Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  And bidding every sister do her part,

  Some prepare simples, healing salves, or bands,

  The abbess chose the more experienced hands,

  To dress the wounds needing most skilful care;

  Yet even the youngest novice took her share,

  And thus to Angela, whose ready will

  And pity could not cover lack of skill,

  The charge of a young wounded knight must fall,

  A case which seemed least dangerous of them all.

  Day after day she watched beside his bed,

  And first in utter quiet the hours fled:

  His feverish moans alone the silence stirred,

  Or her soft voice, uttering some pious word.

  At last the fever left him; day by day

  The hours, no longer silent, passed away.

  What could she speak of? First, to still his plaint,

  She told him legends of the martyr’d saints;

  Described the pangs, which, through God’s plenteous grace,

  Had gained their souls so high and bright a place.

  This pious artifice soon found success

  Or so she fancied for he murmured less.

  And so she told the pomp and grand array

  In which the chapel shone on Easter Day,

  Described the vestments, gold, and colours bright,

  Counted how many tapers gave their light;

  Then, in minute detail went on to say,

  How the high altar looked on Christmas day:

  The kings and shepherds, all in green and white,

  And a large star of jewels gleaming bright.

  Then told the sign by which they all had seen,

  How even nature loved to greet her Queen,

  For, when Our Lady’s last procession went

  Down the long garden, every head was bent,

  And rosary in hand each sister prayed;

  As the long floating banners were displayed,

  They struck the hawthorn boughs, and showers and showers

  Of buds and blossoms strewed her way with flowers.

  The knight unwearied listened; till at last,

  He too described the glories of his past;

  Tourney, and joust, and pageant bright and fair,

  And all the lovely ladies who were there.

  But half incredulous she heard. Could this

  This be the world? this place of love and bliss!

  Where, then, was hid tha strange and hideous charm,

  That never failed to bring the gazer harm?

  She crossed herself, yet asked, and listened still,

  And still the knight described with all his skill,

  The glorious world of joy, all joys above,

  Transfigured in the golden mist of love.

  Spread, spread your wings, ye angel guardians bright,

  And shield these dazzling phantoms from her sight!

  But no; days passed, matins and vespers rang,

  And still the quiet nuns toiled, prayed, and sang,

  And never guessed the fatal, coiling net

  That every day drew near, and nearer yet.

  Around their darling; for she went and came

  About her duties, outwardly the same.

  The same? ah, no! even when she knelt to pray,

  Some charmed dream kept all her heart away.

  So days went on, until the convent gate

  Opened one night. Who durst go forth so late?

  Across the moonlit grass, with stealthy tread,

  Two silent, shrouded figures passed and fled.

  And all was silent, save the moaning seas,

  That sobbed and pleaded, and a wailing breeze

  That sighed among the perfumed hawthorn trees.

  What need to tell that dream so bright and brief,

  Of joy unchequered by a dread of grief?

  What need to tell how all such dreams must fade,

  Before the slow foreboding, dreaded shade,

  That floated nearer, until pomp and pride,

  Pleasure and wealth, were summoned to her side,

  To bid, at least, the noisy hours forget,

  And clamour down the whispers of regret.

  Still Angela strove to dream, and strove in vain;

  Awakened once, she could not sleep again.

  She saw, each day and hour, more worthless grown

  The heart for which she cast away her own;

  And her soul learnt, through bitterest inward strife,

  The slight, frail love for which she wrecked her life;

  The phantom for which all her hope was given,

  The cold bleak earth for which she bartered heaven!

  But all in vain; what chance remained? what heart

  Would stoop to take so poor an outcast’s part?

  Years fled, and she grew reckless more and more,

  Until the humblest peasant closed his door,

  And where she passed, fair dames, in scorn and pride,

  Shuddered, and drew their rustling robes aside.

  At last a yearning seemed to fill her soul,

  A longing that was stronger than control:

  Once more, just once again, to see the place

  That knew her young and innocent; to retrace

  The long and weary southern path; to gaze

  Upon the haven of her childish days;

  Once more beneath the convent roof to lie;

  Once more to look upon her home — and die!

  Weary and worn — her comrades, chill remorse

  And black despair, yet a strange silent force

  Within her heart, that drew her more and more —

  Onward she crawled, and begged from door to door.

  Weighed down with weary days, her failing strength

  Grew less each hour, till one day’s dawn at length,

  As its first rays flooded the world with light,

  Showed the broad waters, glittering blue and bright,

  And where, amid the leafy hawthorn wood,

  Just as of old the low white convent stood.

  Would any know her? Nay, no fear. Her face

  Had lost all trace of youth, of joy, of grace,

  Of the pure happy soul they used to know —

  The novice Angela — so long ago.

  She rang the convent bell. The well-known sound

  Smote on her heart, and bowed her to the ground.

  And she, who had not wept for long dry years,

  Felt the strange rush of unaccustomed tears;

  Terror and anguish seemed to check her breath,

  And stop her heart — O God! could this be death?

  Crouching against the iron gate, she laid

  Her weary head against the bars, and prayed:

  But nearer footsteps drew, then seemed to wait;

  And then she heard the opening of the grate,

  And saw the withered face, on which awoke

  Pity and sorrow, as the portress spoke,

  And asked the stranger’s bidding: “Take me in,”

  She faltered, “Sister Monica, from sin,

  And sorrow, and despair, that will not cease;

  Oh take me in, and let me die in peace!”

  With soothing words the sister bade her wait,

  Until she brought the key to unbar the gate.

  The beggar tried to thank her as she lay,

  And heard the echoing footsteps die away.

  But what soft voice was that which sounded near,

  And stirred strange trouble in her heart to hear?

  She raised her head; she saw — she seemed to know

  A face, that came from long, long years ago:

  Herself; yet not as when she fled away,

  The young and blooming Novice, fair and gay,

  But a grave woman, gentle and serene:

  The outcast knew it — what she might have been .

  But as she gazed and gazed, a radiance bright

/>   Filled all the place with strange and sudden light;

  The nun was there no longer, but instead,

  A figure with a circle round its head,

  A ring of glory; and a face, so meek,

  So soft, so tender. . . . Angela strove to speak,

  And stretched her hands out, crying, “Mary mild,

  Mother of mercy, help me! — help your child!”

  And Mary answered, “From thy bitter past,

  Welcome, my child! oh, welcome home at last!

  I filled thy place. Thy flight is known to none,

  For all thy daily duties I have done;

  Gathered thy flowers, and prayed, and sang, and slept;

  Didst thou not know, poor child, thy place was kept ?

  Kind hearts are here; yet would the tenderest one

  Have limits to its mercy: God has none.

  And man’s forgiveness may be true and sweet,

  But yet he stoops to give it. More complete

  Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet,

  And pleads with thee to raise it. Only Heaven

  Means crowned , not vanquished , when it says ‘Forgiven!’ “

  Back hurried Sister Monica; but where

  Was the poor beggar she left lying there?

  Gone; and she searched in vain, and sought the place

  For that wan woman, with the piteous face:

  But only Angela at the gateway stood,

  Laden with hawthorn blossoms from the wood.

  And never did a day pass by again,

  But the old portress, with a sigh of pain,

  Would sorrow for her loitering: with a prayer

  That the poor beggar, in her wild despair,

  Might not have come to any ill; and when

  She ended, “God forgive her!” humbly then

  Did Angela bow her head, and say “Amen!”

  How pitiful her heart was! all could trace

  Something that dimmed the brightness of her face

  After that day, which none had seen before;

  Not trouble — but a shadow — nothing more.

  Years passed away. Then, one dark day of dread,

  Saw all the sisters kneeling round a bed,

  Where Angela lay dying; every breath

  Struggling beneath the heavy hand of death.

  But suddenly a flush lit up her cheek,

  She raised her wan right hand, and strove to speak.

  In sorrowing love they listened; not a sound

  Or sigh disturbed the utter silence round;

  The very taper’s flames were scarcely stirred,

  In such hushed awe the sisters knelt and heard.

  And thro’ that silence Angela told her life:

  Her sin, her flight; the sorrow and the strife,

  And the return; and then, clear, low, and calm,

  “Praise God for me, my sisters;” and the psalm

  Rang up to heaven, far, and clear, and wide,

  Again and yet again, then sank and died;

  While her white face had such a smile of peace,

  They saw she never heard the music cease;

  And weeping sisters laid her in her tomb,

  Crowned with a wreath of perfumed hawthorn bloom.

  And thus the legend ended. It may be

  Something is hidden in the mystery,

  Besides the lesson of God’s pardon, shown

  Never enough believed, or asked, or known.

  Have we not all, amid life’s petty strife,

  Some pure ideal of a noble life

  That once seemed possible? Did we not hear

  The flutter of its wings, and feel it near,

  And just within our reach? It was. And yet

  We lost it in this daily jar and fret,

  And now live idle in a vague regret;

  But still our place is kept , and it will wait,

  Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.

  No star is ever lost we once have seen,

  We always may be what we might have been.

  Since good, tho’ only thought, has life and breath,

  God’s life can always be redeemed from death;

  And evil, in its nature, is decay,

  And any hour can blot it all away;

  The hopes that, lost, in some far distance seem.

  May be the truer life, and this the dream.

  The Ghost in the Cupboard Room by Wilkie Collins

  Mr. Beaver, on being “spoke” (as his friend and ally, Jack Governor, called it), turned out of an imaginary hammock with the greatest promptitude, and went straight on duty. “As it’s Nat Beaver’s watch,” said he, “there shall be no skulking.” Jack looked at me, with an expectant and admiring turn of his eye on Mr. Beaver, full of complimentary implication. I noticed, by the way, that Jack, in a naval absence of mind with which he is greatly troubled at times, had his arm round my sister’s waist. Perhaps this complaint originates in an old nautical requirement of having something to hold on by.

  These were the terms of Mr. Beaver’s revelation to us:

  What I have got to put forward, will not take very long; and I shall beg leave to begin by going back to last night — just about the time when we all parted from one another to go to bed.

  The members of this good company did a very necessary and customary thing, last night — they each took a bedroom candlestick, and lit the candle before they went up-stairs. I wonder whether any one of them noticed that I left my candlestick untouched, and my candle unlighted; and went to bed, in a Haunted House, of all the places in the world, in the dark? I don’t think any one of them did.

  That is, perhaps, rather curious to begin with. It is likewise curious, and just as true, that the bare sight of those candlesticks in the hands of this good company set me in a tremble, and made last night, a night’s bad dream instead of a night’s good sleep. The fact of the matter is — and I give you leave, ladies and gentlemen, to laugh at it as much as you please — that the ghost which haunted me last night, which has haunted me off and on for many years past, and which will go on haunting me till I am a ghost myself (and consequently spirit-proof in all respects), is, nothing more or less than — a bedroom candlestick.

  Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle — put it which way you like — that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such-like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it — and I shall thank you all kindly if you will help me out by doing the same.

  I am not a scholar myself; but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man, with anything under the sun, begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle — the frightening of me half out of my life, ladies and gentlemen; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess to you all, before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to believe that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disadvantage, so far.

  These are the particulars, as well as I can put them.

  I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit for a mate’s berth at the age of twenty-five years.

  It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not being very good for dates, names, numbers, places, and such-like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all ship-shape in my recollection; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before
, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after and it’s not very likely to lift, at my time of life, is it?

  Well, in eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, when there was peace in our part of the world — and not before it was wanted, you will say — there was fighting, of a certain scampering, scrambling kind, going on in that old fighting ground, which we seafaring men know by the name of the Spanish Main. The possessions that belonged to the Spaniards in South America had broken into open mutiny and declared for themselves years before. There was plenty of bloodshed between the new government and the old; but the new had got the best of it, for the most part, under one General Bolivar — a famous man in his time, though he seems to have dropped out of people’s, memories now. Englishmen and Irishmen with a turn for fighting, and nothing particular to do at home, joined the general as volunteers; and some of our merchants here found it a good venture to send supplies across the ocean to the popular side. There was risk enough, of course, in doing this; but where one speculation of the kind succeeded, it made up for two, at the least, that failed. And that’s the true principle of trade, wherever I have met with it, all the world over.

  Among the Englishmen who were concerned in this Spanish–American business, I, your humble servant, happened, in a small way, to be one. I was then mate of a brig belonging to a certain firm in the City, which drove a sort of general trade, mostly in queer out-of-the-way places, as far from home as possible; and which freighted the brig, in the year I am speaking of, with a cargo of gunpowder for General Bolivar and his volunteers. Nobody knew anything about our instructions, when we sailed, except the captain; and he didn’t half seem to like them. I can’t rightly say how many barrels of powder we had on board, or how much each barrel held — I only know we had no other cargo. The name of the brig was The Good Intent — a queer name enough, you will tell me, for a vessel laden with gunpowder, and sent to help a revolution. And as far as this particular voyage was concerned, so it was. I meant that for a joke, ladies and gentlemen, and I’m sorry to find you don’t laugh at it.

  The Good Intent was the craziest old tub of a vessel I ever went to sea in, and the worst found in all respects. She was two hundred and thirty, or two hundred and eighty tons burden, I forget which; and she had a crew of eight, all told — nothing like as many as we ought by rights to have had to work the brig. However, we were well and honestly paid our wages; and we had to set that against the chance of foundering at sea, and, on this occasion, likewise, the chance of being blown up into the bargain. In consideration of the nature of our cargo, we were harassed with new regulations which we didn’t at all like, relative to smoking our pipes and lighting our lanterns; and, as usual in such cases, the captain who made the regulations preached what he didn’t practise. Not a man of us was allowed to have a bit of lighted candle in his hand when he went below — except the skipper; and he used his light, when he turned in, or when he looked over his charts on the cabin table, just as usual. This light was a common kitchen candle or “dip,” of the sort that goes eight or ten to the pound; and it stood in an old battered flat candlestick, with all the japan worn and melted off, and all the tin showing through. It would have been more seamanlike and suitable in every respect if he had had a lamp or a lantern; but he stuck to his old candlestick; and that same old candlestick, ladies and gentlemen, was ever afterwards stuck to me . That’s another joke, if you like and I’m much obliged to Miss Belinda in the corner for being good enough to laugh at it.