CHAPTER 23 The Withered Heart!
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Helen was in error. Her heart was not a sealed book. Edward Linton had unlocked the clasps — had opened it — had written his name on the first page in characters never to be effaced — and it was all in vain that she tried to shut the book again, or turn her eyes away from the writing it contained. But it was her secret alone, and one that she meant to carry with her to the grave.
It would have required a colder temperament than that of Edward Linton to find, in the placid love we bear for sister or friend, anything like a substitute for the lover's ardent passion; or to live in almost daily association with the being dearer to him than all the world beside, and yet feel the doom of an abiding spirit-exile.
No truth was clearer than that Helen was the only woman he could ever love; and he was a man who had too pure an ideal of life, and too high an appreciation of the sacredness of marriage, ever to wed from any worldly or selfish considerations. He could never have said to any other living woman, "I love you" — for that would have been false; he could never have uttered vows of fidelity, when his heart was all another's — even though another's, hopelessly.
For a while, the young man continued to visit Helen, as of old. But the sight of her only inflamed his passion, and made his life wretched. The quiet attentions of the brother and friend were forever losing themselves in the warmer actions of the lover, and were as often repelled by a womanly reserve that was ice to his feelings. A year of such a life, during the course of which he saw no change in Helen except an increase of endearing qualities, warned him, by its effect upon his mind, of the necessity, in mere self-protection — for an external separation. It would not do for him to meet her, except at remote intervals. As to forgetting her, that he neither desired nor sought. Hope was not dead in his heart. No, no! He had faith in the future — though it was so far away in the distance, that the brightness of its coming dawn was not yet visible on any of the cloud-topped mountains.
And so Edward Linton withdrew, and stood afar off with his eyes turned away. Very lonely was his life — lonely and hermit-like. But he was a thinking, earnest man; and, withal, one who, deeply conscious of the depressing force of hereditary tendencies, sought, through Divine power, to rise into a higher life than that which we call natural — a life of spiritual qualities and perceptions. He read, and studied, and thought with an earnest, searching spirit. Happily it was in the right direction. New truth dawned upon his mind — not that of a mere natural, sensual, and blinding philosophy which never lifts itself above the clouds and dimness of this world; but that of true spiritual religion, bright, clear, and heavenly in all its elucidations. As he pondered, light shone into his perceptions, and the mystery of Providence gradually unfolded itself, until forms of order, wisdom, and beauty appeared, where, a little while before, everything seemed hidden or deformed.
Much, however, was yet seen darkly; and particularly dark was the providence which separated him from one who should have been his married partner — one, whose interior life remained in as stern an isolation as his own. This he could not comprehend — this troubled him. He had not yet fully apprehended, though he was not prepared to deny the truth that, to both of them, this painful discipline might only be a preparation for that true internal oneness into which only purified spirits may enter.
As for Helen, the years glided over her head very placidly, so far as the world, or even those who saw her daily, could perceive. Her sisters, under her loving care, had now passed through the years of pleasant girlhood, were grown up to woman's estate, and were all married well, in the ordinary acceptance of that phrase. None of them possessed Helen's acute feelings; none of them had spirits as finely attuned. Their husbands were men of ordinary mould; and both husbands and wives were satisfied with their choice. But the marriages were not such as gave any encouragement to Helen, to venture in their track upon so treacherous a sea.
We have said that, so far as the world could see, the years moved on with Helen very placidly, But the world had no eyes for her interior life. Her heart sacredly kept its own secrets. The page on which Edward Linton had written his name, was yet unmarked by another word, and time had neither blurred the sheet, nor dimmed the impress. Whenever she turned her eyes inward, she saw the inscription; and many a sigh had passed her lips, and many a tear fallen, as she gazed upon it. For him, she often grieved; rarely for herself — for well had she learned her lessons of endurance.
When he ceased visiting her, she felt a kind of relief; but yet she missed his companionship, and there followed a sense of loneliness and desertion that was almost painful. But she subdued this feeling, or at least made an effort to do so, and sought, in the many duties of maiden-sister and maiden-aunt — to find a tranquillity of spirit, which she endeavoured to accept as a compensation for the higher pleasures to which every woman is born. But the voice of nature was never entirely silenced — the yearnings for a truer life were never fully repressed.
Time moved on apace; and there grew up around Helen, in the homes of her sisters, a band of young children, to whom she ministered with a loving care, and in whose eyes she ever appeared as beautiful and good as an angel. At remote intervals, she met Edward Linton in company. He was still unmarried. He never approached her familiarly, on these occasions; but, after their rather cold and formal greeting, she would often, as she looked to the quarter of the room where he happened to be, find his eyes resting upon her in a gaze so sadly earnest that it would haunt her for weeks afterwards. These meetings always disturbed her spirit, and threw questioning doubts into her mind. To herself only, she had been just! Self-protection was one of the first laws of our being! But, had she been just to him? Ah! that was a new view of the case. Was she not willing to make some sacrifice for one who loved her with an undying love? for one, whose whole life was desolate, because deprived of her companionship?
This was her state of mind, when, one day, the husband of a sister with whom she was spending a little time, said, in her presence —
"I saw Mr. Linton off in the steamer today."
"Ah! Is he going to make the tour of Europe?" said the young wife.
"No; he goes to reside in London, as the representative of their house there."
"Permanently?"
"Yes. He told me that he hardly expected to return to this country within ten years."
No more was said. A close observer would have been in considerable doubt as to whether Helen had heard the few sentences which passed between her sister and her brother-in-law.
But she did hear them, and they disturbed her more profoundly than anything she had heard for years. As soon as she could retire, without attracting attention, she did so, and withdrew to the seclusion of her own room. "What does this mean?" Thus she spoke to herself, resolutely laying her hand upon her bosom with a firm pressure, "What is Edward Linton to me, that the knowledge of his removal to another country gives me a quicker heart-beat?" She looked inward with a steady gaze. And what did she see? Only the image of Edward Linton! It must he an illusion. She closed her eyes tightly, and then looked again. The image was more distinct, and the eyes were gazing upon her with all the love and tenderness that filled them, when he took her hand in his, years ago, and told her that she was dearer to him than all the world. How beautiful was the countenance! How full of manly dignity; of high honour; of pure sentiment! She gazed and gazed upon it, and could not turn her eyes away.
From that time, there was a change in Helen, visible to all eyes. The exterior of her life had habitually been very quiet and unobtrusive. But with the spoken word, had always come a pleasant smile, which lit up her face, and gave to it a peculiar sweetness. The first apparent change in her was the gradual fading of this smile; the next, was the frequent recurrence of fits of silence and abstraction, the causes of which, when questioned, she never attempted to explain.
After the lapse of a year, signs of failing health became visible, to the alarm of all her friends. Medical aid was sought; but the physician could discover no organic disease, nor was he able, by means of any remedies he could give, to change the condition of her system from one of ever increasing prostration — to one of healthy vital action.
Steadily the work of decline went on. At the end of the second year, she was little more than the shadow of her former self. Change of scene and climate were now strongly urged by the physician, as the only remaining hope; and after long persuasion, Helen consented to accompany a brother-in-law and one of her sisters on a voyage across the ocean, with the ultimate design of visiting, should strength permit, France, Italy, and Switzerland. On arriving in London, Helen was weaker than when she left America. The physician who was called in, declared that her lungs were seriously affected, and advised an immediate removal to the South of France. To Marseilles the party went, in all haste; and there, in the land of the olive, the fig, and the almond, on the shores of the blue Mediterranean, where the atmosphere was genial and balmy, the wasted invalid for a brief period took up her residence.
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