Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1894 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

BY Miss Mulock

MASSES'-*

h Oabroad, mother, ( is what I have ( —"L about decided to , f do, after alt ” \ He who said this, sudden y and just a trifle sharply, had been In/bAYjx, sitting, reading, A) at * he furthest xi* end a ver y handsome, not to ' V y ? crgeoU3 ’ tlv drawing-room,

where a gro <p of four ladies, whose clothes well matched the apartment, sat conversing. For I have no doubt they would have called it “conversation” —of a highly interesting and improving kind. The youhg fellow in the distance, however, did not seem to find it so. He was at the age when men are very critical of women, especially of their mothers and sisters, unless these happen to be sufficiently beautiful ideals to remain such unto son and brother from the cradle to the grave—an exceptional happiness which befalls few, and it h-d not befallen Roderick Jardine. The stout lady who, the instant he spoke, pricked up her ears with a cheerful “Eh, my dear?” was (eccentric nature will sometimes have it soi very unlike this, her youngest child and only son —as unlikfe as it was possible for’ mother and son to ba. Light and dark, fat and lean, large-boned and slender, phlegmatic and nervous, they came ot two diametrically opposite types, physically and mentally. Morally—yes, there was similarity there, for Mrs. Jardine was a good woman, and Roderick was, as the ceaselessly declared, being very outspoken as to her feelings, the best of sons, though he was a little “peculiar,” like his poor, dear father, of whom he was the very image. This was true. Her three daughters —now married and settled, except the last, who was just about to be—all took after herself. Not her present self, J erhaps, but the comely lassie she must have been once—fair-haired, round-cheeked, with a wide mouth and slightly projecting teeth —though possessing sufficient good looks to be a belle in Richerden. Roderick alone “favored” the other side of the house—the tail, dark, rather sad-looking father, who came of old Highland blood, and not being in business like most of the Richerden folk had led a rather retired life, keeping himself very much in the background, even amid his own family, Nobody really knew him, or thought much of him, until he died, which event happened just before his son went to college. Since then his widow had gradually blossomed out into great splendor; married her two daughters, taken her inaependent place in society, Richerden society, as a woman—l beg pardon, a lady—ought to do who has a large fortune, a fine family, and a great capacity for managing both. People had ’said that she managed her husband; but those who knew Mr. Jardine questioned this. Gentle as he was, he was not exactly a man to be “managed” by anybody. “What were you saying, Rody, my lamb.-” Now, if there was a pet name the young fellow disliked, it was his childish diminutive of “Rodv. ” And no man of tive-and-twenty is altogether p.eased at teing called “a lamb.” "Can you spare two minutes from that very delightful conversation of yours to listen to me. mother?” “Ou, ay. my dear.” The young man winced a little. “Wouldnt ‘yes - do as well as ‘ou, ay?’ But never mind, it doesn’t matter, mother, dear,” added he with a sigh, more of weariness than impatience. “Rody, my boy,” said she, coming to him half-depre'catingly, “were you saying you wished to go abroad? ft’s late in the year, to be sure, but I’ll not hinder you. Only you must promise me not to be climbing up Alps and tumbling into glaciers.” Glaziers, she called them; and her voice had the high-pitched shrillness which Richerden ladies se dom quite get out of, even when they fancy they have merged their native accent in the purest of English. “Wherever you go, remember you must be back in time for Isabella's marriage. ” “Certainly—and, mother, don't be afraid of my tumbling into a glacier, or of an avalanche tumbling down upon me. I shall only see the Alps at a distance. At this time of year one must content one’s self with towns.” “That's hard, laddie, when you are so fond of the country. But do as you like—do as you like—only don't forget the marriage. You will have to give away the bride, Rody. Ah! your poor father.” The widow’s eyes filled with tears. If she had not understood her husband, she had loved him certainly, and more perhaps after his death than before it. “We’ll we'll talkjihe matter over another time',” cried Roderick. “At this moncent I m busy—l mean, I —l have an engagement. Gocd-by, everybody. 111 be back at dinner-time.” “A little before dinner-time, plea-e, pay dear. Remember we have compa-ny-twenty at least—a regular dinner party,” “Oh, yes, a ‘meeting of creditors.’ as my father used to call it, ” said the young fellow somewhat bitterly. “No fear, mother; I’ll be back in time, and do my duty to all the old fogies.” “They’re not old fogies; there are some as nice girls as you could wish to see, if you'd only look at them, Roderick, ” said Bella, who, going to be married herself, quite lamented that her only brother seemed determined

against matrimony. “Well, 1 will, Bell, I promise you, only let me go now.” And snatching up his hat —a Glengarry bonnet which he persisted in wearing, though his sisters told him it made him look like the Highland porters at the quay—he fairly ran away. Rapidly the young fellow walked on through park and square, through street and wind, or “vennel, ” as such dreary dens are often called here; shrinking from and detesting alike the poverty and the riches, the splendor and the rags. It began to rain heavily, but he heeded not. Though brought up in luxury, he was not luxurious by nature, could stand a good deal of hardship, and had a young man’s instinctive pride in “roughing it.” Still “an even down-pour.” as his mother would have called it, is not an agreeable thing; and as in reality his only “engagement” was with himself, whose company he felt free to enjoy as much as anybody else, he stopped his walk and turned into a railway station, where at least he could sit down quietly and read his letters, which he had snatched up from the hall table on going out. But having no very interesting correspondence—lor he'had left behind at Cambridge few intimates and no duns, also being, I fear, of a rather dilatory turn of mind, and give'n to the bad system of laissez-aller —Roderick left the letters unopened in his pocket, and sat idly watching the passengers gather for a train just about to start. And when he heard the guard calling out the name of a place where he and his father had spent many a happy day, on a sudden impulse he sprung into the train without a ticket (“just like Rody, silly fellow,” they would have said at home), and was borne away. As he swept along in the train, and, quitting it, starte’d on arf old familiar walk, along high cliffs which gave him a view of the country—land and senior many lovely miles, Roderick’s heart was very full. Not only of his father, but of himself and his own new future, which lay before him like a map; the map of an untraveled country —untravelea but yet not undiscovered, for there were in it more certainties than lie in the lot of many young men of his age. Boor fellow! so young, so ignorant of life and its burdens, let he thought himself quite wise and quite old, and felt his burden very heavy indeed, and himself a most unfortunate fellow, on being obliged to go back to that "meeting of cred tors” which he detested. “But I’ll enjoy myself here to the very last minute,” thought he, sat down on a heather bush—for on that high ground everything looked as if it never had rained and never would rain again, till the next time, which would probably be within twenty-four hours. Wrapping his plaid about him, he felt perfectly happy. That lovely outline of hills—he must just put it down; so. hunting in his pocket for the pencil that was always a-missing, he turned out the letters that he had crammed in there, and looked them over. None attracted him, except a blackedged one, which, opened, he found was one of the “intimations” of death, customary in Scotland, acquainting him that there had died “at Blackball, aged sixty-nine, Misstilence Jardine.” Silence Jardine! Surely a relation! Who could she be? For he knew his father and he were the last of their family. However, thinking a minute, he remembered that in the busine-s arrangements after his father's death, which, he being under age, had been managed entirely by his mother, she had told him that Blackball, the ancestral property, “a queer tumbre-down place, which nobody would car»> for,” was to be inhabited, so long its she liked, by Miss Jardine, a second cousin. This must be she who had. now died.

“1 wonder, ought I to go to her funeral?” However, con suiting the letter, which had traveled to Cambridge and back, he found this was impossible. She must have “slept with her fathers” for some days already. “Poor Cousin Silence! Wnat a queer name, by the by. I wonder whatshe was like, or if 1 ever saw her?” And then, by a sudden flash of memory, he recalled a circumstance which in the confusion and anguish of the time had entirely slipped away—how, not many hours before his father had died, there had crept into the sickroom a lady. —an old lady, nearly as old as Mr. Jardine, and curiously like him. At sight of her a wonderful brightness had come into the dying face. “Cousin Silence?” “Yes, Henry,” wai all they said, but 'she knelt beside him: and they kissed one another, and ho lay looking at her till the last gleam of consciousness faded away. After that —for he did not actually die for some hours. —she sat beside Mrs. Jardine, watching him till the end. And after the end. Roderick remembered she had taken his mother out of the yoom and comforted her, staying a little while longer, and then leaving, no one thinking or saying much about her, either at the time or afterward. Now, recollecting his father s look, and hers, too, the whole story, or possible story, presented itself to this imaginative young man in colors vivid as life, and tender as death alone can make them. And when, carelessly opening another letter, he found it was from the lawyer of this same Miss Jardine, stating that she had left him —“Roderick Henry Jardine, her second cousin once removed”—the 'whole of her small property, as also a diamond ring, “which his' father gave me many years ago,” he was deeply touched. “I wish I had known her! I wish I had had a chance of being good to her —poor Cousin Silence!” thought he. And as he sat watching “the light of the dying day,” which died so peacefully, so gloriously over the western hills, he, with his life just begun, pondered over the two lives now ended, the mystery of which he guessed at. but never could know, except that thev were safely ended.

When the sun set, going down like a ball of tire which dyed the river all crimson, and the sudden gray chill of an October twilight came, Roderick started up, a little ashamed of himself, and still more ashamed when he found he had entirely neglected to ask the time of the return train to Richerden. “Just like me, mother will say,” and, half laughing, but vexed, for it always vexed him to vex his mother, he tore along as fast as his long legs could carry him, to the railway station. The train was just going, and it was at the risk of his lile— to say nothing of a penalty of forty shillings—tnat this foolish young fellow contrived to leap into it, breathless, exhausted, having nearly killed himself in his endeavor to “do his duty. ” So he represented to himself, at least, and felt a mo"t tremendous martyr all the way to Richerden. It did not occur to him that simply looking at his watch and the time-table would saved alt But at his age we are apt to overlook the little things on which, like the coral islands of the South Sea ocean, our lives are built. How far we build them ourselves, or Fate builds for us, Gcd only knows. Tearing up in a cab to his own door (or rather his mother’s—he already began slightly to feel the difference, ringing as if he thought the house was on fire,and|being met by the imperturbable butler with the information, “Yes, sir, dinner is served; Mrs. Jardine waited half an hour, and then asked Mr. Thomson to take the foot of the table”—all this did not contribute to Roderick’s placidity of spirit. When he at last walked into that blaze of gas-light—that dazzle of crystal and plate—that strong aroma of dainty dishes and excellent wines, and clatter of conversation, which makes up a Richerden dinner-party, he was not in the best frame of mind to enjoy the same.

His mother was so busy talking, and the silver-gilt epergne was such an effectual barrier between the upper and lower ends of the table, that she never noticed that her son-in-'aw-elect quitted his place and her son slipped into it, till the deed was done. Then Roderick might have received a good hearty scoldinm.not undeserved, had not something in him—was it his father's look'/—repressed the ebullition. She mertelv said: “Oh, my son is there, I kee! Better late than never.” And tfhj dinner went on. When, the ladtX having retired, he still had to keep Iris place and “pass the bottle”—which\ he loathed —to elderly gentlemen, ay\and young ones, too, who evidently did not loathe it—listening meanwhile to talk in which, whether it was his own fault or not, he could not get ’up the smallest interest, this young Cantab—who for three years had lived in what was a little better atmosphere than that of Richerden—socially, as well as physically—was a good deal to be pitied.

So was his mother, too, when, having succeeded in luring the guests upstairs, he—her only son—went and hid himself in the drawing-room and “sulked,” as he overheard her say, lamenting over him as a black sheep, in the loudest of whispers, to a lady he particularly disliked. But it was not sulking, for he had his father s sweet temper. It was only the utter weariness of spirit, which, in uncongenial circumstances comes over the young as well as the old. And then, with the habit he had of passing over things at the time and recurring to them afterward, there came into his mind a sentence in the letter from Miss .Jardine s lawyer, explaining that in making her will she had said to him that her only other kindred were some distant cousins, living, she believed in Switzerland, whom, if they were j oor, she left to Roderick’s kindness.

“Capital idea! I’ll go straight to Switzerland and find them. It would at somothing to do.” And the mere notion of this brightened up the young fellew s spirit and warmed his heart—he was, I fear, bit a foolish young Quixote after all; so that when his mother called him to do civility to the departing guests, he came forward with an air of cheerfulness, such as he had not worn all the evening. Ay, even when he had to escort the most honored quest to the very carriage door, from an unsteadiness of gait, politely ascribed to gout, but which Roderick, with a contempt so sad to see in the young to the old, even when the old deserve it, soon perceived to be—something else. “Mother,” cried he, indignantly, as he returned to the drawing-room, where the two ladies stood on the hearth-rug of their “banquet hall deserted,” hot, weary, a little cross, and not a little glad that “it was over,” “mother, I wonder you let that old fellow enter your door! He has not an ounce of brains, and less of manners. Didn’t you see he was drunk?” “What an ugly, vular word! Ayd to say it of Sir James, who holds such a good position here, and is Mr. Thomson’s father, too! Rody, I’m ashamed of you;” “And Bella is more than ashaujed, angry. Oh, .Bell, ” and with a suijden sense of brotherly tenderness, halt regret, half compunction, he laid his hand on her shoulder, “ha.e you thoroughly considered this marriage? Are you quite sure of the young man ’pirnself? These things run in families. Suppose he should even turn out a drunkard—like this father!” “Stuff and nonsense ’”' said Bella, sharply. “And even if Sir James joes enjoy his glass—why—so do many other gentlemen. It isn’t like a common man, you know, who never knows when to step. Now, Sir James does. Hu is not ‘drunk,’ as you call it, on'y ‘merry.’ ” “Roderick,” said his mother--and when she gave him his full name he knew she was seriously displeased “the Thomsons are one of the first families in Richerden, and live in the best style. Isabella is making the most satisfactory marriage of all her sisters, and I des re you w.ll not say one word against it. ” “Very well, mother.” And with a hopeless sigh Roderick changd thee conversation. “Mother, have you thought over what I said this morning about going to Switzerland?” said he, impelled by the sad lenging of much-worried people to rup away. “Because, sin e then, 1 have found an added reason for my ourney.” And he gave her the two letters which had come on from Cambridge. “I suppose you had not heard of Miss Jardine’s death, or you would have put off the dinner-party?” “Why so? She was only a poor relation. Nobody knew anything about her here. Her death was not even put in the“newspapers. ” “Then you did know of it? But, of course, one could not mourn for a person whose death was not imror*

tan* enough to be put in the newspaper.” Mrs. Jardine looked puzzled, as she often did when her gentle-speaking “lad” spoke in that way; she could not make out whether he wa, in jest or in earnest' “Weill, go, if you like. But it's just a wild-goose chase; that's what I call it.” “So do I, mother. Only Im not the hunter; I'm the wild goo'-e, and I want to take a good long flight and itretoh my wings. Then I’ll cmne back as tame as possible, and settle down in the dullest and smoothe t of ponds.” He determined to go the very next day, to visit Blackball, which he had never yet seen, and knew little about, for his father rarely named it, though it had been the home or the Jardines for many generations. Also, they mi st have had a burial-place, for he had some recollection of his father's having once expressed a wish to be there, only his mother had overruled it in favor of the grand new cemetery on the outskirts of Richerden, where she had afterward erected a be lutiful white marble sarcophagus with an urn at the top. What matter? Henry Jarline slept well. And far away, somewhere beyond those moonlight mountains—near the very places where they might have played together as children, or walked together as young people—slept also Cousin Silence. But the .waking? If it be possible that the life to come shall heal some of the wounds of this life-oh, the heavenly waking! |TO BB CONTINUED. |