There seemed but one way; I sprung at it; stayed not to think if it were right or wrong, honourable or dishonourable. His life hung in the balance, and there was but one way; besides, had I not cried unto G.o.d for help?
I put aside the blind, and looked out of doors. For weeks I had not crossed the threshold; I almost started to find that it was spring.
Everything looked lovely in the coloured twilight; a blackbird was singing loudly in the Abbey trees across the way; all things were fresh and glowing, laden with the hope of the advancing year. And there he lay on his sick-bed, dying!
All he said, as I drew the curtain back, was a faint moan--"No light! I can"t bear the light! Do let me rest!"
In half-an-hour, without saying a word to human being, I was on my way to Ursula March.
She sat knitting in the summer-parlour alone. The doctor was out; Mrs.
Jessop I saw down the long garden, bonnetted and shawled, busy among her gooseberry-bushes--so we were safe.
As I have said, Ursula sat knitting, but her eyes had a soft dreaminess. My entrance had evidently startled her, and driven some sweet, shy thought away.
But she met me cordially--said she was glad to see me--that she had not seen either of us lately; and the knitting pins began to move quickly again.
Those dainty fingers--that soft, tremulous smile--I could have hated her!
"No wonder you did not see us, Miss March; John has been very ill, is ill now--almost dying."
I hurled the words at her, sharp as javelins, and watched to see them strike.
They struck--they wounded; I could see her shiver.
"Ill!--and no one ever told me!"
"You? How could it affect you? To me, now"--and my savage words, for they were savage, broke down in a burst of misery--"nothing in this world to me is worth a straw in comparison with John. If he dies--"
I let loose the flood of my misery. I dashed it over her, that she might see it--feel it; that it might enter all the fair and sightly chambers of her happy life, and make them desolate as mine. For was she not the cause?
Forgive me! I was cruel to thee, Ursula; and thou wert so good--so kind!
She rose, came to me, and took my hand. Hers was very cold, and her voice trembled much.
"Be comforted. He is young, and G.o.d is very merciful."
She could say no more, but sat down, nervously twisting and untwisting her fingers. There was in her looks a wild sorrow--a longing to escape from notice; but mine held her fast, mercilessly, as a snake holds a little bird. She sat cowering, almost like a bird, a poor, broken-winged, helpless little bird--whom the storm has overtaken.
Rising, she made an attempt to quit the room.
"I will call Mrs. Jessop: she may be of use--"
"She cannot. Stay!"
"Further advice, perhaps? Doctor Jessop--you must want help--"
"None save that which will never come. His bodily sickness is conquered--it is his mind. Oh, Miss March!" and I looked up at her like a wretch begging for life--"Do YOU not know of what my brother is dying?"
"Dying!" A long shudder pa.s.sed over her, from head to foot--but I relented not.
"Think--a life like his, that might be made a blessing to all he loves--to all the world--is it to be sacrificed thus? It may be--I do not say it will--but it may be. While in health he could fight against this--this which I must not speak of; but now his health is gone. He cannot rally. Without some change, I see clearly, even I, who love him better than any one can love him--"
She stirred a little here.
"Far better," I repeated; "for while John does NOT love me best, he to me is more than any one else in the world. Yet even I have given up hope, unless--But I have no right to say more."
There was no need. She began to understand. A deep, soft red, sun-rise colour, dawned all over her face and neck, nay, tinged her very arms--her delicate, bare arms. She looked at me once--just once--with a mute but keen inquiry.
"It is the truth, Miss March--ay, ever since last year. You will respect it? You will, you shall respect it?"
She bent her head in acquiescence--that was all. She had not uttered a single syllable. Her silence almost drove me wild.
"What! not one word? not one ordinary message from a friend to a friend?--one who is lying ill, too!"
Still silence.
"Better so!" I cried, made desperate at last. "Better, if it must be, that he should die and go to the G.o.d who made him--ay, made him, as you shall yet see, too n.o.ble a man to die for any woman"s love."
I left her--left her where she sat, and went my way.
Of the hours that followed the less I say the better. My mind was in a tumult of pain, in which right and wrong were strangely confused. I could not decide--I can scarcely decide now--whether what I had done ought to have been done; I only know that I did it--did it under an impulse so sudden and impetuous that it seemed to me like the guidance of Providence. All I could do afterwards was to trust the result where we say we trust all things, and yet are for ever disquieting ourselves in vain--we of little faith!
I have said, and I say again, that I believe every true marriage--of which there is probably one in every five thousand of conjugal unions--is brought about by heaven, and heaven only; and that all human influence is powerless either to make or to mar that happy end.
Therefore, to heaven I left this marriage, if such it was destined to be. And so, after a season, I calmed myself enough to dare entering that quiet sick-chamber, where no one ever entered but Jael and me.
The old woman met me at the door.
"Come in gently, Phineas; I do think there is a change."
A change!--that awful word! I staggered rather than walked to John"s bed-side.
Ay, there was a change, but not THAT one--which made my blood run cold in my veins even to think of. Thank G.o.d for evermore for His great mercies--not THAT change!
John was sitting up in bed. New life shone in his eyes, in his whole aspect. Life and--no, not hope, but something far better, diviner.
"Phineas, how tired you look; it is time you were in bed."
The old way of speaking--the old, natural voice, as I had not heard it for weeks. I flung myself by the bed-side--perhaps I wept outright--G.o.d knows! It is thought a shame for a man to weep; yet One Man wept, and that too was over His friend--His brother.
"You must not grieve over me any more, dear lad; to-morrow, please G.o.d!
I mean to be quite well again."
Amidst all my joy I marvelled over what could be the cause of so miraculous a change.
"You would smile if I told you--only a dream."
No, I did not smile; for I believed in the Ruler of all our spirits, sleeping or waking.
"A dream so curious, that I have scarcely lost the impression of it yet. Do you know, Phineas, she has been sitting by me, just where you sit now."