THIS agitating episode in Lily’s life was a relief to her from her own prevailing troubles. They all apologized to her for bringing her into the midst of their annoyances, but it was, in fact, nothing but an advantage. To contrast what she had herself to bear with the lot of Helen even was good for Lily. If she had but known a little sooner how long and sweetly that patient creature had waited, how many years had passed over her head, while she did her duty quietly, and neither upbraided God nor man, Lily thought it would have shamed herself into quiet, too, and prevented, perhaps, that crowning outcome of impatience which had taken place in the Manse parlor on that January night. Did she regret that January night with all its mystery, its hurry, and tumult of feeling? Oh, no! she said to herself, it would be false to Ronald to entertain such a thought; but yet how could she help feeling with a sort of yearning the comparative freedom of her position then, the absence of all complication? Lily had believed, as Ronald told her, that all complications would be swept away by this step. She would be freed, she thought, at once from her uncle’s sway, and ready to follow her husband wherever their lot might lie. Every thing would be clear before her when she was Ronald’s wife. She had thought so with certain and unfeigned faith. She might perhaps have been in that condition still, always believing, feeling that nothing was wanted but the bond that made them one, if that bond had not been woven yet. Poor Lily! She would not permit herself to say that she regretted it. Oh, no! how could she regret it? Every thing was against them for the moment, but yet she was Ronald’s, and Ronald hers, forever and ever. No man could put them asunder. At any time, in any circumstances, if the yoke became too hard for her to bear, she could go unabashed to her husband for succor. How, then, could she regret it? But Helen had waited through years and years, while Lily had grown impatient before the end of one; or perhaps it was not Lily, but Ronald, that had grown impatient. No, she could not shelter herself with that. Lily had been as little able to brave the solitude, the separation, the banishment, as he. And here stood Helen, patient, not saying a word, always bearing a brave face to the world, enduring separation, with a hundred pangs added to it, terrors for the man she loved, self-reproach, and all the exactions of life beside, which she had to meet with a cheerful countenance. How much better was this quiet, gentle woman, pretending to nothing, than Lily, who beat her wings against the cage, and would not be satisfied? Even now what would not Helen give if she could see her lover from time to time as Lily saw her husband, if she knew that he was satisfied, and, greatest of all, that he was unimpeachable, above all reproach? For that certainty Helen would be content to die, or to live alone forever, or to endure any thing that could be given her to bear. And Lily was not content, oh! not at all content! Her heart was torn by a sense of wrong that was not in Helen’s mind. Was it that she was the most selfish, the most exacting, the least generous of all? Even Ronald was happy—a man, who always wanted more than a woman—in having Lily, in the fact that she belonged to him; while she wanted a great deal more than that—so much more that there was really no safe ground between them, but as much disagreement as if they were a disunited couple, who quarrelled and made scenes between themselves, which was a suggestion at which Lily half laughed, half shuddered. If it went on long like this, they might turn to be—who could tell?—a couple who quarrelled, between whom there was more opposition and anger than love. Lily laughed at the thought, which was ridiculous; but there was certainly a shiver in it, too.
Duff had gone away before her short visit to the Manse came to an end. He disappeared after a last long interview with Helen under the bare lilac bushes, of which the little party in the parlor was very well aware, though no one said a word. The minister shifted uneasily on his chair, and held his paper with much fierce rustling up in his hands toward the lamp, as if it had been light he wanted. But what he wanted was to shield himself from the observation of the others, who sat breathless, exchanging, at long intervals, a troubled syllable or two. Mr. Douglas had, perhaps, strictly speaking, no right to be there, spying, as the old minister thought, upon the troubles of the family, and, as he himself was painfully conscious, intrusively present in the midst of an episode with which he had nothing to do. But he could not go away, which would make every thing worse, for he would then probably find himself in face of Helen tremblingly coming back, or of the desperate lover going away. A consciousness that it was the last was in all their minds, though nobody could have told why. Lily sat trembling, with her head down over her work, sometimes saying a little prayer for Helen, broken off in the middle by some keen edge of an intrusive thought, sometimes listening breathless for the sound of her step or voice. At last, to the instant consciousness of all, which made the faintest sound audible, the Manse door was opened and closed so cautiously that nothing but the ghost of a movement could be divined in the quiet. No one of the three changed a hair-breadth in position, and yet the sensation in the room was as if every one had turned to the door. Was she coming in here fresh from that farewell? Would she stand at the door, and look at them all, and say: “I can resist no longer. I am going with him.” This was what the old minister, with a deep distrust in human nature, which did not except Helen, feared and would always fear. Or would she come as if nothing had happened, with the dew of the night on her hair, and Alick Duff’s desperate words in her ears, and sit down and take up her seam, which Lily, feeling that in such a case the stress of emotion would be more than she could bear, almost expected? Helen did none of these things. She was heard, or rather felt, to go upstairs, and then there was an interval of utter silence, which only the rustling of the minister’s paper, and a subdued sob, which she could not disguise altogether, from Lily, broke. And presently Helen came into the room, paler than her wont, but otherwise unchanged. “It is nine o’clock, father,” she said; “I will put out the Books.” The “Books” meant, and still mean, in many an old-fashioned Scotch house, the family worship, which is the concluding event of the day. She laid the large old family Bible on the little table by his side, and took from him the newspaper, which he handed to her without saying a word. And Marget came in from the kitchen, and took her place near the door.
Thus Helen’s tragedy worked itself out. There is always, or so most people find when their souls are troubled, something in the lesson for the day, or in “the chapter,” as we say in Scotland, when it comes to be read in its natural course, which goes direct to the heart. Very, very seldom, indeed, are the instances in which this curious unintentional sortes fails. As it happened, that evening the chapter which Mr. Blythe read in his big and sometimes gruff voice was that which contained the parable of the prodigal son. He began the story, as we so often do, with the indifferent tones of custom, reverential as his profession and the fashion of his day exacted, but not otherwise moved. But perhaps some glance at his daughter’s head, bent over the Bible, in which she devoutly followed, after the prevailing Scotch fashion, the words that were read, perhaps the wonderful narrative itself, touched even the old minister’s heavy spirit. His voice took a different tone. It softened, it swelled, it rose and fell, as does that most potent of all instruments when it is tuned by the influence of profound human feeling. The man was a man of coarse fibre, not capable of the finer touches of emotion; but he had sons of his own out in the darkness of the world, and the very fear of losing the last comfort of his heart made him more susceptible to the passion of parental anguish, loss, and love. Lower and lower bowed Helen’s head as her father read; all the little involuntary sounds of humanity, stirrings and breathings, which occur when two or three are gathered together, were hushed; even Marget sat against the wall motionless; and when finally, like the very climax of the silence, another faint, uncontrollable sob came from Lily, the sensation in the room was as of something almost too much for flesh and blood. Mr. Blythe shut the book with a sound in his throat almost like a sob. He waved his hand toward the younger man at the table. “You will give the prayer,” he said in what sounded a peremptory tone, and leaned back in the chair, from which he was incapable of moving, covering his face with his hands.
It was hard upon the poor, young, inexperienced assistant and successor to be called upon to “give” that prayer. It was not that he was untouched by the general emotion, but to ask him to follow the departure of that prodigal whose feet they had all heard grind the gravel, the garden gate swinging behind the vehemence of his going—the prodigal who yet had been all but pointed out as the object of the father’s special love, and for whom Helen Blythe’s life had been, and would yet be, one long embodied prayer—was almost more than Helen Blythe’s lover, waiting, if perhaps the absence of the other might turn her heart to him, could endure. None of them, fortunately, was calm enough to be conscious how he acquitted himself of this duty, except, perhaps, Mr. Blythe himself, who was not disinclined to contemplate the son-in-law whom he would have preferred as “cauld parritch,” Duff’s contemptuous description of him. “No heart in that,” the old minister said to himself as he uncovered his face and the others rose from their knees. The mediocrity of the prayer, with its tremulous petitions, to which the speaker’s perplexed and troubled soul gave little fervor, restored Mr. Blythe to the composure of ordinary life.
Helen said little on that occasion or any other. “He will be far away before the end of the week,” she said next morning. “It’s best so, Lily. Why should he bide here, tearing the heart out of my breast, and his own, too? if it was not for that wonderful Scripture last night! He’s away, and I’m content. And all the rest is just in the Lord’s hands.” The minister, too, had his own comment to make. “She’ll be building a great deal on that chapter,” he said to Lily, “as if there was some kind of a spell in it. Do not you encourage her in that. It was a strange coincidence, I am not denying it; but it’s just the kind of thing that happens when the spirits are high strung. I was not unmoved myself. But that lad’s milk and water,” he added, with a gruff laugh, “he let us easy down.” The poor “lad,” time-honored description of a not fully fledged minister, whose prayer was milk and water, and his person “cauld parritch” to the two rougher and stronger men, accompanied Lily part of the way on foot as she rode home, Rory having come to fetch her, while the black powny carried her baggage. He was very desirous to unbosom his soul to Lily, too.
“Miss Ramsay, do you think she will waste all her heart and her life upon that vagabond?” he said. “It’s just an infatuation, and her friends should speak more strongly than they do. Do you know what he is? Just one of those wild gamblers, miners, drinkers—it may be worse for any thing I know, but my wish is not to say a word too much—that we hear of in America, and such places, in the backwoods, as they call it—men without a spark of principle, without house or home. I believe that’s what this man Duff has come to be. I wish him no harm, but to think of such a woman as Helen Blythe descending into that wretchedness! It should not be suffered, it should not be suffered! taking nobody else into consideration at all, but just her own self alone.”
“I think so, too, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily, restraining the paces of Rory, “but then what can any one say if Helen herself——”
“Helen herself!” he said almost passionately; “what does she know? She is young; she is without experience. She is very young,” he added, with a flush that made it apparent for the first time to Lily that he was younger than Helen, “because she is so inexperienced. She has never been out of this village. Men, however little they may have seen of themselves, get to know things; but a woman, a young lady—how can she understand? Oh, you should tell her, her friends should tell her!” he cried with vehemence. “It is a wicked thing to let a creature like that go so far astray.”
“I agree with you, Mr. Douglas,” said Lily again, “but if Helen in her own heart says ‘Yes,’ where is there a friend of hers that durst say ‘No’? Her father: that is true. But he will never be asked to give his consent, for while he lives she will never leave him.”
“You are sure of that?” the young minister asked.
“If it had not been so, would she have let him go now? She will never leave her father, but beyond that I don’t think Helen will ever change, Mr. Douglas. If he never comes back again, she will just sit and wait for him till she dies.”
“Miss Ramsay, I have no right to trouble you. What foolish things I may have cherished in my mind it is not worth the while to say. I thought, when the old man is away, what need to leave the house she was fond of, the house where she was born, when there was me ready to step in and give her the full right. It’s been in my thoughts ever since I was named to the parish after him. It’s nothing very grand, but it’s a decent down-sitting, what her mother had before her, and no need for any disagreeable change, or questions about repairs, or any unpleasant thing. Just her and me, instead of her and him. I would not shorten his days, not by an hour—the Lord forbid! but just I would be always ready at her hand.”
“Oh, Mr. Douglas,” cried Lily, “her father would like it—and me, I would like it.”
“Would you do that?” cried the young minister, laying his hand for a moment on Lily’s arm. The water stood in his eyes, his face was full of tender gratitude and hope. But either the young man had pulled Rory’s bridle unawares, or Rory thought he had done so, or resented the too close approach. He tossed his shaggy head and swerved from the side of the path to the middle of the road, when, after an ineffectual effort to free himself of Lily, he bolted with her, rattling his little hoofs with triumph against the frosty way. It was perhaps as well that the interview should terminate thus. It gave a little turn to Lily’s thoughts, which had been very serious. And Rory flew along till he had reached that spot full of associations to Lily, where the broken brig and the Fairy Glen reminded her of her own little romance that was over. Over! Oh, no, that was far from over; that had but begun that wonderful day when Ronald and she picnicked by the little stream and the accident happened, without which, perhaps, her own story would have gone no further, and Helen’s would never have been known to her. Rory stopped there, and helped himself to a mouthful or two of fresh grass, as if to call her attention pointedly to the spot, and then proceeded on his way leisurely, having given her the opportunity of picking up those recollections which, though so little distant, were already far off in the hurry of events which had taken place since then. Had it been possible to go back to that day, had there been no ascent of that treacherous ruin, no accident, none of all the chains of events that had brought them so much closer to each other and wound them in one web of fate, if every thing had remained as it was before the fated New Year, would Lily have been glad? That the thought should have gained entrance into her mind at all gave a heavy aspect to the scene and threw a cloud over every thing. She did not regret it: oh, no, no! how could she regret that which was her life? But something intolerable seemed to have come into the atmosphere, something stifling, as if she could not breathe. She forced the pony on, using her little switch in a manner with which Rory was quite unacquainted. Let it not be thought of, let it not be dwelt upon, above all, let it not be questioned, the certainty of all that had happened, the inevitableness of the past!