 | CHAPTER XXXIV.
SAVED. What can she do? |  |
34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
SAVED.
EDITH'S efforts still to help Zell to better
things were very pathetic, considering how unhappy
and tempted she was herself. She did try,
even when her own heart was breaking, to bring
peace and hope to the poor creature, but she was
taught how vain her efforts were, in her present
mood, by Zell's saying, sharply,
“Physician, heal thyself.”
Though Zell did not understand Edith, she saw
that she was almost as unhappy as herself, and she
had lost hope in everybody and everything. Though
she had not admitted it, Edith's words and kindness
at first had excited her wonder, and, perhaps, a
faint glimmer of hope; but, as she saw her sister's
face cloud with care, and darken with pain and fear,
she said, bitterly,
“Why did she talk with me so? It was all a
delusion. What is God doing for her any more
than for me?”
But, in order to give Zell occupation, and something
to think about beside herself, Edith had induced
her to take charge of the flowers in the
garden.
“They won't grow for me,” Zell had said at first.
“They will wither when I look at them, and white
blossoms will turn black as I bend over them.”
“Nonsense,” said Edith, with irritation, “won't
you do anything to help me?”
“Oh, certainly,” wearily answered Zell. “I will
do the work just as you tell me. If they do die, it
don't matter. We can't eat or sell them.” So Zell
began to take care of the flowers, doing the work in
a stealthy manner, and hiding when anyone came.
The month of May was unusually warm, and
Edith was glad, for it would hasten things forward.
That upon which she now bent almost agonized
effort and thought was the possibility of paying the
interest on the mortgage by the middle of June,
when it was due. All hope concentrated on her
strawberries, as they would be the first crop worth
mentioning that she could depend on from her place.
She gave the plants the most careful attention. Not
a weed was suffered to grow, and between the rows
she placed carefully, with her own hands, leaves she
raked up in the orchard, so that the ground might
be kept moist and the fruit clean. Almost every
hour of the day her eyes sought the strawberry bed,
as the source of her hope. If that failed her, no
bleeding human sacrifice in all the cruel past could
surpass the agony of her fate.
The vines commenced blossoming with great
promise, and at first she almost counted them in
her eager expectation. Then the long rows looked
like little banks of snow, and she exulted over the
blossoms, but she stopped her almost fiercely. She
would get up in the night, and stand gazing at the
lines of white, as she could trace them in the darkness
across the garden. So the days passed on till
the last of May, and the blossoms grew scattering,
but there were multitudes of little green berries,
from the size of a pea to that of her thimble, and
some of them began to have a white look. She
watched them develop so minutely that she could
have almost defined the progress day by day. Once
Zell looked at her wonderingly, and said:
“Edith, you are crazy over that strawberry bed.
I believe you worship it.”
For a time Edith's hopes daily rose higher as the
vines gave finer promise, but during the last week of
May a new and terrible source of danger revealed
itself, a danger that she knew not how to cope
with—drowth.
It had not rained since the middle of May. She
saw that many of her young and tender vegetables
were wilting, but the strawberries, mulched with
leaves, did not appear to mind it at first. But she
knew they would suffer soon, unless there was rain.
Most anxiously she watched the skies. Their
sereneness mocked her when she was so clouded
with care. Wild storms would be better than these
balmy, sunny days.
The first of June came, the second, third, and
fourth, and here and there a berry was turning red,
but the vines were beginning to wilt. The suspense
faith in God began to waver. Every breath almost
was a prayer for rain, but the sunny days passed
like mocking smiles.
“Is there a God?” she queried desperately.
“Can I have been deceived in all my past happy
experience?” She shuddered at the answer that the
tempter suggested, and yet, like a drowning man,
she tried to cling to her faith.
During the long evenings, she and Hannibal
sought to save the bed by carrying water from the
well, but they could do so little, it only seemed to
show them how utterly dependent they were on the
natural rain from heaven; but the skies seemed
laughing at her pain and fear. Moreover, she noticed
that those they watered appeared injured rather
than helped, as is ever the case where it is insufficiently
done, and she saw that she must helplessly
wait.
Arden Lacey had been away for a week, and,
returning in the dusk of the evening, saw her at
work watering, before she had come to this conclusion.
His heart was hungry, even for the sight of
her, and he longed for her to let him stop for a
little chat as of old. So he said, timidly,
“Good evening, Miss Allen, haven't you a word
to welcome me back with?”
“Oh!” cried Edith, not heeding his salutation,
“why don't it rain! I shall lose all my strawberries.”
His voice jarred upon her heart, now too full, and
him. Even the thought of him now, in her morbid
state, began to pierce her like a sword.
“She thinks more of her paltry strawberry bed
than of me,” muttered Arden, and he stalked
angrily homeward. “What is the matter with Miss
Allen?” he asked his mother abruptly. “I don't
understand her.”
“Nor I either,” said Mrs. Lacey with a sigh.
The next morning was very warm, and Edith saw
that the day would be hotter than any that preceded.
A dry wind sprang up and it seemed worse
than the sun. The vines began to wither early
after the coolness of the night, and those she had
watered suffered the most, and seemed to say to
her mockingly,
“You can't do anything.”
“O heaven,” cried Edith, almost in despair,
“there is a black hand pushing me down.”
In an excited, feverish manner she roamed restlessly
around and could settle down to nothing.
She scanned the horizon for a cloud, as the shipwrecked
might for a sail.
“Edie, what is the matter?” said Laura, putting
her arms about her sister.
“It won't rain,” said Edith, bursting into tears.
“My home, my happiness, everything depends on
rain, and look at these skies.”
“But won't He send it?” asked Laura, gently.
“Why don't He, then?” said Edith, almost in
irritation. Then, in a sudden passion of grief, she
Laura, Laura, I feel I am losing my faith in Him.
Why does He treat me so?”
Here Laura's face grew troubled and fearful
also. Her faith in Christ was so blended with her
faith in Edith that she could not separate them in
a moment. “I don't understand it, Edie,” she
faltered. “He seems to have taken care of me, and
has been very kind since that—that night. But I
don't understand your feeling so.”
“Oh, oh, oh!” sobbed Edith, “I don't know
what to think—what to believe; and I fear I shall
hurt your faith,” and she shut herself up in her
room, and looked despairingly out to where the
vines were drooping in the fierce heat.
“If they don't get help to-day, my hopes
will wither like their leaves,” she said, with pallid
lips.
As the sun declined in the west, she went out
and stood beside them, as one might by a dying
friend. Her fresh young face seemed almost growing
aged and wrinkled under the ordeal. She had
prayed that afternoon, as never before in her life,
for help, and now, with a despairing gesture upward,
she said:
“Look at that brazen sky!”
But the noise of the opening gate caused her to
look thither, and there was Arden entering, with a
great barrel on wheels, which was drawn by a
horse. His heart, so weak toward her, had relented
during the day. “I vowed to serve her, and I
permit.”
Edith did not understand at first, and he came
toward her so humbly, as if to ask a great favor,
that it would have been comic, had not his sincerity
made it pathetic.
“Miss Allen,” he said, “I saw you trying to
water your berries; perhaps I can do it better, as I
have here the means of working on a larger scale.”
Edith seized his hand and said, with tears:
“You are like an angel of light; how can I thank
you enough?”
Her manner puzzled him to-night quite as much
as on the previous occasion. “Why does she act
as if her life depended on these few berries?” he
vainly asked himself. “They can't be so poor as
to be in utter want. I wish she would speak frankly
to me.”
In her case, as in thousands of others, it would
have been so much better if she had.
Then Edith said, a little dubiously, “I hurt the
vines when I tried to water them.”
“I know enough about gardening to understand
that,” said Arden, with a smile. “If the ground
is not thoroughly soaked it does hurt them. But
see,” and he poured the water around the vines till
the dry leaves swam in it. “That will last two
days, and then I will water these again. I can go
over half the bed thoroughly one night, and the
other half the next night; and so we will keep
them along till rain comes.”
She looked at him as if he were a messenger
come to release her from a dungeon, and murmured,
in a low, sweet voice:
“Mr. Lacey, you are as kind as a brother to
me.”
A warm flush of pleasure mantled his face and
neck, and he turned away to hide his feelings, but
said:
“Miss Edith, this is nothing to what I would do
for you.”
She had it on her lips to tell him how she was
situated, but he hastened away to fill his barrel at a
neighboring pond. She watched him go to and fro
in his rough, working garb, and he seemed to her
the very flower of chivalry.
Her eyes grew lustrous with admiration, gratitude,
hope, and—yes, love, for before the June twilight
deepened into night it was revealed in the depths
of her heart that she loved Arden Lacey, and that was
the reason that she had kept away from him since
she had made the hateful promise. She had thought
it only friendship, now she knew that it was love,
and that, losing him, that his scorn and anger
would be the bitterest ingredient of all in her self-immolation.
For two long hours he went to and fro unweariedly,
and then startled her by saying in the distance
on his way home, “I will come again to-morrow
evening,” and was gone. He was afraid of himself,
lest in his strong feeling he might break his implied
promise not to even suggest his love, when she
he was beginning to shun her also.
An unspeakable burden of fear was lifted from
her heart, and hope, sweet, warm, and rosy, kept
her eyes waking, but rested her more that sleep. In
the morning she saw that the watering had greatly
revived one half of the bed, and that all through the
hot day they did not wilt, while the unwatered part
looked very sick.
Old Crowl had seen the proceeding in the June
twilight also, and did not like it. “I must put a
spoke in his wheel,” he said. So the next afternoon
he met Arden in the village, and blustered up to
him, saying;
“Look here, young Lacey, what were you doing
at the Allens' last night?”
“None of your business.”
“Yes, it is my business, too, as you may find out
to your cost. I am engaged to marry Miss Edith
Allen, and guess it's my business who's hanging
around there. I warn you to keep away.” Mr.
Crowl had put the case truly, and yet with characteristic
cunning. He was positively engaged to
Edith, though she was only conditionally engaged
to him.
“It's an accursed lie,” thundered Arden, livid
with rage, “and I warn you to leave—you make me
dangerous.”
“Oh, ho; touches you close, does it? I am
sorry for you, but it's true, nevertheless.”
Arden looked as if he would rend him, but, by a
meaning voice said,
“If you have lied to me this afternoon, woe be
unto you,” and he turned on his heel and walked
straight to Edith, where she stood at work among
her grape-vines, breaking off some of the too thickly
budding branches. He was beside her before she
heard him, and the moment she looked into his
white, stern face, she saw that something had
happened.
“Miss Allen,” he said, abruptly, “I heard a report
about you this afternoon. I did not believe it;
I could not; but it came so direct, that I give you
a chance to refute it. Your word will be sufficient
for me. It would be against all the world. Is there
anything between you and Simon Crowl?”
Her confusion was painful, and for a moment she
could not speak, but stood trembling before him.
In his passion, he seized her roughly by the arm
and said, hoarsely, “In a word, yes or no?”
His manner offended her proud spirit, and she
looked him angrily in the face and said, haughtily
“Yes.”
He recoiled from her as if he had been stung.
Her anger died away in a moment, and she leaned
against the grape-trellis for support.
“Do you love him?” he faltered, his bronzed
cheek blanching.
“No,” she gasped.
The blood rushed furiously into his face, and he
took an angry stride towards her. She cowered
her dead. In a voice hoarse with rage, he said,
“This, then, is the end of our friendship. This
is the best that your religion has taught you. If
not your pitiful faith, then has not your woman's
nature told you that neither priest nor book can
marry you to that coarse lump of earth?” and he
turned on his heel and strode away.
His mother was frightened as she saw his face.
“What has happened?” she said, starting up. He
started at her almost stupidly for a moment. Then
he said, in a stony voice,
“The worst that ever can happen to me in this
or any world. If the lightning had burned me to a
cinder, I could not be more utterly bereft of all that
tends to make a good man. Edith Allen has sold
herself to old Crowl. Some priest is going through
a farce they will call a marriage, and all the good
people will say, `How well she had done!' What a
miserable delusion this religious business is! You
had better give it up, mother, as I do, here and
now.”
“Hush, my son,” said Mrs. Lacey, solemnly.
“You have only seen Edith Allen. I have seen
Jesus Christ.”
“There is some mystery about this,” she added,
after a moment's painful thought, “I will go and see
her at once.”
He seized her hand, saying:
“Have I not been a good son to you?”
“Yes, Arden.”
“Then by all I have ever been to you, and as
you wish my love to continue, go not near her
again.”
“But, Arden —”
“Promise me,” he said, sternly.
“Well,” said the poor woman, with a deep sigh,
“not without your permission.”
From that time forth, Arden seemed as if made
of stone.
After he was gone Edith walked with uncertain
steps to the little arbor, and sat down as if stunned.
She lost all idea of time. After it was dark, Hannibal
called her in, and made her take a cup of tea.
She then went mechanically to her room, but not to
sleep. Arden's dreadful words kept repeating
themselves over and over again.
“O God!” she exclaimed, in the darkness,
“whither am I drifting? Must I be driven to this
awful fate in order to provide for those dependent
upon me? Cannot bountiful Nature feed us? Wilt
Thou not, in mercy, send one drop of rain? O
Jesus, where is Thy mercy?”
The next morning the skies were still cloudless,
and she scowled darkly at the sunny dawn. Then,
in sudden alternation of mood, she stretched her
bare, white arms toward the little farm-house, and
sighed, in tones of tremulous pathos:
“Oh, Arden, Arden, I would rather die at your
feet than live in a palace with him.”
She sent down word that she was ill, and that she
would not come down. Laura, Mrs. Allen, and even
sent them away. She saw that there was deep
anxiety on all their faces. Pretty soon Hannibal
came up with a cup of coffee.
“You must drink it, Miss Edie,” he said, “cause
we'se all a leanin' on you.”
Well-meaning words, but tending unconsciously
to confirm her desperate purpose to sacrifice herself
for them.
She lay with her face buried in the pillow all day.
She knew that their money was about gone, that
provisions were scanty in the house, and to her
morbid mind bags of gold were piled up before
her, and Simon Crowl, as an ugly spectre, was beckoning
her towards them.
As she lay in a dull lethargy of pain in the afternoon,
a heavy jar of thunder aroused her. She
sprang up instantly, and ran out bare-headed to the
little rise of ground behind the house, and there, in
the west, was a great black cloud. The darker and
nearer it grew, the more her face brightened. It
was a strange thing to see that fair young girl looking
toward the threatening storm with eager, glad
expectancy, as if it were her lover. The heavy
and continued roll of the thunder, like the approaching
roar of battle, were sweeter to her than
love's whispers. She saw with dilating eyes the
trees on the distant mountain's brow toss and writhe
in the tempest; she heard the fall of rain-drops on
the foliage of the mountain's side as if they were
the feet of an army coming to her rescue. A few
scattering shots, and she put out her hands to catch
them. The fierce gusts caught up her loosened hair
and it streamed away behind her. There was a
blinding flash, and the branches of a tall locust near
came quivering down—she only smiled.
But dismay and trembling fear overwhelmed her
as the shower passed on to the north. She could
see it raining hard a mile away, but the drops ceased
to fall around her. The deep reverberations rolled
away in the distance, and in the west there was a
long line of light. As the twilight deepened, the
whole storm was below the horizon, only sending
up angry flashes as it thundered on to parts unknown.
With clasped hands and despairing eyes,
Edith gazed after it, as the wrecked floating on a
raft might watch a ship sail away, and leave them
to perish on the wide ocean.
She walked slowly down to the little arbor, and
leaned wearily back on the rustic seat. She saw
night come on in breathless peace. Not a leaf
stirred. She saw the moon rise over the eastern
hills, as brightly and serenely as if its rays would not
fall on one sad face.
Hannibal called, but she did not answer. Then
he came out to her, and put the cup of tea to her
lips, and made her drink it. She obeyed mechanically.
“Poor chile, poor chile,” he murmured, “I wish
ole Hannibal could die for you.”
She lifted her face to him with such an expression,
sat still, as if in a dream, and yet she felt that the
crisis had come, and that before she left that place
she must come to some decision. Reason would be
dethroned if she lived much longer in such suspense
and irresolution. And yet she sat still in a dreamy
stupor, the reaction of her strong excitement. It
seemed, in a certain sense, peaceful and painless,
and she did not wish to goad herself out of it.
“It may be like the last sleep before execution,”
she thought, “therefore make the most of it,” and
her thoughts wandered at will.
A late robin came flying home to the arbor where
the nest was, and having twittered out a little vesper-song,
put its head under its wing, near his mate,
which sat brooding in the nest over some little
brown eggs, and the thought stole into her heart,
“Will God take care of them and not me?” and she
watched the peaceful sleep of the family over her
head as if it were an emblem of faith.
Then a sudden breeze swept a spray of roses
against her face, and their delicate perfume was like
the “still small voice” of love, and the thought
passed dreamily across Edith's mind, “Will God do
so much for that little cluster of roses and yet do
nothing for me.”
How near the Father was to his child. In this
calm that followed her long passionate struggle, His
mighty but gentle Spirit could make itself felt, and
it stole into the poor girl's bruised heart with
heavenly suggestion and healing power. The happy
feet were recalled. Her sin was shown to her, not
in anger, but in the loving reproachfulness of the
Saviour's look upon faithless Peter, and a voice
seemed to ask in her soul, “How could you turn
away your trust from Him to anything else? How
could you think it right to do so great a wrong?
How could you so trample upon the womanly nature
that He gave you as to think of marrying
where neither love nor God would sanction?”
Jesus seemed to stand before her, and point up to
the robins, saying, “I feed them. I fed the five thousand.
I feed the world. I can feed you and
yours. Trust Me. Do right. In trying to save
yourself you will destroy yourself.”
With a divine impulse, she threw herself on the
floor of the arbor, and cried,
“Jesus, I cast myself at Thy feet, I throw myself
on thy mercy. When I look the world around,
away from Thee, I see only fear and torment. If
I die, I will perish at thy feet.”
Was it the moonlight only that made the night
luminous? No, for the glory of the Lord shone
around, and the peace that “passeth all understanding”
came flowing into her soul like a shining
river. The ugly phantoms that had haunted her,
vanished. The “black hand that seemed pushing
her down,” became her Father's hand, shielding
and sustaining.
She rose as calm and serene as the summer evening
and went straight to Mrs. Allen's room and said,
“Mother, I will never marry Simon Crowl.”
Her mother began to cry, and say piteously,
“Then we will all be turned into the street.”
“What the future will be I can't tell,” said Edith,
gently, but firmly, “I will work for you, I will beg
for you, I will starve with you, but I will never
marry Simon Crowl, nor any other man that I do
not love.” And pressing a kiss on her mother's
face, she went to her room, and soon was lost in
the first refreshing sleep that she had had for a long
time.
She was wakened toward morning by the sound
of rain, and, starting up, heard its steady, copious
downfall. In a sudden ecstacy of gratitude she
sprang up, opened the blinds and looked out. The
moon had gone down, and through the darkness
the rain was falling heavily; she felt it upon her
forehead, her bare neck and arms, and it seemed to
her Heaven's own baptism into a new and stronger
faith and a happier life.
| CHAPTER XXXIV.
SAVED. What can she do? | |