After the Storm

T >> T. S. Arthur >> After the Storm

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There were ripe harvest-fields around Ivy Cliff, though Irene had
not observed the golden grain bending its head for the sickle until
Rose led her feet in the right direction. Not many of the naturally
poor were around them, yet some required even bodily
ministrations--children, the sick and the aged. The destitution that
most prevailed was of the mind; and this is the saddest form of
poverty. Mental hunger! how it exhausts the soul and debases its
heaven-born faculties, sinking it into a gross corporeal sphere,
that is only a little removed from the animal! To feed the hungry
and clothe the naked mean a great deal more than the bestowal of
food and raiment; yes, a great deal more; and we have done but a
small part of Christian duty--have obeyed only in the letter--when
we supply merely the bread that perishes.

Rose Carman had been wisely instructed, and she was an apt scholar.
Now, from a learner she became a teacher, and in the suffering Irene
found one ready to accept the higher truths that governed her life,
and to act with her in giving them a real ultimation. So, in the two
years which had woven their web of new experiences for the heart of
Irene, she had been drawn almost imperceptibly by Rose into fields
of labor where the work that left her hands was, she saw, good work,
and must endure for ever. What peace it often brought to her
striving spirit, when, but for the sustaining and protecting power
of good deeds, she would have been swept out upon the waves of
turbulent passion--tossed and beaten there until her exhausted heart
sunk down amid the waters, and lay dead for a while at the bottom of
her great sea of trouble!

It was better--oh, how much better!--when she laid her head at night
on her lonely pillow, to have in memory the face of a poor sick
woman, which had changed from suffering to peace as she talked to
her of higher things than the body's needs, and bore her mind up
into a region of tranquil thought, than to be left with no image to
dwell upon but an image of her own shattered hopes. Yes, this was
far better; and by the power of such memories the unhappy one had
many peaceful seasons and nights of sweet repose.

All around Ivy Cliff, Irene and Rose were known as ministrant
spirits to the poor and humble. The father of Rose was a man of
wealth, and she had his entire sympathy and encouragement. Irene had
no regular duties at home, Margaret being housekeeper and directress
in all departments. So there was nothing to hinder the free course
of her will as to the employment of time. With all her pride of
independence, the ease with which Mrs. Talbot drew Irene in one
direction, and now Miss Carman in another, showed how easily she
might be influenced when off her guard. This is true in most cases
of your very self-willed people, and the reason why so many of them
get astray. Only conceal the hand that leads them, and you may often
take them where you will. Ah, if Hartley Emerson had been wise
enough, prudent enough and loving enough to have influenced aright
the fine young spirit he was seeking to make one with his own, how
different would the result have been!

In the region round about, our two young friends came in time to be
known as the "Sisters of Charity." It was not said of them
mockingly, nor in gay depreciation, nor in mean ill-nature, but in
expression of a common sentiment, that recognized their high,
self-imposed mission.

Thus it had been with Irene since her return to the old home at Ivy
Cliff.

CHAPTER XXII.

STRUCK DOWN.

_YES_, Irene had looked for this--looked for it daily for now more
than a year. Still it came upon her with a shock that sent a
strange, wild shudder through all her being. A divorce! She was less
prepared for it than she had ever been.

What was beyond? Ah! that touched a chord which gave a thrill of
pain. What was beyond? A new alliance, of course. Legal disabilities
removed, Hartley Emerson would take upon himself new marriage vows.
Could she say, "Yea, and amen" to this? No, alas! no. There was a
feeling of intense, irrepressible anguish away down in heart-regions
that lay far beyond the lead-line of prior consciousness. What did
it mean? She asked herself the question with a fainting spirit. Had
she not known herself? Were old states of tenderness, which she had
believed crushed out and dead along ago, hidden away in secret
places of her heart, and kept there safe from harm?

No wonder she sat pale and still, crumpling nervously that fatal
document which had startled her with a new revelation of herself.
There was love in her heart still, and she knew it not. For a long
time she sat like one in a dream.

"God help me!" she said at length, looking around her in a wild,
bewildered manner. "What does all this mean?"

There came at this moment a gentle tap at her door. She knew whose
soft hand had given the sound.

"Irene," exclaimed Rose Carman, as she took the hand of her friend
and looked into her changed countenance, "what ails you?"

Irene turned her face partly away to get control of its expression.

"Sit down, Rose," she said, as soon as she could trust herself to
speak.

They sat down together, Rose troubled and wondering. Irene then
handed her friend the notice which she had received. Miss Carman
read it, but made no remark for some time.

"It has disturbed you," she said at length, seeing that Irene
continued silent.

"Yes, more than I could have believed," answered Irene. Her voice
had lost its familiar tones.

"You have expected this?"

"Yes."

"I thought you were prepared for it."

"And I am," replied Irene, speaking with more firmness of manner.
"Expectation grows so nervous, sometimes, that when the event comes
it falls upon us with a painful shock. This is my case now. I would
have felt it less severely if it had occurred six months ago."

"What will you do?" asked Rose.

"Do?"

"Yes."

"What can I do?"

"Resist the application, if you will."

"But I will not," answered Irene, firmly. "He signifies his wishes
in the case, and those wishes must determine everything. I will
remain passive."

"And let the divorce issue by default of answer?"

"Yes."

There was a faintness of tone which Rose could not help remarking.

"Yes," Irene added, "he desires this complete separation, and I can
have nothing to say in opposition. I left him, and have remained
ever since a stranger to his home and heart. We are nothing to each
other, and yet are bound together by the strongest of bonds. Why
should he not wish to be released from these bonds? And if he
desires it, I have nothing to say. We are divorced in fact--why then
retain the form?"

"There may be a question of the fact," said Rose.

"Yes; I understand you. We have discussed that point fully. Your
view may be right, but I do not see it clearly. I will at least
retain passive. The responsibility shall rest with him."

No life or color came back to the face of Irene. She looked as cold
as marble; not cold without feeling, but with intense feeling
recorded as in a piece of sculpture.

There were deeds of kindness and mercy set down in the purposes of
our young friend, and it was to go forth and perform them that Rose
had called for Irene this morning. But only one Sister of Charity
went to the field that day, and only one for many days afterward.

Irene could not recover from the shock of this legal notice. It
found her less prepared than she had been at any time during the
last two years of separation. Her life at Ivy Cliff had not been
favorable to a spirit of antagonism and accusation, nor favorable to
a self-approving judgment of herself when the past came up, as it
often came, strive as she would to cover it as with a veil. She had
grown in this night of suffering, less self-willed and blindly
impulsive. Some scales had dropped from her eyes, and she saw
clearer. Yet no repentance for that one act of her life, which
involved a series of consequences beyond the reach of conjecture,
had found a place in her heart. There was no looking back from
this--no sober questioning as to the right or necessity which had
been involved. There had been one great mistake--so she decided the
case--and that was the marriage.

From this fatal error all subsequent evil was born.

Months of waiting and expectation followed, and then came a decree
annulling the marriage.

"It is well," was the simple response of Irene when notice of the
fact reached her.

Not even to Rose Carman did she reveal a thought that took shape in
her mind, nor betray a single emotion that trembled in her heart. If
there had been less appearance of indifference--less avoidance of
the subject--her friends would have felt more comfortable as to her
state of mind. The unnatural repose of, exterior was to them
significant of a strife within which she wished to conceal from all
eyes.

About this time her true, loving friend, Miss Carman, married. Irene
did not stand as one of the bridesmaids at the ceremony. Rose gently
hinted her wishes in the case, but Irene shrunk from the position,
and her feeling was respected. The husband of Rose was a merchant,
residing in New York, named Everet. After a short bridal tour she
went to her new home in the city. Mr. Everet was five or six years
her senior, and a man worthy to be her life-companion. No sudden
attachment had grown up between them. For years they had been in the
habit of meeting, and in this time the character of each had been
clearly read by the other. When Mr. Everet asked the maiden's hand,
it, was yielded without a sign of hesitation.

The removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff greatly
disturbed the even-going tenor of Irene's life. It withdrew also a
prop on which she had leaned often in times of weakness, which would
recur very heavily.

"How can I live without you?" she said in tears, as she sat alone
with the new-made bride on the eve of her departure; "you have been
everything to me, Rose--strength in weakness; light, when all around
was cold and dark; a guide when I had lost my way. God bless and
make you happy, darling! And he will. Hearts like yours create
happiness wherever they go."

"My new home will only be a few hours' distant," replied Rose; "I
shall see you there often."

Irene sighed. She had been to the city only a few times since that
sad day of separation from her husband. Could she return again and
enter one of its bright social circles? Her heart said no. But love
drew her too strongly. In less than a month after Rose became the
mistress of a stately mansion, Irene was her guest. This was just
six years from the time when she set up her home there, a proud and
happy young wife. Alas! that hearth was desolate, "its bright fire
quenched and gone."

It was best for Irene thus to get back again into a wider social
sphere--to make some new friends, and those of a class that such a
woman as Mrs. Everet would naturally draw around her. Three years of
suffering, and the effort to lead a life of self-denial and active
interest in others, had wrought in Irene a great change. The old,
flashing ardor of manner was gone. If she grew animated in
conversation, as she often did from temperament, her face would
light up beautifully, but it did not show the radiance of old times.
Thought, more than feeling, gave its living play to her countenance.
All who met her were attracted; as her history was known,
observation naturally took the form of close scrutiny. People wished
to find the angular and repellant sides of her character in order to
see how far she might be to blame. But they were not able to
discover them. On the subjects of woman's rights, domestic tyranny,
sexual equality and all kindred themes she was guarded in speech.
She never introduced them herself, and said but little when they
formed the staple of conversation.

Even if, in three years of intimate, almost daily, association with
Rose, she had not learned to think in some new directions on these
bewildering questions, certain womanly instincts must have set a
seal upon her lips. Not for all the world would she, to a
stranger--no, nor to any new friend--utter a sentiment that could in
the least degree give color to the thought that she wished to throw
even the faintest shadow of blame on Hartley Emerson. Not that she
was ready to take blame to herself, or give the impression that
fault rested by her door. No. The subject was sacred to herself, and
she asked no sympathy and granted no confidences. There were those
who sought to draw her out, who watched her face and words with keen
intentness when certain themes were discussed. But they were unable
to reach the penetralia of her heart. There was a chamber of record
there into which no one could enter but herself.

Since the separation of Irene from her husband, Mr. Delancy had
shown signs of rapid failure. His heart was bound up in his
daughter, who, with all her captious self-will and impulsiveness,
loved him with a tenderness and fervor that never knew change or
eclipse. To see her make shipwreck of life's dearest hopes--to know
that her name was spoken by hundreds in reprobation--to look daily
on her quiet, changing, suffering face, was more than his fond heart
could bear. It broke him down. This fact, more perhaps, than her own
sad experiences, tended to sober the mind of Irene, and leave it
almost passive under the right influences of her wise young friend.

After the removal of Rose from the neighborhood of Ivy Cliff, the
health of Mr. Delancy failed still more rapidly, and in a few months
the brief visits of Irene to her friend in New York had to be
intermitted. She could no longer venture to leave her father, even
under the care of their faithful Margaret. A sad winter for Irene
succeeded. Mr. Delancy drooped about until after Christmas, in a
weary, listless way, taking little interest in anything, and bearing
both physical and mental consciousness as a burden it would be
pleasant to lay down. Early in January he had to give up and go to
bed; and now the truth of his condition startled the mind of Irene
and filled her with alarm. By slow, insidious encroachments, that
dangerous enemy, typhoid fever, had gained a lodgment in the very
citadel of life, and boldly revealed itself, defying the healer's
art. For weeks the dim light of mortal existence burned with a low,
wavering flame, that any sudden breath of air might extinguish; then
it grew steady again, increased, and sent a few brighter rays into
the darkness which had gathered around Ivy Cliff.

Spring found Mr. Delancy strong enough to sit, propped up with
pillows, by the window of his chamber, and look out upon the
newly-mantled trees, the green fields, and the bright river flashing
in the sunshine. The heart of Irene took courage again. The cloud
which had lain upon it all winter like a funereal pall dissolved,
and went floating away and wasting itself in dim expanses.

Alas, that all this sweet promise was but a mockery of hope! A
sudden cold, how taken it was almost impossible to tell--for Irene
guarded her father as tenderly as if he were a new-born
infant--disturbed life's delicate equipoise, and the scale turned
fatally the wrong way.

Poor Irene! She had only staggered under former blows--this one
struck her down. Had life anything to offer now? "Nothing! nothing!"
she said in her heart, and prayed that she might die and be at rest
with her father.

Months of stupor followed this great sorrow; then her heart began to
beat again with some interest in life. There was one friend, almost
her only friend--for she now repelled nearly every one who
approached her--who never failed in hopeful, comforting, stimulating
words and offices, who visited her frequently in her recluse life at
Ivy Cliff, and sought with untiring assiduity to win her once more
away from its dead seclusion. And she was at last successful. In the
winter after Mr. Delancy's death, Irene, after much earnest
persuasion, consented to pass a few weeks in the city with Mrs.
Everet. This gained, her friend was certain of all the rest.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE HAUNTED VISION.

_GRADUALLY_ the mind of Irene attained clearness of perception as to
duty, and a firmness of will that led her to act in obedience to
what reason and religion taught her was right. The leading idea
which Mrs. Everet endeavored to keep before her was this: that no
happiness is possible, except in some work that removes
self-consciousness and fills our minds with an interest in the
well-being of others. While Rose was at Ivy Cliff, Irene acted with
her, and was sustained by her love and companionship. After her
marriage and removal to New York, Irene was left to stand alone, and
this tried her strength. It was feeble. The sickness and death of
her father drew her back again into herself, and for a time
extinguished all interest in what was on the outside. To awaken a
new and higher life was the aim of her friend, and she never wearied
in her generous efforts. During this winter plans were matured for
active usefulness in the old spheres, and Mrs. Everet promised to
pass as much time in the next summer with her father as possible, so
as to act with Irene in the development of these schemes.

The first warm days of summer found Irene back again in her home at
Ivy Cliff. Her visit in New York had been prolonged far beyond the
limit assigned to it in the beginning, but Rose would not consent to
an earlier return. This winter of daily life with Mrs. Everet, in
the unreserved intercourse of home, was of great use to Irene.
Affliction had mellowed all the harder portions of her disposition,
which the trouble and experiences of the past few years could not
reach with their softening influences. There was good soil in her
mind, well prepared, and the sower failed not in the work of
scattering good seed upon it with a liberal hand--seed that felt
soon a quickening life and swelled in the delight of coming
germination.

It is not our purpose to record the history of Irene during the
years of her discipline at Ivy Cliff, where she lived, nun-like, for
the larger part of her time. She had useful work there, and in its
faithful performance peace came to her troubled soul. Three or four
times every year she paid a visit to Rose, and spent on each
occasion from one to three or four weeks. It could not but happen
that in these visits congenial friendship would be made, and tender
remembrances go back with her into the seclusion of her country
home, to remain as sweet companions in her hours of loneliness.

It was something remarkable that, during the six or seven years
which followed Irene's separation from her husband, she had never
seen him. He was still a resident of New York, and well known as a
rapidly advancing member of the bar. Occasionally his name met her
eyes in the newspapers, as connected with some important suit; but,
beyond this, his life was to her a dead letter. He might be married
again, for all she knew to the contrary. But she never dwelt on that
thought; its intrusion always disturbed her, and that profoundly.

And how was it with Hartley Emerson? Had he again tried the
experiment which once so signally failed? No; he had not ventured
upon the sea whose depths held the richest vessel he had freighted
in life. Visions of loveliness had floated before him, and he had
been lured by them, a few times, out of his beaten path. But he
carried in his memory a picture that, when his eyes turned inward,
held their gaze so fixedly that all other images grew dim or
unlovely. And so, with a sigh, he would turn again to the old way
and move on as before.

But the past was irrevocable. "And shall I," he began to say to
himself, "for this one great error of my youth--this blind
mistake--pass a desolate and fruitless life?"

Oftener and oftener the question was repeated in his thoughts, until
it found answer in an emphatic No! Then he looked around with a new
interest, and went more into society. Soon one fair face came more
frequently before the eyes of his mind than any other face. He saw
it as he sat in his law-office, saw it on the page of his book as he
read in the evening, lying over the printed words and hiding from
his thoughts their meaning; saw it in dreams. The face haunted him.
How long was this since that fatal night of discord and separation?
Ten years. So long? Yes, so long. Ten weary years had made their
record upon his book of life and upon hers. Ten weary years! The
discipline of this time had not worked on either any moral
deterioration. Both were yet sound to the core, and both were
building up characters based on the broad foundations of virtue.

Steadily that face grew into a more living distinctness, haunting
his daily thoughts and nightly visions. Then new life-pulses began
to throb in his heart; new emotions to tremble over its long calm
surface; new warmth to flow, spring-like, into the indurated soil.
This face, which had begun thus to dwell with him, was the face of a
maiden, beautiful to look upon. He had met her often during a year,
and from the beginning of their acquaintance she had interested him.
If he erred not, the interest was mutual. prom all points of view he
now commenced studying her character. Having made one mistake, he
was fearful and guarded. Better go on a lonely man to the end of
life than again have his love-freighted bark buried in mid-ocean.

At last, Emerson was satisfied. He had found the sweet being whose
life could blend in eternal oneness with his own; and it only
remained for him to say to her in words what she had read as plainly
as written language in his eyes. So far as she was concerned, no
impediment existed. We will not say that she was ripe enough in soul
to wed with this man, who had passed through experiences of a kind
that always develop the character broadly and deeply. No, for such
was not the case. She was too young and inexperienced to understand
him; too narrow in her range of thought; too much a child. But
something in her beautiful, innocent, sweet young face had won his
heart; and in the weakness of passion, not in the manly strength of
a deep love, he had bowed down to a shrine at which he could never
worship and be satisfied.

But even strong men are weak in woman's toils, and Hartley Emerson
was a captive.

There was to be a pleasure-party on one of the steamers that cut the
bright waters of the fair Hudson, and Emerson and the maiden, whose
face was now his daily companion, were to be of the number. He felt
that the time had come for him to speak if he meant to speak at
all--to say what was in his thought, or turn aside and let another
woo and win the lovely being imagination had already pictured as the
sweet companion of his future home. The night that preceded this
excursion was a sleepless one for Hartley Emerson. Questions and
doubts, scarcely defined in his thoughts before, pressed themselves
upon him and demanded a solution. The past came up with a vividness
not experienced for years. In states of
semi-consciousness--half-sleeping, half-waking--there returned to
him such life-like realizations of events long ago recorded in his
memory, and covered over with the dust of time, that he started from
them to full wakefulness, with a heart throbbing in wild tumult.
Once there was presented so vivid a picture of Irene that for some
moments he was unable to satisfy himself that all these ten years of
loneliness were not a dream. He saw her as she stood before him on
that ever-to-be-remembered night and said, "_I go!_" Let us turn
back and read the record of her appearance as he saw her then and
now:

"She had raised her eyes from the floor, and turned them full upon
her husband. Her face was not so pale. Warmth had come back to the
delicate skin, flushing it with beauty. She did not stand before him
an impersonation of anger, dislike or rebellion. There was not a
repulsively attitude or expression. No flashing of the eyes, nor
even the cold, diamond glitter seen a little while before. Slowly
turning away, she left the room. But to her husband she seemed still
standing there, a lovely vision. There had fallen, in that instant
of time, a sunbeam, which fixed the image upon his memory in
imperishable colors."

Emerson groaned as he fell back upon his pillow and shut his eyes.
What would he not then have given for one full draught of Lethe's
fabled waters.

Morning came at last, its bright beams dispersing the shadows of
night; and with it came back the warmth of his new passion and his
purpose on that day, if the opportunity came, to end all doubt, by
offering the maiden his hand--we do not say heart, for of that he
was not the full possessor.

The day opened charmingly, and the pleasure-party were on the wing
betimes. Emerson felt a sense of exhilaration as the steamer passed
out from her moorings and glided with easy grace along the city
front. He stood upon her deck with a maiden's hand resting on his
arm, the touch of which, though light as the pressure of a flower,
was felt with strange distinctness. The shadows of the night, which
had brooded so darkly over his spirit, were gone, and only a dim
remembrance of the gloom remained. Onward the steamer glided,
sweeping by the crowded line of buildings and moving grandly along,
through palisades of rock on one side and picturesque landscapes on
the other, until bolder scenery stretched away and mountain barriers
raised themselves against the blue horizon.

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