Читать книгу Love's Golden Thread - E. C. Kenyon - Страница 3

"

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

WITH A GLAD CRY BERNARD SPRANG TO HIS FEET . . . Frontispiece

THE SHOCK OF LEARNING THE SAD NEWS WAS GREAT

SHE UTTERED AN EXCLAMATION OF SURPRISE

"GO! YOU CANNOT APPRECIATE SELF-DENIAL AND LOVE"

"READ IT," HE SAID, HANDING HER THE LETTER

DORIS CLUNG TO HER AT THE LAST. "YOU HAVE BEEN LIKE A DEAR SISTER TO ME"

LOVE'S GOLDEN THREAD.

CHAPTER I.

LOVE AND HOPE.

Little sweetheart, stand up strong,

Gird the armour on your knight;

* * * * *

There are battles to be fought,

There are victories to be won,

Righteous labours to be wrought,

Valiant races to be run:

Grievous wrongs to be retrieved,

Right and justice to be done:

* * * * *

Little sweetheart, stand up strong,

Gird the armour on your knight:

Sing your bravest, sing your song,

Speak your word for truth and right.

ANNIE L. MUZZEY.

"You know, Doris, to-morrow I shall be of age and shall come into my inheritance, the inheritance which my dear father left me," and the speaker sighed lightly, as his thoughts went back for an instant to the parent whose loving presence he still missed, although years had passed since he died.

"Yes, dear, I know," said Doris, lifting sweet sympathising eyes to his. "And, Bernard, it will be a trust from him; he knew you would use it well; you will feel almost as if you were a steward for him--for him and God," she added, almost inaudibly.

He gave her a quick nod of assent. "Money is a talent," he said, "and of course I shall do heaps of good with mine. But you know, dear, I've not got such a wise young head as yours. I shall be sure to make heaps of blunders, and, in short, do more harm than good unless you help me."

He looked at her very meaningly. But her eyes were fixed on the green grass of the hill on which they were sitting, and instead of answering she said, rather irrelevantly, "You will be a man to-morrow; quite legally a man. I'm thinking you'll have to form your own opinions then, and act upon your own responsibility."

"Well, yes. And one day does not make much difference. I am a man now." He held himself up rather proudly; but the next moment, as "self passed out of sight," he drew nearer to his companion, looking down into her sweet flushed face very wistfully.

"To-morrow will make a difference," she said lightly:

"The little more, and how much it is!

And the little less, and what miles away!"

she quoted.

"I was thinking of those lines, too," said the youth, "but not in connection with my coming of age. Doris, dear, the day after to-morrow I shall return to Oxford." He hesitated.

"Yes, I am sorry you are going."

"Not half so sorry as I am to have to leave you!" he exclaimed. "However, it is my last term at Oxford. When I return next time it will be to stay." He hesitated a little, and then, summoning his courage, added hastily, "Doris, couldn't we become engaged?"

The girl looked up, startled, yet with love and happiness shining in her bright blue eyes. "Is it your wish?" she asked. "Is it really and truly your wish?"

Bernard assured her that it was, and moreover that he had loved her all his life, even when as children they played together at making mud-pies and building castles in the sand, on the rare and joyous occasions when their holidays were passed at the seaside.

"You see, dear," he proceeded, after a few blissful moments, while the autumn sunshine fell caressingly upon their bright young faces, "I am rather young and could not speak to you quite like this if it were not that to-morrow I shall be fairly well off. My money--oh, it seems caddish to speak of money just now!--is invested in Consols, therefore quite safe, and it will give me an income of £500 a year. We shall be able to live on that, Doris."

"Yes." The girl looked down shyly, her cheeks becoming pinker, and her blue eyes shining. She was only nineteen, and she loved him very dearly.

"Of course I shall have to assist my mother," continued Bernard. "She has very little money and will have to live with us when we marry. You won't mind that, dear; if we keep together there will be enough for us all."

"Yes, of course." But for the first time a shadow stole across the girl's face. She was rather afraid of Mrs. Cameron, who was the somewhat stern widow of a Wesleyan minister.

Bernard Cameron divined her thoughts. "Mother's sure to like you, Doris," he said. "She's a bit particular, you know. But you are so good. She cannot fail to approve of you. Ours will be a most suitable match in every way. Mother will be very pleased about it."

The shadow passed away from Doris's face, and she smiled. Bernard knew his mother much better than she, therefore he must be right. And her last misgiving vanishing, she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the present.

Time passed as they sat there on the pretty hill at Askern, where so many lovers have sat and walked, plighting their troth and building castles in the air; and it seemed as if these two, who were so young and ardent, would never tire of telling their version of the old, old story of the love of man for woman and woman for man. It was all so new to them that they would have been both startled and incredulous if any one had suggested that the same sort of thing had gone on continuously ever since Adam first saw Eve in the Garden of Eden.

However, everything comes to an end, and the best events always pass the quickest; and so it happened that, in an incredibly short time, the sun sank low in the heavens and finally disappeared, leaving a radiance behind, which was soon swallowed up in twilight and the approaching shades of night. The girl first became uneasy at the lateness of the hour.

"We must go home," she said. "Mother will think I am lost. Oh, Bernard, I did not know it was so late."

"Never mind," said he, "we have been so happy. This has been the first--the very first of many happy times, darling."

"But I don't like annoying mother," said Doris penitently. "Oh, Bernard, let us hurry home!"

"All right, darling."

So they went down the hill and across the fields to the village of Moss, situated between Askern and Doncaster, where they lived; and as they walked they talked of the bright and happy future when they would be together always, helping and encouraging one another along the path of human life.

It was so fortunate for them, they considered, that Bernard Cameron's father had left him £25,000 safely invested. Doris's father, Mr. Anderson, a retired barrister, was one of Bernard's trustees, the other was a Mr. Hamilton, a minister, who knew little about business but had been an intimate friend of the late Mr. Cameron's. Mr. Hamilton was expected at Bernard's home on the day following, when both trustees would meet to hand over to the young man the securities of the money they held in trust for him. Mrs. Cameron would then cease to receive the income that had been allowed her for the maintenance of her son, and it would become Bernard's duty to supplement her slender resources in the way which seemed best to her and to him. There were people who blamed the late Mr. Cameron for leaving the bulk of his property to his son, instead of to his widow--that happened owing to an estrangement which had arisen between husband and wife during the last years of Mr. Cameron's life.

Bernard mourned still for the father of whom his mother never spoke; but he was attached to her also, for she was a good mother to him, and he meant to do his duty as her son. It was his intention after taking his degree to devote himself to tutorial work, as he was fond of boys. In fact he intended to keep a school, and he told Doris this as they walked home together, adding that he should realise part of his capital for the purpose of starting the school. He talked so convincingly of the number of boys he would have, the way in which he would manage them, the profits which would accrue from the school-keeping, and the enormous influence for good which he hoped the scheme would give him over the young and susceptible minds of his pupils, that Doris felt convinced that the enterprise would succeed, and admired his cleverness, business-like ability, and, above all, his wish to help others in the best and highest way.

Timidly, yet with a few well chosen words, she sought to deepen and strengthen his purpose, assuring him that nothing could be nobler or more useful than to teach and train the young, and promising that she would do everything in her power to assist him.

CHAPTER II.

A TERRIBLE WRONG.

All day and all night I can hear the jar

Of the loom of life, and near and far

It thrills with its deep and muffled sound

As the tireless wheels go round and round.

Busily, ceaselessly, goes the loom,

In the light of day and the midnight's gloom.

The wheels are turning, early and late,

And the woof is wound in warp of fate.

Click! Click! There's a thread of love wove in:

Click! Click! another of wrong and sin--

What a checkered thing will this life be

When we see it unrolled in eternity!

Anon.

It was late when Bernard Cameron left Doris at the garden-gate of her home--so late indeed that the girl hurried up the path to the house with not a few misgivings.

How angry her mother would be with her for staying out so late with Bernard! Doris was amazed that she had dared to linger with him so long; but time had sped by on magic wings, and it so quickly became late that evening. Well, she must make the best of it, beg pardon and promise not to offend in that way again. And perhaps when her mother knew what had been taking place, and that she and Bernard intended to marry when he had obtained his degree and was ready to launch out into his life-work, she would be pleased and would forgive everything. For Mrs. Anderson admired Bernard very much, and had been heard to say that she almost envied Mrs. Cameron her son.

"He will be mother's son-in-law in time," thought Doris. "I am sure she will like that."

Doris had reached the hall door now. It was locked, and she hesitated about ringing the bell, being dismayed at the unusual darkness of the house. Why, it must be even later than she had imagined, for the servants appeared to have fastened up the house and gone to bed! The top windows which belonged to them were the only ones that were lighted. No one appeared to be sitting up for her, and, not liking to ring the bell, she went round to the French windows of the drawing-room, in the hope that she might be able to open one of them. But they were closed and in darkness. Then, going a little farther, Doris turned to see if the library window would admit her, and found, to her satisfaction, that a gleam of light from behind its curtains revealed the fact that it was an inch open and that some one was within.

The girl was about to open wide the window and enter the room, when her attention was arrested by hearing her father exclaim, in tones of agony:

"I am ruined! I am quite, quite ruined! And what's more I've speculated with Bernard's money--and it's all gone! It's all gone! And to-morrow they'll all know! Everything will come out--and I shall be arrested!"

"Oh, John! John! What shall we do!" It was her mother's voice, speaking in anguish.

Tremblingly poor Doris drew back, away from the window, feeling overwhelmed with horror and consternation. What had she heard? Bernard, her lover, ruined by her father! She felt quite stunned.

How long she stayed there in the dark, afraid to enter by the library window lest her appearance just then should grieve her parents, and uncertain what to do, she never knew; but at last she found herself standing under her own bedroom window.

There was a pear-tree against the wall. A boy would have thought nothing of climbing it and of entering the room through the window; Doris herself had often done that as a child, but now she hesitated, feeling so much older because she had received her first offer that day from the man whom she loved devotedly, and because, since then, great shame and pain had overwhelmed her in learning that it was against him--of all men in the world!--her father had sinned. Therefore she felt it impossible to climb that tree, as a child, or a light-hearted girl, might easily have done. So she stood beneath it, with bowed head, feeling stunned with misery and utterly incapable of effort.

Above her the stars looked down, and the lights of the village shone, here and there, at a little distance, while the night wind stirred the trees and shrubs close by, and gently swept the hair from off her brow. Just so had she often seen and felt the sights and voices of the night from her bedroom window up above; but everything was different now. No longer a child, she was a girl engaged to marry Bernard Cameron, whom she had always loved, and whom her father had plundered of all that made his life pleasant and that was to make their marriage possible.

For a moment Doris felt angry with her parent, but only for a moment: he was too dear to her, and through her mind surged memories of his kindness in the past and of his pride and joy in her, his only child. It might have been that in speculating with Bernard's money he was animated by the thought of still further enriching the son of his old friend. At least Doris was quite certain that her father had not meant to do him such an injury.

"But oh, father, if only you had not done this thing," thought the poor girl distractedly, "how happy we should be! But now, what shall we do? What will poor Bernard do? And I, oh! what shall I do?"

For a little while she stood crying under the old pear-tree, and then a prayer ascended to the throne of Grace from her poor troubled heart.

CHAPTER III.

THE PENCIL NOTE.

The winter blast is stern and cold,

Yet summer has its harvest gold.

Sorrow and gloom the soul may meet,

Yet love rings triumph over defeat.

The clouds may darken o'er the sun,

Yet rivers to the ocean run.

Earth brings the bitterness of pain,

Yet worth the crown of peace will gain.

The wind may roar amongst the trees,

Yet great ships sail the stormy seas.

THOS. S. COLLIER.

It was impossible for Doris to stay out in the garden all night, within reach of her comfortable bedroom, and presently she took courage to climb the tree and enter by the window.

The little room, with its snow-white bed and dainty furniture, including well-filled bookshelves and a pretty writing-table, looked different from of old; it did not seem to belong to Doris in the familiar way in which it had always hitherto belonged to her. Everything was changed. Or perhaps it was she who was changed and who saw everything with other eyes than of yore, and, recognising this, she sobbed, "It will never be the same again--never, never! I shall never be happy again."

And then, because she was so lonely and so much in need of help, she knelt down by her bedside, and poured out her full heart to Him who comforts those who mourn and who strengthens the weak and binds up the broken-hearted. After which, still sobbing, though more gently, she undressed and went to bed.

Thoroughly tired out in mind and body the poor girl slept heavily and dreamlessly for many hours, so many in fact that she did not awake until quite late the next morning.

Then, oh, the pain of that awaking, the pain and the shame! Would she ever forget it?

The maidservants came into her room one after another, the young housemaid and cook, and Susan Gaunt, the faithful old servant who acted as working-housekeeper; they were all in consternation, asking question after question of the poor distracted girl. Where were her parents? Would she tell them what she knew about them? When had she seen them last? What could have happened to them? and so on.

Doris asked what they meant? Were not her father and mother in the house? What had happened? What were they concealing from her? "Tell me everything?" she implored in piteous accents.

The servants, perceiving that she knew nothing of her parents' disappearance, began to answer all together, making a confusion of voices. Their master and mistress had gone away: they had vanished in the night. Their beds had not been slept in. No one knew where they had gone. And this was the day upon which Mr. Bernard Cameron was to come of age. Mr. Hamilton and the family lawyer were expected to lunch, and so were Mrs. Cameron and her son. What should they (the servants) do if the master and mistress were absent?

Doris, half stunned and wholly distracted, ordered every one to leave the room, and, turning her face towards the wall, shed a few bitter tears. That, then, was what her parents had done; they had run away and had left their unhappy daughter behind. "It's not right! They have not done the right thing!" Doris said to herself. "And they might have offered to take me with them," was the next thought: though, upon reflection, she knew that she could not have borne to leave Bernard in such a way, and neither would she have consented to flee from justice with those who had wronged him, even though they were her own parents.

It was no use lying there crying, with her face turned towards the wall, and so she arose, and, having dressed, began to search for a letter or message which might have been left for her.

After a long search, by the accidental overturning of the mat by her bedroom door, she discovered a note which had been left under it and had thus escaped earlier recognition. It was from her mother.

Doris locked herself into her room in order to read the letter, which was blotched and blurred with the tears that had been shed over it:

"MY DARLING CHILD,--

"I am grieved to tell you that a very terrible thing has happened. Your father has unfortunately lost all Bernard Cameron's money. He speculated with it as if it were his own, in the firm belief, he says, that he would be able to double the capital. However, he lost everything, and he is overwhelmed with grief and remorse, realising now, when it is too late, that he had no right to speculate with Bernard's money. Indeed, a terrible penalty is attached to such a mistake--the law deems it a crime--as he has made. He dare not face Bernard and his mother, Mr. Hamilton and the lawyer to-morrow, and his only chance of escaping from a dreadful punishment is by flight. Doris darling, my heart is torn in two; I cannot let him go alone for his heart is broken--and something dreadful may happen if he is left to himself--so you will forgive me, darling, but I must go with him--I must. For twenty years we have been married, and I cannot leave his side, now that he is in despair. Oh, I know it would be better of him, and more manly and just, if he would stay and face the consequences of his sin, but I cannot persuade him to do it, though I have implored him with tears, and so, if it is wrong to flee, I share the wrong-doing, and may God forgive us! Now, my dear Doris, when we have gone you must tell Susan that she must give notice to our landlord that we give up our tenancy of the house; then she must arrange with an auctioneer to sell all the furniture; and tell her when that has been done, after paying the rent and taxes and the tradesmen's bills, she must put the remainder of the money in the bank to your father's account.

"And then, as for yourself, my dear child, it will be better for you to know nothing of our whereabouts, or our doings. You must go to London to my dear old friend Miss Earnshaw, and ask her for my sake to give you a home. I am sure she will do that, for she is so good and loves me dearly. She lives at Earl's Court Square; and you must go to her at once, travelling by train to King's Cross, and then taking a hansom there.

"Once before, long years ago, Miss Earnshaw wanted to adopt you and make you her heiress, but your father and I could not give you up. Tell her we do so now, and consent that you shall take her name--which was the sole condition she made--it will, now, be more honourable than our own. Farewell, dear, my heart would break at parting from you thus were it not that what has happened has broken it already.

"Your loving Mother,

"DOROTHY ANDERSON."

Doris read the letter over and over again before she could quite realise all that it meant. She was nineteen years old, had received a fairly good education, and now her parents had forsaken her, leaving her entirely to her own resources, except for the command that she should go to London to Mrs. Anderson's old friend, Miss Earnshaw.

Doris had never been to London, and she had never stayed with Miss Earnshaw, though the latter came to be at the hydro at Askern every year, and never left without visiting them for a few days. She was rich and generous, and Doris knew that she would be willing to give her a home.

"But oh," said the girl to herself, "it is hard to have to leave here in this way--never to return--under a cloud, too, a dreadfully black cloud!" And she sighed deeply, for it was difficult for her to understand how her father could possibly have speculated with money that was not his own. He was a reserved man, who had never spoken of business matters to her, and she was a child yet in knowledge of the world, and did not comprehend such things as speculating on the Stock Exchange; but she knew that he had done wrong--for had not her mother acknowledged that?--and realised, with the keenest pain, that Bernard Cameron, her lover, was ruined by it, absolutely ruined, for he could not continue his career at Oxford, and the capital with which he meant to start his school, afterwards, was all lost, too. Moreover, they could not marry, for he was penniless, and she a beggar, going now to beg for a home in London. All thoughts of a marriage between them must be over. It was a bright dream vanished, a castle in the air pulled down and shattered.

"I suppose we must prepare the luncheon, Miss Doris?" said Susan, when, at length, in answer to her persistent knocking at the door, Doris turned the key to admit her, and as she spoke the woman cast an inquiring glance toward the letter in Doris's hand.

"Lunch? Oh, yes, Susan! Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Cameron, and the others will be coming--although----" The poor girl broke down and wept.

"Don't, Miss Doris! Don't cry so, dear!" said Susan, pityingly, wiping her own tears away as she spoke. "Master and mistress may return in time to sit down with their guests."

"No, they won't. They'll never come back!" exclaimed Doris, with another burst of sobs.

"What do they say in the letter?" asked the old servant.

"It's awful!" replied Doris. "Just see"--she passed the letter, with a trembling hand--"see what mother has written to me. You may read it, Susan, though no one else shall. There's a message for you in it about the house."

Susan adjusted her glasses and began to read the letter with some difficulty, for tears were in her eyes, and she had to take off her spectacles again and again in order to wipe them away.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she ejaculated more than once, as she read the letter. "That I should have lived to see this day! My poor mistress! What she must be suffering!"

"And father!" exclaimed Doris. "Oh, how miserable he must be! For it is his fault, you know, and the knowledge of that must be so dreadful."

"I cannot understand his doing it," said Susan, looking deeply pained. "Such a high-minded, honourable gentleman as he always seemed. Your poor mother! your poor mother!" she repeated. "What must she be feeling."

"It's bad for me, too," said Doris, "to be deserted, to be left behind like this."

"Aye, dearie, it is," sighed the old servant, looking at her with great affection. "But you must remember, 'When my father and mother forsake me then the Lord taketh me up.'"

"I don't feel as if He takes me up," sobbed Doris, whose mind was too full of trouble to receive any comfort just then. "Father and mother might have kissed me and said good-bye! Oh, it was cruel, cruel to steal away when I was asleep!" And again she cried as if her heart would break.

Susan endeavoured to calm her, but for some time in vain. At last, however, the old servant, glancing at the small clock on the mantelpiece, exclaimed:

"We must prepare to meet the visitors who are coming! Miss Doris, rouse yourself, be brave; we have our work to do now--afterwards we can weep." Susan brushed away her own tears as she spoke, and, drawing herself up, added in her more usual, matter-of-fact tone, "I should like to have this letter, or at least the part of it containing that message to me, so that I may be able to show it to those who may question my right to sell the furniture, etc."

"I can't spare the letter," replied Doris, "but I will tear off the half sheet containing the message to you."

"Yes, do, dearie, and write your mother's name after it, and your own, too."

"Very well," said Doris, "I will write my own name beside mother's--then it will be seen that I have written hers for her." She did so, adding "pro" before writing her mother's, and then Susan took the half sheet and went to prepare for the coming guests.

An hour afterwards, as Doris was mechanically arranging the drawing-room in the way her mother always liked to have it when visitors were expected, Bernard Cameron entered unannounced.

"Doris!" he exclaimed, coming up to her with outstretched hands. "My dear Doris, what has happened? Crying? Why, darling, what is the matter?"

"Oh, Bernard! Bernard!" She could not tell him for her tears; but the touch of his cool, strong hand was comforting, and she clung to it for a moment.

He soothed her gently until she was able to speak and tell him what had happened since she parted from him the night before, then she allowed him to read her mother's letter.

It was a great blow to the young man full of bright anticipations and ambition, in the full tide of his Oxford career, on the eve of his engagement of marriage, and on the day of his coming-of-age, to learn that he was bereft of his entire fortune and rendered absolutely penniless by one who had undertaken to care for him and protect his rights; who was, moreover, the father of his beloved, with whom he intended to share all that he possessed. Small wonder was it that the young man drew back a little, covering his face with his hands, and uttering something between a boyish sob and a manly sigh.

The next minute he would have turned to Doris again, in order that he might say kind, reassuring words; for not for a moment was his love for her affected by her father's wrong-doing, but they were interrupted, Mr. Hamilton being announced.

The trustee looked worried. He came forward nervously, inquiring if Doris knew where her father was. It was evident that he had already heard from the servants of Mr. Anderson's absence.

Doris could not speak. She looked helplessly at the man, and then at Bernard, rose as if to leave the room, made a step or two forward, stumbled over a footstool, and would have fallen if Bernard had not caught hold of her.

"All this is too much for you," he said, in a quick, authoritative manner. "You must go and lie down. Mr. Hamilton, be so good as to touch the bell. Thank you. Doris does not know where her father is. That will do, Doris. No need to say any more at present. Susan," he continued, as the door opened, "help Miss Anderson to her room. She is ill."

He handed Doris over to the maid with care; but it seemed to the poor girl that he was only too anxious to get rid of her, now that he was aware of the wrong her father had done him. She was, however, relieved to be able to go to her own room, and, under the plea of illness, escape the harassing questions which, otherwise, the coming guests might oblige her to answer. In sending her to her room Bernard was really doing the kindest thing. It never occurred to him that she could possibly imagine that he blamed her, or in any way felt his love for her diminished by her father's heinous conduct.

It was a pity, and the cause of much unhappiness, that he had not time to say one kind word to the poor girl, after the grievous disclosure she had made to him.