Sweethearts and Wives CHAPTER 13.
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After dinner Grace retired to her chamber, and resolved to make another effort to answer her husband's letter, but it was in vain that she attempted to write. Because of her pride, she was not prepared to make any confession of errors. She had no disposition to complain, and she could not write with tender confidence, for her husband had addressed her so coldly, that her heart was chilled. At last she laid her pen and paper aside unable to perform the task, and by way of occupation and relief of mind, took up a new work offiction, and endeavored to lose herself in its pages. In this way she passed the remainder of the day and evening, although the vivid pictures that were presented to her imagination, had not the power wholly to dispel the gloom that had settled upon her spirits.
On the next day, as no further word came from her husband, she took up his letter and succeeded in answering it, but in as formal a tone, as that in which his own was conceived. With this off of her mind, she endeavored to wait as patiently as possible for another letter. None came on the following day, and this troubled her a good deal; but on the day after that she fully calculated to receive one in reply to her own. She was disappointed. Twenty-four hours more rolled around, and yet there was not a word from her husband! What could it mean? Had he been offended at the studied coldness of her letter? This thought distressed her beyond measure, and under its influence, she sat down and wrote another to him, couched in far tenderer words than those in which she had before written. This relieved her feelings a good deal. On the next day, which was just a week from the time he had left Westbrook, she received one in reply to her first letter. It was, like the former, brief and cold, and written, seemingly, in much haste. It referred mainly to the suit in which he was engaged, and spoke of it as one which required the most vigorous and undivided efforts of his mind. He said nothing, about his return, and did not hint, even remotely, at her joining him in Boston.
This made her heart-sick. The little that Aunt Mary could say, fell upon her ear utterly powerless. She was sitting alone, in sad abstraction of mind, when her aunt entered her chamber, some two or three hours after she had received her letter, with a newspaper in her hand.
"See here, Grace!" she said, smiling: "I have fallen accidentally upon a pleasant paragraph. It is in a city paper, received by the last mail;" and she read as follows:
"The Goodlow Suit. — The suit between Mr. Goodlow and the Insurance Company is slowly progressing. Yesterday a young attorney from Westbrook, named Milnor, who has been united with the able counsel on the side of Mr. Goodlow, occupied the attention of the court for three hours with one of the most brilliant speeches we remember ever to have heard. But it was not brilliant alone; it was full of sound argument and rational deduction. It produced a powerful effect. Everyone is looking to the result of this trial, with unusual interest. It will probably occupy the attention of the court for a week longer."
"There, Grace, what do you think of that?" Mrs. Ellis said, looking up with a broad smile upon her face. "Are you not proud of your husband?"
"I suppose I ought to be," replied Grace, wiping her eyes, and laughing, in spite of herself, with pride and pleasure.
"You can now understand his long silence, and his brief, cold letters."
"Partly, but not altogether;" and the countenance of Grace became again sad.
"Surely, my child, the new position in which he finds himself placed, and the all-absorbing attention that this suit upon which he is engaged requires — ought to be felt by you as a just reason why he does not write to you differently."
"Though my judgment may approve of what you say, my heart does not," was the reply of Grace. "Nothing ought to prevent his writing to me with affection, if he writes at all."
Mrs. Ellis felt the force of this remark, and therefore did not attempt to reply, lest her words should only confirm the unhappy state of her niece's mind.
"He does not love me — I know he does not; and how can I write to him?" the unhappy young wife said, laying down her pen, about an hour afterward, and leaning back in her chair with an expression of pain upon her countenance. For a long time she sat thus, while her mind was strongly agitated. A violent struggle was going on in her bosom — a struggle between pride and affection — between self-will and duty. Affection and duty urged her to an open confession of error, and a declaration of the deep love which she bore her husband; while pride and self-will held her back, and brought accusations against him. This struggle was undecided when her aunt, who had been casting about in her mind for some expedient whereby to divert Grace from her gloomy state, came in and said,
"I have just learned that Julia Williams has been rather worse for the last two days. Ought we not to call in and see her?"
"Worse did you say, aunt?" asked Grace, in a voice of real concern.
"Yes dear; I really begin to feel alarmed for her. It is really melancholy to see one so young, so pure-minded and lovely, fading away. Earth cannot spare such as her. We need their virtue-inspiring presence."
"And yet, aunt," returned Grace, whose mind had become interested, "she does not shrink at the thought of death. The grave seems to have no terrors for her."
"Why should it have terrors for the godly?"
"I don't know that it should; but to me the thought of death is terrible. It makes my heart icy cold. 'Corruption, earth, and worms!' Dreadful! And, above all, the uncertaintywhich awaits the departing spirit. But, in regard to this, Julia has a peculiar and a sustaining faith. She seems almost as familiar with things beyond the grave — as with those that daily meet her natural eyes. To her, death is no more than the passage from a dreary wilderness — to a sun-bright region; upon which she has thought and read until her spirit has become entranced with its loveliness, and she almost yearns to depart."
"Too soon — far too soon for those who love her, will be, I deeply fear, the peaceful departure of her freed spirit," Mrs. Ellis replied, somewhat sadly. "But come, shall we not make her a visit? It will, I am sure, be pleasing to her, and, I doubt not, profitable to us."
Without hesitation, Grace prepared herself to go out with her aunt. On calling upon Mrs. Williams, they found her much weaker than when they last visited her. This time her husband was present for a little while after they came in. Mrs. Milnor could not help observing the expression of tenderness which was in his eyes whenever he looked into the pale face of his wife, nor the quickly-dispelled shade of anxiety and fear that would, ever and always, rest upon his countenance. It touched her deeply. After he had gone away, and her aunt had become interested in conversation with Mrs. Lawson — Grace drew closer to the bedside of Mrs. Williams, and, taking her hand, said, with much feeling,
"It really grieves me to find you weaker than when I last saw you. Have you suffered much pain?"
"Not much," she replied, with a quiet, cheerful smile, "though weary at times, and often affected with loneliness. Yet I ought not to feel so, for many kind friends cheer my sick chamber with their welcome presence."
"Still, it must be hard to bear such prolonged confinement."
"So it seems to those who are well; but we who are sick prove the truth of that sweet promise, 'As your days — so shall your strength be.' There is no condition in life which has not its peculiar blessings, as well as its peculiar trials."
"Blessings! What blessings can cluster around you? A bride of yesterday, to whom a husband is clinging with trembling hope and fear, laid upon a bed of sickness, and the rose on her cheek already faded, perhaps never again to feel a flush of health! Blessings! How can you talk of blessings?"
Thus, almost involuntarily, did Grace give utterance to her surprise. Its effect was to startle the feelings of Julia for a moment, and fill her eyes with tears; but she quickly regained her calmness and replied,
"Our states and conditions, always modify our perceptions. It may be difficult for you, who are in perfect health, to understand or appreciate the kind and quality of thoseblessings which are given to one like me. In health, our good things come mainly by an external way — and in sickness, by an internal way; or, in other words, health gives us the capacity of enjoying the many external blessings that are freely given — but in sickness, this capacity is destroyed, and then there flows into the spirit, a sweet peace, with images of holy and heavenly things, and a confidence in the Lord which bears up the soul, and sustains it in a region of thought and affection far above the sensual plane of the mind. Such a state, let me assure you, is one of peculiar delight. In it, we are conscious of a nearer approach to the spiritual world, and of the intimate presence of God, whose greatest happiness it is to sustain all who, while in bodily affliction, look up and pray for a spirit of resignation."
While Mrs. Williams spoke thus — her eyes slightly elevated, not giving intelligence of external objects, but only corresponding in their position to the elevation of inner vision — Grace looked at her with wonder, and yet with a spirit affected by a new delight.
"Blessed, indeed, has been this affliction to you!" was her deep inward acknowledgment. Then she added aloud,
"But how can you feel all this calmness and elevation of mind, under circumstances of such peculiar trial? A few days ago you spoke of death with a degree of composure that fills me with astonishment whenever I think of it. Apart from the mere terrors of death, which seem not to be terrible to you — how can you think of a separation from those you love without the deepest distress? I cannot understand it."
"Those who are truly united — are united in spirit," was the reply of Mrs. Williams; "and this union is perfect just in the degree that each can love good and true principles for their own sake. That by which they are conjoined, then, is moral quality. They love each other, not for the sake of the mere person, but from a regard to good affections and true thoughts; that is, they regard the quality of each — and not the person alone. Death cannot extinguish good and truth. It is not the mere material body which clothes our spiritual form — a machine by which we act in the more ultimate plan of creation — which makes us human, or upon which are based the higher affections which conjoin us. We can love as freely and as purely when that is laid aside as before — yes, freer and purer."
"But the separation, Mrs. Williams! Natural eyes cannot see spiritual bodies. How, then, can such a separation be otherwise than deeply painful?" Grace said, quickly.
"I did not mean to say that a separation would not be painful," Julia replied, recovering her self-possession, which the remark of Grace had nearly overthrown, with an effort. "It must, and always will be painful, just in the degree that we are evil, and love ourselves and our own wills better than we love the Lord and His will; but the pain will be greater with those who are left behind; for, remaining in the natural world, it will be hard for them so to elevate their minds into the pure regions of spiritual thought and perception, than those who have left them and gone up higher, but who still love them, though with a more unselfish love than before. Still, even those who remain may have much to strengthen and sustain them in bereavement. They have eyes of the mind as well as the body, and if they will but use them, may have the blessed consciousness that those they have loved are still near to them — for true nearness, after all, is a nearness of thoughts and affections, and these exist independent of the natural body. Am I understood?"
"Not clearly."
"You love your husband?"
The tears sprung instantly to the eyes of Grace as she murmured "Yes."
"As tenderly now that he is away from you — as when he was by your side?"
"Yes."
"Is he not distinctly present to your mind now?"
"Oh yes."
"And can you not perceive and love his good qualities as fully as if he were sitting by your side?"
"Yes; but still to be separated seems as if he were lost to me. This seeing with the mind does not satisfy — it is but a poor compensation for his presence."
"True! very true! While in the natural world of time and space, our spiritual eyes are not really opened. We see spiritual things only through a glass, darkly, and, therefore, absence or death must always prove painful. But, without the light of the sun, as we are, under such circumstances, let us be thankful for the light of the moon, and bless the kind Providence that has given us to know the truth, even if we cannot fully receive it into our affections."
"An abiding confidence in divine Providence, seems to be your anchor under all circumstances," Mrs. Milnor said.
"You have revealed the secret of all the appearances of trust and resignation which you have perceived. But for that anchor, I should be now upon the stormy ocean."
But even this could not unravel to Mrs. Milnor, the secret of Julia's state of mind. To her, it seemed impossible that anyone could view death, and under such peculiar circumstances, without starting back appalled.
"I cannot understand it, aunt," she said, as the two walked slowly homeward. "I never met so lovely, yet so inexplicable a being, nor one in whom there was so much sound thought, mixed up with truly beautiful — yet what seems fanciful ideas."
"I am really afraid that her days here are numbered," Mrs. Ellis returned, thoughtfully. "Her mother seems to feel this sensibly, and spoke of it today with a degree of composure that surprised me."
"Is it not possible," Grace said, "that both mother and daughter are void of true feeling?"
"Can you think so of Julia?"
Grace paused a moment, and then said,
"No, I cannot. That she does feel, and deeply, too — I am satisfied. I have seen the tearful eye and quivering lip too often."
"And that Mrs. Lawson can and does feel — I am equally well satisfied," Mrs. Ellis said. "No, no, that will not explain the secret. The true reason is to be found in theirunwavering trust in Divine Providence."
"So Mrs. Williams declared to me just now; but still, I cannot understand how anyone can feel such a confidence. To be taken away in the bloom of youth and beauty — to be torn from those who tenderly love us, and whose very lives are wrapped up in ours — is no light affliction, Aunt Mary. I could not bless the hand which held that rod for me — I could not feel resigned to such a cruel dispensation. Hers must, indeed, be a peculiar faith, if, under such circumstances, it can extract the sting from death."
"And yet all who receive that peculiar faith, so full of a singular beauty — so strange in many of its assumptions, and yet so profoundly rational in its pure philosophy, like Julia and her mother, look upon death with calmness — nay, even part with each other, no matter how intimate may be the ties which bind them — without any of those feelings of griefand despair, which almost invariably attend such afflictions. It is not that they do not feel pain at such rending of natural bonds; but to soothe the acuter pangs that attend this pain — is not only a general trust in divine Providence, but a practical and particular assurance that every event is intended for their spiritual good; and that even the death of their most beloved ones will, in the end, be blessings — blessings as far above the ordinary good things they receive — as the affliction is deeper; and touches them more nearly than ordinary events."
"Then are they blessed above the common lot," Grace said, as they gained their own door. "But I cannot understand it. I am not yet able to understand how anyone can kiss the rod which smites him."
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