"Edith," she said, in an awed whisper, "what is there before us?
Zell"s, flight, like a flash of lightning, has revealed to me where we stand, and ever since I have brooded over our situation, till it seems as if I shall go mad. There"s an awful gulf before us, and every day we are being pushed nearer to it;" and Laura"s large blue eyes were dilated with horror, as if she saw it.
"Mother is going to die," she continued, in a tone that chilled Edith"s soul. "Our money will soon be gone; we then shall be driven away even from this poor shelter, out upon the streets--to New York, or somewhere. Edith, Oh, Edith, don"t you see the gulf? What else is before us?"
"Honest work is before me," said Edith, almost fiercely. "I will compel the world to give me a place ent.i.tled at least to respect."
Laura shook her head despairingly. "You may struggle back and up to where you are safe. You are good and strong. But there are so many poor girls in the world like me, who are not good and strong!
Everything seems to combine to push a helpless, friendless woman toward that gulf. Poor rash, impulsive Zell saw it, and could not endure the slow, remorseless pressure, as one might be driven over a precipice, and one she loved seemed to stand ready to break the fall.
I understand her stony, reckless face now."
"Oh, Laura, hush!" said Edith, desperately.
"I must speak," she went on, in the same low voice, so full of dread, "or my brain will burst. I have thought and thought, and seen that awful gulf grow nearer and nearer, till at times it seemed as if I should shriek with terror. For two nights I have not slept. Oh! why were we not taught something better than dressing and dancing, and those hollow, superficial accomplishments that only mock us now? Why were not my mind and body developed into something like strength? I would gladly turn to the coa.r.s.est drudgery, if I could only be safe.
But after what has happened no good people will have anything to do with us, and I am a feeble, helpless creature, that can only shrink and tremble as I am pushed nearer and nearer."
Edith seemed turning into stone, herself paralyzed by Laura"s despair.
After a moment Laura continued, with a perceptible shudder in her voice:
"There is no one to break my fall. Oh, that I was not afraid to die!
That seems the only resource to such as I, If I could just end it all by becoming nothing--"
"Laura, Laura," cried Edith, starting up, "cease your wild mad words.
You are sick and morbid. You are more delirious than mother is. We can get work; there are good people who will take care of us."
"I have seen nothing that looks like it," said Laura, in the same despairing tone. "I have read of just such things, and I see how it all must end."
"Yes, that"s just it," said Edith, impatiently. "You have read so many wild, unnatural stories of life that you are ready to believe anything that is horrible. Listen: I have over four hundred dollars in the bank."
"How did you get it?" asked Laura, quickly.
"I have followed mother"s suggestion, and mortgaged the place."
Laura sank into a chair, and became so deathly white that Edith thought she would faint. At last she gasped:
"Don"t you see? Even you in your strength can"t help yourself. You are being pushed on, too. You said you would not follow mother"s advice again, because it always led to trouble. You said, again and again, you would not mortgage the place, and yet you have done it. Now it"s all clear. That mortgage will be foreclosed, and then we shall be turned out, and then--" and she covered her face with her hands.
"Don"t you see," she said, in a m.u.f.fled tone, "the great black hand reaching out of the darkness and pushing us down and nearer? Oh, that I wasn"t afraid to die!"
Edith was startled. Even her positive, healthful nature began to yield to the contagion of Laura"s morbid despair. She felt that she must break the spell and be alone. By a strong effort she tried to speak in her natural tone and with confidence. She tried to comfort the desperate woman by endearing epithets, as if she were a child. She spoke of those simple restoratives which are so often and vainly prescribed for mortal wounds, sleep and rest.
"Go to bed, poor child," she urged. "All will look differently in the sunlight to-morrow."
But Laura scarcely seemed to heed her. With weak, uncertain steps she drew near the bed, and turned the light on her mother"s thin, flushed face, and stood, with clasped hands, looking wistfully at her.
"Yes, my dear," muttered Mrs. Allen in her delirium, "both your father and myself would give our full approval to your marriage with Mr.
Goulden." The poor woman made watching doubly hard to her daughters, since she kept recalling to them the happy past in all its minutiae.
Laura turned to Edith with a smile that was inexpressibly sad, and said, "What a mockery it all is! There seems nothing real in this world but pain and danger. Oh, that I was not afraid to die!"
"Laura, Laura! go to your rest," exclaimed Edith, "or you will lose your reason. Come;" and she half carried the poor creature to her room. "Now, leave the door ajar," she said, "for if mother is worse I will call you."
Edith sat down to her weary task as a watcher, and never before, in all the sad preceding weeks, had her heart been so heavy, and so prophetic of evil, Laura"s words kept repeating themselves to her, and mingling with those of her mother"s delirium, thus strangely blending the past and the present. Could it be true that they were helpless in the hands of a cruel, remorseless fate, that was pushing them down?
Could it be true that all her struggles and courage would be in vain, and that each day was only bringing them nearer to the desperation of utter want? She could not disguise from herself that Laura"s dreadful words had a show of reason, and that, perhaps, the mortgage she had given that day meant that they would soon be without home or shelter in the great, pitiless world. But, with set teeth and white face, she muttered:
"Death first."
Then, with a startled expression, she anxiously asked herself: "Was that what Laura meant when she kept saying, "Oh, if I wasn"t afraid to die!"" She went to her sister"s door and listened. Laura"s movements within seemed to satisfy her, and she returned to the sick-room and sat down again. Putting her hand upon her heart, she murmured:
"I am completely unnerved to-night. I don"t understand myself;" and she looked almost as pale and despairing as Laura.
She was, in truth, in the midst of that "horror of great darkness"
that comes to so many struggling souls in a world upon which the shadow of sin rests so heavily.
CHAPTER XXYI
FRIEND AND SAVIOUR
Knowing of no other source of help than an earthly one, her thoughts reverted to the old Scotch people whom she had recently visited. Their sunlighted garden, and happy, homely life, their simple faith, seemed the best antidote for her present morbid tendencies.
"If the worst comes to the worst, I think they would take us in for a little while, till some way opened," she thought. "Oh that I had their belief in a better life! Then it wouldn"t seem so dreadful to suffer in this one. Why have I never read the "Gude Book," as they call it?
But I never seemed to understand it; still, I must say, that I never really tried to. Perhaps G.o.d is angry with us, and is punishing us for so forgetting Him. I would rather think that than to feel so forgotten and lost sight of. It seems as if G.o.d didn"t see or care. It seems as if I could cling to the harshest father in the world, if he would only protect and help me. A G.o.d of wrath, that I have heard clergymen preach of, is not so dreadful to me as a G.o.d who forgets, and leaves His creatures to struggle alone. Our minister was so cold and philosophical, and presented a G.o.d that seemed so far off, that I felt there could never be anything between Him and me. He talked about a holy, infinite Being, who dwelt alone in unapproachable majesty; and I want some one to stoop down and love and help poor little me. He talked about a religion of purity and good works, and love to our fellow-men. I don"t know how to work for myself, much less for others, and it seems as if nearly all my fellow-creatures hated and scorned me, and I am afraid of them; so I don"t see what chance there is for such as we. If we had only remained rich, and lived on the avenue, such a religion wouldn"t be so hard. It seems strange that the Bible should teach him and old Malcom so differently. But I suppose he is wiser, and understands it better. Perhaps it"s the flowers that teach Malcom, for he always seems drawing lessons from them."
Then came the impulse to get the Bible and read it for herself. "The impulse!" whence did it come?
When Edith felt so orphaned and alone, forgotten even of G.o.d, then the Divine Father was nearest his child. When, in her bitter extremity, at this lonely midnight hour she realized her need and helplessness as never before, her great Elder Brother was waiting beside her.
The impulse was divine. The Spirit of G.o.d was leading her as He is seeking to lead so many. It only remained for her to follow these gentle impulses, not to be pushed into the black gulf that despairing Laura dreaded, but to be led into the deep peace of a loving faith.
She went down into the parlor to get the Bible that in her hands had revealed the falseness and baseness of Gus Elliot, and the thought flashed through her mind like a good omen, "This book stood between me and evil once before." She took it to the light and rapidly turned its pages, trying to find some clew, some place of hope, for she was sadly unfamiliar with it.
Was it her trembling fingers alone that turned the pages? No; He who inspired the guide she consulted guided her, for soon her eyes fell upon the sentence--
"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
The words came with such vivid power and meaning that she was startled, and looked around as if some one had spoken to her. They so perfectly met her need that it seemed they must be addressed directly to her.
"Who was it that said these words, and what right had he to say them?"
she queried eagerly, and keeping her finger on the pa.s.sage as if it might be a clew out of some fatal labyrinth, she turned the leaves backward and read more of Him with the breathless interest that some poor burdened soul might have felt eighteen centuries ago in listening to a rumor of the great Prophet who had suddenly appeared with signs and wonders in Palestine. Then she turned and read again and again the sweet words that first arrested her attention. They seemed more luminous and hope-inspiring every moment, as their significance dawned upon her like the coming of day after night.
Her clear, positive mind could never take a vague, dubious impression of anything, and with a long-drawn breath she said, with the emphasis of perfect conviction:
"If He were a mere man, as I have been taught to believe, He had no right to say these words. It would be a bitter, wicked mockery for man or angel to speak them. Oh, can it be that it was G.o.d Himself in human guise? I could trust such a G.o.d."
With glowing cheeks and parted lips, she resumed her reading, and in her eyes was the growing light of a great hope.