CHAPTER XXXVI.

I SPEAK PLAINLY TO UNCLE BRYAN.

The paper which I held in my hand became blurred in my sight, and for a few moments the only thing that was clear to me was that Jessie was lost to me, and that all possible happiness had gone out of my life.

There was no mistaking the meaning of Jessie's letter to my mother. It was intended to snap at once and for ever the bonds which united us. She had set herself free from her miserable thraldom, and she was not to be wooed back. 'It will be useless, if you find where I am, endeavouring to prevail upon me to return. I would starve rather than enter the house again.' I heard her speak these words in sharp incisive tones, and I knew too well that she was not to be turned from her purpose. All was over between us, and this day, which I had fondly imagined was to be the happiest in our lives, had sealed the destruction of all my hopes.

Two trivial circumstances recalled me to the realities of the scene. One was the ticking of the watch which I had intended as a birthday present for Jessie; the other was a slight rustling of paper. I had observed, when uncle Bryan entered the room with the letter for my mother, that he held another paper in his hand, which must have been addressed to himself. It was the rustling of this paper which now attracted my attention. Uncle Bryan had opened it, and was reading it. He could have read but a very few lines when a ghastly pallor overspread his features, and his hands trembled from excess of agitation. Every muscle in his face was quivering, and even in the midst of my own suffering these signs of suffering in him did not escape me. They did not move me to pity; they stirred me rather to a more bitter resentment against him. He, and he alone, was the cause of all my misery; he, and he alone, had brought this blight upon my life.

I did not know, until I attempted to move towards him, that my mother's arms were round me. I had no distinct intention of raising my hand against him, but it might have occurred, and my mother feared it and clung to me convulsively. I released myself from her arms, and I stood before him, barring the way, for I detected in him a desire to leave the room unobserved. He gazed at me in a weak uncertain manner; all his old strength and sternness of character seemed to have deserted him, and he was suddenly transformed into a weak and worn old man. That his sorrow-stricken face should have won sympathy from my mother and Josey West--as I saw clearly it had--I construed into an additional wrong against myself, committed not by them, but by him. It inflamed me the more; I felt that my passion must have vent, and that it was impossible for me to be silent.

'Let me pass.'

I did not hear the words, for his throat was parched, and refused to give them utterance; but I knew that he had striven to speak them.

'Not till you have heard what I have to say,' was my reply, as I stood before him.

My mother crept to my side, but I was not to be turned from my purpose. I could hear and feel the rapid beating of her heart against my hand, which she had taken in hers and pressed to her bosom, but the selfish intensity of my own grief made me deaf and blind to everything else. Uncle Bryan did not answer me; he strove feebly to pass me again, but I prevented him from doing so. Something in my attitude caused Josey West to place herself between us.

'I hope you are satisfied,' I said. 'You have driven her from us. What is the next thing you intend to do?'

I paused for his reply, but he did not speak.

'I intended to ask Jessie to-night to be my wife. I don't know what her answer would have been, but I think I know what it might have been but for your systematic cruelty. Will it add to your satisfaction to know that I had set all my hopes of happiness upon her, and that you have driven these from my heart, as you have driven her from your door? I loved her with all my soul. I was not worthy of her; she is far above me and every one here; but I loved her most truly and sincerely, and you have stepped between us and parted us for ever. Does it please you to be assured of this?----Nay, mother, I will speak. I have been silent until now, out of my love for you, and because I knew that you had given even him a place in your tender heart. He has requited you nobly for it. If I had spoken openly before now, things might have been different, but I held my tongue, like a coward, and because I had some latent notion that he deserved respect from me. I think so no longer. On my last birthday,' I continued, addressing him, 'you gave me certain advice which I believed to be good; among other things you said that it is seldom a man can look back upon his life with satisfaction. You drew that from your own experience. With what kind of satisfaction do you look back upon your own life? A man with any tenderness for others in his nature would shrink with horror from the contemplation of such a life as yours. But perhaps you find it a pleasant task to blight the hopes and happiness of those who have the misfortune to come in contact with you. Having no children of your own upon whom you could practise in this way, you turned your attention to others, and you have succeeded most thoroughly. You said to me, when I was of age, that I was a man, with a man's responsibility, and a man's work to do, and you bade me do it faithfully. I have tried to do it--my mother knows that, and so does Miss West, I think--in the hope that it would lead to a good result. But when you addressed those words to me, did you think of yourself, and the example of your own life? They sounded well, but did you think of your own responsibility--or did you think that _you_, apart from all other men in the world, had no responsibility which it behoved you to look to? You brought Jessie here, a friendless, helpless girl--a girl whom nobody but you could help loving for the goodness that is in her. She brought sunshine into this house, which was gloomy enough without her. She had no mother, no father, no friends, and you were her only protector. How have you fulfilled your duty towards her? Shall I answer for you? You have behaved like a tyrant, in whom all human feeling was deadened. When she strove to love you, you compelled her, by harsh words and cold looks and repellent acts, to hate you. She has good cause for her feelings towards you now, for you did your best to make every hour and every day of her life a misery to her. She told me herself that she was only happy out of the house; so that you did your work well. If you saw faults in her which no one else saw, and which had their birth in your own hard unfeeling nature, what right had you to torture her in the way you did? She was but a child, and you are an old man. Why could you not have dealt tenderly and gently by her? Ask my mother--ask Miss West--ask any of her friends--if there is anything in her character that might not be turned to good account? But you could not see it. Lightheartedness and an innocent flow of spirits are crimes in your eyes. You made her pay bitterly for the shelter you gave her; you have shown the generosity of your nature in its fullest light by making her say, after a long experience of you, that she would starve rather than enter your house again. When you told us the story of your life, you said you wished me to hear it because I might learn something from it. I have learnt something--but not the lesson you wished me to learn. I have learnt that such a life as yours, such a nature as yours, brings desolation upon every life and nature within its influence, and that it would be a happier fate for me to drop down dead this minute than live as you have lived, a torture to all around you.'

'Chris, Chris!' implored my mother, with streaming eyes, and with a gesture of entreaty towards uncle Bryan, who sat before me now, with his head bowed upon his hands. Remember, my dear child, remember!'

'Remember what, mother?' I cried pitilessly. 'That he has robbed me of all that can make life dear to me--of all that _is_ dear to me? You should ask me rather to forget when you point to him, whom I would teach a different lesson if he were not an old man, with one foot in the grave. Shall I remember that he has no belief in goodness here or hereafter--that he believes neither in God nor man? Will such remembrances as these plead in his favour? One thing I will and do remember--that I owe him money for the food he has given me and you. But I will pay him to the last farthing, so that nothing may remain between us but what I owe him for having brought misery into my life. That is a debt that can never be wiped out. And Jessie will pay him also; she told me she would. But for that resolve she would not, for a long time past, have eaten a meal at his expense. Are these the things you wish me to remember?'

I knew that I was striking him hard with every word I uttered, but I would not spare him. I ransacked my mind to hurt him.

'And you, mother,' I said pitilessly, do you think you are just to me in pleading for him, and in disguising the opinion you have of him? When, knowing that all my hopes were set on Jessie, and that it was impossible for her and him to live happily in the same house, I proposed to make a home elsewhere where we could live in happiness without him, did you show your love for me by saying that we must never leave him, and that, wherever our home was, he must share it? When he told us his story, for the purpose, as I now see, of setting us more and more against Jessie, and I asked you afterwards if you would like me to look on things as he does, what was your answer? "God forbid!" you said; "it would take all the sweetness out of your life."' (Uncle Bryan removed his hand from his eyes at this, and raised them for one moment to my mother's white face; there was no reproach in them, but a look of humble grateful affection.) 'In what was Jessie wrong that she should have been driven from us? In wishing him to go to church with us? Ask your own heart, mother, for an answer to that, and remember what occurred on the first Sunday night we were in this house. If I had known then what I know now, I would have starved rather than have accepted the shelter of his roof. Remember how, for days and weeks together, Jessie has been submissive and tender to him, striving by every means in her power to win his affection; and remember how her efforts were received and rewarded. But for him Jessie might have been my wife; you loved her, and she loved you. How often have you told me that you saw nothing in her but what was good! I think at one time she would have consented to share my lot, but that dream is over now. There was an influence strong enough to turn love into hate, and to poison all our lives. I will remember that to my dying day, which I hope may not be far off. I have nothing worth living for. But one thing I am resolved upon--that while I live, those who love me shall choose between me and him.'

Josey West caught my arm suddenly and sharply.

'Are you mad?' she cried. 'Learn the lesson you want to teach others. Look at your mother.'

She let go my arm, and stepped swiftly to my mother's side, in time to save her from falling to the ground. Uncle Bryan made a movement towards her, but I stood before him, and he shrank back. My mother's strength had given way, and she had fainted. I supported her in my arms, while Josey West loosened her dress and bathed her face. She opened her eyes presently, and, recognising me, pressed me convulsively to her breast.

'O my child, my child,' she sobbed, 'my heart is almost broken!'

I looked round for uncle Bryan; he was gone.

'What I did,' moaned my mother, 'I did for the best. I prayed and hoped that time would set all things right. I see now that it was impossible, and that I was a weak foolish woman. But I loved you, my darling, and I would shed my heart's blood for you. What sin have I committed that I should be punished by the loss of my dear child's love?'

'No, no, mother,' I cried remorsefully, 'you must not say that. You have not lost it. God forbid that it should ever be so!'

I think she did not hear me, for she slid from my arms and knelt before me, imploring me with sobs and broken words to forgive her. Many minutes passed before I succeeded in calming her, and then Josey West and I assisted her upstairs to her room, to the room which Jessie had made bright by her innocent devices.

'Jessie will never sleep here again,' I thought, with a choking sensation in my throat. This was _her_ room, Josey,' I said aloud.

Josey nodded gravely, and whispered to me that my mother must go to bed, and that she ought to see a doctor. 'I hope she will not have a fever,' said Josey.

My mother's eyes were wandering around her in a strange way; once or twice she looked at me as if she did not know me. The simple sound of my voice, however, recalled her to herself.

'Yes, dear child,' she said, with a smile so sad and sweet as to bring the tears into my eyes.

'Mother,' I whispered, 'you know what has occurred?'

She considered for a moment or two; I assisted her memory.

'Jessie,' I said.

'I know now,' she replied, with a look of distress. 'Jessie has gone.'

'Will you be strong for my sake, mother?'

'I will do anything you tell me, my darling child,' she said humbly.

'First I will go and send a doctor to you. Then I want to try and find Jessie.'

'Dear child, do you know where she is?'

'No; and I have no hope of inducing her to return. I know she will never come back, but I cannot rest without doing something. I shall go mad if I stop in the house all night and make no effort to discover her.'

'Go, then, dear child,' she said; and added imploringly, You will come back, my darling, will you not? You will not desert me after all these years?'

'How can you think it, mother? I will come back, but it may be late.'

'I will keep awake for you, my darling. Say nothing more to your uncle. Promise me that, dear child.'

'I will not speak another word to him.'

I turned to Josey West; she divined what I was about to say.

'I'll stop with your mother, if you _must_ go. Run round to my house first, and say I sha'n't be home to-night. And look here. If Turk's there, you'd best take him with you. I suppose you are going to Mr. Rackstraw's?

'That was my intention,' I said.

'Of course you know the office will be closed; but I daresay it will relieve your feelings to thump at the door.' She spoke fretfully; but her tone changed when she said, 'Don't think only of yourself. Have some thought for your mother.'

'One word, Josey. _You_ have no idea where Jessie is?'

'Not the slightest,' she replied. 'And you didn't know she was going away?'

'I had no more idea of it than you had.'

'That night,' I said hesitatingly, 'when Mr. Glover was at your house----'

'Oh,' she interrupted in a sharp tone, Mr. Glover! Well, what night?'

'A little while ago, when Jessie was there, and I was not. Did he pay her great attention?'

'Of course he did.'

'Did he seem fond of her?'

'It wouldn't have been natural otherwise,' she replied, with a suspicious look at me. 'Of course he seemed fond of her. Anything more?'

'No,' I said, with a sigh; 'that's all.'

I kissed my mother, and left the room. Her loving eyes followed me to the door.