The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

that the wind had risen, and was driving thin drifts no longer, but great, thick, white masses of sea-fog landwards. It was the storm-wind of that coast, the south-west, which dashes the pebbles over the Parade, and the heavy spray against the houses. Mr. Alcibiades Cromwell was sitting as I had left him, silent, by the side of his wife, whose blue-veined eyelids had apparently never been lifted from her large eyes.

“Is there any thing I could offer Mrs. Cromwell?” I said. “Could she not eat something?”

“It is very little she can take,” he answered; “but you are very kind. If you could let her have a little beef-tea? She generally has a spoonful or two about this time of the day.”

“I am sorry we have none,” I said; “and it would be far too long for her to wait. I have a nice chicken, though, ready for cooking: if she could take a little chicken-broth, that would be ready in a very little while.”

“Thank you a thousand times, ma’am,” he said heartily; “nothing could be better. She might even be induced to eat a mouthful of the chicken. But I am afraid your extreme kindness prevents me from being so thoroughly ashamed as I ought to be at putting you to so much trouble for perfect strangers.”

“It is but a pleasure to be of service to any one in want of it,” I said.

Mrs. Cromwell opened her eyes and smiled gratefully. I left the room to give orders about the chicken, indeed, to superintend the preparation of it myself; for Jemima could not be altogether trusted in such a delicate affair as cooking for an invalid.

When I returned, having set the simple operation going, Mr. Cromwell had a little hymn-book of mine he had found on the table open in his hand, and his wife was saying to him,—

“That is lovely! Thank you, husband. How can it be I never saw it before? I am quite astonished.”

“She little knows what multitudes of hymns there are!” I thought with myself,—my father having made a collection, whence I had some idea of the extent of that department of religious literature.

“This is a hymn-book we are not acquainted with,” said Mr. Cromwell, addressing me.

“It is not much known,” I answered. “It was compiled by a friend of my father’s for his own schools.”

“And this,” he went on, “is a very beautiful hymn. You may trust my wife’s judgment, Mrs. Percivale. She lives upon hymns.”

He read the first line to show which he meant. I had long thought, and still think, it the most beautiful hymn I know. It was taken from the German, only much improved in the taking, and given to my father to do what he pleased with; and my father had given it to another friend for his collection. Before that, however, while still in manuscript, it had fallen into the hands of a certain clergyman, by whom it had been published without leave asked, or apology made: a rudeness of which neither my father nor the author would have complained, for it was a pleasure to think it might thus reach many to whom it would be helpful; but they both felt aggrieved and indignant that he had taken the dishonest liberty of altering certain lines of it to suit his own opinions. As I am anxious to give it all the publicity I can, from pure delight in it, and love to all who are capable of the same delight, I shall here communicate it, in the full confidence of thus establishing a claim on the gratitude of my readers.

O Lord, how happy is the time When in thy love I rest! When from my weariness I climb Even to thy tender breast! The night of sorrow endeth there: Thou art brighter than the sun; And in thy pardon and thy care The heaven of heaven is won.

Let the world call herself my foe, Or let the world allure. I care not for the world: I go To this dear Friend and sure. And when life’s fiercest storms are sent Upon life’s wildest sea, My little bark is confident, Because it holds by thee.

When the law threatens endless death Upon the awful hill, Straightway from her consuming breath My soul goes higher still,— Goeth to Jesus, wounded, slain, And maketh him her home, Whence she will not go out again, And where death cannot come.

I do not fear the wilderness Where thou hast been before; Nay, rather will I daily press After thee, near thee, more. Thou art my food; on thee I lean; Thou makest my heart sing; And to thy heavenly pastures green All thy dear flock dost bring.

And if the gate that opens there Be dark to other men, It is not dark to those who share The heart of Jesus then. That is not losing much of life Which is not losing thee, Who art as present in the strife As in the victory.

Therefore how happy is the time When in thy love I rest! When from my weariness I climb Even to thy tender breast! The night of sorrow endeth there: Thou are brighter than the sun; And in thy pardon and thy care The heaven of heaven is won.

In telling them a few of the facts connected with the hymn, I presume I had manifested my admiration of it with some degree of fervor.

“Ah!” said Mrs. Cromwell, opening her eyes very wide, and letting the rising tears fill them: “Ah, Mrs. Percivale! you are—you must be one of us!”

“You must tell me first who you are,” I said.

She held out her hand; I gave her mine: she drew me towards her, and whispered almost in my ear—though why or whence the affectation of secrecy I can only imagine—the name of a certain small and exclusive sect. I will not indicate it, lest I should be supposed to attribute to it either the peculiar faults or virtues of my new acquaintance.

“No,” I answered, speaking with the calmness of self-compulsion, for I confess I felt repelled: “I am not one of you, except in as far as we all belong to the church of Christ.”

I have thought since how much better it would have been to say, “Yes: for we all belong to the church of Christ.”

She gave a little sigh of disappointment, closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again with a smile, and said with a pleading tone,—

“But you do believe in personal religion?”

“I don’t see,” I returned, “how religion can be any thing but personal.”

Again she closed her eyes, in a way that made me think how convenient bad health must be, conferring not only the privilege of passing into retirement at any desirable moment, but of doing so in such a ready and easy manner as the mere dropping of the eyelids.

I rose to leave the room once more. Mr. Cromwell, who had made way for me to sit beside his wife, stood looking out of the window, against which came sweeping the great volumes of mist. I glanced out also. Not only was the sea invisible, but even the brow of the cliffs. When he turned towards me, as I passed him, I saw that his face had lost much of its rubicund hue, and looked troubled and anxious.

“There is nothing for it,” I said to myself, “but keep them all night,” and so gave directions to have a bedroom prepared for them. I did not much like it, I confess; for I was not much interested in either of them, while of the sect to which she belonged I knew enough already to be aware that it was of the narrowest and most sectarian in Christendom. It was a pity she had sought to claim me by a would-be closer bond than that of the body of Christ. Still I knew I should be myself a sectary if I therefore excluded her from my best sympathies. At the same time I did feel some curiosity concerning the oddly-yoked couple, and wondered whether the lady was really so ill as she would appear. I doubted whether she might not be using her illness both as an excuse for self-indulgence, and as a means of keeping her husband’s interest in her on the stretch. I did not like the wearing of her religion on her sleeve, nor the mellifluous drawl in which she spoke.

When the chicken-broth was ready, she partook daintily; but before she ended had made a very good meal, including a wing and a bit of the breast; after which she fell asleep.

“There seems little chance of the weather clearing,” said Mr. Cromwell in a whisper, as I approached the window where he once more stood.

“You must make up your mind to remain here for the night,” I said.

“My dear madam, I couldn’t think of it,” he returned,—I thought from unwillingness to incommode a strange household. “An invalid like her, sweet lamb!” he went on, “requires so many little comforts and peculiar contrivances to entice the repose she so greatly needs, that—that—in short, I must get her home.”

“Where do you live?” I asked, not sorry to find his intention of going so fixed.

“We have a house in Warrior Square,” he answered. “We live in London, but have been here all the past winter. I doubt if she improves, though. I doubt—I doubt.”

He said the last words in a yet lower and more mournful whisper; then, with a shake of his head, turned and gazed again through the window.

A peculiar little cough from the sofa made us both look round. Mrs. Cromwell was awake, and searching for her handkerchief. Her husband understood her movements, and hurried to her assistance. When she took the handkerchief from her mouth, there was a red spot upon it. Mr. Cromwell’s face turned the color of lead; but his wife looked up at him, and smiled; a sweet, consciously pathetic smile.

“He has sent for me,” she said. “The messenger has come.”

Her husband made no answer. His eyes seemed starting from his head.

“Who is your medical man?” I asked him.

He told me, and I sent off my housemaid to fetch him. It was a long hour before he arrived; during which, as often as I peeped in, I saw him sitting silent, and holding her hand, until the last time, when I found him reading a hymn to her. She was apparently once more asleep. Nothing could be more favorable to her recovery than such quietness of both body and mind.

When the doctor came, and had listened to Mr. Cromwell’s statement, he proceeded to examine her chest with much care. That over, he averred in her hearing that he found nothing serious; but told her husband apart that there was considerable mischief, and assured me afterwards that her lungs were all but gone, and that she could not live beyond a month or two. She had better be removed to her own house, he said, as speedily as possible.

“But it would be cruelty to send her out a day like this,” I returned.

“Yes, yes: I did not mean that,” he said. “But to-morrow, perhaps. You’ll see what the weather is like. Is Mrs. Cromwell an old friend?”

“I never saw her until to-day,” I replied.

“Ah!” he remarked, and said no more.

We got her to bed as soon as possible. I may just mention that I never saw any thing to equal the point-devise of her underclothing. There was not a stitch of cotton about her, using the word stitch in its metaphorical sense. But, indeed, I doubt whether her garments were not all made with linen thread. Even her horse-hair petticoat was quilted