Chapter XXI: Conscientiousness

THE letters from Rose Cottage had been highly satisfactory until the last. In that, Marion wrote that Hannah was slowly recovering from an attack of fever which had much prostrated her strength.

"Paul," she said, "I brought home with me; and he has been my special care ever since. Bridget has proved herself a wonderful nurse; and at the same time has superintended the dairy work, so that all has gone on as orderly as usual. We hope Hannah will be entirely recovered in a few weeks."

"In the mean tithe papa and mamma have become so much attached to my boy, as I proudly call him, that it will be difficult to separate them when it is time for him to go back to Rose Cottage. Indeed, if I did not take him in for a call every day, neither Hannah nor Bridget could be pacified. He grows more beautiful every hour; and what you will care for more than all the rest, he grows so conscientious. Papa has a large book of engravings of which he is very choice. Once or twice I have shown them to Paul, explaining the scenes they were intended to represent; but the child had been told not to take the volume from the shelf as it is too large for him to handle without injury."

"I went out on an errand for mamma a few days ago, not taking my usual companion on account of the rain. Mamma was busy in her chamber, and papa out on parish duty. I gave Paul a game of dissected pictures to keep him employed; and left him in the study. When I returned, I noticed he looked uneasy, his face flushed, and his eye avoiding mine. I glanced around the room fearing he had been trying to write, as he loves to do; and had spilled the ink; but I saw no marks of disorder, and concluded not to urge him to tell me what ailed him."

"I took a book into the bow window, and he sat near me sighing repeatedly. At last his lip began to quiver, and with an exclamation:"

"'I want my mamma to come home quick,' the poor little fellow burst into tears."

"I caught him in my arms where he sobbed a long time before he could explain."

"'I've been naughty, aunt Marion. I took that nice book of pictures down from the shelf.'"

"'Oh, I'm sorry, darling!'" I said. "'Did you enjoy seeing them?'"

"'No, I didn't. I was afraid somebody would come; and then I knew God could see right through the sky. I'm so sorry now.'"

"How could I utter one word of reproof? The gentle monitor in his breast had done that. I only reminded him how ready God is to forgive us when we have sinned; and we knelt down together to ask him to have compassion for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ."

"He jumped up from his low chair, with such a bright face, and asked quickly:"

"'Has he forgiven me, aunt Marion?'"

"'Yes, dear, I think he has; and you will not touch the book again.'"

"'No, I wont till you show it to me. That is the way I like to see it best. Now I feel glad.'"

"I longed for you to see him then. His eyes sparkled with happiness, and a heart at ease; his cheeks were mantled with roses; and his cherry lips were dimpled with smiles. Do you wonder we all love him so dearly?"

Mr. Wallingford's health was now confirmed. A regular correspondence had been kept up between him and Marion, in which they had learned to understand each other well. There seemed to be a peculiar harmony in their views, as well as in the principles which actuated their conduct.

The travellers' return was fixed for June, when it was arranged that a certain ceremony at the parsonage should be followed by a tour to Canada, the lakes, Chicago, and home by the Southern route; via, Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

It had never been Mr. Wallingford's intention to give up the practice of law. He believed it better for every man to have some regular business; and to endeavor to excel in it. Early in the spring, therefore, he had written Mr. Van Husen, requesting that gentleman to purchase him a handsome residence in a pleasant and healthy location. This was to be their winter home, where Gertrude and her boy would always be welcomed as part of the family. A wing, thrown out on the West side of Rose Cottage, would give ample accommodations to the two families in summer.

Under these circumstances, it is not strange that the lawyer should feel drawn toward his native land; nor that he should consider the caution of his medical adviser, to remain abroad until June, entirely needless.

The last days of February found them slowly making their way, in company with Mr. Radcliffe, the English nobleman, above mentioned, through France, pausing for a few days at Nice, where they had made some agreeable friends; and then crossing that country to England.

Reaching London the middle of March, they passed a month in making the tour of Great Britain, by which time Mr. Wallingford assured his sister, it was quite safe for him to embark for home. So without waiting to announce to their friends that they were about to anticipate the time of sailing, they took passage in the Steamship China, the last week in April, instead of waiting till the first of June.

There was one circumstance which decided Mrs. Wallingford not to oppose her brother leaving England sooner than the date they had written home. But in order to explain this, I must go back a little to their residence in Rome.

Sir Jones Radcliffe, from his first introduction to Gertrude, was charmed with the sweet gentleness of her manners; and the enthusiasm with which she conversed on literary and religious subjects. At that time he supposed her to be the wife of Mr. Wallingford; and remarked frankly to a friend who had often joked him upon his fastidiousness with regard to ladies:

"At last I have met one who is my beau ideal of what a wife should be; with beauty, accomplishments, and a mind enriched by culture; all softened by the pearl of meekness, and Christian principle."

Soon after he heard her address Edward as her brother; and the violent beating of his heart, showed him how easy it would be to surrender it to her keeping. From this hour, by the most constant, delicate attentions, he sought to win her affections; and nothing but her increasing reserve of manner, when she suspected his object, deterred him from making proposals for her hand.

When about to leave Rome she was rather annoyed to find that her brother had consented to the wish of Sir Jones, and allowed him to join their party to England. He proved a most agreeable travelling companion; and now that his whole heart was enlisted in her favor, he tried his utmost to excel in the powers of conversation for which he had long been distinguished. In the freedom of their intercourse he discovered that Gertrude had a son nearly six years of age; and that his image was scarcely ever absent from the mother's memory. This fact he turned to good account, leading her on to talk of his infantile ways, to tell of his wise sayings, and at last even to read from Marion's letters some of his childish messages. Before this Sir Jones thought he could not love her more than he did; but now he found his mistake. When talking of little Paul, the mother-light that beamed from her eyes and dimpled her mouth so enhanced his affection, that he determined to risk all, by a confession.

At home Gertrude had received proposals of marriage from several gentlemen of worth and distinction in her native state; but she had always shrunk from a new tie as an impossibility as long as Paul was alive. Now that she had seen him, who had once been her husband, under circumstances so affecting, she was more resolute in her former opinion than before.

One morning Sir Jones invited her to accompany him in a visit to a castle, famous for its historic associations; and supposing her brother was to be of the party she gladly consented. When it was too late to recede, she found Mr. Radcliffe had engaged only two horses; and that her brother was otherwise occupied. She could do nothing but resign herself to the arrangement in the best manner she was able.

He began to talk of Paul, telling her how the bright face of the little fellow had haunted him ever since she had shown him the picture. How it happened she never could recollect, but somehow his kindness and sympathy led her on, until she told him of the brief life of her little Rose, every word breathing such a sweet trust in the wisdom of her heavenly Father in taking the babe to its home in the skies, that he had no words to express his admiration.

Through all their intercourse he had noticed that she never had mentioned the name of her husband; now without a suspicion that he could be alive, he said, tenderly:

"Paul must have been a great comfort to you when his sister was taken away."

He was surprised and deeply pained by the burst of tears which accompanied her answer.

"Precious little Rose was my first born! I was just past my seventeenth birthday when that dream of happiness was over. Poor Paul has never seen his father."

"Let me be his father," he began; and once released from the violent restraint in which he had kept back expressions of his affection, he poured out his heart before her.

In vain she tried to check him, urging:

"It is impossible."

He had now lost self-command; and the tide of love would not be longer dammed up.

"Believe me, Mr. Radcliffe," she urged, still weeping. "I would have spared you this refusal. I will not deny that before we left Rome, I began to suspect the nature of your sentiments; and assumed a coldness foreign to my feelings in order that you might understand that, however much I admired you as a Christian gentleman, nothing farther could take place."

"But why? If there are obstacles, I can overcome them. I am at the age when men desire a home and family; but having found the only one I ever desired to marry, I am willing to wait if you think it too soon after your husband's death."

She shuddered. "You are mistaken, Sir Jones," she faltered, every particle of color vanishing from her face and lips. "In justice to you I ought to confess that had circumstances been different I might have yielded to your wishes; but the man who once called me wife still lives, though just sinking into the grave. Nearly four years ago the law sundered the tie; and when I tell you that I have just come from his death-bed, the death-bed of an humble penitent, clinging for pardon to the cross of his Saviour, you will not wonder that I have no desire to speak of past trials."

"Is it possible," exclaimed the gentleman, "that the invalid for whom you have denied yourself the society and admiration of the most eminent persons in Rome, ever bore such a relation to you? I understand your character well enough to be sure no trivial reasons would gain your consent to a divorce; and you have treated him as if he were your best friend."

"Did not our Saviour, whom we propose to take for an example, do this? Did he not return blessing for cursing; kindness for unkindness; and shall not we, with far less provocation, endeavor to do likewise? But indeed you are giving me too much credit. Surely no one would see a fellow countryman suffering from disease and privation, without hastening to his relief; and I have been rewarded," she continued, turning her humid eyes, beaming with holy fervor, on his, "by witnessing the most remarkable display of divine grace, that has ever come to my knowledge."

"With my whole heart I sympathize with your joy," he responded, warmly. "Will the gentleman remain in Rome?"

"If he lives till June, which I consider doubtful, he will return to the United States, where his parents reside. I shall probably never see him more."

Possibly the gentleman made his own inference from the fact that she had left the invalid, when he might live for months. At any rate his spirits rose; and she thought he had never been more brilliant in conversation, than during their return home.

A long private conversation with Mr. Wallingford, resulted in an earnest invitation for the travellers to make their headquarters at his country seat, while in Great Britain. But this, though urged by her brother to accept, Gertrude steadily declined. All she would do was to spend one day in the beautiful retreat so exactly to her taste, before she hurried Edward away to London.

When the time for sailing came, she acknowledged to herself, it was none too early, for her own happiness, to bid Sir Jones adieu. A few more weeks passed in his society would make it difficult for her to adhere to a decision which in her case she knew to be right.

Contrary to her expectations, when she went on board the steamer for New York, she found Mr. Radcliffe awaiting them; and when she expressed her surprise at finding him there, a merry glance thrown at her brother, convinced her it was not an accident. She wondered a little at his manner of bidding her adieu, not at all as if he considered it, as she did, a final parting; but when he said in her ear, with a hopeful smile:

"Another year and I intend to be speeding over the waters," the vivid blushes that dyed her cheeks, proved to her lover that she was aware he had not abandoned his design.