Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1895 — Silence [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Silence

By miss mulock

CHAPTER XlV—Continued. Never, never will little Henry’s father forget that day—a lovely April day, half etorm, half sunshine, toward evening wholly sunshine. And that mad bird, that loud-voiced mavis, singing incessantly in the sycamore tree —he covered his ears to deaden the sound. All the sound he cared to hear —and his very soul seemed concentrated in listening—was the moving of feet in that room up stairs, where the terrible battle for life was going on, and during which he seemed himself to be dying a hundred deaths. He did nothing, absolutely nothing, hour after hour; what was there for him to do? Once, catching sight of the pile of letters —those happy letters, which nobody had thought of posting—he rose mechanically, in order to put them away somewhere, and in looking about found liis wife’s work-basket, just as she had left it, the needle still sticking into the unfinished frill. Would it ever be finished? With a gasp and a wild stare round, as if to call to her—to appeal to her —she, who had never before forsaken him thus, been missing when he wanted her, or silent when he called —he seized and kissed it. Then he put everything in its place again, including her garden shawl, which he folded up with his helpless hands as tenderly as if it had been a living thing, and sat down again in the same chair, with his head dropped on his hands. Presently he had to arouse himself, and speak a few common-place words to Sir John, who came to fetch Lady Symington home to dinner; people must dine, and the dear old lady looked exhausted. She went up to Roderick and kissed him—bade him hope still—while there was life there was hope; but nevertheless urged upon him that last solemn prayer, which often seems to bring back the very blessing it resigns—“ Thy will be done.” “I can’t say it—l can’t!” he answered—the young man to whom anguish—such anguish as this —was utterly unknown. But after she had left, promising to come again before midnight, he fell down on his knees, and in an agony such as he had not believed any man could pass through and live, he said it. After that he seemed to grow quieter, and ready to accept everything. By and by the Doctor came down to him for a minute, with an anxious face hut a cheery voice. “Take heart, my dear fellow. As I said, while there’s life there’s hope. Do not go near her. By and by I’ll fetch you, should there -come a change.” “A change? For the better?” “Yes. Or what they call a lightening before death.” Death and her! The two ideas seemed impossible—irreconcilable. Shuddering, Roderick turned away from the old man, who did not mean to be cruel, who even put his hand kindly on the young fellow’s shoulder and again bade him “keep up,” that all was being done that could be done; that he had seen many a worse case; and so on, and so on. But Roderick heard it all as one in a dream, and directly afterward, hearing the sound of a carriage, and believing it was only Black—who always meant well, but the sight of whom would almost madden him just then, he bolted out of the long window, and went and hid himself in the darkest depths of the glen. When he ventured back into the house the fire had died out —only a solitary candle was left burning on the table. He stole upstairs and listened at his wife’s door. All was quiet. There was not even the sound of the doctor’s quick, resolute voice; he must have gone away. Then all hope died out of Roderick’s heart. Groping his way back to the parlor, he sat down in his old seat, waiting in a sort of stupefaction for the final blow, and repeating to himself over and over again a line which seemed persistently to “beat time to nothing” in his overstrained brain—Othello’s piteous moan. “My wife! What wife? I have no wife!” Perhaps even now he, too, had no wife. All the sweet days were over, her brief happiness was ended, her young life done. And he? Such a loss is a common story. Many a young man had lived though it —living long after it—perhaps won another wife, and had many other children, and been very happy, aparently; but I question if he was ever quite the man he was before, and I think he would hardly be a true man if some little bit of his heart was not forever buried in his dead wife’s grave. The candle burned itself out, and the moonlight, creeping in between the undrawn curtain, was beginning to fill the room with a pale, ghostly light, when Roderick heard the door open, and some one enter very gently and hesitatingly. “Well?” he said, not lifting his head, not doubting it was the summons of doom. No answer; but the intruder came close to him—touched him.

“Who’s that?” he said, almost fiercely; “who’s .that?” “It's me, Rody; it’s your mother.” “Oh, mother, mother!” For one moment her arms were round his neck and his head on her shoulder. Then he thrust her violently away. “I don’t want my mother; I want my wife. What of my wife? Is she alive?” “Yes. And she will live. And I thought I’d be the first to come and tell you. Do you hear, Rody? She’s safe—quite safe. Both doctors say so. Thank God! thank God! Oh, Rody, my son, my son!” Once more she opened to him those fond mother-arms which no man can resist—no man ought to resist—and let him sob his heart out there, patting him, kissing him, treating him almost as if he had been a little child, and sobbing herself the while with undisguised, uncontrollable emotion. “How did you come, mother? Since when have you been here?” “Ever so long, my dear.” “I was never told.” “No; I went straight up to her. It did not matter; she knew nobody. The doctor Is a friend of mine: he let me be with her. He knew I understood. I nearly died myself when you were bom. Oh, Rody, what you must have suffered this day! Let me look at you, my boy—my dearest boy!” It was a sorrowful gaze for both mother and son. Gradually Roderick’s manner hardened, and he loosed himself from her clinging hands. “Never mind me; it is my wife we must think about. I beg your pardon, mother, but I must go and see her —my wife whom you hate, whom you were so cruel to. But I love her. She is more to me than anything or anybody in this world. I don’t know why you come here. I never asked you to come. Btill, I thank you for coming. But there is not the least occasion for yon to stay.”

He rose up. with his cold, proud manner, so like his father's. His mother, half frightened, as if she thought he hardly knew what he was about —perhaps he did not, poor fellow!—stood before him silently wringing her hands. “I repeat there is no need for you to trouble yourself about us in any way. If my wife lives, and you say she will live, she and I are quite sufficient to one another Will you sit down? Can I get you anything? Or shall I order a carriage, that you may go home at once?” “Oh-. Rody, Rody! Me—your mother!” She burst into tears, such tears aa it is terrible to see an old woman shed. And Mrs. Jardine was an old woman now. The struggle between her heart — and it was a good honest heart, after all—and her fierce indomitable will had told upon her severely. Could her son have seen her face he might have traced there the wrinkles of many added years. As it was, he felt that the hand which grasped him shook as with palsy. “Rody, I wish you to say one word." Could a son expect his mother to beg his pardon? Would he not have been an unworthy son to have let her do any such thing? Was it not far better for him, under any circumstances —to have done just what he did? He dropped on his knees beside her, and laid his head in her lap, exactly as when he was her little boy. “Mother, mother, forgive me! Let us forgive one another." “Oh, yes, yes! Come back to me, my son, my only son!” There was no other apology or explanation than this, neither now or at any future time between them. Both avoided it, and so best. It is always safer not to touch a half-healed wound. Besides, we are none of us perfect, God'knows; and some of us see our faults all the plainer when no one points them out, but they are left entirely between ourselves and Him. “And now,” said Roderick, anxlocsly, “tell me about my wife.” “Poor lamb! poor lamb! I have been with her these two hours. She thought it was her own mother, for she spoke a few words in French and called me ‘mamma.’ Tell her, Rody, that ” Mrs. Jardine turned away, and again burst into honest, irrepressible tears. “But still, mother, how did you come? How did you hear?” She could not speak, but she put into his hand a little note, dated two days before, written in pencil, nnd in a hand very feeble, very shaky, but neat and clear. “Dear Mr. Black: If you should hear I am likely to die, will you go at to Richerden and fetch Mrs. Jardine? You know her. No one will comfort my husband like his mother. Yours truly, “SILENCE JARDINE.” “And now,” said Mrs. Jardine, smiling through her tears, the brightest, sweetest smile, Roderick thought, that he had ever seen on her face, “go to your wife, and let me go to my grandson. My son will not now want his mother to comfort him, thank the Lord!”

CONCLUSION. A warm, honest heart and a generous nature will cover a multitude of sins—or let us say errors —especially in a grandmamma. Over that baby’s cradle the hearts of the two women, young Mrs. Jardine and old Mrs. Jardine, soon came to meet in the most Wonderful way; as they met, too, over another thing, or rather person—often an endless “bone of contention” between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law when they happen to be weak, selfish or jealous women, which these were not—the man whom each loved best of all the world. Roderick’s wife and mother, however opposite their characters, had certain points in common, out of which grew an unmistakable sympathy, namely, strength of will and thoroughness of purpose, great sincerity and affectionateness, the power of self-devotion and an entire absence of that petty egotism which is always on the watch to guard its own rights, and has no vision for anybody’s rights except its own. Besides, meeting her son afresh, as it were, with that great gulf of sorrow between, which had sorely changed both him and her, and finding him now a man —a husband and a father —in many ways very different from the “boy” she had been accustomed to think him, Mrs. Jardine had the sense to accept the position and make the best of it For her son’s wife—the “poor lamb,” as she had called her, and whom, as Roderick afterward found out, her good sense, firmness and devoted enre, coming in at the last ebb of hope, had greatly contributed to save from death—Mrs. Jardine took to loving her, as strong natures are prone to love those whom they have saved and who depend upon them, as for many days Silence had to depend upon her practical mother-in-law, in that total, sweet helplessness which was the very best thing to win the old woman’s heart. She was an old woman now—no doubt about it—and years ripen and sweeten many women to an almost incredible degree. Besides, as Silence often whispered to her husband when little things jarred upon him and irritated him, she was his mother, and she loved him, in her own odd way, perhaps, but with a love of which there could be no doubt and no denial. Still, even lote can work no miracles, nor blend together opposing natures, characters and lives into sudden and everlasting harmony; and when, having nursed her “child,” as she called Silence, into comparative health, and given her grandchild his grandfather’s name, Mrs. Jardine proposed to go home, earnestly begging her son to leave Blackhall and come and settle in Richerden, Roderick gently but steadily declined. He did not say no, even to his own wife, but he felt it would be far better that they two should continue to live at Blackhall and his mother and sisters at Richerden.

All, and especially Bella, were quite “well and happy,” Mrs. Jardine said. How much she knew of the events of last Christmas, or the differences between Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Thomson, did not transpire. At all events, she never talked about these troubles; it was not “respectable.” But despite their diverse way of viewing things, there was a straightforwardness and right-heartedness about Roderick’s mother which, when her son saw it through fresh, clear eyes, and especially through his wife’s eyes, sufficed to blind him wholesomely to her faults. No fear of any more “difficulties" to the end of their days. And when, the last Sunday she was with him, he went, a little against his will, but just to please her, to the ugly Presbytc-rian Church six miles off, and, sitting between his wife and his mother, listened to the singing, rather nasal and drawling, but not unsweet, of the'23d Psalm, “My table Thou hast furnished In presence of my foes; My head with oil Thou dost anoint, And my cup overflows,” his heart melted, for he felt his cup did indeed “overflow” His “table,” too, was likely to be “furnished”—better than he had once had any hope of. When his mother spoke of business matters, and insisted on his giving ®P bis work at the mill, and living as a

“■vntletnan,” he had refused point-blank, declaring his determination to carve out his own fortune, and make his own independent way in the world. But when, on the day of baby’s christening, he found that Mrs. Jardine. who never did things by halves, and was as generous in her loves as ungenerous in her dislikes, had settled upon baby’s mother —not father—a sum of several thousand pounds, sufficient to remove all fear of the future from the parents’ hearts, Roderick was deeply moved. “She is a good woman—my mother! My father was right to respect her and love her, as he did to the very last. God bless them! I have need to be proud of both my parents.” “Yes,” said Silence, gently, as she stooped and kissed her son, who lay fast asleep on her lap. But her own life taught her to understand other lives; what were, and what they might have been. And hey life is all before her still, for she is yet comparatively a young woman, though her boys—and she has not one, but several—begin to measure heights with her, and to reckon how soon they will be “up to mother’s shoulder.” “Father” is a standard which none of them hope to arrive at, either physically, mentally, or morally. To be so tall, so clever, or so good as he —none of these lads could ever imagine such a thing. They do not merely love him, they adore him. And they are right, or at least two people, their mother and their grandmother, believe so. Roderick Jardine lives still at Blackhall, keeping up the old family home in comfort, but yet in great simplicity, as is wisest, with his increasing family. Besides, his early experiences have given him a horror of luxury, of that wealth which is mere wealth and nothing more. The Jardines of Blackhall hold themselves to be truly “rich” people, because they always have a little more than they spend; they use their money without abusing it, and therefore enjoy it te the uttermost, and cause others besides themselves to enjoy it, too. But their sons are all brought up to abhor extravagance, waste, or self-indulgence, -aware that each will have to make his own way in the world, as is best for every man, and woman, too, perhaps. Sometimes Roderick says if he had many girls he would bring them up, like the boys, to earn their own living—as their mother once did —so that they might taste the sweetness of independent bread, and never be tempted for aught but love. But he has only one girl, his little“Tacita”—her right name is Silence, but he will not have her called so—one of “papa’s odd ways,” as he grows older.

He may never be, strictly speaking, a “great” man, but everybody recognizes him as a cultivated man of very considerable talent —“known in the gates,” as his wife delightedly sees, every year more and more. But it is more by his pen than his personality, for he seldom goes from Lome, except once a year to Richerden to see his mother and the family. A not too attractive family, but he is very kind to them, even to Mrs. Alexander Thomson and her numerous brood of sickly, illtempered children, whom she brings with her sometimes to get a breath of wholesome life, within and without, in the happy atmosphere of Blackhall. “Young Mrs. Jardine," as she continues to be called, for old Mrs. Jardine may live to be ninety, still looks so young, so fair! her peaceful, contented heart shining through her “heavenly” eyes. The world has never heard of her, never will hear, except through her husband and her sons. She does not “shine in society,” though she is well able to keep up the dignity of the family wherever she goes. But of her own dignity, her own praise, she thinks very little, having, indeed, far too many other and more important things to think about. Aa wife, as mother, as mistress, her burdens are often pretty heavy, but never more than she can bear. And he helps her, as she helps him—the husband of her youth, who will, please God, be the saiths idlest, fondest lover of her old age. That time is still a good way off, and they may yet have much to bear together. They will bear it. because it is borne together. And I think, if any one were to ask Roderick Jardine what has been—in plain English—the backbone of his life, his preservation from evil, his incentive to all good, he would say it was that strong first love and venturous early marriage; because be had sense to see and to take hold of the blessing that heaven dropped in his path—that treasure “above rubies” which most men desire, and so few win, or deserve to win. But Roderick did. He says sometimes that he should like to have carved on his tombstone, as the root of all his happiness, all his success, that line written by one great and good man of another—perhaps the noblest man of this century, “Who loved one woman, and who clave to her.” “But,” he adds, “it was because my wife was Silence Jardine." (The End.)