Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1895 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

CHAPTER X—Continued. The quick, sharp stroke or a Kicherflen hall bell—Roderick had started at the long familiar sound, and even changed color a little. But it was no visitors, only the post “Just business—Mr. Maclagan, our lawyer. He might have written sooner, If only to apologize for finding us such a wretched ‘flat’ instead of the furnished house I ordered.” And Roderick, looking first disappointed, then vexed, was going apparently to tear up the letter, but meeting Silence’s eyes, he stopped, and passed it over to her to read. “It is such a comfort to me that I can tell you everything,” he said, tenderly. “You are sure never to be vexed or cross, or hurt—oh, my darling!” If she had been either of the three, that last word, and the tone of it, would have healed all. Yet the letter, read aloud, was a little hard to bear; for both. “ ‘Dear Sir,’ (he used to call me dear Mr. Roderick; he has been our man of business these forty years): ‘Perhaps you were not aware that the furnished house you wished me to hire would have swallowed up half your income In mere rent, so I took the liberty of getting something more advisable, which I hope will please you, during the time that Blackball is being finished. I for warded the address, as desired, to yoil' three sisters here, and to Mrs. Jardiite In England. My wife will do herself the honor of calling on young Mrs. Jardine. I wonder how the old lady 4111 approve of that?’” “Of my being called Mrs. Jardine, or of Mrs. Maclagan visiting ihe, dols he mean?” said Silence, with her smile of ’ gave simplicity. “It is a pity fir the ,ady to come, if she fears to drplease your mother,” added she, witWfyslight sigh, which went to her hK/band’s very heart “The ‘lady,’ Indeed!” said hi, bitterly. “Oh, my mother does not mow her. She does not belong to our fit at all. Sier calling upon my wife isquite unnecessary, rather a liberty.’/ “Had you many friends.here? Is it I W’ho have lost you them?” asked Silence, mournfuly, and tften looked sorry she had said it. “Mj husband, I did not mean to regret; ?nd it is too late to suffer you to regret We can not alter anything now.” “We would not if we could,” cried Roderick, passionately. “We know, if no other human creature does, how happy we are, how entirely we belong to one another.” “Thank God!” ■ “I know now, I have found that blessing which my fatheri said was the greatest any man could get, a sweet-temper-ed wife,” cried Roderick, fondly, as they stood together at the window, watching the down. “Mamma was iright And papa rovwd lyy„ J we» W not exactly as you love me, because lie had loved some one else in his youth; she told me that herself, one day. Still, he entirely respected and trusted her; they were very happy In their way. But, oh!” She suddenly turned to her husbffnd with such a look in hereyes—a look that none but he had ever seen or would ever see. “My first love, my last love! God Is good to have let me marry you.” “I am very cross to-day, Silence, and I know it”

“Yes, so do I,” she said and smiled. “But, if you know it, it is half conquered. Go and take a good walk, and walk it off, as in the days when you were in love, you know.” “As If those days nad ended, or ever would end!” answered Roderick, parting her hair and looking passionately down into her eyes. “My good angel! But don’t you see how much of the devil I have in me still? How do you mean to make me good?” “I mean us to make one another good, she answered. “My mother used to say”—it was strange and touching this way she had now of speaking of her mother, as if not dead, but only absent somewhere, and still mixed up with all their daily life—“my mother said, it is better to use one’s feet or hands than one’s tongue when one la vexed about anything. Therefore, go.” Roderick went, and his wife stood watching him down the rainy street with eyes he saw not, and a heart that in its deepest depths was, even to him, not wholly known—or shown. think, though you had never been mine,” she murmured, “so long as you w/re yourself, I would have loved you ji/st the same. But, since you are mine -4oh, my love; my love!” / Roderick came back in quite a cheernil mood. “My walk has done me go d, ; bite of the rain. And I have actually I found a friend—Tom Grierson, lately Hnarrled too. He and his wife are going Ito the coast the day after to-morrow, / but they insist upon ‘making up a par- / ty’ (that is the phrase, love) for us to- / morrow. She will call first, and invite j you with due ceremony. And you shall wear your wedding dress, and the diamonds Cousin Silence left to my future wife. Little she thought it would be another Silence Jardine! You will look so charming, and I shall be so proud. We must go.” “Must we?” With the quick Intuition, the instinctive thought-reading, learned by those who deeply love, and only those, Roderick detected at once the slight hesitation. “Is it this?” he said, with a glance at her black dress. “Do you very much dislike going?” I “I dislike nothing if you like it, and It seems pleasant and good to you.” “Thank you, my darling. Yes, this will be pleasant, I think, and good also. The Griersons are among what my family”—he rarely named his mother now—“call ‘the best people in the glace.’ Excellent people, too; ■intelli-

gent cultivated. I like them, and so will you; old Mrs. Grierson especially.” “Do they know anything? About me. I mean.” “I cannot tell; I did not ask. You see. I could not ask,” added Roderick, clouding over. But immediately he drew his wife close and kissed her fondly. “It does not matter either way. Never mind, love. We will go—and for the rest take our chance. We have done the deid, we are married. No human being can ever part us more.” Still, with a curious foreboding of what might come, after the note of invitation and apology which, to Silence’s evident relief, arrived next day, instead of Mrs. Grierson herself, Roderick helped his wife to choose her “braws” for this first appearance in the world—such a different world from the Innocent monde of Neuchatel! then he left her to her toilet, and sat reading, or trying to read, till she appeared. Not exactly the angelic vision of her marriage morning; “a spirit, yet a woman too.” Very womanly, if not very fashionable, for the white dress was high round her throat, and the round soft arms gleamed under a semitransparent cloud instead of being obtrusively bare. She belonged to that class of beauties who, owing all their charm to expression, only look well when they are happy. A. disappointed life might have made her quite an ordinary girl all Jier days; but now, wnen leaning on her young husband’s arm, she entered the Griersons’ drawing-room, there vas such a light In her eyes, such a tender glow in her cheeks, and about her whole bearing that quiet dignity, ease and grace which, to natures like hers, only come with the consciousness of being loved, that very few, regarding her, would have hesitated to exclaim, “What a sweet-looking woman!” Roderick saw the Impression she made, saw indeed, for the first few delightful minutes, nothing else; until ’turning suddenly he perceived sitting close by, splendidly dressed and surrounded by quite a little court, his sister Bella, Mrs. Alexander Thomson. With a bow to his sister, a mere formal bow, as to any other lady, he drew his wife’s arm through his, and they passed on to the other end of the room. It was a regular Richerden dinner, such as both had been familiar with from their youth upward, but Roderick felt like a ghost revisiting the wellknown scenes. A not unhappy ghost certainly, in spite of Bella sitting there. Through all the dazzle of lights and clatter of voices (how loud everybody talked, and how sharp and shrill the Richerden accent sounded!) his eager ear listened for the occasional lowtoned words spoken with a slight foreign Intonation, and his eye rested tenderly on the fair, calm face of his wife. She was evidently neither shy nor strange, but perfectly dignified and self-possessed. He wondered if Bella saw her. “My husband seems charmed with your wife; I shall be quite jealous directly,” said his hostess. “Where did you fina her? She looks different from our Richerden girls. Is she Scotch?” “Of a Scotch family, but Swiss born. We were married in Switzerland. Her father was my father’s second cousin, and her name was Silence Jardine. You must have heard of it before, Mrs. Grierson ?” And Roderick turned to a gentlelooking old lady on his other hand, aunt to the young people, whom he had told Silence she would be sure to like.

“I remember your father’s cousin, Miss Jardine. And your wife is her namesake? What a curious coincidence! But, I understood However, one never hears quite the truth about love affairs; so, no matter,” added the old lady, stopping herself. “All’s well that ends well. Happy's the wooing that’s not long a-doing.” “Ours was fully six months a-doing,” said Roderick, smiling. “We waited as long as possible; on account of her mother’s death, and for other reasons; and then we married. A right and wise and prudent marriage, as I think a true love marriage always is,” he added, pointedly, for he felt his sister was listening to' every word he said. And he knew that old Mrs. Grierson was one to whom everybody told everything, though even scandal, passing through the alembic of her sweet .nature, came out harmless; she was noted for never having been heard to say an ill word of anybody. “You are right,” she answered; and her eyes, placid with long and patiently borne sorrow—she was a childless widow—rested kindly on the young bride. “By her face I should say that Mrs. Jardine was one of those rare women who are in the world but not of it”

“How well you read her. I thought you would,” ? cried Roderick, warmly. “If ever there was a saintly creature born But I am her husband, and ought not to speak.” “Who is to speak for us if not our husbands, I should like to know?” said young Mrs. Grierson. “And when there are actually three brides present By the bye, Mrs. Thomson, I did not know till a few minutes ago that it was your own sister-in-law I was inviting you to meet; but I shall learn the ins and outs of Richerden people in time. You and your brother must have married within a few weeks of one another.” “No, some months,” said Roderick, with his eyes firmly fixed on his plate. Bella, with some word or two, turned back again to her next neighbor, with whom she had been gayly conversing all dinner-time. So the difficulty passed, seemingly unnoticed by everybody. When the ladies rose, and he was forced to let Silence pass him without a warning or explanatory word, catching only the bright smile which showed she was at ease and happy, because underneath this outside show was the sweet inner reality that they two were everything to one another, Roderick vexed himself with conjectures as to what was happening in the drawingroom, and blamed himself for what now seemed the moral cowardice of

letting his young wife drop ignorantly tato the very midst of her foes. So absorbed was he with these thoughts that he quite started when a slap on the back roused him to the consciousness of his new brother-in-law, Mr. Alexander Thomson. “Didn’t see you till this minute. Very odd—my wife never told me we should meet you here. And was that your wife?—the uncommon nice girl that sat beside Grierson? Phew!” with a slight whistle; then confidentially, “the women are all fools, we know. Old lady cuts up rough still? Never mind; what’s the odds, so long as you’re happy? Glad to meet you again, my boy. When are you coming to see us?” Had it been possible to frame a speech more calculated than another to set every nerve tingling in Roderick’s frame, or touch to the quick his pride, his sensitiveness, his strong family feeling, these words of Mr. Thomson would have accomplished it He had forcibly to say to himself that they were well meant, and to shut his eyes in an agony of brotherly pity to the rapidly reddening face, thickening speech, and always coarse manners of the person—you could not say gentleman—whom Bella had chosen to marry before he could bring himself to reply. Even then it was as briefly as possible. “Thank you. We have only just arrived at Richerden, and are going to Blackball as soon as possible.” “But we shall see you before we go. Bella will be delighted, and if she isn’t I shall; and I hope I’m master in my own house. Depend upon it,” dropping his hand heavily upon the table, and looking round with a triumphant gleam in his fishy eyes, “the one thing a husband should try for from the very first is to be master in his own house.” “If he can be he will be without need to say a word about it; and if he can’t be, why, it’s no good trying.” The laugh went round at this naive reply of young Grierson’s,but Roderick never said a word. And when the gentlemen fell into gentlemen’s talk, politics and so on, though he liked it, having been long enough absent from England to feel an interest in all that was going on there, his mind continually wandered not only to his wife, whose happiness he knew he made, and felt it was in his power to make, but to the sister who had thrown away her own happiness, and over whose lot, be it good or ill, he had no longer the smallest influence.

To get quietly away, that was the young husband’s first thought, especially as, though she looked and smiled so sweetly, he detected a shade of weariness in the dear face he knew so well. If he could only carry her safely off before the admiring circle round Bella broke up, and before Mr. Alexander Thomson appeared in the draw-ing-room—as he was sure to do in a condition euphuistically termed “merry.” But Mrs. Grierson had first to be spoken to a little, and she sat close beside his sister, who, in passing, he felt catch his hand. “Rody!” ■ Was there ever a man, old or young, who hearing himself called by a familiar voice, the pet name of his childhood, could stonily turn away? Poor Roderick, anything but stony-hearted, certainly could not “What do you want with me?” he whispered, pretending to turn over a large volume of photographs which his sister held. “She—l came here on purpose to look at her—she is much nicer than I expected.” “Thank you. Is that all? Then I will pass on. I was going to say good-night to Mrs. Grierson.” The tone, studiously polite, was exactly what he would have used to any strange lady. It seemed to cut his sister to the heart. “Roderick, what can I do? I dare not vex mamma. She holds all my pinmoney; and he is—oh, so stingy! so If I had but known!” “You did know; I told you myself,” said Roderick, sternly. “But it Is useless talking. As one makes one’s bed one must lie on it” “I know that. And you?” “There is no need to speak—we had better not speak—either of me or mine.” At this instant the gentlemen were heard coming up; and one of them, approaching, tapped her on the shoulder, with a jovial, “Well, my dear!” A shiver of repugnance—almost of fear—passed over poor Bella from head to foot Well might the sapient Mr. Alexander Thomson observe that “women are fools;” but the greatest of all fools is the woman that marries a fool for his money. “Jardine! here still? Do introduce us —my wife and me—to our charming sister-in-law. Or, rather introduce her to us, if Bella thinks it more proper.” “Yes, yes, bring her here. I beg you will, and quickly. Don’t you see everybody is looking at us?” said Bella, hurriedly. “Let them look; it is nothing to me,” said Roderick, and was walking away, when he felt a little hand slipped under his arm. “I came not to hurry you, dear, but to tell you that Mrs. Grierson offers to take us home in her carriage. She is so kind. I like her so much.” “I knew you would, my darling!” Bella heard the words, saw the look and the look which answered it. A sudden spasm, almost like despair, passed across her face—the despair which a woman, any woman, cannot but feel on catching a glimpse of the heaven she has lost or thrown away. But she righted herself speedily; and having much of her mother’s cleverness, slipped out of the difficult position by coming and taking Silence’s two hands with an air of frank pleasure. “You would not carry off my brother this very minute, when I am so delighted to see both him and you? I am Bella. Of course you have heard of Bella? Nay; you must let me kiss you, my dear.” The tone, if a little patronizing, was kind; and though the soft cheek turned scarlet, it did not shrink from the kiss. Silence stood, neither shy, nor afraid, nor ashamed, to receive the greeting of her husband’s sister. But when Bella’s husband came forward, with rough exuberance, to take his share in the salute, she drew back. “It is not our custom in Switzerland,” she said in French to her husband; and, as she extended the tips of her fingers, 'it would have taken a bolder man than even Mr. Alexander Thomson to offer a kiss to young Mrs. Jardine.

All this little scene passed within half a minute, attracting no attention except from the Griersons, who stood by. “We are detaining you, and making our family relations needlessly public,” said Roderick; “but the fact is, my wife and sister had never met before. They will meet again shortly, I hope.” “I hope so, too,” responded Mrs. Grierson, in a tone which showed that the gentle old lady was fully cognizant of the Jardine history, as no doubt, in some form or other, was everyone present, or would be, within ten minutes. Indeed, as Roderick took his wife from the room, he felt that, like the celebrated wit in the anecdote, they “left their character behind them.” What matter? What did anything matter, so long as he held fast that tender hand, which, in the friendly dusk of the carriage, he had taken, for he felt it trembling much. But neither they nor Mrs. Grierson made any save the most ordinary remarks, on the way “home,” which yet was so sweet. . Arriving there, Silence threw her arms round hes husband’s neck. “I am so glad, so glad!” “Glad of what?” “Of—everything, I think. But most of all to get home.” “What a little home-bird you will grow to. Exactly suited for a poor man’s wife. Suppose now I had .married 2 fashionable young lady, who wanted to have, every day, a dinnerparty, like the one we have left! But you did enjoy it’”

“Oh, yes. Only And that was your sister? Did you know she was to be there?” Silence spoke with hesitation, even with a slight constraint “I did not know, or I should not have gone,” said Roderick, decidedly. "But perhaps it is well. Poor Bella! Did you notice her husband?” “Yes. Was she—was she always like that and not like you?” asked Silence, after a long pause. “We were never very much alike, but ” “But you are brother and sister. I am very glad you met And, if they wish it, you will go?” “With you—not otherwise. But no need to talk about that. Let us talk about the dinner—a regular grand Richerden dinner, and some of the best Richerden folk at it—the little leaven which leavens the whole lump. I like the Griersons. And you?” “Yes; they are your friends, and this is your country; I wish to love it, and them. But lam afraid you will never make a grand lady out of me, likelike your sister.” Heaven forbid! Roderick was on the point of saying, but he did not In his tender heart there was a pitiful sense of apologizing to his own people. He knew all their faults; but they had belonged to him all his days. Kissing his wife, he said with a smile, “Sisters are sisters, and wives, wives; I am quite satisfied with mine.”

“It never rains but it pours,” said he, two days after, throwing over to Silence a heap of letters which had succeeded a whole pack of cards, left luckily during a day’s absence, when he had been showing her some Scotch mountains, and apologizing for their not being Alps. “Here are invitations enough. The way of the world! Once met at the Griersons’, all Richerden is satisfied and delighted to visit us. Even my sister; did you notice these?” The cards of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Thomson and a formal dinner invitation sufficiently proved Bella’s sisterly feelings. “We shall go?” Silence was still feeble in those auxiliary verbs, which to a native can take such delicate shades of meaning. Her husband could hardly tell whether or not she wished to go. But he knew she ought to go, even if at some slight sacrifice to both; therefore he merely assented without opening any discussion pro or con. She tacitly accepted his “Yes,” and he went on explaining or criticizing the other invitations. “After all, the world is exceedingly like a flock of sheep. Let one jump the ditch, the others are sure to follow. And this was a very wide ditch to jump, truly,” added he, looking round the room. “We ought certainly to take a house, if only for the sake of our friends. What agony it must have cost some of them to stop their carriage in front of a flat!” Silence laughed merrily. “And yet we are happy in It! It is ugly. I know that; but I think I have never been so happy in all my life; and as for all this visiting, is it quite necessary?” He hesitated a little; then said gently, “Yes, my wife, if you do not dislike it very much, I think it is quite necessary." “That is enough; we will go.” “Out of mere obedience, my darling?” “No,” she said, answering his smile with a sweet gravity, “I do not think it is in me blindly to obey any one, not even you. But I honor you so much in all things I can understand that in things I do not quite understand I trust you. That is the only true and safe obedience.” So they went to dinner after dinner. At Richerden the only Idea of “society” consists in dining. One invitation followed another rapidly, for it was near the end of the season, and most families were beginning to think of the periodical “going to the coast” Yet Roderick liked it; she too, after a fashion. “It makes one feel,” she said once when they had come back, “in the sma’ hours,” to their quiet flat, “like sitting safe in a sheltered hut, with the rain pelting outside.” Roderick laughed. “This place rather resembles a hut, certainly; but would Richerden be flattered by your likening its splendid hospitalities to ‘an even downpour?’ ” Silence colored. “I don’t mean that. You know what I mean. Visiting is pleasant. I am glad to feel you are not ashamed of me, and oh, I am so proud of you! But still, that Is only our outside life. The real life is this.” She crept close to him. She felt the beating of the strong, true heart that she knew was wholly her own. Then lifting up her face, all wet with peaceful tears, she looked earnestly at her husband. “I am sorry, I never can tell how sorry, for the women who are not happy.” There is a proverb— Roderick sometimes thought of it nowadays and felt that he could almost understand it—- “ Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a house full of sacrifices with strife.” Their “dinner of herbs” was growing nearer than they thought. Roderick one day came in from a call on Mr. Maclagan whose hospitalities they had also shared, and Silence, with her sweet nature and wide power of sympathy, had persisted that even Mrs. Maclagan was, when you came to know her, not so black as she was painted. Mr. Maclagan, Roderick allowed, was always liked and likeable—till now. She saw Immediately that something had gone seriously wrong. “What is it? Your mother?” “No, dear; not my mother this time. She is well and happy in England. I may safely forget her, as she does me. It is only—oh, Silence! did you ever know what it was to owe a lot of money and not have a half-penny to pay it with? At least, I don't mean we are at our last half-penny, but we—that is, I—have been spending a good deal more than I ought, and Maclagan has just told me so, and—but this is childish—you must not heed it, darling,” said he. trying to hide his extreme perturbation. He leaned his head on nis hands in deep depression. Silence came and

knelt beside hhn. She was very young! very childish, or childlike, In many things, and hitherto her husband had treated her like a child; an idol, certainly. but still a child. Now their positions seemed reversed. He looked up at her for a moment, then laid his head on her shoulder with a sigh of relief. “Oh, It would lie such a comfort to tell you everything.” “Do so, then.” The “everything” was not very serious, but It seemed so to him, who had never in his life known what it was to want anything he wished for. “I am an idiot, I know I am, to feel so keenly the lack of a few pounds; but I never was used to this sort of thing. Maclagan asked me to show him my ‘accounts.’ Why, I never kept accounts In all my days! My mother allowed me so much a year, or half year. I spent It, and when It was dona I came to her for more. Not that I was extravagant; she knew that—but, oh, Silence! money seems to slip through my fingers In the most marvelous way. As Maclagan told me, and I could not deny it, I no more know how to make the best of a small Income than If I were a baby. Do you?" He looked up in such a piteously helpless fashion that she could have smiled, had she not felt so infinitely tender over him. But it was the tenderness which' is born of utmost reverence. Without any urging she answered simply, “Suppose I try;” and began looking over the mass of papers before him, and which he himself regarded with an expression almost of despair. Poor fellow! b-e had got into what wopien call “a regular muddle;” like many another man who, neglectlngordesplslng thesmall economies which result in large comforts, and regardless of the proportion of things and the proper balance of expenditure, drifts away Into endless worries, anxieties, sometimes Into absolute ruin, and all for want of the clear head, the firm, careful hand, and, above all, the infinite power of taking trouble, which is essentially feminine. Roderick watched his wife slowly untying the Gordian knot, which he, man-like, would have liked to dash his sword through. “What patience you have!” he said. “Do throw it all aside. You must be very tired.” “Oh, no; it Is my business; I ought to have undertaken it before. My mother used to say It was the man’s part to earn the money, the woman’s to use it I can, a little. Mamma let me keep house ever since I was 17. I managed all her affairs. Perhaps, if you would let me try ” “To manage mine, and me?” “No!” a little indignantly. “I am afraid I should despise the man I ‘managed.’ But I would like to take my fair half of the work of life. Yours is outside, mine Inside. Will that do? Is It a bargain?” . “My love, yes.” “Now”—with a pretty imperiousness —“you must give me all the money you have, and all the bills you owe, and tell me exactly how much you have a year. Then, take a book and read. No” —pasing her hand over his forehead, which was burning hot—“go and lie down for an hour. When you wake up you shall find ail right.” |TO BB CONTINUED.!