MORE than one strange incident happened at Arden that soft July night. Mr. Fielding was seated in his library in the evening, after all the Sunday work was over. He did not work very hard either on Sundays or on any other occasions—the good, gentle old man. But yet he liked to sit, as he had been wont to do in his youth when he had really exerted himself, on those tranquil Sunday nights. His curate had dined with him, but was gone, knowing the Rector’s habit; and Mr. Fielding was seated in the twilight, with both his windows open, sipping a glass of wine tenderly, as if he loved it, and musing in the stillness. The lamp was never lighted on Sunday evenings till it was time for prayers. Some devout people in the parish were of opinion that at such moments the Rector was asking a blessing upon his labours, and “interceding” with God for his people—and so, no doubt, he was. But yet other thoughts were in his mind. Long, long ago, when Mr. Fielding had been young, and had a young wife by his side, this had been their sacred hour, when they would sit side by side and talk to each other of all that was in their hearts. It was “Milly’s hour,” the time when she had told him all the little troubles that beset a girl-wife in the beginning of her career; and he had laughed at her, and been sorry for her, and comforted her as young husbands can. It was Milly’s hour still, though Milly had gone out of all the cares of life and housekeeping for thirty years. How the old man remembered those little cares—how he would go over them with a soft smile on his lip, and—no, not a tear—a glistening of the eye, which was not weeping. How frightened she had been for big Susan, the cook; how bravely she had struggled about the cooking of the cutlets, to have them as her husband liked them—not as Susan pleased! And then all those speculations as to whether Lady Augusta would call, and about Letty Somers, and her foolish, little kind-hearted ways. The old man remembered every one of those small troubles. How small they were, how dear, how sacred—Milly’s troubles. Thank Heaven, she had never found out that the world held pangs more bitter. The first real sorrow she had ever had was to die—and was that a sorrow? to leave him; and had she left him? This was the tender enjoyment, the little private, sad delight of the Rector’s Sunday nights; and he did not like to be disturbed.
Therefore, it was clear the business must be of importance which was brought to him at that hour. “Your reverence won’t think as it’s of my own will I’m coming disturbing of you,” said Mrs. Solmes, the housekeeper; “but there’s one at the door as will take no denial. She says she aint got but a moment, and daren’t stay for fear her child would wake. She’s been in a dead faint from yesterday at six till now. The t’oud woman as lives at oud Sarah’s, your reverence; the Scotchy, as they calls her—her as had her granddaughter killed last night.”
“God bless me!” said Mr. Fielding, confused by this complication. He knew Jeanie had not been killed; but how was he to make his way in this twilight moment through such a maze of statements? “Killed!” he said to himself. It was so violent a word to fall into that sacred dimness and sadness—sadness which was more dear to him than any joy. “Let her come in,” he added, with a sigh. “Lights? no! I don’t think we want lights. I can see you, Mrs. Solmes, and I can see to talk without lights.”
“As you please, sir,” said the housekeeper; “but them as is strangers, and don’t know your habits, might think it was queer. And then to think how a thing gets all over the village in no time. But, to be sure, sir, it’s as you please.”
“Then show Mrs. Murray in,” said Mr. Fielding. He had never departed from his good opinion of her, notwithstanding that she was a Calvinist, and looked disapproval of his sermons; but that she should come away from her child’s sick-bed, that was extraordinary indeed.
And then in the dark, much to the scandal of Mrs. Solmes, Mrs. Murray came in. Even the Rector himself found it embarrassing to see only the tall, dark figure beside him, without being able to trace (so short-sighted as he was, too) the changes of her face. “Sit down,” he said, “sit down,” and bustled a little to get her a chair—not the one near him, in which, had she been alive, his Milly would have sat—(and oh! to think Milly, had she lived, would have been older than Mrs. Murray!)—but another at a little distance. “How is your child?” he asked. “I meant to have gone to see her to-night, but they told me she was insensible still.”
“And so she is,” said the grandmother, “and I wouldna have left her to come here but for something that’s like life and death. You’re a good man. I canna but believe you’re a real good man, though you are no what I call sound on all points. I want you to give me your advice. It’s a case of a penitent woman that has done wrong, and suffered for it. Sore she has suffered in her bairns and her life, and worse in her heart. It’s a case of conscience; and oh! sir, your best advice——”
“I will give you the best advice I can, you may be sure,” said Mr. Fielding, moved by the pleading voice that reached him out of the darkness. “But you must tell me more clearly. What has she done? I will not ask who she is, for that does not matter. But what has she done; and has she, or can she, make amends? Is it a sin against her neighbour or against God?”
“Baith, baith,” said the old woman. “Oh, Mr. Fielding, you’re an innocent, virtuous man. I ken it by your face. This woman has been airt and pairt in a great wrong—an awfu’ wrong; you never heard of the like. Partly she knew what she was doing, and partly she did not. There are some more guilty than her that have gone to their account; and there’s none to be shamed but the innocent, that knew no guile, and think no evil. What is she to do? If it was but to punish her, she’s free to give her body to be burned or torn asunder: oh, and thankful, thankful! Nothing you could do, but she would take and rejoice. But she canna move without hurting the innocent. She canna right them that’s wronged without crushing the innocent. Oh, tell me, you that are a minister, and an old man, and have preached God’s way! Many and many a time He suffers wrong, and never says a word. It’s done now, and canna be undone. Am I to bear my burden and keep silent till my heart bursts, or must I destroy, and cast down, and speak!”
The woman spoke with a passion and vehemence which bewildered the gentle Rector. Her voice came through the dim and pensive twilight, thrilling with life and force and vigour. In that atmosphere, at that hour, any whisper of penitence should have been low and soft as a sigh. It should have been accompanied by noiseless weeping, by the tender humility which appeals to every Christian soul; but such was not the manner of this strange confession. Not a tear was in the eye of the penitent. Mr. Fielding felt, though he could not see, that her eyes, those eyes which had lost none of their brightness in growing old, were shining upon him in the darkness, and held him fast as did those of the Ancient Mariner. Suddenly, without any warning, he found himself brought into contact, not with the moderate contrition of ordinary sinners, but with tragic repentance and remorse. He could not answer for the first moment. It took away his breath.
“My dear, good woman,” he said, “you startle me. I do not understand you. Do you know what you are saying? I don’t think you can have done anything so very wrong. Hush, hush! compose yourself, and think what you are saying. When we examine it, perhaps we will find it was not so bad. People may do wrong, you know, and yet it need not be so very serious. Tell me what it was.”
“That is what I cannot do,” she said. “If I were to tell you, all would be told. If it has to be said, it shall be said to him first that will have the most to bear. Oh, have ye been so long in the world without knowing that a calm face often covers a heavy heart! Many a thing have I done for my ain and for others that cannot be blamed to me; but once I was to blame. I tell ye, I canna tell ye what it was. It was this—I did what was unjust and wrong. I schemed to injure a man—no, no me, for I did not know he was in existence, and who was to tell me?—but I did the wrong thing that made it possible for the man to be injured. Do you understand me now? And here I am in this awful strait, like Israel at the Red Sea. If I let things be, I am doing wrong, and keeping a man out of his own; if I try to make amends, I am bringing destruction on the innocent. Which, oh, which, tell me, am I to do?”
She had raised her voice till it sounded like a cry, and yet it was not loud. Mrs. Solmes in the kitchen heard nothing, but to Mr. Fielding it sounded like a great wail and moaning that went to his heart. And the silence closed over her voice as the water closes over a pebble, making faint circles and waves of echo, not of the sound, but of the meaning of the sound. He could not speak, with those thrills of feeling, like the wash after a boat, rolling over him. He did not understand what she meant; her great and violent pain bewildered the gentle old man. The only thing he could take hold of was her last words. That, he reflected, was always right—always the best thing to advise. He waited until the silence and quietness settled down again, and then he said, his soft old voice wavering with emotion, “Make amends!”
“Is that what you say to me?” she said, lifting up her hands. He could see the vehement movement in the gloom.
“Make amends. What other words could a servant of God say?”
He thought she fell when he spoke, and sprang to his feet with deep anxiety. She had dropped down on her knees, and had bent her head, and was covering her face with her hands. “Are you ill?” he said. “God bless us all, she has fainted! what am I to do?”
“No; the like of me never faints,” she answered; and then he perceived that she retained her upright position. Her voice was choked, and sounded like the voice of despair, and she did not take her hands from her face. “Oh, if I could lie like Jeanie,” she went on, “quietly, like the dead, with nae heart to feel nor voice to speak. My bit little lily flower! would she have been broken like that—faded like that, if I had done what was right? But, O Lord my God, my bonnie lad! what is to become of him?”
“Mrs. Murray! Mrs. Murray!” said Mr. Fielding, “let me put you on that sofa. Let me get you some wine. Compose yourself. My poor woman, my good woman! All this has been too much for you. Are you sure it is not a delusion you have got into your mind?”
The strange penitent took no notice of him as he stood thus beside her. Her mind was occupied otherwise. “How am I to make amends?” she was murmuring; “how am I to do it? Harm the innocent, crush down the innocent!—that’s all I can do. It will relieve my mind, but it will throw nothing but bitterness into theirs. The prophet he threw a sweetening herb into the bitter waters, but it would be gall and wormwood I would throw. The wrong’s done, and it canna be undone. It would but be putting off my burden on them—giving them my pain to bear; and it is me, and no them, that is worthy of the pain.”
“Mrs. Murray,” said the Rector, by this time beginning to feel alarmed; for how could he tell that it was not a madwoman he had beside him in the dark? “you must try and compose yourself. I think things cannot be so bad as you say. Perhaps you are tormenting yourself for nothing. My dear good woman, sit down and rest, and compose yourself, while I ring the bell for the lamp.”
Then she rose up slowly in the darkness between him and the window, and took her hands from her face. She did not raise her head, but she put out her hand and caught his arm with a vigour which made Mr. Fielding tremble. “I was thinking if I had anything else to say,” she said, in a low desponding tone, “but there’s nothing more. I cannot think but of one thing. If you’ve nothing more to say to me, I’ll go away. I’ll slip away in the dark, as I came, and nobody will be the wiser. Mr. Fielding, you’re a real good man, and that was your best advice?”
“It’s my advice to everybody, in ordinary circumstances,” said Mr. Fielding. “If you have done wrong, make amends—the one thing necessitates the other. If you have done wrong, make amends. But, Mrs. Murray, wait till the lamp comes and a glass of wine. You are not fit to go back to your nursing without something to sustain you. Sit down again.”
“I am fit for a great deal more than that,” she said; “but no, no, nae lights. I’ll go my ways back. I’ll slip out in the dark, as I slipped in. I’m like the owls—I’m dazzled by the shinin’ light. That’s new to me, that always liked the light; but, sir, I thank ye for your goodness. I must slip away now.”
“You are not fit to walk in this state,” he said, following her anxiously to the door; “take my arm; let me get out the pony—I will send you comfortably home.”
Mrs. Murray shook her head. She declined the offer of the old man’s arm. “I have mair strength than you think,” she said; “and Jeanie must never know that I have been here. Oh, I’m strengthened with what you said. Oh, I’m the better for having opened my heart; but I’ll slip out, as long as there are none to see.”
And, while the gentle Rector stood and wondered, she went out by the open window, as erect and vigorous as if no emotion could touch her. Swiftly she passed into the darkness, carrying with her her secret. What was it? Mr. Fielding sunk into his chair with a sigh. Never before had any interruption like this come into Milly’s hour.