Magnum Bonum

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  It had been a trying time. While Dr. Medlicott thought he could not rouse Mrs. Brownlow to the sense of the little fellow's precarious condition, deadly alarm lay couched in the bottom of her heart, only kept at bay by defiantly cheerful plans and sanguine talk.

  Then Jock was depressed, and at his age (and, alas! at many others) being depressed means being cross, and very cross he was to his mother and his friend, and occasionally to his brother, who, in some moods, seemed to him merely a rival invalid and candidate for attention, and whom he now and then threatened with becoming as frightful a muff as Fordham. He missed Johnny, too, and perhaps longed after Eton. He was more savage to Cecil than to any one else, treating his best attentions with growls, railings, and occasionally showers of slippers, books, and cushions, but, strange as it sounds, the friendship only seemed cemented by this treatment, and this devoted slave evidently preferred being abused by Jock to being made much of by any one else.

  The regimen was very disagreeable to his English habits, and the tedium of the place was great. His mother thought it quite enough to account for his captiousness, and the doctor said it was recovery, but no one guessed how much was due to the good resolutions he had made on the moraine and ratified with Cecil. To no one else had he spoken, but all the more for his reserve did he feel himself bound by the sense of the shame and dishonour of falling back from vows made in the time of danger. No one else was aware of it, but John Lucas Brownlow was not of a character to treat a promise or a resolution lightly. If he could have got out of his head the continual echo of the two lines about the monastic intentions of a certain personage when sick, he would have been infinitely better tempered.

  For to poor Jock steadiness appeared renunciation of all "jest and youthful jollity," and religion seemed tedious endurance of what might be important, but, like everything important, was to him very wearisome and uninteresting. To him all zest and pleasure in life seemed extinguished, and he would have preferred leaving Eton, where he must change his habits and amaze his associates. Indeed, he was between hoping and fearing that all this would there seem folly. But then he would break his word, the one thing that poor half-heathen Jock truly cared about.

  Meantime he was keeping it as best he knew how under the circumstances, by minding his prayers more than he had ever done before, trying to attend when part of the service was read on Sundays, and endeavouring to follow the Evelyn sabbatical code, but only succeeding in making himself more dreary and savage on Sunday than on any other day.

  By easy journeys they arrived at Engelberg early on a Friday afternoon, and found pleasant rooms in the large hotel, looking out in front on the grand old monastery, once the lord of half the Canton, and in the rear upon pine-woods, leading up to a snow-crowned summit. The delicious scent seemed to bring invigoration in at the windows.

  However, Jock and Armine were both tired enough to be sent to bed, if not to sleep, immediately after the-as yet, scantily filled table d'hote. The former was lying dreamily listening to the evening bells of the monastery, when Cecil came in, looking diffident and hesitating.

  "I say, Jock," he began, "did you see that old clergyman at the table d'hote?"

  "Was there one?"

  "Yes; and there is to be a Celebration on Sunday."

  "O! Then Armine can have his wish."

  "Fordham has been getting the old cleric to talk to your mother about it."

  Armine was unconfirmed. The other two had been confirmed just before Easter, but on the great Sunday Jock had followed his brother Robert's example and turned away. He had recollected the omission on that terrible night, and when after a pause Cecil said, "Do you mean to stay?" he answered rather snappishly, "I suppose so."

  "I fancied," said Cecil, with wistful hesitation, "that if we were together it would be a kind of seal to--"

  Jock actually forced back the words, "Don't humbug," which were not his own, but his ill-temper's, and managed to reply-

  "Well, what?"

  "Being brothers in arms," replied Cecil, with shy earnestness that touched the better part of Jock, and he made a sound of full assent, letting Cecil, who had a turn for sentiment, squeeze his hand.

  He lay with a thoughtful eye, trying to recall some of the good seed his tutor had tried to sow on a much-trodden way-side, very ready for the birds of the air. The outcome was-

  "I say, Evelyn, have you any book of preparation? Mine is-I don't know where."

  Neither his mother, nor Reeves, nor, to do him justice, Cecil himself, would have made such an omission in his packing, and he was heartily glad to fetch his manual, feeling Jock's reformation his own security in the ways which he really preferred.

  Poor Jock, who, whatever he was, was real in all his ways, and could not lead a double life, as his friend too often did, read and tried to fulfil the injunctions of the book, but only became more confused and unhappy than ever. Yet still he held on, in a blind sort of way, to his resolution. He had undertaken to be good, he meant therefore to communicate, and he believed he repented, and would lead a new life-if-if he could bear it.

  His next confidence was-

  "I say, Cecil, can you get me some writing things? We-at least I- ought to write and tell my tutor that I am sorry about that supper."

  "Well, he was rather a beast."

  "I think," said Jock, who had the most capacity for seeing things from other people's point of view, "we did enough to put him in a wax. It was more through me than any one else, and I shall write at once, and get it off my mind before to-morrow."

  "Very well. If you'll write, I'll sign," said Cecil. "Mother said I ought when I saw her in London, but she didn't order me. She said she left it to my proper feeling."

  "And you hadn't any?"

  "I was going to stick by you," said Cecil, rather sulkily; on which Jock rewarded him with something sounding like-

  "What a donkey you can be!"

  However, with many writhings and gruntings the letter was indited, and Jock was as much wearied out as if he had taken a long walk, so that his mother feared that Engelberg was going to disagree with him. He had not energy enough to go out in the evening of Saturday to meet the new arrivals, but stayed with Armine, who was in a state of restless joy and excitement, marvelling at him, and provoking him by this surprise as if it were censure.

  With his forehead against the window, Armine watched and did his utmost to repress the eagerness that seemed to irritate his brother, and at last gave vent to an irrepressible hurrah.

  "There they are! Cecil has got his sister! Oh! and there she is! Babie-holding on to mother, and that must be Mrs. Evelyn with Fordham-and there's Elf making up already to the Doctor! Aren't you coming down, Jock?"

  "Not I! I don't want to see you make a fool of yourself before everybody!-I say-you'll have to come up stairs again, you know! Shut the door I say!"-shouted Jock, as he found Armine deaf to all his expostulations, and then getting up, he banged it himself, and then shuffling back to the sofa, put his hands over his face and exclaimed, "There! What an eternal brute I am!"

  A few moments more and the door was open again, and Cecil, with his arm round his sister, thrust her forwards, exclaiming-"Here he is, Syd."

  Jock had recovered his gentlemanly manners enough to shake hands courteously, as well as to receive and return Babie's kiss, when she and Armine staggered in together, reeling under their weight of delight. Janet kissed him too, and then, scanning both brothers, observed to her mother-

  "I think Lucas is the more altered of the two." In which sentiment Elvira seemed to agree, for she put her hands behind her and exclaimed-

  "O Jock, you do look such a fright; I never knew how like Janet you were!"

  "You are letting every one know what a spiteful little Elf you can be," returned Janet, indignantly. "Can't you give poor Jock a kinder greeting?"

  Whereupon the Elf put on a cunning look of innocence and said-

  "I didn't know it was unkind to say he was like you, Janet."

  The Ev
elyn pair had gone-after this introduction of Jock and Sydney- --to their own sitting-room, which opened out of that of the Brownlows, and the door was soon unclosed, for the two families meant to make up only one party. The two mothers seemed as if they had been friends of old standing, and Mrs. Evelyn was looking with delighted wonder at her eldest son, who had gained much in flesh and in vigour ever since Dr. Medlicott's last and most successful prescription of a more pressing subject of interest than his own cough.

  She had an influence about her that repressed all discords in her presence, and the evening was a cheerful and happy one, leaving a soothing sense upon all.

  Then came the awakening to the sounds of the monastery bells, and in due time the small English congregation assembled, and one at least was trying to force an attention that had freely wandered ever before.

  The preacher was the chance visitor, an elderly clergyman with silvery hair. He spoke extempore from Job xxviii.

  Where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; Neither is it found in the land of the living. The depth saith, "It is not in me:" And the sea saith, "It is not with me." It cannot be gotten for gold. Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

  What he said was unlike any sermon the young people had heard before. It began with a description of the alchemist's labours, seeking for ever for the one great arcanum, falling by the way upon numerous precious discoveries, yet never finding the one secret which would have rendered all common things capable of being made of priceless value. He drew this quest into a parable of man's search for the One Great Good, the wisdom that is the one thing necessary to give weight, worth, and value to the life which, without it, is vanity of vanities. Many a choice gift of thought, of science, of philosophy, of beauty, of poetry, has been brought to light in its time by the seekers, but in vain. All rang empty, hollow, and heartless, like sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, till the secret should be won. And it is no unattainable secret. It is the love of Christ that truly turneth all things into fine gold. One who has attained that love has the true transmuting and transforming power of making life golden, golden in brightness, in purity, in value, so as to be "a present for a mighty King."

  Then followed a description of the glory and worth of the true, noble, faithful manhood of a "happy warrior," ever going forward and carrying through achievements for the love of the Great Captain. Each in turn, the protector of the weak, the redresser of wrong, the patriot, the warrior, the scholar, the philosopher, the parent, the wife, the sister, or the child, the healthful or the sick, whoever has that one constraining secret, the love of Christ, has his service even here, whether active or passive, veritably golden, the fruit unto holiness, the end everlasting life.

  Perhaps it was the cluster of young faces that led the preacher thus to speak, and as he went on, he must have met the earnest and responsive eyes that are sure to animate a speaker, and the power and beauty of his words struck every one. To the Evelyns it was a new and beautiful allegory on a familiar idea. Janet was divided between discomfort at allusions reminding her of her secret, and on criticisms of the description of alchemy. Her mother's heart beat as if she were hearing an echo of her husband's thoughts about his Magnum Bonum. Little Armine was thrilled as, in the awe of drawing near to his first Communion, this golden thread of life was put into his hand. But it was Jock to whom that discourse came like a beam of light into a dark place. When upon the dreary vista of dull abnegation on which he had been dwelling for a month past, came this vision of the beauty, activity, victory, and glory of true manhood, as something attainable, his whole soul swelled and expanded with joyful enthusiasm. The future that he had embraced as lead had become changed to gold! Thus the whole ensuing service was to him a continuation of that blessed hopeful dedication of himself and all his powers. It was as if from being a monk, he had become a Red Cross Knight of the Hospital. Yet, after his soiled, spoiled, reckless boyhood, how could that grand manhood be attained?

  Later in the afternoon, when the denizens of the hotel had gone their several ways, some to look and listen at Benediction in the Convent church, some to climb through the pine-woods to the Alp, some to saunter and rest among the nearer trees, the clergyman, with his Greek Testament in his hand, was sitting on a seat under one of the trees, enjoying the calm of one of his few restful Sundays; when he heard a movement, and beheld the pale thin lad, who still walked so lame, who had been so silent at the table d'hote, and whose dark eyes had looked up with such intensity of interest, that he had more than once spoken to them.

  "You are tired," said the clergyman, kindly making room for him.

  "Thanks," said the boy, mechanically moving forward, but then pausing as he leant on his stick, and his eyes suddenly dimmed with tears as he said, "Oh, sir, if you would only tell me how to begin-"

  "Begin what?" said the old man, holding out his hand.

  "To turn it to gold," said Jock. "Can I, after being the mad fool I've been?"

  They talked for more than an hour; even till Dr. Medlicott, coming down from the Alp, laid his hand on Jock's shoulder, and told him the evening chill was coming, and he must sit still no longer. And when the boy looked up, the restless weary distress of his face was gone.

  Jock never saw that old clergyman again, nor heard of him, unless it were his death that he read of in the paper six months later. But he never heard the name of Engelberg without an echo of the parting benediction, and feeling that to him it had indeed been an Angel mountain.

  This had been a happy day to several others. Cecil, after ten minutes with his mother, which filled her with hope and thankfulness, had gone to show his sister the charms of the place, and Armine and Babie, on a sheltered seat, were free to pour out their hearts to one another, ranging from the heights of pure childish wisdom to its depths of blissful ignorance and playful folly, as they talked over the past and the future.

  Armine knew there was no chance of an immediate and entire recovery for him, and this was a severe stroke to Babie, who was quite unprepared. And, as her face began to draw up with tears near the surface, he hugged her close, and consolingly whispered that now they would be together always, he should not have to go away from his own dear Babie Bunting, and there was a little kissing match, ending by Babie saying, disconsolately, "But you did like Eton so, and you were going to get the Newcastle and the Prince Consort's prize, and to be in the eleven and all-and you were so sure of a high remove! Oh, dear!" and she let her head drop on his shoulder, and was almost crying again.

  "Don't, don't, Babie! or you'll make me as bad again," said Armine. "It does come over me now and then, and I wish I had never known what it was to be strong and jolly, and to expect to do all sorts of things."

  "I shall always be wishing it," said Babie.

  "No, you are not to cry! You would be more sorry if I was dead, and not here at all, Babie; and you have got to thank God for that."

  "I do-I have! I've done it ever since we got Johnny's dreadful letter. Oh, yes, Armine, I'll try not to mind, for perhaps if we aren't thankful, I mayn't keep you at all," said poor Babie, with her arms round her treasure. "But are you quite sure, Armine? Couldn't Dr. Lucas get you quite well? You see this Dr. Medlicott is very young," added the small maiden sapiently.

  "Young doctors are all the go. Dr. Lucas said so when mother wrote to ask if she had better bring me home for advice," said Armine. "He knows all about Dr. Medlicott, and said he was first-rate, and they've been writing to each other about me. The doctor stethoscoped me all over, and then he did a map of my lungs, Cecil said, to send in his letter."

  "Oh!" gasped Babie, "didn't it frighten you?"

  "I wanted to know, for I saw mother was in a way. She did talk and whisk about so fast, and made such a fuss, that I thought I must be much worse than I knew. So I told Dr. Medlicott I wished he would tell me right out if I was going to die, in time to see you, and then I shouldn't mind. So he said not now, and he thought I should get
over it in the end, but that most likely I should have a long time, years perhaps, of being very careful. And when I asked if I should be able to go back to Eton, he said he hardly expected it; and that he believed it was kinder to let me know at once than let me be straining and hoping on."

  "Was it?" said Babie.

  "I thought not," said Armine, "when I shut my eyes and the playing- fields and the trees and the river stood up before me. I thought if I could have hoped ever so little, it would have been nice. And then to think of never being able to run, or row, or stay out late, and always to be bothering about one's stockings and wraps, and making a miserable muff of oneself just to keep in a bit of uncomfortable life, and being a nuisance to everybody."

  Babie fairly shrieked and sobbed her protest that he could never be a nuisance to her or mother.

  "You are Babie, and mother is mother, I know that; but it did seem such a long burthen and bore, and when-oh, Babie-don't you know-"

  "How we always thought you would go on and be something great, and do something great, like Bishop Selwyn, or like that Mr. Denison that Miss Ogilvie has a book about," said Babie. "But you will get well and do it when you are a man, Armie! Didn't you think about it when you heard all about the golden life in the sermon to-day? I thought, "That's going to be Armie's life," and I looked at you, but you were looking down. Were you thinking how it was all spoilt, Armie, poor dear Armie. For perhaps it isn't."

  "No, I know nobody can spoil it but myself," said Armine. "And you know he said that one might make weakliness and sickness just as golden, by that great Love, as being up and doing. I was going to tell you, Babie, I was horridly wretched and dismal one day at Leukerbad when I thought mother and all were out of the way-gone out driving, I believe-and then Fordham came in. He had stayed in, I do believe, on purpose--"

  "But, but," said Babie, not so much impressed as her brother wished; "isn't he rather a spoon? Johnny said he ought to have been a girl."