CHAPTER XIV.
It is the interval between our first repinings and our final
resignation, in which, both with individuals and communities, is to
be found all that makes a history worth telling. Ere yet we yearn
for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When
wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on
the deathbed.
Sophy (leaning on her grandfather's arm as they ascend the stair of the
Saracen's Head).--"But I am so tired, Grandy: I'd rather go to bed at
once, please!"
GENTLEMAN WAIFE.--"Surely you could take something to eat first--
something nice,--Miss Chapman?"--(Whispering close), "We can live in
clover now,--a phrase which means" (aloud to the landlady, who crossed
the landing-place above) "grilled chicken and mushrooms for supper,
ma'am! Why don't you smile, Sopby? Oh, darling, you are ill!"
"No, no, Grandy, dear; only tired: let me go to bed. I shall be better
to-morrow; I shall indeed!"
Waife looked fondly into her face, but his spirits were too much
exhilarated to allow him to notice the unusual flush upon her cheek,
except with admiration of the increased beauty which the heightened
colour gave to her soft features.
"Well," said he, "you are a pretty child!--a very pretty child, and you
act wonderfully. You would make a fortune on the stage; but--"
SOPHY (eagerly).--"But--no, no, never!--not the stage!"
WAIFE.--"I don't wish you to go on the stage, as you know. A private
exhibition--like the one to-night, for instance--has" (thrusting his
hand into his pocket) "much to recommend it."
SOPHY (with a sigh).--"Thank Heaven! that is over now; and you'll not be
in want of money for a long, long time! Dear Sir Isaac!"
She began caressing Sir Isaac, who received her attentions with solemn
pleasure. They were now in Sophy's room; and Waife, after again pressing
the child in vain to take some refreshment, bestowed on her his kiss and
blessing, and whistled "/Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre/" to Sir Isaac,
who, considering that melody an invitation to supper, licked his lips,
and stalked forth, rejoicing, but decorous.
Left alone, the child breathed long and hard, pressing her hands to her
bosom, and sank wearily on the foot of the bed. There were no shutters
to the window, and the moonlight came in gently, stealing across that
part of the wall and floor which the ray of the candle left in shade.
The girl raised her eyes slowly towards the window,--towards the glimpse
of the blue sky, and the slanting lustre of the moon. There is a certain
epoch in our childhood, when what is called the romance of sentiment
first makes itself vaguely felt. And ever with the dawn of that
sentiment the moon and the stars take a strange and haunting fascination.
Few persons in middle life-even though they be genuine poets--feel the
peculiar spell in the severe stillness and mournful splendour of starry
skies which impresses most of us, even though no poets at all, in that
mystic age when Childhood nearly touches upon Youth, and turns an unquiet
heart to those marvellous riddles within us and without, which we cease
to conjecture when experience has taught us that they have no solution
upon this side the grave. Lured by the light, the child rose softly,
approached the window, and, resting her upturned face upon both hands,
gazed long into the heavens, communing evidently with herself, for her
lips moved and murmured indistinctly. Slowly she retired from the
casement, and again seated herself at the foot of the bed, disconsolate.
And then her thoughts ran somewhat thus, though she might not have shaped
them exactly in the same words: "No, I cannot understand it. Why was I
contented and happy before I knew him? Why did I see no harm, no shame
in this way of life--not even on that stage with those people--until he
said, 'It was what he wished I had never stooped to'? And Grandfather
says our paths are so different they cannot cross each other again.
There is a path of life, then, which I can never enter; there is a path
on which I must always, always walk, always, always, always that path,--
no escape! Never to come into that other one where there is no disguise,
no hiding, no false names,--never, never!" she started impatiently, and
with a wild look,--"It is killing me!"
Then, terrified by her own impetuosity, she threw herself on the bed,
weeping low. Her heart had now gone back to her grandfather; it was
smiting her for ingratitude to him. Could there be shame or wrong in
what he asked,--what he did? And was she to murmur if she aided him to
exist? What was the opinion of a stranger boy compared to the approving
sheltering love of her sole guardian and tried fostering friend? And
could people choose their own callings and modes of life? If one road
went this way, another that, and they on the one road were borne farther
and farther away from those on the other--as that idea came, consolation
stopped, and in her noiseless weeping there was a bitterness as of
despair. But the tears ended by relieving the grief that caused them.
Wearied out of conjecture and complaint, her mind relapsed into the old
native, childish submission. With a fervour in which there was self-
reproach she repeated her meek, nightly prayer, that God would bless her
dear grandfather, and suffer her to be his comfort and support. Then
mechanically she undressed, extinguished the candle, and crept into bed.
The moonlight became bolder and bolder; it advanced tip the floors, along
the walls; now it floods her very pillow, and seems to her eyes to take a
holy loving kindness, holier and more loving as the lids droop beneath
it. A vague remembrance of some tale of "guardian spirits," with which
Waife had once charmed her wonder, stirred through her lulling thoughts,
linking itself with the presence of that encircling moonlight. There!
see the eyelids are closed, no tear upon their fringe. See the dimples
steal out as the sweet lips are parted. She sleeps, she dreams already!
Where and what is the rude world of waking now? Are there not guardian
spirits? Deride the question if thou wilt, stern man, the reasoning and
self-reliant; but thou, O fair mother, who hast marked the strange
happiness on the face of a child that has wept itself to sleep, what
sayest thou to the soft tradition, which surely had its origin in the
heart of the earliest mother?
