CHAPTER LXXX.
AWAY-FARING
Suddenly what strength lady Arctura had, gave way, and she began to sink. But it was spring with the summer at hand; they hoped she would recover sufficiently to be removed to a fitter climate. She did not herself think so. She had hardly a doubt that her time was come. She was calm, often cheerful, but her spirits were variable. Donal's heart was sorer than he had thought it could be again.
One day, having been reading a little to her, he sat looking at her. He did not know how sad was the expression of his countenance. She looked up, smiled, and said,
"You think I am unhappy!—you could not look at me like that if you did not think so! I am only tired; I am not unhappy. I hardly know now what unhappiness is! If ever I look as if I were unhappy, it is only that I am waiting for more life. It is on the way; I feel it is, because I am so content with everything; I would have nothing other than it is. It is very hard for God that his children will not trust him to do with them what he pleases! I am sure, Mr. Grant, the world is all wrong, and on the way to be all wondrously right. It will cost God much labour yet: we will cost him as little as we can—won't we?—Oh, Mr. Grant, if it hadn't been for you, God would have been far away still! For a God I should have had something half an idol, half a commonplace tyrant! I should never have dreamed of the glory of God!"
"No, my lady!" returned Donal; "if God had not sent me, he would have sent somebody else; you were ready!"
"I am very glad he sent you! I should never have loved any other so much!"
Donal's eyes filled with tears. He was simple as a child. No male vanity, no self-exultation that a woman should love him, and tell him she loved him, sprang up in his heart. He knew she loved him; he loved her; all was so natural it could not be otherwise: he never presumed to imagine her once thinking of him as he had thought of Ginevra. He was her servant, willing and loving as any angel of God: that was all—and enough!
"You are not vexed with your pupil—are you?" she resumed, again looking up in his face, this time with a rosy flush on her own.
"Why?" said Donal, with wonder.
"For speaking so to my master."
"Angry because you love me?"
"No, of course!" she responded, at once satisfied. "You knew that must be! How could I but love you—better than any one else in the world! You have given me life! I was dead.—You have been like another father to me!" she added, with a smile of heavenly tenderness. "But I could not have spoken to you like this, if I had not known I was dying."
The word shot a sting as of fire through Donal's heart.
"You are always a child, Mr. Grant," she went on; "death is making a child of me; it makes us all children: as if we were two little children together, I tell you I love you.—Don't look like that," she continued; "you must not forget what you have been teaching me all this time—that the will of God, the perfect God, is all in all! He is not a God far off: to know that is enough to have lived for! You have taught me that, and I love you with a true heart fervently."
Donal could not speak. He knew she was dying.
"Mr. Grant," she began again, "my soul is open to his eyes, and is not ashamed. I know I am going to do what would by the world be counted unwomanly; but you and I stand before our Father, not before the world. I ask you in plain words, knowing that if you cannot do as I ask you willingly, you will not do it. And be sure I shall plainly be dying before I claim the fulfilment of your promise if you give it. I do not want your answer all at once: you must think about it."
Here she paused a while, then said,
"I want you to marry me, if you will, before I go."
Donal could not yet speak. His soul was in a tumult of emotion.
"I am tired," she said. "Please go and think it over. If you say no, I shall only say, 'He knows best what is best!' I shall not be ashamed. Only you must not once think what the world would say: of all people we have nothing to do with the world! We have nothing to do but with God and love! If he be pleased with us, we can afford to smile at what his silly children think of us: they mind only what their vulgar nurses say, not what their perfect father says: we need not mind them—need we?—I wonder at myself," she went on, for Donal did not utter a word, "for being able to speak like this; but then I have been thinking of it for a long time—chiefly as I lie awake. I am never afraid now—not though I lie awake all night: 'perfect love casteth out fear,' you know. I have God to love, and Jesus to love, and you to love, and my own father to love! When you know him, you will see how good a man can be without having been brought up like you!—Oh, Donal, do say something, or I shall cry, and crying kills me!"
She was sitting on a low chair, with the sunlight across her lap—for she was again in the sunny Garland-room—and the firelight on her face. Donal knelt gently down, and laid his hands in the sunlight on her lap, just as if he were going to say his prayers at his mother's knee. She laid both her hands on his.
"I have something to tell you," he said; "and then you must speak again."
"Tell me," said Arctura, with a little gasp.
"When I came here," said Donal, "I thought my heart so broken that it would never love—that way, I mean—any more. But I loved God better than ever: and as one I would fain help, I loved you from the very first. But I should have scorned myself had I once fancied you loved me more than just to do anything for me I needed done. When I saw you troubled, I longed to take you up in my arms, and carry you like a lovely bird that had fallen from one of God's nests; but never once, my lady, did I think of your caring for my love: it was yours as a matter of course. I once asked a lady to kiss me—just once, for a good-bye: she would not—and she was quite right; but after that I never spoke to a lady but she seemed to stand far away on the top of a hill against a sky."
He stopped. Her hands on his fluttered a little, as if they would fly.
"Is she still—is she—alive?" she asked.
"Oh yes, my lady."
"Then she may—change—" said Arctura, and stopped, for there was a stone in her heart.
Donal laughed. It was an odd laugh, but it did Arctura good.
"No danger of that, my lady! She has the best husband in the world—a much better than I should have made, much as I loved her."
"That can't be!"
"Why, my lady, her husband's sir Gibbie! She's lady Galbraith! I would never have wished her mine if I had known she loved Gibbie. I love her next to him."
"Then—then—"
"What, my lady?"
"Then—then—Oh, do say something!"
"What should I say? What God wills is fast as the roots of the universe, and lovely as its blossom."
Arctura burst into tears.
"Then you do not—care for me!"
Donal began to understand. In some things he went on so fast that he could not hear the cry behind him. She had spoken, and had been listening in vain for response! She thought herself unloved: he had shown her no sign that he loved her!
His heart was so full of love and the joy of love, that they had made him very still: now the delight of love awoke. He took her in his arms like a child, rose, and went walking about the room with her, petting and soothing her. He held her close to his heart; her head was on his shoulder, and his face was turned to hers.
"I love you," he said, "and love you to all eternity! I have love enough now to live upon, if you should die to-night, and I should tarry till he come. O God, thou art too good to me! It is more than my heart can bear! To make men and women, and give them to each other, and not be one moment jealous of the love wherewith they love one another, is to be a God indeed!"
So said Donal—and spoke the high truth. But alas for the love wherewith men and women love each other! There were small room for God to be jealous of that! It is the little love with which they love each other, the great love with which they love themselves, that hurts the heart of their father.
Arctura signed at length a prayer for release, and he set her gently down in her chair again. Then he saw her face more beautiful than ever before; and the rose that bloomed there was the rose of a health deeper than sickness. These children of God were of the blessed few who love the more that they know him present, whose souls are naked before him, and not ashamed. Let him that hears understand! if he understand not, let him hold his peace, and it will be his wisdom! He who has no place for this love in his religion, who thinks to be more holy without it, is not of God's mind when he said, "Let us make man!" He may be a saint, but he cannot be a man after God's own heart. The finished man is the saved man. The saint may have to be saved from more than sin.
"When shall we be married?" asked Donal.
"Soon, soon," answered Arctura.
"To-morrow then?"
"No, not to-morrow: there is no such haste—now that we understand each other," she added with a rosy smile. "I want to be married to you before I die, that is all—not just to-morrow, or the next day."
"When you please, my love," said Donal.
She laid her head on his bosom.
"We are as good as married now," she said: "we know that each loves the other! How I shall wait for you! You will be mine, you know—a little bit mine—won't you?—even if you should marry some beautiful lady after I am gone?—I shall love her when she comes."
"Arctura!" said Donal.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
A WILL AND A WEDDING
But the opening of the windows of heaven, and the unspeakable rush of life through channels too narrow and banks too weak to hold its tide, caused a terrible inundation: the red flood broke its banks, and weakened all the land.
Arctura sent for Mr. Graeme, and commissioned him to fetch the family lawyer from Edinburgh. Alone with him she gave instructions concerning her will. The man of business shrugged his shoulders, laden with so many petty weights, bowed down with so many falsest opinions, and would have expostulated with her.
"Sir!" she said.
"You have a cousin who inherits the title!" he suggested.
"Mr. Fortune," she returned, "it may be I know as much of my family as you. I did not send for you to consult you, but to tell you how I would have my will drawn up!"
"I beg your pardon, my lady," rejoined the lawyer, "but there are things which may make it one's duty to speak out."
"Speak then; I will listen—that you may ease your mind."
He began a long, common-sense, worldly talk on the matter, nor once repeated himself. When he stopped,—
"Now have you eased your mind?" she asked.
"I have, my lady."
"Then listen to me. There is no necessity you should hurt either your feelings or your prejudices. If it goes against your conscience to do as I wish, I will not trouble you."
Mr. Fortune bowed, took his instructions, and rose.
"When will you bring it me?" she asked.
"In the course of a week or two, my lady."
"If it is not in my hands by the day after to-morrow, I will send for a gentleman from the town to prepare it."
"You shall have it, my lady," said Mr. Fortune.
She did have it, and it was signed and witnessed.
Then she sank more rapidly. Donal said no word about the marriage: it should be as she pleased! He was much by her bedside, reading to her when she was able to listen, talking to her or sitting silent when she was not.
Arctura had at once told mistress Brookes the relation in which she and Donal stood to each other. It cost the good woman many tears, for she thought such a love one of the saddest things in a sad world. Neither Arctura nor Donal thought so.
The earl at this time was a little better, though without prospect of even temporary recovery. He had grown much gentler, and sadness had partially displaced his sullenness. He seemed to have become in a measure aware of the bruteness of the life he had hitherto led: he must have had a glimpse of something better. It is wonderful what the sickness which human stupidity regards as the one evil thing, can do towards redemption! He showed concern at his niece's illness, and had himself carried down every other day to see her for a few minutes. She received him always with the greatest gentleness, and he showed something that seemed like genuine affection for her.
It was a morning in the month of May—
The naked twigs were shivering all for cold—
when Donal, who had been with Arctura the greater part of the night, and now lay on the couch in a neighbouring room, heard Mrs. Brookes call him.
"My lady wants you, sir," she said.
He started up, and went to her.
"Send for the minister," she whispered, "—not Mr. Carmichael; he does not know you. Send for Mr. Graeme too: he and mistress Brookes will be witnesses. I must call you husband once before I die!"
"I hope you will many a time after!" he returned.
She smiled on him with a look of love unutterable.
"Mind," she said, holding out her arms feebly, but drawing him fast to her bosom, "that this is how I love you! When you see me dull and stupid, and I hardly look at you—for though death makes bright, dying makes stupid—then say to yourself, 'This is not how she loves me; it is only how she is dying! She loves me and knows it—and by and by will be able to show it!'"
They were precious words both then and afterwards!
With some careful questioning, to satisfy himself that, so evidently at the gate of death she yet knew perfectly her own mind,—and not without some shakes of the head revealing disapprobation, the minister did as he was requested, and wrote a certificate of the fact, which was duly signed and witnessed.
And if he showed his disapproval yet more in the prayer with which he concluded the ceremony, none but mistress Brookes showed responsive indignation.
The bridegroom gave his bride one gentle kiss, and withdrew with the clergyman.
"Pardon me if I characterize this as a strange proceeding!" said the latter.
"Not so strange perhaps as it looks, sir!" said Donal.
"On the very brink of the other world!"
"The other world and its brink too are his who ordained marriage!"
"For this world only," said the minister.
"The gifts of God are without repentance," said Donal.
"I have heard of you!" returned the clergyman. "You are one, they tell me, given to misusing scripture."
He had conceived a painful doubt that he had been drawn into some plot!
"Sir!" said Donal sternly, "if you saw any impropriety in the ceremony, why did you perform it? I beg you will now reserve your remarks. You ought to have made them before or not at all. If you be silent, the thing will probably never be heard of, and I should greatly dislike having it the town-talk."
"Except I see reason—that is, if nothing follow to render disclosure necessary, I shall be silent," said the minister.
He would have declined the fee offered by Donal; but he was poor, and its amount prevailed: he accepted it, and took his leave with a stiffness he intended for dignity: he had a high sense, if not of the dignity of his office, at least of the dignity his office conferred on him.
Donal had next a brief interview with Mr. Graeme. The factor was in a state of utter bewilderment, and readily yielded Donal a promise of silence: the mere whim of a dying girl, it had better be ignored and forgotten! As to Grant's part in it he did not know what to think. It could not affect the property, he thought: it could hardly be a marriage! And then there was the will—of the contents of which he knew nothing! If it were a complete marriage, the will was worth nothing, being made before it!
I will not linger over the quiet, sad time that followed. Donal was to Arctura, she said, father, brother, husband, in one. Through him she had reaped the harvest of the world, in spite of falsehood, murder, fear, and distrust! She lay victorious on the battlefield!
In the heart of her bridegroom reigned a peace the world could not give or take away. He loved with a love that cast the love of former days into the shadow of a sweet but undesired remembrance. A long twilight life lay before him, but he would have plenty to do! and such was the love between him and Arctura, that every doing of the will of God was as the tying of a fresh bond between him and her: she was his because they were the Father's, whose will was the life and bond of the universe.
"I think," said Donal, that same night by her bed, "when my mother dies, she will go near you: I will, if I can, send you a message by her. But it will not matter; it can only tell you what you will know well enough—that I love you, and am waiting to come to you."
The stupidity of calling oneself a Christian, and doubting if we shall know our friends hereafter! In those who do not believe such a doubt is more than natural, but in those who profess to believe, it shows what a ragged scarecrow is the thing they call their faith—not worth that of many an old Jew, or that of here and there a pagan!
"I shall not be far from you, dear, I think—sometimes at least," she said, speaking very low. "If you dream anything nice about me, think I am thinking of you. If you should dream anything not nice, think something is lying to you about me. I do not know if I shall be allowed to come near you, but if I am—and I think I shall be—sometimes, I shall laugh to myself to think how near I am, and you fancying me a long way off! But any way all will be well, for the great life, our God, our father, is, and in him we cannot but be together."
After that she fell into a deep sleep, and slept for hours. Then suddenly she sat up. Donal put his arm behind and supported her. She looked a little wild, shuddered, murmured something he could not understand, then threw herself back into his arms. Her expression changed to a look of divinest, loveliest content, and she was gone.
CHAPTER LXXXII.
THE WILL
When her will was read, it was found that, except some legacies, and an annuity to Mrs. Brookes, she had left everything to Donal.
Mr. Graeme, rising the moment the lawyer looked up, congratulated Donal—politely, not cordially, and took his leave.
"If you are walking towards home," said Donal, "I will walk with you."
"I shall be happy," said Mr. Graeme—feeling it not a little hard that one who would soon be heir presumptive to the title should have to tend the family property in the service of a stranger and a peasant.
"Lord Morven cannot live long," said Donal as they went. "It is not to be wished he should."
Mr. Graeme returned no answer. Donal resumed.
"I think I ought to let you know at once that you are heir to the title."
"I think you owe the knowledge to myself!" said the factor, not without a touch of contempt.
"By no means," rejoined Donal: "on presumption, after lord Forgue, you told me;—after lord Morven, I tell you."
"I am at a loss to imagine on what you found such a statement," said Graeme, beginning to suspect insanity.
"Naturally; no one knows it but myself. Lord Morven knows that his son cannot succeed, but he does not know that you can. I am prepared, if not to prove, at least to convince you that he and his son's mother were not married."
Mr. Graeme was for a moment silent. Then he laughed a little laugh—not a pleasant one. "Another of Time's clownish tricks!" he said to himself: "the earl the factor on the family-estate!" Donal did not like the way he took it, but saw how natural it was.
"I hope you have known me long enough," he said, "to believe I have contrived nothing?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Grant: the whole business looks suspicious. The girl was dying! You knew it!"
"I do not understand you."
"What did you marry her for?"
"To make her my wife."
"Pray what could be the good of that except—?"
"Does it need any explanation but that we loved each other?"
"You will find it difficult to convince the world that such was your sole motive."
"Having no care for the opinion of the world, I shall be satisfied if I convince you. The world needs never hear of the thing. Would you, Mr. Graeme, have had me not marry her, because the world, including not a few honest men like yourself, would say my object was the property?"
"Don't put the question to me; I am not the proper person to answer it. There is not a man in a hundred millions who with the chance would not have done the same, or whom all the rest would not blame for doing it. It would have been better for you, however, that there had been no will."
"How?"
"It makes it look the more like a scheme:—the will might have been disputed."
"Why do you say—might have been?"
"Because it is not worth disputing now. If the marriage stands, it annuls the will."
"I did not know; and I suppose she did not know either. Or perhaps she wanted to make the thing sure: if the marriage was not enough, the will would be—she may have thought. But I knew nothing of it."
"You did not?"
"Of course I did not."
Mr. Graeme held his peace. For the first time he doubted Donal's word.
"But I wanted to have a little talk with you," resumed Donal. "I want to know whether you think your duty all to the owner of the land, or in any measure to the tenants also."
"That is easy to answer: one employed by the landlord can owe the tenant nothing."
It was not just the answer he would have given to another questioner.
"Do you not owe him justice?" asked Donal.
"Every legal advantage I ought to take for my employer."
"Even to the grinding of the faces of the poor?"
"I have nothing to do, as his employé, with my own ideas as to what may be equitable."
He drew the line thus hard in pure opposition to Donal.
"What then would you say if the land were your own? Would you say you had it solely for your own and your family's good, or for that of the tenants as well?"
"I should very likely reason that what was good for them would in the long run be good for me too.—But if you want to know how I have treated the tenants, there are intelligent men amongst them, not at all prejudiced in favour of the factor!"
"I wish you would be open with me," said Donal.
"I prefer keeping my own place," rejoined Mr. Graeme.
"You speak as one who found a change in me," returned Donal. "There is none."
So saying he shook hands with him, bade him good morning, and turned with the depression of failure.
"I did not lead up to the point properly!" he said to himself.