"Eternity, papa--a happy eternity, what is it, but the brighter side of human life--here we see only as in a gla.s.s darkly; there, in our final destiny, we reach the fulness of our happiness. I am not melancholy, but resigned; and resignation has a peace peculiar to itself; a repose which draws us gently, for a little time, out of the memory of our sorrows; but without refreshing the heart--without refreshing the heart. No, papa, I am not melancholy--I am not melancholy; I could bear Charles"s death, and look up to my G.o.d for strength and support under it; but,"
she added, shaking her head, with a smile marked by something of a wild meaning, "if he could forget me for another,--no I will not say for another, but if he could only forget me, and his vows of undying affection, then indeed--then--then--papa--ha!--no--no--he could not--he could not."
This conversation, when repeated to the family, deeply distressed them, involved in doubt and uncertainty as they were with respect to Osborne"s ultimate intentions. Until a reply, however, should be received to his father"s letter, which was written expressly to demand an explanation on that point, they could only soothe the unhappy girl in the patient sorrow which they saw gathering in her heart. That, however, which alarmed them most, was her insuperable disrelish to any thing in the shape of consolation or sympathy. This, to them, was indeed a new trait in the character of one who had heretofore been so anxious to repose the weight of her sufferings upon the bosoms of those who loved her.
Her chief companion now was Ariel, her dove, to which she was seen to address herself with a calm, smiling aspect, not dissimilar to the languid cheerfulness of an invalid, who might be supposed as yet incapable from physical weakness to indulge in a greater display of animal spirits. Her walks, too, were now all solitary, with the exception of her mute companion, and it was observed that she never, in a single instance, was known to traverse any spot over which she and Osborne had not walked together. Here she would linger, and pause, and muse, and address Ariel, as if the beautiful creature were capable of comprehending the tenor of her language.
"Ariel," said she one day, speaking to the bird; "there is the yew tree, under which your preserver and I first disclosed our love. The yew tree, sweet bird, is the emblem of death, and so it will happen; for Charles is dying, I know--I feel that he will die; and I will die, early; we will both die early; for I would not be able to live here after him, Ariel, and how could I? Yet I should like to see him once--once before he dies; to see him, Ariel, in the fulness of his beauty; my eye to rest upon him once more; and then I could die smiling."
She then sat down under the tree, and in a voice replete with exquisite pathos and melody sang the plaintive air which Osborne had played on the evening when the first rapturous declaration of their pa.s.sion was made. This incident with the bird also occurred much about the same hour of the day, a remembrance which an a.s.sociation, uniformly painful to her moral sense, now revived with peculiar power, for she started and became pale. "My sweet bird," she exclaimed, "what is this; I shall be absent from evening worship again--but I will not prevaricate now; why--why is this spot to be fatal to me? Come, Ariel, come: perhaps I may not be late."
She hastened home with a palpitating heart, and unhappily arrived only in time to find the family rising from prayer.
As she stood and looked upon them, she smiled, but a sudden paleness at the same instant overspread her face, which gave to her smile an expression we are utterly incompetent to describe.
"I am late," she exclaimed, "and have neglected a solemn and a necessary duty. To me, to me, papa, how necessary is that duty."
"It is equally so to us all, my child," replied her father; "but," he added, in order to reconcile her to an omission which had occasioned her to suffer so much pain before, "we did not forget to pray for you, Jane.
With respect to your absence, we know it was unintentional. Your mind is troubled, my love, and do not, let me beg of you, dwell upon minor points of that kind, so as to interrupt the singleness of heart with which you ought to address G.o.d. You know, darling, you can pray in your own room."
She mused for some minutes, and at length said, "I would be glad to preserve that singleness of heart, but I fear I will not be able to do so long."
"If you would stay more with us, darling," observed her mamma, "and talk and chat more with Maria and Agnes, as you used to do, you would find your spirits improved. You are not so cheerful as we would wish to see you."
"Perhaps I ought to do that, mamma; indeed I know I ought, because you wish it."
"We all wish it," said Agnes, "Jane dear, why keep aloof from us? Who in the world loves you as we do; and why would you not, as you used to do, allow us to cheer you, to support you, or to mourn and weep with you; anything--anything," said the admirable girl, "rather than keep your heart from ours;" and as she spoke, the tears fell fast down her cheeks.
"Dear Agnes," said Jane, putting her arm about her sister"s neck, and looking up mournfully into her face; "I cannot weep for myself--I cannot weep even with you; you know I love you--how I love you--oh, how I love you all; but I cannot tell why it is--society, even the society of them I love best, disturbs me, and you know not the pleasure--melancholy I grant it to be, but you know not the pleasure that comes to me from solitude. To me--to me there is a charm in it ten times more soothing to my heart than all the power of human consolation."
"But why so melancholy at all, Jane," said Maria, "surely there is no just cause for it."
She smiled as she replied, "Why am I melancholy, Maria?--why? why should I not? Do I not read the approaching death of Charles...o...b..rne in the gloom of every countenance about me? Why do you whisper to each other that which you will not let me hear? Why is there a secret and anxious, and a mysterious intercourse between this family and his, of the purport of which I am kept ignorant--and I alone?"
"But suppose Charles...o...b..rne is not sick," said William; "suppose he was never in better health than he is at this moment--" he saw his father"s hand raised, and paused, then added, carelessly, "for supposition"s sake I say merely."
"But you must not suppose that, William," she replied, starting, "unless you wish to blight your sister. On what an alternative then, would you force a breaking heart. If not sick, if not dying, where is he?
I require him--I demand him. My heart," she proceeded, rising up and speaking with vehemence--"my heart calls for him--shouts aloud in its agony--shouts aloud--shouts aloud for him. He is, he is sick; the malady of his family is upon him; he is ill--he is dying; it must be so; ay, and it shall be so; I can bear that, I can bear him to die, but never to become faithless to a heart like mine. But I am foolish," she added, after a pause, occasioned by exhaustion; "Oh, my dear William, why, by idle talk, thus tamper with your poor affectionate sister"s happiness? I know you meant no harm, but oh, William, William, do it no more."
"I only put it, dear Jane, I only put it as a mere case,"--the young man was evidently cut to the heart, and could not for some moments speak.
She saw his distress, and going over to him, took his hand and.
said, "Don"t, William, don"t; it is nothing but merely one of your good-humored attempts to make your sister cheerful. There," she added, kissing his cheek; "there is a kiss for you; the kiss of peace let it be, and forgiveness; but I have nothing to forgive you for, except too much affection for an unhappy sister, who, I believe, is likely to be troublesome enough to you all; but, perhaps not long--not long."
There were few dry eyes in the room, as she uttered the last words.
"I do not like to see you weep," she added, "when I could have wept myself, and partaken of your tears, it was rather a relief to me than otherwise. It seems, however, that my weeping days are past; do not, oh do not--you trouble me, and I want to compose my mind for a performance of the solemn act which I have this evening neglected. Mamma, kiss me, and pray for me; I love you well and tenderly, mamma; I am sure you know I do."
The sorrowing mother caught her to her bosom, and, after kissing her pa.s.sive lips, burst out into a sobbing fit of grief.
"Oh, my daughter, my daughter," she exclaimed, still clasping her to her heart, "and is it come to this! Oh, that we had never seen him!"
"This, my dear," said Mr. Sinclair to his wife, "is wrong; indeed, it is weakness; you know she wants to compose her mind for prayer."
"I do, papa; they must be more firm; I need to pray. I know my frailties, you know them too, sir; I concealed them from you as long as I could, but their burden was too heavy for my heart; bless me now, before I go; I will kneel."
The sweet girl knelt beside him, and he placed his hand upon her stooping head, and blessed her. She then raised herself, and looking up to him with a singular expression of wild sweetness beaming in her eyes, she said, leaning her head again upon his breast,
"There are two bosoms, on which, I trust, I and my frailties can repose with hope; I know I shall soon pa.s.s from the one to the other--
"The bosom of my _father_ and my _G.o.d_, will not they be sweet, papa?"
She spoke thus with a smile of such unutterable sweetness, her beautiful eyes gazing innocently up into her father"s countenance, that the heart of the old man was shaken through every fibre. He saw, however, what must be encountered, and was resolved to act a part worthy of the religion he professed. He arose, and taking her hand in his, said, "You wish to pray, dearest love; that is right; your head has been upon my bosom, and I blessed you; go now, and, with a fervent heart, address yourself to the throne of grace; in doing this, my sweet child, piously and earnestly, you will pa.s.s from my bosom to the bosom of your G.o.d.
Cast yourself upon Him, my love; above all things, cast yourself with humble hope and earnest supplication upon His. This, my child, indeed is sweet; and you will find it so; come, darling, come."
He led her out of the room, and after a few words more of affectionate advice, left her to that solitude for which he hoped the frame of mind in which she then appeared was suitable.
"Her sense of religion," he said, after returning to the family, "is not only delicate, but deep; her piety is fervent and profound. I do not therefore despair but religion will carry her through whatever disappointment Charles"s flighty enthusiasm may occasion her."
"I wish, papa," said Agnes, "I could think so. As she herself said, she might bear his death, for that would involve no act of treachery, of falsehood on his part; but to find that he is capable of forgetting their betrothed vows, sanctioned as they were by the parents of both--indeed, papa, if such a thing happen----"
"I should think it will not," observed her mother; "Charles has, as you have just said, enthusiasm; now, will not that give an impulse to his love, as well as to his ambition?"
"But if ambition, my dear, has become the predominant principle in his character, it will draw to its own support all that nourished his other pa.s.sions. Love is never strong where ambition exists--nor ambition where there is love."
"I cannot entertain the thought of Charles...o...b..rne being false to her,"
said Maria; "his pa.s.sion for her was more like idolatry than love."
"He is neglecting her, though," said William; "and did she not suppose that that is caused by illness, I fear she would not bear it even as she does."
"I agree with you, William," observed Agnes; "but after all, it is better to have patience until Mr. Osborne hears from him. His reply will surely be decisive as to his intentions. All may end better than we think."
Until this reply should arrive, however, they were compelled to remain in that state of suspense which is frequently more painful than the certainty of evil itself. Jane"s mind and health were tended with all the care and affection which her disinclination to society would permit them to show. They forced themselves to be cheerful in order that she might unconsciously partake of a spirit less gloomy than that which every day darkened more deeply about her path; Any attempt to give her direct consolation, however, was found to produce the very consequences which they wished so anxiously to prevent. If for this purpose they entered into conversation with her, no matter in what tone of affectionate sweetness they addressed her, such was the irresistible pathos of her language, that their hearts became melted, and, instead of being able to comfort the beloved mourner, they absolutely required sympathy themselves. Since their last dialogue, too, it was evident from her manner that some fresh source of pain had been on that occasion opened in her heart. For nearly a Week afterwards her eye was fixed from time to time upon her brother William, with a long gaze of hesitation and enquiry--not unmingled with a character of suspicion that appeared still further, to sink her spirits by a superadded weight of misery.
Nearly a fortnight had now elapsed since Charles...o...b..rne ought to have received his father"s letter, and yet no communication had reached either of the families. Indeed the gradual falling off of his correspondence with Jane, and the commonplace character of his few last letters left little room to hope that his affection for her stood the severe test of time and absence. One morning about this period she brought William into the garden, and after a turn or too, laid her hand, gently upon his arm, saying,
"William, I have a secret to entrust you with."
"A secret, Jane--well, I will keep it honorably--what is it, dear?"
"I am very unhappy."
"Surely that"s no secret to me, my pool girl."
She shook her head.
"No, no; that"s not it; but this is--I strongly suspect that you all know more about Charles than I do."
She fixed her eyes with an earnest penetration on him as she spoke.
"He is expected home soon, Jane."