CHAPTER 2 The Withered Heart!
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It was, perhaps, a full half hour from the time when Mr. and Mrs. Hardy entered the room, that Mrs. Percival found herself beside the latter. They had met in society occasionally, but they were not intimately acquainted; and all their fellowship up to this time had been marked with a degree of formality. The conversation held with Mrs. Clement had created something of a curious interest in Mrs. Hardy's behalf; and now that the latter was near her, Mrs. Percival felt a desire to know her better.
"A little apart as usual," she said, smiling, and with a certain repressed familiarity of manner that took away the appearance of obtrusiveness, "It has always seemed to me, Mrs. Hardy, that you looked down upon the world as we sometimes look upon the crowd from a casement — conscious of its disturbance, yet unaffected by it."
"That is impossible," was the low-spoken answer. "So long as we are in the world, we are mixed up with it, and must feel whatever disturbs its harmony. I am no exception, Mrs. Percival."
"And there is always something to disturb — always some discordant jar along the wires. How sadly is everything out of tune!"
"Do you think so?" Mrs. Hardy lifted her dark, sunken, penetrating eyes to the face of her companion. "I have thought the world full of harmonies."
"You?" There was surprise in Mrs. Percival's voice.
"Why should it not be so? Has not God made it? It is full of beauty to the eyes — and must be full of harmonies for the heart rightly attuned to perceive them. But, ah! how few hearts there are in tune. It is here that the defect lies. If the strings of an instrument are not in accord — the softest touch will jar us painfully. The world, Mrs. Percival, teems with beauty; there are sweet melodies breathing along its valleys, and echoing from every mountain. But, with too many of us, the eyes are veiled, and the ears dull of hearing."
"If we could but lift the veil, and unstop the ears!" said Mrs. Percival.
"Ah! If! if! Between what heights of enjoyment and depths of misery, stands this little word, as an impassable barrier! If! — How many hearts have been broken on this rock! — how many joy-freighted barks wrecked forever!"
"Happy it is for us that there is a beyond," said Mrs. Percival, a beautiful smile lighting up her face suddenly, as we sometimes see the summer lightning leap from the heart of a sunset cloud, covering it with radiance.
Mrs. Hardy sighed, and her eyes drooped to the floor, the long dark lashes resting like a silken fringe above her white transparent cheeks.
"Do you have hope in the beyond?" The voice of Mrs. Hardy trembled slightly, as she uttered these words. She had once again lifted her eyes, in which a singular light was burning.
"What were life here, without this hope! How can you ask the question?"
"Forgive me if my words have been unadvised or distasteful," said Mrs. Hardy. "You know not how earnestly — yes, eagerly — I have looked into and questioned the 'beyond.' But no land has yet become visible to my straining eyes — no answer has been returned to my expectant heart."
"We have the great, soul-cheering promise of life — life everlasting."
Mrs. Hardy shook her head, while a shade of disappointment fell over her countenance.
"What more do we lack?" queried Mrs. Percival.
"Everything!" ejaculated Mrs. Hardy, with an emphasis that startled her auditor. "Everything! Life everlasting? What an awful thought to one into whose every moment of life, are crowded years of anguish!"
"You pain me by your words," said Mrs. Percival, in a voice of pity.
"I meant not to awaken a pang in your bosom."
A feeble smile lighted the wan features of Mrs. Hardy, as she answered —
"I have but supposed a case."
"A very rare one, I am sure. Few such exist; for life, in its worst aspects, has many compensations."
"Have you nothing in regard to this 'beyond' more definite for the heart to rest upon?" inquired Mrs. Hardy, speaking in a calmer voice. "These vague generalities bring no comfort to my heart."
"Can you not trust in the promises of Him whose word is truth? 'In my Father's house,' He says, 'are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.' But I need not repeat the glad assurance of future life and happiness to the righteous, which burn like stars in the firmament, on every page of Holy Scripture."
"I know them by heart," said Mrs. Hardy, in a quiet tone.
"And they have lighted your path many and many a time, when but for them your feet would have stumbled."
"It may be so. I will not gainsay it. But they are only stars, after all; merely penetrating the night. It is the day-dawn for which I am seeking. But not a single gleam yet gilds the mountain-tops. The cry of my soul is — 'Watchman, what of the night?' And I have yet to hear that joyful answer — 'The morning breaks!' But, forgive me, my dear Madam! your words have betrayed me into unusual thoughts. Let my heart flutter back to its own dim chamber, and fold again its drowsy wings."
"I have seen just enough to interest me deeply, and to draw me strongly towards you, Mrs. Hardy. You seem to be walking in darkness — while there is light around you. It may be in my power to open a window upwards, and let the broad, bright sunbeams shower down upon you. Oh! how gladly would I do this. For all suffering sister hearts, I have deep sympathies. Will you, sister in suffering, let me draw near to you in spirit?" Mrs. Hardy reached out her hand with a kind of eager instinct, and grasped that of Mrs. Percival. The movement was quiet and unobtrusive, and gave not a ripple to the surface of things around them.
"Let us seek a place less in the eye of observation," said Mrs. Percival. And the two ladies passed from the crowded rooms into the beautiful garden attached to the mansion in which they were evening-guests.
"The peace of nature!" said Mrs. Percival, glancing up to the illumined firmament, where the stars shone in tranquil beauty. "Nature is all in harmony, and her words to the troubled spirit are, Peace — be still!"
Her companion did not answer, though her eyes looked upwards.
"Have you not often heard this voice deep in your heart?" said Mrs. Percival.
"Not for many years," was replied mournfully. "It is a long time since nature has spoken to me with any intelligible meaning. I have not cared even to question her; for the book wherein her oracles are written, contains no solution of my doubts — no answer to the heart-cry long ago sent forward into the future.
"What is it you ask of the future?" inquired Mrs. Percival.
There was a long silence, and a deeply breathed sigh.
"The heart-relations — the affinities — what of these? What of these?" Mrs. Hardy spoke with a kind of breathless eagerness. Then, in a calmer way, she added, "But this is all a vain struggle — all a vain beating against the barriers of time. Mortal eye has not seen, nor mortal ear heard the secret things of eternity. It were better for some of us, I have many times thought, that we had not been born."
"Life is a great blessing," replied Mrs. Percival, almost solemnly. "It is the highest gift of the good Being who created us for happiness. I thank Him daily for the blessing."
"Once I felt the same thankfulness — " Mrs. Hardy was about to say more, but she checked herself, and remained silent.
"Of the heart-relations, as to which you were inquiring, my friend, we may speak with some confidence," said Mrs. Percival, repressing all excitement of feeling, and uttering her words in a low, earnest tone. "Heart-qualities will make heart-affinities."
Mrs. Hardy did not reply, but bent her head in a listening attitude.
"Love is the life of man; and love of good — the life of Heaven. Of one thing we may all be sure: if we are prepared here for the mansions of blessedness — we shall, in all things, have the desire of our hearts to all eternity! The heart-affinities will all be true affinities. We shall possess what we love — for our desires will all be for the good and the true, and these will be given to us in the fullest measure."
"Oh! can your words be true?" asked Mrs. Hardy. Then as if answering the question to herself, she continued, "Yes, yes — Love is the very life. Trample upon that — and the life perishes. Breathe upon it coldly — and the life is blighted, as a fair plant in the later autumn. Yes, yes — Love is life — at least woman's life! Oh, that will indeed be Heaven, where the loving heart can find a true object. Love! Love! How that word sweeps the spirit backward on golden pinions to the sunny morning of our lives, when the air was full of melody and fragrance, and we dreamed those sweet dreams of the future, never to be realized. But," — and she startled as she spoke, "forgive me, Mrs. Percival! Again I am betrayed into unusual utterances. Ah, your words have reached far, far down, and stirred the waters of feeling in depths that have scarcely known a ground-swell for years. I have sometimes thought that my heart was dead — or at least palsied — its green leaf withered long ago."
"Oh, say not so, my dear madam! The heart can never die, while there is anything to love; for love is its nourishment — and you have much to love."
"I have poured out love like water, but," she added with a changing voice, "I am still betraying myself. There are life-experiences that should be life-secrets. Forget, Mrs. Percival, much that you have heard me say tonight. I could not have spoken so, had you not, strange as it may appear, seemed to me as a sister — yes, with a closer affinity; a sister in spirit, and not in the flesh. Some of your words can never die. As seed in the earth, they are in my mind, and I can already feel them quickening into life. Whether the ground will produce a weakly plant, or a vigorous tree — time only can determine."
"You interest me deeply, Mrs. Hardy. Shall we not be friends?"
"True friendships must be reciprocal. I fear that I have nothing to give, Mrs. Percival. You will not always find me even as I am now."
"Let us be friends," was the simple, earnestly spoken response of Mrs. Percival. Something about Mrs. Hardy had, as she had intimated, awakened in her mind a lively feeling of interest; and it was not from curiosity, but from a higher motive, that she desired to penetrate the mystery that closed around her like a thick veil. She felt that, from some cause, the warm affections of a true and loving heart had been suddenly chilled, and that no sun-rays, ardent enough to melt the frozen fountain, had yet penetrated her bosom.
"Be it so," almost mournfully responded Mrs. Hardy, "I need a friendly bosom on which sometimes to lay my head."
An arm was thrown lovingly around her slender form, and the kiss of a sister laid upon her forehead.
"There are kindred spirits in this world," said Mrs. Hardy, in a voice that trembled. "Oh, if ours are really akin!"
"They are, they are — dear friend and sufferer!" replied Mrs. Percival, with a gush of feeling. In a little while she added, "Oh! no; your heart is not palsied; the green leaf is not withered!"
A voice came at this moment warbling from the drawing-room — a voice of uncommon sweetness. The singer had chosen one of the old songs, loaded with melody, that old associations had rendered dear to the hearts of many listeners in the crowded rooms, and especially dear to Mrs. Hardy. Every word was uttered distinctly, and every sentiment of the song given with unusual feeling.
"Beautiful!" said Mrs. Percival, as the last exquisite strain died on the air. "It is a long time since I heard that song, always a favourite. Never did a piece of music so crowd my thoughts with old memories, as this does now."
Mrs. Hardy made no reply.
"Is it not one of your favourites?"
Mrs. Hardy did not seem to hear the question.
"Jane!" A gentleman had come out into the piazza, and now called in a slightly suppressed tone, looking down the garden as he did so. At the sound of his voice, Mrs. Hardy gave a slight startle.
"Jane!" the call was repeated, as the speaker stepped from the porch, and moved down one of the walks.
"I am here," said Mrs. Hardy; but her voice was cold — Mrs. Percival thought, indifferent.
"I have been looking for you," said Mr. Hardy. "Won't you come into the house?"
"Certainly, if you desire it," replied Mrs. Hardy, without hesitation, yet exhibiting not the slightest interest. "Will you come back to the house, Mrs. Percival?"
"With pleasure." Mrs. Percival walked beside Mrs. Hardy until they entered the porch, when she fell a little behind, and then separated herself from them; while yet she kept near, a deeply interested observer of every act, expression, and word, that passed between Mrs. Hardy and her husband. They drew close to the piano, where the lady who had been singing was still seated. A crowd were around her; some urging her to sing again. She complied, and, after one or two more pieces, left the instrument.
"Now, Jane, you will sing." Mr. Hardy said this loud enough to be heard by all who were standing near.
"Oh, no!" was instantly replied, with a kind of shuddering horror; and Mrs. Hardy moved backward. But her husband, as Mrs. Percival observed, retained a firm hold upon her hand, which was drawn within his arm.
"Now don't say no, Mrs. Hardy." And two or three ladies gathered around her.
"Oh no, no! I have not touched the piano nor sung a note for years."
"No good reason why you should not sing now," said her husband, in a mild, kind, persuasive tone. "Now do, Jane, oblige the company and me. It will give us so much pleasure."
Mrs. Hardy's face grew pallid.
"Impossible, Mr. Hardy! How could you ask me?" she said, lifting her eyes to her husband's face, and gazing steadily at him for a moment or two, with an expression which, by those who saw it, was accounted singular, if not mysterious.
"We should all do our part in ministering to the enjoyment of others, you know," remarked Mr. Hardy, smiling kindly, and speaking in a pleasant voice. "The time was," he added, "when my good wife could stir the hearts of crowded assemblies with a voice which I am sure has not yet lost its power. But I fear" — he spoke in a slightly depressed tone, "that she is not as ready to give pleasure as she was a few years ago. How is it, Jane?"
Mr. Hardy recovered his more buoyant tone in the closing sentence, and looked with eyes of tenderness upon his wife.
"I am sure our friends will excuse me," replied Mrs. Hardy, seeming almost to catch her breath as she spoke. "It is impossible to comply with the request to sing. If in any other way I can contribute to the pleasure of the company, I will gladly do so." So saying, she moved back from the centre of the group, and, disengaging her hand from the arm of her husband, made her way quietly to another part of the room.
Mr. Hardy sighed, as he turned partly around, and followed her with earnest glances.
"It is hardly right to force her into doing what is evidently so repugnant to her feelings," said Mrs. Percival, with covert rebuke in her voice.
"Force her, madam!" replied Mr. Hardy in a tone of surprise, "Heaven knows I desire nothing so much as to see her happy! and it was only in the hope of reviving old feelings by old associations, that I urged her to sing just now. If she had complied, she would have been happier for the effort; and I did hope to have extorted compliance by gentle force. Some of you remember how exquisitely she once performed, and how every lip would be hushed into silence when her voice broke in melody upon the air, filling this room, as I have heard it in times past."
Mr. Hardy appeared to be deeply moved; and, as if to conceal his emotion, turned away and left the little company that were gathered around him.
"I pity that man from my heart," said a lady, speaking to Mrs. Percival.
"Acting!" was the brief response.
"Oh! no. I can't believe that," replied the lady. "You wrong him."
"Perhaps not," said Mrs. Percival. "If Mrs. Hardy has neither sung nor played for years, was it reasonable in her husband to expect her to do so tonight?"
The lady was silent.
"It was quite the reverse, I say," added Mrs. Percival, a little warmly. "And the fact of his proposing anything of the kind, shows him to be an unreasonable man, and gives some clue to the singular state of mind into which his wife has fallen."
The lady shook her head in an incredulous way, and remarked in a light, almost indifferent tone of voice,
"Oh! she is strange" — and then turned from Mrs. Percival, with an air that was by no means pleasant.
"Strange?" Mrs. Percival said to herself. "How indefinite the word, yet how certain to carry prejudice into the hearer's mind! If there is nothing directly evil to allege against a woman, detraction looks wise, and says 'she is strange' — and too surely, the heart is closed to sympathy. All! these 'strange' people are usually great sufferers. The world is not patient with them."
A little while afterwards, she noticed that Mr. Hardy was the center of a group of ladies and gentlemen, to whom he was talking in a very animated way. Mrs. Hardy was not on his arm. She sought for her through the crowded rooms, but not finding her, went out into the garden, where she discovered her standing under an arbor, looking more like an immovable statue than a living woman. As she came up, the light streaming out from the open windows, and falling upon her cheeks, glittered among the crystal tears, and told that she was weeping.
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