“I’M no saying if I’m well or ill,” said Lauderdale; “I’m saying it’s grand for you to leave your friends in a suffering condition, and go off and make up to other folk. It’s well to be off with the old love—for my own part, however,” said Colin’s Mentor, “I’m no for having a great deal to do with women. They’re awfu’ doubtful creatures, you may take my word for it; some seem about as good as the angels—no that I have any personal acquaintance with the angels, but it’s aye an intelligible metaphor—some just as far on the other side. Besides, it’s a poor thing for a man to fritter away what little capability of a true feeling there may be in him. I’ve no fancy for the kind of friendships that are carried on after the manner of flirtations. For my part, I’m a believer in love,” said the philosopher, with a sudden fervour of reproof which brought an unusual amount of colour to his face.
“You are absurd all the same,” said Colin, laughing; “here is no question either of love, or flirtation, or even of friendship. I know what you mean,” he added with a slightly heightened colour; “you think that, having once imagined I admired Miss Frankland, I ought to have continued in the same mind all my life. You don’t appreciate my good sense, Lauderdale; but, at all events, the young lady has nothing to do with my interest here.”
“I was saying nothing about Miss Frankland,” said Lauderdale; “I was making a confession of faith on my own part, which has naething to do with you that I can see. As for the young leddy, as you say, if it doesna begin with her, it’s a’ the more likely to end with her, according to my experience. To be sure, there’s no great amount of time; but a boat like this is provocative of intimacy. You’re aye in the second cabin, which is a kind of safeguard; but, as for your good sense—”
“Don’t associate that poor fellow’s name with anything ridiculous,” said Colin, “but come up on deck, like a reasonable man, and judge for yourself.”
“Ay, ay,” said Lauderdale, slowly; “I understand the kind of thing. I’ve seen it many a day myself. Partly youthfulness, that thinks the thing that is happening to itself more important than anything else in the world; partly a kind of self-regard; partly a wish to take compensation out of the world for what has to be given up. I’m no saying but there’s something better at the bottom, but it’s awfu’ hard to separate the physical and the spiritual. I wouldna say but even you, your own self—but it took a different form with you,” said Lauderdale, stopping short abruptly. Looking at Colin, and seeing that still there was not much bloom on his worn cheeks, it occurred to his careful guardian that it might be as well not to recall the distempered thoughts of the sick-room at Wodensbourne to his patient’s mind too soon.
“I suppose you are right,” said Colin; “it took a different form with me. A more undutiful, unbelieving form; for Meredith makes no question what it means, as I used to do.”
“I’m no so clear of that,” said Lauderdale. “It’s seldom unbelief that asks a reason. I would not say, now I’m on my feet, but what there may be a place known among men by the name of Italy. Come, callant, and let me see if the skies are aught like what they are at hame.”
Everything was changed when Colin and his friend stood again on deck. The calm weather had restored to life the crowd of sea-sick passengers who, like Lauderdale, had, up to this moment, kept themselves and their miseries under cover below. The universal scepticism and doubt of ever being better had given way to a cheerful confidence. Everybody believed—happy in his delusion—that for himself he had mastered the demon, and would be sea-sick no more. Among so many, it was not so easy to distinguish Meredith as Colin had expected; and he had time to discuss several matters with Lauderdale, showing a certain acrid feeling on his side of the question which surprised his interlocutor, before his new friends appeared. Colin had taken his second-class berth gladly enough, without thinking of any drawback; but, when he saw the limit clearly before his eyes, and perceived within reach, and indeed within hearing, the little “society” which he was not able to join, the fact of this momentary inferiority chafed him a little. Like most other people, he had a dislike to the second place—not that he cared about society, as he took pains to convince himself. But the truth was, that Colin did care for society, and, though too proud to confess such a thought, even to himself, secretly longed to join those new groups which were gradually growing into acquaintance before his eyes.
When he saw the two figures approaching which had attracted him so strongly on the previous night, his heart gave a little jump, though his eyes were fixed in another direction. They were not only two curious human creatures whom it was hard to comprehend, but, at the same time, they represented the world to Colin, who was at this present moment shut out from intercourse with everybody but Lauderdale, whose manner of musing he knew by heart. He did not look round, but he heard the footsteps approaching, and would have been equally disappointed and irritated had they turned back. This danger, however, speedily terminated. Meredith came up hastily, drawing along with him, as usual, the sister who had not any being except in him, and laid his thin hand on Colin’s shoulder. The sunshine and the brightened skies did not change the strain of the young preacher’s thoughts. He laid his hand on Colin, pressing the young man’s shoulder with an emphatic touch. “We meet again in the land of living men, in the place of hope,” he said, turning his sister with him as he turned. She clung to him so closely that they moved like one, without any apparent volition on her part; and even Colin’s salutation seemed to disturb her, as if it had been something unnecessary and unexpected. Her little hurried bow, her lips that just parted in an anxious momentary smile, had a certain surprise in them; and there was even a little impatience, as if she had said, “Answer him; why should you mind me?” in the turn of her head.
“Yes, we meet on a bright morning, which looks like life and hope,” said Colin; “and everybody seems disposed to enjoy it; even my friend here, who has been helpless since we started, has come to life at last.”
Thus directed, Meredith’s eager eyes turned to Lauderdale, upon whom they paused with their usual solemn inquiring look. “I hope he has come to life in a higher sense,” said the sick man, who thought it his duty to speak in season and out of season; “but for that true life, existence is only the payment of a terrible penalty. I hope, like you, he has thought on the great subject.”
When he stopped short, and looked straight in Lauderdale’s face, there was a wonderful silence over the little group. The dying prophet said nothing more, but looked down, awful and abstracted, from the heights of death on which he was standing, to receive an answer, which Lauderdale was too much taken by surprise, and Colin too much alarmed for the result of the inquiry, to give at once.
“I’ve thought on an awfu’ quantity of subjects,” said Lauderdale, after a moment; “a hundred or two more than can have gone through your mind at your age; and I’m no averse to unfolding my experiences, as this callant will tell you,” he added, with a smile, which, however, was lost upon his questioner.
“Your experiences!” said Meredith. He put his thin arm eagerly, before any one was aware what he intended to do, through Lauderdale’s arm. “I frighten and horrify many,” said the invalid, not without a gleam of satisfaction; “but there are so few, so miserably few, with whom it is possible to have true communion. Let me share your experiences—there must be instruction in them.”
The philosopher, thus seized, made a comical grimace, unseen by anybody but Colin; but the sick man was far too much in earnest to observe any reluctance on the part of his new acquaintance, and Lauderdale submitted to be swept on in the strange wind of haste and anxiety and eagerness which surrounded the dying youth, to whom a world lying in wickedness, and “I, I alone” left to maintain the knowledge of God among men, was the one great truth. There was not much room to move about upon the deck; and, as Meredith turned and went on, with his arm in Lauderdale’s, his sister, who was sharply turned round also by his movement, found it hard enough to maintain her position by his side. Though he was more attached to her than to any other living creature, it was not his habit, as it might have been in happier circumstances, to care for her comfort, or to concern himself about her personal convenience. He swept her along with him over the hampered deck, through passages which were barely wide enough for two, but through which she crushed herself as long as possible, catching her dress on all the corners, and losing her breath in the effort. As for Colin, he found himself left behind with a half-amazed, half-mortified sensation.
Not his the form, not his the eye,
That youthful maidens wont to fly;
and though he was not truly open to Lauderdale’s jibe concerning flirtations, the very name of that agreeable but dangerous amusement had roused him into making the discovery that Meredith’s sister was very pretty, and that there was something extremely interesting in the rapt devotion to her brother, which at first had prevented him from observing her. It seemed only natural that, when the sick man seized upon Lauderdale, the young lady should have fallen to Colin’s share; and he kept standing where they had left him, as has been described, half amused and half mortified, thinking to himself that, after all, he was not an ogre, nor a person whom ladies in general are apt to avoid.
After poor little Alice had hurt herself and torn her dress in two or three rapid turns through the limited space, she gave up her brother’s arm with a pained, surprised look, which went to Colin’s heart, and withdrew to the nearest bench, gathering up her torn dress in her hand, and still keeping her eyes upon him. What good she thought she could do by her watching it was difficult to tell, but it evidently was the entire occupation and object of her life. She scarcely turned her eyes upon Colin when he approached; and, as the eyes were like a fawn’s—brown, wistful, and appealing (whereas Miss Matty’s were blue, and addicted to laughter)—it is not to be wondered at that Colin, in whom his youth was dimly reawaking, with all its happier susceptibilities, should feel a little pique at her neglect. The shadow of death had floated away from the young man’s horizon. He believed himself, whether truly or not, to have come to a new beginning of life. He had been dead and was alive again; and the solemn interval of suffering, during which he questioned earth and heaven, had made the rebound all the sweeter, and restored with a freshness almost more delightful than the first, the dews and blossoms to the new world. Thus he approached Alice Meredith, who had no attention to spare to him—not with any idea that he had fallen in love with her, or that love was likely, but only with that vague sense that Paradise still exists somewhere, not entirely out of reach, and that the sweet Eve, who alone can reveal it, might meet him unawares at any turn of his path—which is one of the sweetest privileges of youth. But he did not know what to say to the other youthful creature, who ought to have been as conscious of such possibilities as he. No thought was in her mind that she ever could be the Eve of any paradise; and the world to her was a confused and darkling universe, in which death lay lurking somewhere, she could not tell how close at hand—death, not for herself, which could be borne, but for one far dearer than herself. The more she felt the nearness of this adversary, the more she contradicted herself and would not believe it; and so darkness spread all round the beginning path of the poor girl, who was not much more than a child. She would not have understood the meaning of any pretty speeches had Colin been so far left to himself as to think of making them. As it was, she looked up at him wistfully as he sat down beside her. She thought in her mind that he would be a good friend for Arthur, and might cheer him; which was the chief thing she cared for in this world.
“Has your brother been long ill?” said Colin. It seemed the only subject on which the two could speak.
“Ill?” said Alice; “he is not very ill—he takes a great deal of exercise. You must have observed that; and his appetite is very good.” The question roused her to contradict her own fears, and doing so out loud to another was more effectual somehow than anything she could say to herself. “The storm which made everybody else so ill had no effect upon Arthur,” she went on, almost with a little irritation. “He is thin to be sure, but then many people are thin who are quite well; and I am sure you do not look very strong yourself.”
“No,” said Colin, who possessed the instinct rare among men of divining what his companion wished him to say; “my people had given me up a few weeks ago. I gave myself a poke somewhere in the lungs which very nearly made an end of me; but I mean to get better if I can,” he said, with a smile, which for the moment brought a doubtful look upon the girl’s face.
“You don’t think it wrong to talk like that,” she said; “that was what made me wish so much you should come to see Arthur. Perhaps if he were more cheerful it would do him good. Not that he is very ill, you know, but still—we are going to Italy,” she went on with a little abruptness, “to a place near Rome—not to Rome itself, because I am a little afraid of that—but into the country. Are you going there?”
“I suppose so,” said Colin; “it is the most interesting place in the world. Do you not think so? But everything will be new to me.”
“If you were to come where we are going,” said his companion with a composure which was wonderful to Colin, “you would find it cheaper, and you could see things almost as easily, and it would not be so hot when summer comes. I think it would do Arthur a great deal of good. It is so hard to know what to do with a man,” she went on, unconsciously yielding to that inexpressible influence of a sympathetic listener which few people can resist; “they cannot occupy themselves, you know, as we women can, and they get tired of our society. I have so longed to find some man who would understand him, and whom he could talk to,” cried the poor girl, with tears in her eyes. She made a pause when she had said so much—not that it occurred to her that any one could misunderstand her, but because the tears were getting into her voice, which was a weakness not to be yielded to. “I don’t know why I should cry,” she added a minute after, with a faint smile; “it is talking about Italy I suppose; but you will like it when you get there.”
“Yet you do not seem to like it,” said Colin, with a little curiosity.
This time she made him no direct answer. Her eyes were following her brother and Lauderdale as they walked about the deck. “Is he nice?” she asked, with a little timidity, pointing at Lauderdale, and giving another hasty wistful look at Colin’s face.
“I don’t know if you would think so,” said Colin; “he is very Scotch, and a little odd sometimes; but kinder and better, and more truly a friend than words can describe. He is tender and true,” said the young man, with a little enthusiasm which woke up the palest ghost of an answering light in his young companion’s face.
“Being Scotch is a recommendation to me,” she said; “the only person I ever loved, except Arthur, of course,—and those who are gone—was Scotch.” After this quaint intimation, which woke in Colin’s mind an incipient spark of the earliest stage of jealousy—not jealousy proper, but only a lively and contemptuous curiosity to know “who the fellow was”—she dropped back again into her habitual silence. When Colin tried to bring her back by ordinary remarks about the voyage and their destination, she answered him simply by “Yes,” or “No.” She was of one idea, incapable apparently of exerting her mind on any other subject. When they had been thus sitting silent for some time, she began again abruptly at the point where she had left off.
“If you were to come to the same place,” she said—“Arthur can speak Italian very well, and I know it a little—we might be able to help you, and you would have very good air—pure air off the sea. If he had society he would soon be better.” This was said softly to herself; and then she went on, drawn farther and farther by the sympathy which she felt in her listener. “There are only us two in the world.”
“If I can do anything,” said Colin, “as long as we are here at least; but there is no lack of society,” he said, pointing to the groups on the quarter-deck, at which Alice Meredith shook her head.
“He frightens them,” she said; “they prefer to go out of his way; they don’t want to answer his questions. I don’t know why he does it. When he was young he was fond of society, and went out a great deal, but he has changed so much of late,” said the anxious sister, with a certain look of doubt and wonder on her face. She was not quite sure whether the change was an improvement. “I don’t understand it very well myself,” she went on, with a sigh; “perhaps I have not thought enough about it. And then he does not mind what I say to him—men never do; I suppose it is natural. But, if he had society, and you would talk and keep him from writing—”
“Does he write?” said Colin, with new interest. It was a bond of sympathy he had not expected to hear of; and here again the tears, in spite of all her exertions, got into Alice’s voice.
“At night, when he ought to be sleeping,” said the poor girl. “I don’t mean to say he is very ill; but, oh! Mr. Campbell, is it not enough to make any man ill to sit up when he is so tired he cannot keep awake, writing that dreadful book? He is going to call it “A Voice from the Grave.” I sometimes think he wants to break my heart; for what has the grave to do with it? He is rather delicate, but so are you. Most people are delicate,” said poor Alice, “when they sit up at night, and don’t take care of themselves. If you could only get him to give up that book, I would bless you all my life.”
Such an appeal from sweet lips quivering with suppressed anguish, from beautiful eyes full of heavy tears, was not likely to be without effect; and, when Colin went to his own cabin in the evening, hearing but imperfectly the criticisms of Lauderdale on his new friend and his affairs, he was more and more impressed by the conviction that something must come of an encounter so singular and unexpected. The young man immediately set himself to wind new threads of fate about his feet, and while he was doing so, thought with a little thrill of the wonderful way in which things came about, and the possible purposes of Providence in this new change. It roused and excited him to see the new scenery coming into its place, and the ground preparing for another act of his life.