St. George and St. Michael

by George MacDonald

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  AMANDA--DOROTHY--LORD HERBERT.

  So also did Amanda; but not the less did she cherish feelings of revengeagainst her whom she more than suspected of having been the contriver ofher harmful discomfiture. She felt certain that Dorothy had laid thesnare into which they had fallen, with the hope if not the certainty ofcatching just themselves two in it, and she read in her, therefore,jealousy and cruelty as well as coldness and treachery. Rowland on theother hand was inclined to attribute the mishap to the displeasure oflord Herbert, whose supernatural acquirements, he thought, had enabledhim both to discover and punish their intrusion. Amanda, nevertheless,kept her own opinion, and made herself henceforth all eyes and ears forDorothy, hoping ever to find a chance of retaliating, if not in kind yetin plentiful measure of vengeance. Dorothy's odd ways, lawlessmovements, and what the rest of the ladies counted her vulgar tastes,had for some time been the subject of remark to the gossiping portion ofthe castle community; and it seemed to Amanda that in watching anddiscovering what she was about when she supposed herself safe from theeyes of her equals and superiors, lay her best chance of finding a modeof requital. Nor was she satisfied with observation, but kept her mindbusy on the trail, now of one, now of another vague-bodied revenge.

  The charge of low tastes was founded upon the fact that there was not anartisan about the castle, from Caspar downwards, whom Dorothy did notknow and address by his name; but her detractors, in drawing theirconclusions from it, never thought of finding any related significancein another fact, namely, that there was not a single animal either, ofconsequence enough to have a name, which did not know by it. There werevery few of the animals indeed which did not know her in return, if notby her name, yet by her voice or her presence--some of them even by herfoot or her hand. She would wander about the farmyard and stables for anhour at a time, visiting all that were there, and specially her littlehorse, which she had long, oh, so long ago! named Dick, nor had takenhis name from him any more than from Marquis.

  The charge of lawlessness in her movements was founded on another factas well, namely, that she was often seen in the court after dusk, andthat not merely in running across to the keep, as she would be doing atall hours, but loitering about, in full view of the windows. It was notdenied that this took place only when the organ was playing--but thenwho played the organ? Was not the poor afflicted boy, barring the blankof his eyes, beautiful as an angel? And was not mistress Dorothy toodeep to be fathomed? And so the tattling streams flowed on, and the earsof mistress Amanda willingly listened to their music, nor did shedisdain herself to contribute to the reservoir in which those of thecastle whose souls thirsted after the minutiae of live biography,accumulated their stores of fact and fiction, conjecture and falsehood.

  Lord Herbert came home to bury his little one, and all that was leftbehind of her was borne to the church of St. Cadocus, the parish churchof Raglan, and there laid beside the marquis's father and mother. Heremained with them a fortnight, and his presence was much needed tolighten the heavy gloom that had settled over both his wife and hisfather.

  As if it were not enough to bury the bodies of the departed, there aremany, and the marquis and his daughter-in-law were of the number, who ina sense seek to bury their souls as well, making a graveyard of theirown spirits, and laying the stone of silence over the memory of thedead. Such never speak of them but when compelled, and then almost as ifto utter their names were an act of impiety. Not In Memoriam but InOblivionem should be the inscription upon the tombs they raise. Thememory that forsakes the sunlight, like the fishes in the undergroundriver, loses its eyes; the cloud of its grief carries no rainbow; behindthe veil of its twin-future burns no lamp fringing its edges with thelight of hope. I can better, however, understand the hopelessness of thehopeless than their calmness along with it. Surely they must be upheldby the presence within them of that very immortality, against whoseaurora they shut to their doors, then mourn as if there were no suchthing.

  Radiant as she was by nature, lady Margaret, when sorrow came, could dolittle towards her own support. The marquis said to himself, 'I amgrowing old, and cannot smile at grief so well as once on a day. Sorrowis a hawk more fell than I had thought.' The name of little Molly wasnever mentioned between them. But sudden floods of tears were the signsof the mother's remembrance; and the outbreak of ambushed sighs, whichhe would make haste to attribute to the gout, the signs of thegrandfather's.

  Dorothy, too, belonged in tendency to the class of the unspeaking. Hernature was not a bright one. Her spirit's day was evenly, softly lucent,like one of those clouded calm grey mornings of summer, which seem morelikely to end in rain than sunshine.

  Lord Herbert was of a very different temperament. He had hope enough inhis one single nature to serve the whole castle, if only it could havebeen shared. The veil between him and the future glowed as if on firewith mere radiance, and about to vanish in flame. It was not that hemore than one of the rest imagined he could see through it. For him itwas enough that beyond it lay the luminous. His eyes, to those thatlooked on him, were lighted with its reflex.

  Such as he, are, by those who love them not, misjudged as shallow. Depthto some is indicated by gloom, and affection by a persistentbrooding--as if there were no homage to the past of love save sighs andtears. When they meet a man whose eyes shine, whose step is light, onwhose lips hovers a smile, they shake their heads and say, 'There goesone who has never loved, and who therefore knows not sorrow.' And theman is one of those over whom death has no power; whom time nor spacecan part from those he loves; who lives in the future more than in thepast! Has not his being ever been for the sake of that which was yet tocome? Is not his being now for the sake of that which it shall be? Hashe not infinitely more to do with the great future than the little past?The Past has descended into hell, is even now ascending glorified, andwill, in returning cycle, ever and again greet our faith as the more andyet more radiant Future.

  But even lord Herbert had his moments of sad longing after his daintyMolly. Such moments, however, came to him, not when he was at home withhis wife, but when he rode alone by his troops on a night march, orwhen, upon the eve of an expected battle, he sought sleep that he mightfight the better on the morrow.