Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1895 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

By Miss Melely

CHAPTER XlV—Continued. He never spoke of his mother at all now, yet he was neither dull nor melancholy. It is a remarkable fact, which people who desire to punish other people, deservedly or undeservedly, would do well to remember, that the sharpest pain cannot last forever, and that a young couple, thoroughly happy in each other, will remain happy in spite of all their as tfectionate relatives, who think they ought to be miserable. Ay, and in spite of many outside things that might have [been hard in later years; but youth is the (time to fight with fate—youth with its infinite courage, its eternal hope. Working at the mill all day, writing his hook at night, with little society, for the Symingtons had goneintoEdinburgh, with po relaxation except the daily walk “between the lights,” which his wife insisted upon, Roderick had yet, htf declared, never spent a happier throe months. And he looked so well, too, for It is not work that kills, but “worry;” foolish ambitions, unsatisfied cravings, Jarred tempers, stinging remorse or unrepented sin. Not mere sorrow; that can be borne. Both of these had known sorrow—she especially— but there was a holy serenity now, even when one day she spoke of that grave at Neuchatel. ' “Sophie Reynier sent me these violets ?'rom it. She says they are having such a ovely spring. And so are we. Just look, In bud already. And only listen, Roderick, how that mavis is singing?” They were walking up and down the Sheltered kitchen garden—lovely, though it was a kitchen garden, with its walks bordered by flowers, sweet-fashioned perennials, which sprung up year by year, not disdaining the neighborhood of the vegetables, but growing together, each after its kind, in happy union. “Like you and your poor folk,” Roderick once said, 'noticing how everybody loved her and did her honor—maid-servants, milk-girls, all .the people about the place. “They are so (kind. I have such a happy life,” was all (the young mistress answered. And her [fair, pale face bent down over her flowers, and up again to her budding apple blossoms Bnd her tall forest trees, now growing full of nest-building birds. “That mavis, I have watched him this [week past. I am sure he has a young [family somewhere near. And he sings—how he does sing!—in the top of that (sycamore. He began the very day they planted out the hyacinths in my garden funder my window.” This, too, was a labor of love, arranged surreptitiously between Mr. Black land his old gardener—a litl/ e mathematical diagram of beds, with grass lawn between, in which had sprung up, as if by Jmagic, successions of spring flowers, 'snowdrops, crocuses, hepatieas. Now, [April being come, even in the dear Scotch ;ciimate, the sunshine was strengthening t ond the garden brightening every week. “I shall have a beautiful nosegay presently,” she said; “just in time for my wedding-day.” He had almost forgotten it—the villain. •He could hardly believe he had been married a year. And yet it felt sometimes as If they had been married all their lives, ;«o completely had they grown into one another. It was only by an effort that -either could recall their old selves, in the days when they were apart. “That sunset” (they were watching it from a favorite seat she had—a summerhouse, warm and dry, facing the southwest, and looking down the winding glen toward the mifl, which, hidden by trees, only presented a few chimney-tops, and that fairy-like column of white smoke, unobjectionable to even the most aesthetic •eyes)—“that sunset,” she said, “it makes the whole sky ‘colorise,’ as we used to say in Switzerland. Do you remember the Jungfrau and the Wetterhorn that day at Berne? and the Alpes Bernoises from Lausanne? Oh, my land.! it is a heavenly land! I can never forget it. But this is my home." . , v . She had been speaking French for a wonder; they had dropped almost entirely Into English now, even when together, but she said “home”—that one dear word .which we Britons specially have—with an intonation inexpressible but unmistakable. All her heart had settled into her husband’s country. “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Never, though Roderick Jardino may live to see thousands of sunsets, will he forget this one, nor his wife’s face as she looked at it, watching it till the last glow had died away. Then she rose. “Now let us go in, dear.” “Are you tired?” • “I think so.” Leaning heavily on'his arm she went-indoors; but she.sat up sewing till her usual time, and rose as usual when, at a specially early hour—for he happened to have a long and busy day before him—he went off to the mill. He was sitting in his little, dingy office there, quite late in the afternoon, for he had some difficult accounts to make up, which he hated, poor fellow! not having been blessed by nature with a talent for arithmetic; but it was Roderick’s peculiarity that what he did worst he always worked hardest at, and what he particularly hated he always forced himself to do at once. His head swam, and his eyes were dazed, yet he still stuck bravely to those mountains of figures, alp after alp arising before his troubled brains, when he was startled by a little knock, and old Black, who he thought had gone home two hours ago, presented himself with a beaming countenance. “Busy? Ye’re always busy. And so I thought, sir, I’d just come mysel’ and be the first to give ye the good news. Laddie, laddie,” with a slap on the back which contrasted oddly with the respectful “Sir,” “go your ways, man, and thank the Lord for all His mercies. Your wife’s doing well; and ye’ve got a bairn.” “My wife!” Roderick sprung up like a shot. “Oil, ay, she’s fine; and it’s a lad-bairn. She bade Janet come and tell ye. She wadna hae ye sashed about it till all was over. My certie! but she’s a brave woman—a woman in a thousand, is young Mrs. Jardine.” The old fellow crew out his snuff-box, took several pinches, and blew his nose with great violence, deliberately turning feis back upon the young man, as perhaps was best. “Thank God!” Roderick said at last, quietly and gravely. “Have I a son or a daughter? I forgot. I did not quite hear.” “A son, sir. Another Jardine of Blackhall. They tell me—l’ve been up at the house mysel’—that he’s such a grand bairn that his mother is so proud of him.” “His mother—my son; how strange it sounds!” Roderick put his hands over his eyes, (rminly trying to realize that great change

in a young man’s life, when he has actually “given hostages to fortune” and sees himself not merely as himself, but as the father of a race to come, who will carry down his name, laden with curses or blessings, to remote posterity. A certain momentary terror—or less terror than awe—came over him. Then, as if accepting the responsibility which no good man need fear, and which most men in their secret hearts are rather proud of, he jsbook hands with Mr. Black, put his account books aside—luckily they were nearly finished —and prepared to go home at once. It was a wet night, had been pelting rain all day; truly the small Jardine of Blackhall got but a weeping welcome into this “wearifu’ world.” But the young father never noticed it. He was fully and overpoweringly happy. The fear which half unconsciously had hung over him like a cloud for weeks was now all changed into a delicious hope and joy. Bidding a cheery good-night to Mr. Black (“By the by, I had a line from your wife yesterday, but that’s no matter now,” said he, as they parted), Roderick walked rapidly up the brae—the familiar walk, with the light in the parlor window shining ahead all the way. It was dark now, but there was a faint glimmer from the room upstairs, his wife’s room. His heart swelled almost to bursting as he looked at it. “My son, our son. Another Henry Jardine, If my father had only known! And my mother, shall I write to my mother? Perhaps! No!” Choking down the pain that would rise, turning resolutely from the ever-lurking shadow which no sunshine of joy could quite banish, the young man passed through the dark garden to the hall-door. Faithful Janet was there to open it; only she. All was safe now, but it had been an anxious day. The house felt quiet—painfully quiet, its master thought, as he went into the empty parlor. They would not let him speak to his wife, but only look at her as she lay asleep, like a marble image. Her eyes were closed, but a sweet smile flitted about her mouth, and her left hand was extended outside the coverlet, over a small heap, a little helpless something. What a slender, soft hand it seemed, with the wedding-ring shining upon it, and yet how strong it was —strong and tender—essentially a mother’s hand. The young husband’s eyes were dim, but he had self-control enough to obey orders and creep quietly down-stairs, not even asking to see his little son; in truth, just then he hardly thought of him at all ns a human entity, but only of the mother, the precious life imperiled and saved. And he had known nothing—nothing, all this time. With what silent courage had she sent him away at breakfast time, and kept him ignorantly content at his work all that long day; that terrible day! “Just like ber. She never thinks of herself, but of me. My darling—my only darling!” By and by she awoke, and he was allowed to kiss her, without speaking; indeed, she made no attempt to speak, only smiled—her own ineffably peaceful smile. Then he settled himself in the parlor, which looked frightfully empty, all the more so that so many of her things were lying about—her garden shawl aud hat, which she had taken off when she came in the evening before, her work-box, her desk—carefully left open, with a little heap of addressed envelopes placed on the top of it, so as to save him all possible trouble. There were even the foreign stamps ready affixed to the Neuchatel letters. No one at home had been forgotten; neither Mrs. Grierson nor Lady Symington— not even Mrs. Alexander Thomson. At which Roderick again muttered, “Just like her.” But there was no letter—how could there be—addressed to Mrs. Jardine. “Best not,” he said, with a thrill of anger, the sharpest he had ever yet felt; “we bore all our sorrows alone, we will not make her a sharer in our joy. It is nothing to her, and she is nothing to us now.” But even while he said it Roderick’s heart melted. It seemed as if, now he was a father himself, he felt all the more yearning toward his mother—the mother who bore him. Nothing could alter that fact. With a great sigh he sat down to his solitary supper, and prepared for an equally solitary evening. He was slightly occupied, however, by the letters he had to w T rite—in French or English—letters to those whom his wife loved, and who loved her and would sympathize with her to the uttermost, he knew. Faithfully he fulfilled all her wishes, even writing a line to his sister Bella. But this, unlike the others, was brief and cold. As he did it hot indignation, righteous indignation, flamed up in the young man’s heart—he would not have been a true man else—a wrathful sense of all his darling had been made to endure—his innocent darling, whom his mother had never known nor taken any pains to know, and whom his sisters, following her lead, had as completely ignored as if she were no wife at all. But the’storm did not last long.—he was of too gentle a nature; and then he was so happy, so very happy. From his calm height of content that night he felt as if he could afford to look with placable and even compassionate eye on his whole family—on the whole world.

Until near morning he sat writing, and then, finding that all was well in the silent room upstairs, he went to bed, just looking out first upon the dim dawn—only one long yellow streak in the horizon—and if to-morrow happened to be a line day, how pleasant all would be in his wife’s room, where the sun shone almost all day long; how the hyacinths would send up their fragrant breath from the garden below, and the mavis, her ownparticular mavis, would sing his incessant song “from morn till dewy eve” over his busy mate and newly hatched young. All the world seemed full of life and joy and hope. He had to cover his ears ere he could get to sleep, for the birds were already awake and sinking so loud. An hour or two’s rest and Roderick was up again, half di*zy with his unbelievable new joy, and trying hard to talk business with Mr. Black, who had come to Blackhall himself to get the earliest news, and persuade the young father to escape from the ignominious position of total neglect which befalls all fathers under these happy circumstances, and take refuge in “bachelor’s hall.” Directly after there drove up the Symington carriage, with Lady Symington in it, who straightway disappeared upstairs. When she came down her round, rosy face was pale and her manner painfully quiet. She offered no congratulations, but laid her hand on Roderick’s arm. “I have been up seeing your wife. Have you seen her this morning?” “Not yet. They would not let me.” “Quite right. Stop! You must not go to her just now. Instead, take my carriage and fetch Dr. ” Roderick in his turn became ghastly pale, for this doctor was the most noted man in all the country-side, and he lived twelve miles off. “Is there then such vital necessity? Is she in danger? Why did they not tell me? Oh, my God! my God!” “Hush! we must not waste time in t&lk-

tug. It may be nothing, my dear”—the old lady’s soft “my dear" was more terrifying than aught else—“but we never know. The horses are fresh; they will go there and back without stopping. Bring the doctor with you—don’t come without him. I will stay here till you return.” She spoke briefly, almost sharply, with the calm decision that reassures even while it alarms. Without a word Roderick obeyed; allowed Mr. Black, who had listened in silence, to give him his hat and coat, and throw a plaid into the carriage after him. “Will you not go, too, Mr. Black? You had better. He is quite stunned, you see.” , “Yes, my lady; but I know him—he’s a brave lad, he will bear up alone. And I must go elsewhere.” The old man grasped the young man’s hand with a sudden “God bless you!” then Roderick sprung into the carriage and drove away. Oh, that awful drive! sitting like a stone, watching mechanically the trees and moors and hills slip by, his watch in one hand, counting the half hours—no, the very minutes—as they crawled along; in the other hand clutching Lady Symington's note, ready to be given to the doctor as soon as he could be found. And then the drive back, with the “celebrated” man to whom “the case” was only a case, and who talked cleverly and cheerfully and indifferently of that and many other things, till he saw he was scarcely heard, and then, with a natural human sympathy for the white, sdt face beside him, dropped into silence and a book; for years Roderick never saw the title of that book without a shudder. A “ray of hope” he learned there was. Only a ray! and three hours before the whole world had seemed to him to be flooded with sunshine. He asked no questions, made no remarks. Mute and unappealing he sat, half stunned, half blind, like a man who has suddenly received sentence of death —death utterly undeserved and unexpected—death in the very midst of life, so that reason refuses to take it in as a reality, and the mind is conscious of neither terror nor pain, only a dull sense of something happened, or being about to happen, which one can no more escape than one can escape from the falling rock or the advancing breaker, either of which will bring certain and Instantaneous doom. , They' reached Blackhall, and he heard nt the front door the Doctor’s question, “Is she alive?” and Lady Symington’s affirmative answer; then he staggered in, and Janet had to fetch her master a glass of water, and put him into the armchair, quite dizzy and blind. But he soon recovered himself, and went back to listen at the foot of the staircase. “It will be a hard fight—a hand to hand fight—but we’ll beat, I trust,” the Doctor was saying, with a thoroughly professional look on his clever face, and a gleam of his keen eyes often seen in men like him when they brace up all their skill to do battle with the great enemy. Then he and Lady Symington both vanished, and Roderick was left alone. Hour after hour he sat, no one coming near him. Once Janet knocked at the parlor door and asked if she might bring in the baby whose crying disturbed the mother. Roderick assented, but took no notice of his son; indeed, at the moment he almost felt as if he hated him. Kind Janet was the only person who paid the least attention to the young heir of Blackhall. (To be continued.)