"I believe I am old now; an old woman, I suppose. My hair is gray, and I am wrinkled; that"s the reason why they scorn me; well I was once both young and beautiful; but that is past. Charles," said she, catching her father"s hand and looking into it, "you are old, too, I believe.
Why--why--why, how is this? Your hair is long and white. Oh, what a change since I knew you last. White hair! long, white, venerable, hair--that"s old age--
"Pity old age within whose silver hairs Honor and reverence evermore do lie."
"Thank G.o.d, dear Henry," said her mother, "she is not at all events an idiot. Children," said she, "I trust you will remember your father"s advice, and bear this--this----." But here the heart and strength of the mother herself were overcome, and she was sinking down when her son caught her ere she fell, and carried her out in his arms, accompanied by Maria and Agnes.
It would be difficult for any pen to paint the distraction of her father, thus placed in a state of divided apprehension between his daughter and his wife.
"Oh, my child, my child," he exclaimed, "Perhaps in the midst of this misery, your mother may be dying! May the G.o.d of all consolation support you and her! What, oh what will become of us!"
"Well, well," his daughter went on; "life"s a fearful thing that can work such anges; but why may we not as well pa.s.s at once from youth to old age as from happiness to misery? Here we are both old; ay, and if we are gray it is less with age than affliction--that"s one comfort--I am young enough to be beautiful yet; but age, when it comes prematurely on the youthful, as it often does--thanks to treachery and disappointment, ay, and thanks to a thousand causes which we all know but don"t wish to think of; age, I say, when it comes prematurely on the youthful, is just like a new and unfinished house that is suffered to fall into ruin--desolation, naked, and fresh, and glaring--without the reverence and grandeur of antiquity. Yes--yes--yes; but there is another cause; and that must be whispered only to the uttermost depths of silence--of silence; for silence is the voice of G.o.d. That word--that word! Oh, how I shudder to think of it! And who will pity me when I acknowledge it--there is one--one only--who will mourn for my despair and the fate, foreordained and predestined, of one whom he loved--that is my papa--my papa only--my papa only; for he knows that I am a _castaway_---A CAST-AWAY!"
These words were uttered with an energy of manner and a fluency of utterance which medical men know to be strongly characteristic of insanity, unless indeed where the malady is silent and moping. The afflicted old man now discovered that his daughter"s mind had, in addition to her disappointment, sunk under the frightful and merciless dogma, which we trust will soon cease to darken and distort the beneficent character of G.o.d. Indeed it might have been evident to him before that in looking upon herself as a castaway, Jane"s sensitive spirit was gradually lapsing into the gloomy horrors of predestination.
But this blindness of the father to such a tendency was very natural in a man to whose eye familiarity with the doctrine had removed its deformity. The old man looked upon her countenance with an expression of mute affliction almost verging on despair; for a moment he forgot the situation of his wife and everything but the consequences of a discovery so full of terror and dismay.
"Alas, my unhappy child," he exclaimed, "and is this, too, to be added to your misery and ours? Now, indeed, is the cup of our affliction full even to overflowing. O G.o.d! who art good and full of mercy," he added, dropping on his knees under the bitter impulse of the moment, "and who wiliest not the death of a sinner, oh lay not upon her or us a weight of sorrow greater than we can bear. We do not, O Lord! for we dare not, desire Thee to stay Thy hand; but oh, chastise us in mercy, especially her--her--Our hearts" dearest--she was ever the child, of our loves; but now she is also the unhappy child of all our sorrows; the broken idol of affections which we cannot change. Enable us, O G.o.d, to acquiesce under this mysterious manifestation of Thy will, and to receive from Thy hand with patience and resignation whatsoever of affliction it pleaseth Thee to lay upon us. And touching this stricken one--if it were Thy blessed will to--to--but no--oh no--not our will, oh Lord, but Thine be done!"
It was indeed a beautiful thing to see the sorrow-bound father bowing down his gray locks with humility before the footstool of his G.o.d, and forbearing even to murmur under a dispensation so fearfully calamitous to him and his. Religion, however, at which the fool and knave may sneer in the moments of convivial riot, is after all the only stay on which the human heart can rest in those severe trials of life which almost every one sooner or later is destined to undergo. The sceptic may indeed triumph in the pride of his intellect or in the hour of his pa.s.sion; but no matter on what arguments his hollow creed is based, let but the footstep of disease or death approach, and he himself is the first to abandon it and take refuge in those truths which he had hitherto laughed at or maligned. When Mr. Sinclair arose, his countenance, through all the traces of sorrow which were upon it, beamed with a light which no principle, merely human, could communicate to it. A dim but gentle and holy radiance suffused his whole face, and his heart, for a moment, received the a.s.surance it wanted so much. He experienced a feeling for which language has no terms, or at least none adequate to express its character. It was "that peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding."
In a few minutes after he had concluded his short but earnest prayer, Agnes returned to let him know that her mamma was better and would presently come in to sit with Jane, whom she could not permit, she said, to regain out of her sight. Jane had been silent for some time, but the extreme brilliancy of her eyes and the energy of her excitement were too obvious to permit any expectation of immediate improvement.
When her mother and Maria returned, accompanied also by William, she took no note whatsoever of them, nor indeed did she appear to have an eye for anything external to her own deep but unsettled misery. Time after time they spoke to her as before, each earnestly hoping that some favorite expression or familiar tone of voice might impinge, however slightly, upon her reason, or touch some chord of her affections. These tender devices of their love, however, all failed; no corresponding emotion was awakened, and they resolved, without loss of time, to see what course of treatment medical advice recommend them to pursue on her behalf. Accordingly William proceeded with a heavy heart to call in the aid of a gentleman who can bear full testimony to the accuracy of our narrative--we allude to that able and eminent pract.i.tioner, Doctor M"Cormick of. Belfast, whose powers, of philosophical a.n.a.lysis, and patient investigation are surpa.s.sed only by the success of the masterly skill with which he applies them. The moment he left the room for this purpose, Jane spoke.
"It will be hard," she said, "and I need not conceal it, for my very thought has a voice at the footstool of the Almighty; the intelligences of other worlds know it; all; the invisible spirits of the universe know it; those that are evil rejoice, and the good would murmur if the fulness of their own happiness permitted them. No--no--I need not conceal it--hearken, therefore--hearken;" and she lowered her voice to a whisper--"the Fawn of Springvale--Jane Sinclair--is predestined to eternal misery. She is a _cast-away_. I may therefore speak and raise my voice to warn; who shall dare," she added, "who shall dare ever to part from the truth! Those--those only who have been foredoomed--like me. Oh misery, misery, is there no hope? nothing but despair for one so young, and as they said, so gentle, and so beautiful, Alas! alas! Death to me now is no consoler!"
She clasped her beautiful hands together as she spoke, and looked with a countenance so full of unutterable woe that no heart could avoid partic.i.p.ating in her misery.
"Jane, oh darling of all our hearts," said her weeping mother, "will you not come over and sit beside your mamma--your mamma, my treasure, who feels that she cannot long live to witness what you suffer."
"The Fawn of Springvale," she proceeded, "the gentle Fawn of Springvale, for it was on the account of my gentleness I was so called, is stricken--the arrow is here--in her poor broken heart; and what did she do, what did the gentle creature do to suffer or to deserve all this misery?"
"True, my sister--too true, too true," said Maria, bursting into an agony of bitter sorrow; "what strange mystery is in the gentle one"s affliction? Surely, if there was ever a spotless or a sinless creature on earth, she was and is that creature."
"Beware of murmuring, Maria," said her father; "the purpose, though at present concealed, may yet become sufficiently apparent for us to recognize in it the benignant dispensation of a merciful G.o.d. Our duty, my dear child, is now to bear, and be resigned. The issues of this sad calamity are with the Almighty, and with Him let us patiently leave them."
"Had I never disclosed my love," proceeded Jane, "I might have stolen quietly away from them all and laid my cheek on that hardest pillow which giveth the soundest sleep; but would not concealment," she added, starting; "would not that too have been dissimulation? Oh G.o.d help me!--it is, it is clear that in any event I was foredoomed!"
Agnes, who had watched her sister with an interest too profound to suffer even the grief necessary on such an occasion to take place, now went over, and taking her hand in one of hers, placed the fingers of the other upon her sister"s cheek, thus attempting to fix Jane"s eyes upon her own countenance--
"Do you not know who it is," said she, "that is now speaking to you?--Look upon me, and tell me do you forget me so soon?"
"Who can tell yet," she proceeded, "who can tell yet--time may retrieve all, and he may return: but the yew tree--I fear--I fear--why, it is an emblem of death; and perhaps death may unite us--yes, and I say he will--he will--he will. Does he not feel pity? Oh yes, in a thousand, thousand cases he is the friend of the miserable. Death the Consoler!
Oh from how many an aching brow does he take away the pain for ever? How many sorrows does he soothe into rest that is never broken!--from how many hearts like mine, does he pluck the arrows that fester in them, and bids them feel pain no more! In his house, that house appointed for all living--what calmness and peace is there? How sweet and tranquil is the bed which he smoothes down for the unhappy; there the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Then give me Death the Consoler?--Death the Consoler!"
A sense of relief and wild exultation beamed from her countenance, on uttering the last words, and she rose up and walked about the room wringing her hands, yet smiling at the idea of being relieved by Death the Consoler! It is not indeed unusual to witness in deranged persons, an unconscious impression of pain and misery, accompanied at the same time by a vague sense of unreal happiness--that is, a happiness which, whilst it balances the latent conviction of their misery does not, however, ultimately remove it. This probably const.i.tutes that pleasure in madness, which, it is said, none but mad persons know.
At length she stood, and, for a long time seemed musing upon various and apparently contrasted topics, for she sometimes smiled as a girl at play, and sometimes relapsed into darkness of mood and pain, and incoherency.
But after pa.s.sing through these rapid changes for many minutes, she suddenly exclaimed in a low but earnest voice, "Where is he?"
"Where is who, love?" said her mother.
"Where is he?--why does he not come?--something more than usual must prevent him, or he would not stay away so long from "his own Jane Sinclair." But I forgot; bless me, how feeble my memory is growing!
Why this is the hour of our appointment, and I will be late unless I hurry--for who could give so gentle and affectionate a being as Charles pain?"
She immediately put on her bonnet, and was about to go abroad, when her father, gently laying his hand upon her arm, said, in a kind but admonitory voice, in which was blended a slightly perceptible degree of parental authority--
"My daughter, surely you will not go out--you are unwell."
She started slightly, paused, and looked as if trying to remember something that she had forgotten. The struggle, however, was vain--her recollection proved too weak for the task it had undertaken. After a moment"s effort, she smiled sweetly in her father"s face, and said--
"You would not have me break my appointment, nor give poor Charles pain, and his health, moreover, so delicate. You know he would die rather than give me a moment"s anxiety. Die!--see that again--I know not what puts death into my head so often."
"Henry," said her mother, "it is probably better to let her have her own way for the present--at least until Dr. M"Cormick arrives. You and Agnes can accompany her, perhaps she may be the better for it."
"I cannot refuse her," said the old man; "at all events, I agree with you; there can, I think, be no possible harm in allowing her to go.
Come, Agnes, we must, alas! take care of her."
She then went out, they walking a few paces behind her, and proceeded down the valley which we have already described in the opening of this story, until she came to the spot at the river, where she first met Osborne. Here she involuntarily stood a moment, and putting her hand to her right shoulder, seemed to miss some object, that was obviously restored to her recollection by an a.s.sociation connected with the place.
She shook her head, and sighed several times, and then exclaimed--
"Ungrateful bird, does it neglect me too?"
Her father pressed Agnes"s arm with a sensation of joy, but spoke not lest his voice might disturb her, or break the apparent continuity of her reviving memory. She seemed to think, however, that she delayed here too long, for without taking further notice of anything she hurried on to the spot where the first disclosure of their loves had taken place.
On reaching it she looked anxiously and earnestly around the copse or dell in which the yew tree, with its turf seat stood.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 52-- How is this?--how is this?--he is not here!]
"How is this?--how is this?"--she murmured to herself, "he is not here!"
Both her father and Agnes observed that during the whole course of the unhappy but faithful girl"s love, they never had witnessed such a concentrated expression of utter woe and sorrow as now impressed themselves upon her features.
"He has not come," said she; "but I can wait--I can wait--it will teach my heart to be patient."
She then clasped her hands, and sitting down under the shade of the yew tree, mused and murmured to herself alternately, but in such an evident spirit of desolation and despair, as made her father fear that her heart would literally break down under the heavy burden of her misery. When she had sat here nearly an hour, he approached her and gently taking her hand, which felt as cold as marble, said--
"Will you not come home, darling? Your mamma is anxious you should return to her. Come," and he attempted gently to draw her with him.
"I can wait, I can wait," she replied, "if he should come and find me gone, he would break his heart--I can wait."
"Oh do not droop, my sweet sister; do not droop so much; all will yet be well," said Agnes, weeping.
"I care for none but him--to me there is only one being in life--all else is a blank; but he will not come, and is it not too much, to try the patience of a heart so fond and faithful."
"It is not likely he will come to-day," replied Agnes; "something has prevented him; but to-morrow--"
"I will seek him elsewhere," said Jane, rising suddenly; "but is it not singular, and indeed to what strange pa.s.ses things may come? A young lady seeking her lover!--not over-modest certainly--nay, positively indelicate--fie upon me! Why should I thus expose myself? It is unworthy of my father"s daughter, and Jane Sinclair will not do it."
She then walked a few paces homewards, but again stopped and earnestly looked in every direction, as if expecting to see the object of her love. Long indeed did she linger about a spot so dear to her; and often did she sit down again and rise to go--sometimes wringing her hands in the muteness of sorrow, and sometimes exhibiting a sense of her neglect in terms of pettish and indirect censure against Osborne for his delay.