Part 8

She said, in speaking of it, ‘If a flower Were thrown you out of heaven at intervals, You’d soon attain to a trick of looking up,— And so with her.’ She counted me her years, Till _I_ felt old; and then she counted me Her sorrowful pleasures, till I felt ashamed. She told me she was almost glad and calm On such and such a season; sate and sewed, With no one to break up her crystal thoughts; While rhymes from lovely poems span around Their ringing circles of ecstatic tune, Beneath the moistened finger of the Hour. Her parents called her a strange, sickly child, Not good for much, and given to sulk and stare, And smile into the hedges and the clouds, And tremble if one shook her from her fit By any blow, or word even. Out-door jobs Went ill with her; and household quiet work, She was not born to. Had they kept the north, They might have had their pennyworth out of her, Like other parents, in the factories; (Your children work for you, not you for them, Or else they better had been choked with air The first breath drawn;) but, in this tramping life, Was nothing to be done with such a child, But tramp and tramp. And yet she knitted hose Not ill, and was not dull at needlework; And all the country people gave her pence For darning stockings past their natural age, And patching petticoats from old to new, And other light work done for thrifty wives.

One day, said Marian,—the sun shone that day— Her mother had been badly beat, and felt The bruises sore about her wretched soul, (That must have been): she came in suddenly, And snatching, in a sort of breathless rage, Her daughter’s headgear comb, let down the hair Upon her, like a sudden waterfall, And drew her drenched and passive, by the arm, Outside the hut they lived in. When the child Could clear her blinded face from all that stream Of tresses ... there, a man stood, with beast’s eyes, That seemed as they would swallow her alive, Complete in body and spirit, hair and all,— With burning stertorous breath that hurt her cheek, He breathed so near. The mother held her tight, Saying hard between her teeth—‘Why wench, why wench, The squire speaks to you now—the squire’s too good; He means to set you up, and comfort us. Be mannerly at least.’ The child turned round, And looked up piteous in the mother’s face, (Be sure that mother’s death-bed will not want Another devil to damn, than such a look) ... ‘Oh, mother!’ then, with desperate glance to heaven, ‘God, free me from my mother,’ she shrieked out, ‘These mothers are too dreadful.’ And, with force As passionate as fear, she tore her hands Like lilies from the rocks, from hers and his, And sprang down, bounded headlong down the steep, Away from both—away, if possible, As far as God,—away! They yelled at her, As famished hounds at a hare. She heard them yell, She felt her name hiss after her from the hills, Like shot from guns. On, on. And now she had cast The voices off with the uplands. On. Mad fear Was running in her feet and killing the ground; The white roads curled as if she burnt them up, The green fields melted, wayside trees fell back To make room for her. Then, her head grew vexed, Trees, fields, turned on her, and ran after her; She heard the quick pants of the hills behind, Their keen air pricked her neck. She had lost her feet, Could run no more, yet, somehow, went as fast,— The horizon, red ’twixt steeples in the east, So sucked her forward, forward, while her heart Kept swelling, swelling, till it swelled so big It seemed to fill her body; then it burst, And overflowed the world and swamped the light, ‘And now I am dead and safe,’ thought Marian Erle— She had dropped, she had fainted. When the sense returned, The night had passed—not life’s night. She was ’ware Of heavy tumbling motions, creaking wheels, The driver shouting to the lazy team That swung their rankling bells against her brain; While, through the waggon’s coverture and chinks, The cruel yellow morning pecked at her Alive or dead, upon the straw inside,— At which her soul ached back into the dark And prayed, ‘no more of that.’ A waggoner Had found her in a ditch beneath the moon, As white as moonshine, save for the oozing blood. At first he thought her dead; but when he had wiped The mouth and heard it sigh, he raised her up, And laid her in his waggon in the straw, And so conveyed her to the distant town To which his business called himself, and left That heap of misery at the hospital.

She stirred;—the place seemed new and strange as death. The white strait bed, with others strait and white, Like graves dug side by side, at measured lengths, And quiet people walking in and out With wonderful low voices and soft steps, And apparitional equal care for each, Astonished her with order, silence, law: And when a gentle hand held out a cup, She took it, as you do at sacrament, Half awed, half melted,—not being used, indeed, To so much love as makes the form of love And courtesy of manners. Delicate drinks And rare white bread, to which some dying eyes Were turned in observation. O my God, How sick we must be, ere we make men just! I think it frets the saints in heaven to see How many desolate creatures on the earth Have learnt the simple dues of fellowship And social comfort, in a hospital, As Marian did. She lay there, stunned, half tranced, And wished, at intervals of growing sense, She might be sicker yet, if sickness made The world so marvellous kind, the air so hushed, And all her wake-time quiet as a sleep; For now she understood, (as such things were) How sickness ended very oft in heaven, Among the unspoken raptures. Yet more sick, And surelier happy. Then she dropped her lids, And, folding up her hands as flowers at night, Would lose no moment of the blessed time.

She lay and seethed in fever many weeks, But youth was strong and overcame the test; Revolted soul and flesh were reconciled And fetched back to the necessary day And daylight duties. She could creep about The long bare rooms, and stare out drearily From any narrow window on the street, Till some one, who had nursed her as a friend, Said coldly to her, as an enemy, ‘She had leave to go next week, being well enough,’ While only her heart ached. ‘Go next week,’ thought she, ‘Next week! how would it be with her next week, Let out into that terrible street alone Among the pushing people, ... to go ... where?’

One day, the last before the dreaded last, Among the convalescents, like herself Prepared to go next morning, she sate dumb, And heard half absently the women talk, How one was famished for her baby’s cheeks— ‘The little wretch would know her! a year old, And lively, like his father!’ one was keen To get to work, and fill some clamorous mouths; And one was tender for her dear goodman Who had missed her sorely,—and one, querulous ... ‘Would pay those scandalous neighbours who had dared To talk about her as already dead,’— And one was proud ... ‘and if her sweetheart Luke Had left her for a ruddier face than hers, (The gossip would be seen through at a glance) Sweet riddance of such sweethearts—let him hang! ’Twere good to have been as sick for such an end.’

And while they talked, and Marian felt the worse For having missed the worst of all their wrongs, A visitor was ushered through the wards And paused among the talkers. ‘When he looked, It was as if he spoke, and when he spoke He sang perhaps,’ said Marian; ‘could she tell? She only knew’ (so much she had chronicled, As seraphs might, the making of the sun) ‘That he who came and spake, was Romney Leigh, And then, and there, she saw and heard him first.’ And when it was her turn to have the face Upon her,—all those buzzing pallid lips Being satisfied with comfort—when he changed To Marian, saying ‘And _you_? you’re going, where?’— She, moveless as a worm beneath a stone Which some one’s stumbling foot has spurned aside, Writhed suddenly, astonished with the light, And breaking into sobs cried, ‘Where I go? None asked me till this moment. Can I say Where _I_ go? when it has not seemed worth while To God himself, who thinks of every one, To think of me, and fix where I shall go?’

‘So young,’ he gently asked her, ‘you have lost Your father and your mother?’ ‘Both,’ she said, ‘Both lost! my father was burnt up with gin Or ever I sucked milk, and so is lost. My mother sold me to a man last month, And so my mother’s lost, ’tis manifest. And I, who fled from her for miles and miles, As if I had caught sight of the fires of hell Through some wild gap, (she was my mother, sir) It seems I shall be lost too, presently, And so we end, all three of us.’ ‘Poor child!’ He said,—with such a pity in his voice, It soothed her more than her own tears,—‘poor child! ’Tis simple that betrayal by mother’s love Should bring despair of God’s too. Yet be taught; He’s better to us than many mothers are, And children cannot wander beyond reach Of the sweep of his white raiment. Touch and hold! And if you weep still, weep where John was laid While Jesus loved him.’ ‘She could say the words,’ She told me, ‘exactly as he uttered them A year back, ... since, in any doubt or dark, They came out like the stars, and shone on her With just their comfort. Common words, perhaps; The ministers in church might say the same; But _he_, he made the church with what he spoke,— The difference was the miracle,’ said she.

Then catching up her smile to ravishment, She added quickly, ‘I repeat his words, But not his tones: can any one repeat The music of an organ, out of church? And when he said ‘poor child,’ I shut my eyes To feel how tenderly his voice broke through, As the ointment-box broke on the Holy feet To let out the rich medicative nard.’

She told me how he had raised and rescued her With reverent pity, as, in touching grief, He touched the wounds of Christ,—and made her feel More self-respecting. Hope, he called, belief In God,—work, worship ... therefore let us pray! And thus, to snatch her soul from atheism, And keep it stainless from her mother’s face, He sent her to a famous sempstress-house Far off in London, there to work and hope.

With that, they parted. She kept sight of Heaven, But not of Romney. He had good to do To others: through the days and through the nights, She sewed and sewed and sewed. She drooped sometimes, And wondered, while, along the tawny light, She struck the new thread into her needle’s eye, How people, without mothers on the hills, Could choose the town to live in!—then she drew The stitch, and mused how Romney’s face would look, And if ’twere likely he’d remember hers, When they two had their meeting after death.

FOURTH BOOK.

THEY met still sooner. ’Twas a year from thence When Lucy Gresham, the sick sempstress girl, Who sewed by Marian’s chair so still and quick, And leant her head upon the back to cough More freely when, the mistress turning round, The others took occasion to laugh out,— Gave up at last. Among the workers, spoke A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,— ‘You know the news? Who’s dying, do you think? Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it As little as Nell Hart’s wedding. Blush not, Nell, Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks; And, some day, there’ll be found a man to dote On red curls.—Lucy Gresham swooned last night, Dropped sudden in the street while going home; And now the baker says, who took her up And laid her by her grandmother in bed, He’ll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk. Let’s hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach, For otherwise they’ll starve before they die, That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell, I’ll thank you for the scissors. The old crone Is paralytic—that’s the reason why Our Lucy’s thread went faster than her breath, Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle! Why, Marian Erle, you’re not the fool to cry? Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar’s new dress, You piece of pity!’ Marian rose up straight, And, breaking through the talk and through the work, Went outward, in the face of their surprise, To Lucy’s home, to nurse her back to life Or down to death. She knew, by such an act, All place and grace were forfeit in the house, Whose mistress would supply the missing hand With necessary, not inhuman haste, And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues: She could not leave a solitary soul To founder in the dark, while she sate still And lavished stitches on a lady’s hem As if no other work were paramount. ‘Why, God,’ thought Marian, ‘has a missing hand This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps. Let others miss me! never miss me, God!’

So Marian sate by Lucy’s bed, content With duty, and was strong, for recompense, To hold the lamp of human love arm-high To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them, Until the angels, on the luminous side Of death, had got theirs ready. And she said, When Lucy thanked her sometimes, called her kind, It touched her strangely. ‘Marian Erle, called kind! What, Marian, beaten and sold, who could not die! ’Tis verily good fortune to be kind. Ah, you,’ she said, ‘who are born to such a grace, Be sorry for the unlicensed class, the poor, Reduced to think the best good fortune means That others, simply, should be kind to them.’

From sleep to sleep while Lucy slid away So gently, like the light upon a hill, Of which none names the moment that it goes, Though all see when ’tis gone,—a man came in And stood beside the bed. The old idiot wretch Screamed feebly, like a baby overlain, ‘Sir, sir, you won’t mistake me for the corpse? Don’t look at _me_, sir! never bury _me_! Although I lie here, I’m alive as you, Except my legs and arms,—I eat and drink, And understand,—(that you’re the gentleman Who fits the funerals up, Heaven speed you, sir,) And certainly I should be livelier still If Lucy here ... sir, Lucy is the corpse ... Had worked more properly to buy me wine: But Lucy, sir, was always slow at work, I shan’t lose much by Lucy. Marian Erle, Speak up and show the gentleman the corpse.’

And then a voice said, ‘Marian Erle.’ She rose; It was the hour for angels—there, stood hers! She scarcely marvelled to see Romney Leigh. As light November snows to empty nests, As grass to graves, as moss to mildewed stones, As July suns to ruins, through the rents, As ministering spirits to mourners, through a loss, As Heaven itself to men, through pangs of death, He came uncalled wherever grief had come. ‘And so,’ said Marian Erle, ‘we met anew,’ And added softly, ‘so, we shall not part.’

He was not angry that she had left the house Wherein he placed her. Well—she had feared it might Have vexed him. Also, when he found her set On keeping, though the dead was out of sight, That half-dead, half-live body left behind With cankerous heart and flesh,—which took your best And cursed you for the little good it did, (Could any leave the bedrid wretch alone, So joyless, she was thankless even to God, Much less to you?) he did not say ’twas well, Yet Marian thought he did not take it ill,— Since day by day he came, and, every day, She felt within his utterance and his eyes A closer, tenderer presence of the soul, Until at last he said, ‘We shall not part.’

On that same day, was Marian’s work complete: She had smoothed the empty bed, and swept the floor Of coffin sawdust, set the chairs anew The dead had ended gossip in, and stood In that poor room so cold and orderly, The door-key in her hand, prepared to go As _they_ had, howbeit not their way. He spoke.

‘Dear Marian, of one clay God made us all, And though men push and poke and paddle in’t (As children play at fashioning dirt-pies) And call their fancies by the name of facts, Assuming difference, lordship, privilege, When all’s plain dirt,—they come back to it at last; The first grave-digger proves it with a spade, And pats all even. Need we wait for this, You, Marian, and I, Romney?’ She, at that, Looked blindly in his face, as when one looks Through driving autumn-rains to find the sky. He went on speaking. ‘Marian, I being born What men call noble, and you, issued from The noble people,—though the tyrannous sword Which pierced Christ’s heart, has cleft the world in twain ’Twixt class and class, opposing rich to poor,— Shall _we_ keep parted? Not so. Let us lean And strain together rather, each to each, Compress the red lips of this gaping wound, As far as two souls can,—ay, lean and league, I, from my superabundance,—from your want, You,—joining in a protest ’gainst the wrong On both sides!’— All the rest, he held her hand In speaking, which confused the sense of much; Her heart, against his words, beat out so thick, They might as well be written on the dust Where some poor bird, escaping from hawk’s beak, Has dropped, and beats its shuddering wings,—the lines Are rubbed so,—yet ’twas something like to this, —‘That they two, standing at the two extremes Of social classes, had received one seal, Been dedicate and drawn beyond themselves To mercy and ministration,—he, indeed, Through what he knew, and she, through what she felt, He, by man’s conscience, she, by woman’s heart, Relinquishing their several ’vantage posts Of wealthy ease and honourable toil, To work with God at love. And, since God willed That, putting out his hand to touch this ark, He found a woman’s hand there, he’d accept The sign too, hold the tender fingers fast, And say, ‘My fellow-worker, be my wife!’’

She told the tale with simple, rustic turns,— Strong leaps of meaning in her sudden eyes That took the gaps of any imperfect phrase Of the unschooled speaker: I have rather writ The thing I understood so, than the thing I heard so. And I cannot render right Her quick gesticulation, wild yet soft, Self-startled from the habitual mood she used, Half sad, half languid,—like dumb creatures (now A rustling bird, and now a wandering deer, Or squirrel against the oak-gloom flashing up His sidelong burnished head, in just her way Of savage spontaneity,) that stir Abruptly the green silence of the woods, And make it stranger, holier, more profound; As Nature’s general heart confessed itself Of life, and then fell backward on repose.

I kissed the lips that ended.—‘So indeed He loves you, Marian?’ ‘Loves me!’ She looked up With a child’s wonder when you ask him first Who made the sun—a puzzled blush, that grew, Then broke off in a rapid radiant smile Of sure solution. ‘Loves me! he loves all,— And me, of course. He had not asked me else To work with him for ever, and be his wife.’

Her words reproved me. This perhaps was love— To have its hands too full of gifts to give, For putting out a hand to take a gift; To love so much, the perfect round of love Includes, in strict conclusion, the being loved; As Eden-dew went up and fell again, Enough for watering Eden. Obviously She had not thought about his love at all: The cataracts of her soul had poured themselves, And risen self-crowned in rainbow: would she ask Who crowned her?—it sufficed that she was crowned. With women of my class, ’tis otherwise: We haggle for the small change of our gold, And so much love, accord, for so much love, Rialto-prices. Are we therefore wrong? If marriage be a contract, look to it then, Contracting parties should be equal, just; But if, a simple fealty on one side, A mere religion,—right to give, is all, And certain brides of Europe duly ask To mount the pile, as Indian widows do, The spices of their tender youth heaped up, The jewels of their gracious virtues worn, More gems, more glory,—to consume entire For a living husband! as the man’s alive, Not dead,—the woman’s duty, by so much, Advanced in England, beyond Hindostan.