garden gate in the soft warm sunshine, thinking that after all my opposite neighbor would soon be able to take his daily walks, and have tea with me again in his cosy little parlour. But when I spoke of this to Dr. Peyton, he only shook his head incredulously, and murmured something about the flame burning brighter for a little while before going out altogether. So the old gentleman lingered on until June, and still every time I sent to ask after his health returned the same old reply,--his "kind regards to Miss Fairleigh, and he was a little better today." And thus matters remained on that identical evening of which I first spoke, when I sat at the bay window in my tiny drawing-room, and saw Dr. Peyton coming so soberly up the garden path.
"Dr Peyton," said I, as I placed my most comfortable chair for him in the prettiest corner of the bay, "you are the very person I have been longing to see for the last half-hour! I want to know how my neighbor Mr Gray is tonight. I see his blinds are down, and I am afraid he may be worse. Have you been there this evening?"
I paused abruptly, for my old friend looked very gravely at me, and I thought as his eyes rested for a moment on my face, that notwithstanding the twilight, I could discern traces of recent tears in them.
"Lizzie," said he, very slowly, and his voice certainly trembled a little as he spoke, "I don"t think Mr Gray was ever so well in his life as he is tonight. I have been with him for several hours.
He is dead."
"Dead!" I echoed faintly, for I almost doubted whether my ears heard aright. "My little old gentleman dead? Oh, I am very, very grieved indeed! I fancied he was getting so much stronger!"
Dr. Peyton smiled, one of his peculiar, sweet, grave smiles, such as I had often seen on his kindly face at certain times and seasons when other men would not have smiled at all.
"Lizzie," he answered, "there are some deaths so beautiful and so full of peace, that no one ought to grieve about them, for they bring eternal rest after a life that has been only bitter disquiet and heaviness. And such a death--aye, and such a life--were Mr Gray"s."
He spoke so certainly and so calmly, that I felt comforted for the little old man"s sake, and longed to know,--woman-like, I suppose,-- what sad story of his this had been, to which Dr. Peyton"s words seemed to point.
"Then he had a romance after all!" I cried, "and you knew of it!
Poor old gentleman! I often wondered how he came to be so lonely.
May you tell me, as we sit here together? I should so like to hear about it."
"Yes," said he, with that same peculiar smile, "I may tell you, for it is no secret now. Indeed, I came here partly for that very purpose, because I know well how much you were interested in your opposite neighbor, and how you used to speculate about his antecedents and a.s.sociations. But I have not known this story long. He only told it me this evening; just an hour or two before he died. Well, we all have our little romances, as you are pleased to call them!"
"Yes, yes, all of us. Even I, unpretentious, plain Elizabeth Fairleigh,--but no matter." I mind me, reader, that I promised not to talk of my own experiences. Ah, there are no such phenomena in the world really, as "commonplace" lives, and "commonplace" persons!
"Poor little old man!" I sighed again. "Did he tell you his story then of his own accord, or"--And I paused in some embarra.s.sment, for I remembered that Dr. Peyton was a true gentleman, and possessed of far too much delicacy of feeling to question anybody upon personal matters or private concerns. But either he did not actually notice my hesitation, or perhaps understood the cause of it well enough to prevent him from appearing to notice it, for he resumed at once, as though no interruption to his discourse had taken place.
"When I went this afternoon to visit your neighbor, Lizzie, I perceived immediately from the change in him that the end was not far off, though I did not think it would come today. But he did.
He was in bed when I entered his room, and as soon as he saw me, he looked up and welcomed me with a pleasant smile and said, "Ah, Doctor, I am so glad you are come! I was just going to send round for you! Not that I think you can do me any more good upon earth, for I know that tonight I shall go to my long rest. To my long rest."
He lingered so strangely and so contentedly over these words, that I was singularly touched, and I sat down by his bedside and took his thin white hand in mine. "Doctor," said he, presently, "you have been very good and kind to me now for more than ten months, and I have learned in that time to trust and esteem you as though I had known you for many long years. There are no friends of mine near me in the world now, for I am a lonely old man, and before I came here I lived alone, and I have been lonely almost all my life.
But I cannot die tonight without telling you the story of my past, and of the days when I used to be young,--very long ago now,--that you may understand why I die here alone, a white-haired old bachelor; and that I may be comforted in my death by the knowledge that I leave at least one friend upon earth to sympathise in my sorrow and to bless me in my solitary grave. "It is a long story, Doctor,"
said the little old man, "but I feel stronger this afternoon than I have felt for weeks, and I am quite sure I can tell it all from end to end. I have kept it many years in my heart, a secret from every human soul; but now all is over with my sorrow and with me for ever, and I care not who knows of it after I am gone." Then after a little pause he told me his story, while I sat beside him holding his hand in mine, and I think I did not lose a word of all he said, for he spoke very slowly and distinctly, and I listened with all my heart. Shall I tell it to you, Lizzie? It is not one of those stories that end happily; like the stories we read in children"s fairy books, nor is it exciting and sensational like the modern popular novels. There are no dramatic situations in it, and no pa.s.sionate scenes of tragical love or remorse; "tis a still, neutral-colored, dreamy bit of pathos; the story of a lost life,-- that it will make you sad perhaps to hear, and maybe, a little graver than usual. Only that."
"Please tell it, Dr Peyton," I answered. "You know I have a special liking for such sad histories. "Tis one of my old-maidish eccentricities I suppose; but somehow I always think sorrow more musical than mirth, and I love the quiet of shadowy places better than the brilliant glow of the open landscape."
"You are right, Lizzie," he returned. "That is the feeling of the true poet in all ages, and the most poetical lives are always those in which the melancholy element predominates. Yet it is contrast that makes the beauty of things, and doubtless we should not fully understand the sweetness of your grave harmonies, nor the loveliness of your shadowy valleys, were all music grave and all places shadowy.
And inanimate nature is most a.s.suredly the faithful type and mirror of human life. But I must not waste our time any longer in such idle prologues as these! You shall hear the little old man"s story at once, while it is still fresh in my memory, though for the matter of that, I am not likely, I think, to forget it very easily." So Dr Peyton told it me as we sat together there in the growing darkness of the warm summer night, and this, reader mine, is the story he told.
Chapter II.
Some forty years ago, there lived in one of the prettiest houses in Kensington, a rich old wine-merchant, and his two only children.
These young men, Stephen and Maurice Grey, were twins, whose mother had died at their birth, and all through their infancy and childhood the old wine-merchant had been to them as father and mother in one, and the brothers had grown up to manhood, loving him and each other as dearly as heart could wish. Already Stephen, the firstborn of the twins, had become partner in his father"s flourishing business, and Maurice was preparing at a military college for service in the army, which he was shortly to join, when a certain event occurred at Kensington, trifling enough in itself, but in the sequel pregnant with bitter misfortune to at least two human souls.
There came to reside in the house adjoining old Mr Gray"s, an elderly widow lady and her orphan niece,--Mrs. Lamertine and Miss Adelais Cameron. They came there princ.i.p.ally for the sake of the latter,-- a pale consumptive girl of eighteen, whose delicate health and const.i.tution it was thought might be considerably benefited by the mild soft air of that particular neighborhood. Soon after the arrival of these ladies in their new abode, the old wine-merchant in his courtesy and kindliness of heart saw fit to pay them a visit, and in due time and form the visit was returned, and a friendly come-and-go understanding established between the two houses. In this manner it happened that Stephen, the elder son, by living always in his father"s house, from which he was absent only during the office-hours of the day, saw a great deal of Adelais Cameron, and learnt before long to love her with all the depth and yearning that a young man feels in his first rapturous adoration of a beautiful woman.
For a beautiful woman Adelais certainly was. Very fair to look upon was the pale, transparent face, and the plentiful braided hair, golden and soft almost as undyed silk, that wreathed about the lovely little head. Clear and sweet too were the eyes whence the soul of Adelais looked forth, clear and brown and sweet; so that people who beheld her fair countenance and heard her musical voice for the first time, were fain to say in their hearts, "Such a face and such a voice as these are not earthly things; Adelais Cameron is already far on her road towards the land of the angels."
But at least Mrs Lamertine and her friendly neighbors the Grays could perceive that the pale girl grew none the paler nor sicklier for her residence at Kensington, and as days and weeks flew pleasantly by in the long autumn season, the old lady talked more and more confidently of her niece"s complete restoration to health and youthful vigour. Then by-and-by Christmas drew round, and with it Maurice Gray came home to his father"s house for his last vacation-time; Maurice, with his frank handsome face and curly hair, always so cheerful, always so good-humoured, always so unconscious of his own attractiveness, that wherever he went, everybody was sure to trust and to idolise him. Ay, and to love him too sometimes, but not as Adelais Cameron did, when her full womanly soul awoke first to the living intensity of pa.s.sion, and she found in him the one G.o.d at whose feet to cast all her new wealth of tenderness and homage.
Never before had Maurice Gray been so beloved, never before had his own love been so desired and coveted by human soul. And now that the greatest blessing of earth lay so ready to his grasp, Maurice neither perceived the value of the gift, nor understood that it was offered to him. Such was the position when Christmas Day arrived, and the widower begged that Mrs Lamertine and her niece would do him the pleasure to dine in his house and spend the evening there, that they might sing songs and play forfeits together and keep up the ancient inst.i.tutions of the time, as well as so tiny and staid a party could manage to do; to which sociable invitation, the old dame, nothing averse to pleasant fellowship at any season, readily consented. But when Adelais Cameron entered Mr Gray"s drawing-room that Christmas evening with her soft white dress floating about her like a hazy cloud, and a single bunch of snowdrops in the coils of her golden hair, Stephen"s heart leapt in his throat, and he said to himself that never until now had he known how exceeding perfect and sweet was the beautiful woman whom he loved with so absorbing a tenderness. Alas, that life should be at times such a terribly earnest game of cross purposes, such an intensely bitter reality of mistakes and blunders! Alas, that men and women can read so little of each other"s heart, and yet can comprehend so well the language of their own!
All the evening, throughout the conversation and the forfeits and the merry-making, Stephen Gray spoke and moved and thought only for Adelais, and she for Stephen"s twin brother. It was for Maurice that she sang, while Stephen stood beside her at the piano, drinking in the tender pa.s.sionate notes as though they were sweet wine for which all his soul were athirst; it was at Maurice that she smiled, while Stephen"s eyes were on her face, and to Maurice that she prattled and sported and made mirthful jests, while Stephen alone heeded all that she said and did; for the younger brother was reflected in every purpose and thought of hers, even as her own image lay mirrored continually in the heart and thoughts of the elder.
But before the hour of parting came that night, Stephen drew Adelais aside from the others as they sat laughing and talking over some long-winded story of the old wine-merchant"s experiences, and told her what she, in the blindness of her own wild love, had never guessed nor dreamed of,--all the deep adoration and worship of his soul. And when it was told, she said nothing for a few minutes, but only stood motionless and surprised, without a blush or tremor or sigh, and he, looking earnestly into her fair uplifted face, saw with unutterable pain that there was no response there to the pa.s.sionate yearning of his own.
"Adelais," said he, presently, "you do not love me?"
"Yes, yes, Stephen," she answered, softly; "as a brother, as a dear brother."
"No more?" he asked again.
She put her hand into his, and fixing the clear light of her brown eyes full upon him: "Why," she said, hurriedly, "do you ask me this?
I cannot give you more, I cannot love you as a husband. Let no one know what has pa.s.sed between us tonight; forget it yourself as I shall forget also, and we will always be brother and sister all our lives."
Then she turned and glided away across the room into the warm bright glow of the fireside, that lay brightest and warmest in the corner where Maurice sat; but Stephen stood alone in the darkness and hid his face in his hands and groaned. And after this there came a changeover the fortunes of the two households. Day by day Adelais faded and paled and saddened; none knew why. People said it was the winter weather, and that when the springtime came the girl would be herself again, and grow brisker and stronger than ever. But when Maurice was gone back to his college, to fulfil his last term there before leaving for India, the only brother of Adelais came up from his home by the seaside, on a month"s visit to his aunt and his sister at Kensington. He was a man of middle age almost, this same Philip Cameron, tall and handsome and fair-spoken, so that the old wine-merchant, who dearly loved good looks and courteous breeding, took to him mightily from the first, and made much of his company on all occasions. But as he stayed on from week to week at Mrs Lamertine"s house, Philip saw that the pale lips and cheeks of Adelais grew paler and thinner continually, that the brown eyes greatened in the dark sockets, and that the fragile limbs weakened and sharpened themselves more and more, as though some terrible blight, like the curse of an old enchantment or of an evil eye, hung over the sweet girl, withering and poisoning all the life and the youth in her veins.
She lay on a sofa one afternoon, leaning her golden head upon one of her pale wan hands, and gazing dreamily through the open cas.e.m.e.nt into the depths of the broad April sky, over whose clear blue firmament the drifting clouds came and went incessantly like white- sailed ships at sea. And Adelais thought of the sea as she watched them, and longed in her heart to be away and down by the southern coast where her brother had made his home, with the free salt breeze blowing in her face, and the free happy waves beating the sh.o.r.e at her feet, and the sea-fowl dipping their great strong wings in the leaping surge. Ah to be free,--to be away,--perhaps then she might forget, forget and live down her old life, and bury it somewhere out of sight in the sea-sand;--forget and grow blithe and happy and strong once more, like the breeze and the waves and the wild birds, who have no memory nor regret for the past, and no thought for any joy, save the joy of their present being.
"Phil," she said, as her brother came softly into the room and sat beside her, "take me back with you to the sea-side. I am weary of living always here in Kensington. It is only London after all."
"My dearest," he answered, kindly, "if that is all you wish for, it shall certainly be. But, Adelais, is there nothing more than this that troubles you? There is a shadow in your eyes and on your lips that used not to be there, and all day long you sit by yourself and muse in silence; and you weep too at times, Adelais, when you fancy none is by to see you. Tell me, sister mine, for the sake of the love that is between us, and for the sake of our father and mother who are dead, what cloud is this that overshadows you so?"
Long time he pressed and besought her, pleading by turns his power to help, and her need of tenderness; but yet Adelais was afraid to speak, for the love that was breaking her heart was unreturned.
So the next day he found her alone again, and prayed her to tell him her sorrow, that even if he could not help nor comfort her, they might at least lament together. Then at last she bowed her head upon his breast, and told him of Maurice, and of his near departure for India, and of her own disregarded love; but not a word she said of Stephen, because she had promised him to hold her peace. And when she had told her brother all, she laid her arms about his neck and cried, weeping, "Now you know everything that is in my heart, Phil; speak to me no more about it, but only promise to take me away with you when you go, that I may the sooner forget this place and all the sorrow and the pain I have suffered here."
And Philip Cameron kissed her very tenderly, and answered, "Be at rest, sister, you shall have your will."
But when the evening came, he went over to the house of the wine- merchant, and questioned him about Maurice, whether he cared for Adelais or no, and whether he had ever said a word to his father or brother of the matter.
"Ay, ay," quoth the old gentleman, musingly, when Philip had ceased, ""Tis like enough if there be anything of the sort that the boys should talk of it between them, for, G.o.d be thanked, they were always very fond of each other; yet I never heard it spoken about. But then youth has little in common with age, and when young men make confidences of this kind, it is to young men that they make them, and not to grey-beards like me. But tell me, Cameron, for you know I must needs divine something from all this; your sister loves my boy Maurice?"
"If you think so, sir," answered Philip, "you must keep her secret."