Chapter XV: Revelations

"IS it not time the post should arrive, Dorothy?"

"Almost," I replied, rising from my chair, and leaning over the balustrade of the balcony that I might gaze as far as possible along the road to Lauterbrunnen, "but I do not see her yet."

The feminine pronoun I thus vaguely employed referred, as Edmund knew, to the girl who usually appeared at this hour with a huge letter bag strapped to her back, and sundry small packages depending therefrom, or carried in her hands, as she found most convenient.

We were on the balcony, Edmund and I, he reclining in a long, deep, easy chair. As moved back to my place at the little table, my eyes fell on my brother, and I perceived, with a thrill of pain, how very white and worn he was looking in the clear, bright light of the morning. How hollow were his cheeks, how sharpened his features; what a sad pathetic look there was in his sunken eyes! Was it my fancy, or had his face wasted rapidly during the past week? Alas! Alas! I feared it was no fancy; there were too many tokens that my brother's strength was declining.

It was now September, and for ten weeks we had enjoyed the beauty of this lovely retreat. In that time we had become well acquainted with the mountain forms on which we daily looked. Every buttress and pinnacle of the snowy range was familiar to us, and we loved them under all aspects, whether shining forth in the clear light of early morning, or dimly seen through a veil of mist, or rising from a sea of billowy clouds, or when their summits were gilded with the ineffable glory of the sunset afterglow. We had learnt to love the clouds, which wrought such weird, fantastic, wonderful effects, scarcely less than the mountains.

How lovely it was to watch in the morning, ere yet the sun had gained much power, the ghost-like mist stealing up the valley till it wrapped itself as a winding sheet about the sides of the mountains, and then to see, as the sun rose above the highest peak, how the mist shrank away, and dispersed in broken wreaths! Or to mark the devotion with which a fleecy cloudlet would woo some lordly peak, now nestling close to its side, and anon timidly retreating, floating higher, and brooding over the object of its love, fading, then gathering anew, constant to the last moment of its brief existence. Or, when night fell, to watch, as the moon slowly rose behind the mountain wall, some bird-like cloud hovering above, illumined by its rising beams, and growing ever more luminous, till the bright disc glided into sight, and the mystery was at an end.

Edmund enjoyed these visions, as few can enjoy them. They fired his imagination, and set his poetic fancy in play. He was so happy during the first few weeks of our stay that I could not but be happy too. We met with pleasant people in the pension, and often had a merry party about us as we wandered through the pine woods, or rested in shade of the trees. I do not know when I first perceived that my brother was not making the progress I had expected. A marked improvement seemed to set in after our arrival at the pension, but, unhappily, it was only a temporary improvement. Soon, my brother's strength once more declined.

There was not much change from day to day, but gradually Edmund's walks grew shorter and shorter; he ceased to speak of the longer excursions we should take when he was strong enough, and at last, grew too languid to climb the green slopes to the pine woods at the back of the house, and preferred to pass the day resting in his chair on the balcony if the day were warm, or lying, wrapped in rugs, on the couch in his room when the air was keen. And the wearying cough, which had never entirely ceased, became more and more troublesome. Heavy grew my heart beneath the weight of these bitter facts, but still I clung to hope. I could not, I would not, acknowledge that the hopes with which I had started on my journey to Switzerland were doomed to disappointment.

"Edmund," I said now, as I bent to draw his wraps more closely about him, "I think that if Ralph Dugdale does not soon appear, we had better leave this place. It is getting too cold for you to remain at such a height. The air this morning was a trifle too keen, even for me, and it has an edge to it still, although the sun is so warm."

"I do not think the cold hurts me as long as the air is so dry," he replied, "and we shall surely hear from Ralph in a day or two."

I went back to my place, and began to read to Edmund a new poem with which I was delighted. It has since become well-known, and a favourite with many readers.

"She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best, made of sunshine and snow,
Drop to shade, melt to nought, in the long-trodden ways,
While she's still remembered on warm and cold days—
My Kate.

"Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face,
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth—
My Kate.

"Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence, and fancied she spoke;
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone—
My Kate."

When I had read these three verses, I paused, and turning, to my brother asked, "Does that remind you of anyone?"

"Yes," he answered, without a moment's hesitation.

"Of whom?"

"Tell me first of whom you are thinking," he returned.

"Oh, I was thinking of Grace West. This poem exactly describes her."

"Yes," said Edmund, quietly; "I, too, thought of Mrs. West."

"Dear me! How strange that we should think of the same person!"

"Not at all strange. We could but think of the same. Where would you find another woman like Mrs. West?"

I made no reply, not because I did not share my brother's high estimate of our friend; but I was wondering at the abrupt, constrained manner in which he spoke.

At that moment I heard someone tapping at my bedroom door. Stepping into my room, I hastened to open the door.

"Letters, mademoiselle."

It was the Swiss chambermaid, and she smiled as she gave me the letters, knowing how welcome they would be. There were two, and both were for me. As I carried them to the balcony, I was conscious only that one was from Mrs. Lyell.

"No letter from Ralph?" asked Edmund, turning to me with an anxious glance.

I shook my head. My mind was too preoccupied to think of offering him consolation. As I sat down and began to open Mrs. Lyell's letter, the other letter fell unheeded on my lap, the address upwards.

Mrs. Lyell's letter was very kind, as her letters always were. It showed no diminution of the affectionate interest she took in me, and yet there was that in the letter which stung me. Did Mrs. Lyell really think it would please me to know that Rose Carsdale—for thus Mrs. Lyell now spoke of her—was so kind and attentive, and that she and Leonard came in almost every day? Yes, I could not doubt my old friend's sincerity; but oh! how bitter to me was the thought that those three, Mrs. Lyell, Miss Carsdale, and Leonard, were always together! Too well I knew what a quiet, unobtrusive third person Mrs. Lyell could be; how she would sit absorbed in her book or thinking her gentle thoughts, and hear nothing that others said in her presence, except when it was especially addressed to her.

Dark and bitter grew my spirit as I read over and over again the words of the letter, making the most of every suggestion that could feed my jealousy. For I had not been able to forget Leonard Glynne. How could I, in a life that afforded so much leisure for dreaming, with no active duties save the simple services Edmund required at my hand? It was harder to forget him here than it had been at Ventnor, for he had talked to me much of his experiences when travelling in Switzerland, and every day some novel incident of our Swiss life, some fern or flower, would remind me of his words.

"Your letter seems to be very interesting." Edmund's voice thus roused me from my unhappy meditations.

I coloured as I awoke to the consciousness that he had been watching me intently for some minutes. There was a shadow on his brow as he spoke. He seemed vexed with me for caring so much about the letter.

"Yes, it is interesting," I answered; "it is from Mrs. Lyell, and she, of course, has a good deal to tell me that I care to hear."

"You cannot care much about your other correspondent," he said, in a tone that betrayed some irritation, "since you can read an old woman's letter two or three times before you take a glance at hers."

"Hers! Whose?" I asked, looking at the letter that lay in my lap. "Oh, it is from Grace West!" I added, as recognised the small, delicate writing, clear as copperplate. "Did you see that it was from her?"

"I-I fancied it looked like her writing," he said, rather falteringly.

"Why, she is at Interlaken!" I exclaimed, as I began to read the letter. "They are all there, Mr. and Mrs. Dugdale, and Ralph too. Ralph is coming on here to-morrow. There's good news for you."

But my brother did not look so pleased as I expected. He did not smile, nor even turn towards me; he sat with downcast eyes, his face very pale. Instinctively, I felt that he was putting some restraint on himself.

"Is Ralph coming alone?" he asked, very quietly.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so. Grace says nothing of anyone else coming. Did you think that she might accompany him?"

"Well, yes, I fancied that she might like to see this place."

I discerned that it cost my brother an effort to answer my question with an appearance of indifference.

"I wish she would come," I remarked; "but Grace and her parents are going on to Grindelwald. It is a favourite place of Mrs. Dugdale's. She says it would be nice if we could meet there. Would you like it, Edmund?"

The faint glow which instantly kindled in his cheeks gave me a truer answer than his careless, "Perhaps; we must think about it."

Then the truth flashed on me. There was little to demonstrate it; Edmund had guarded well his secret, yet at that moment I knew intuitively that Grace West was to him what Leonard Glynne was to me. Stay, let me speak the truth as I know it now—my brother loved Grace with a pure, strong, selfless love of which I was incapable.

I recognised the fact beyond all doubt. One memory after another revived to confirm it, till I wondered that I had been blind to it so long. Grace was some years older than my brother, but that was no hindrance to his loving her. He was the man to be attracted by a woman's spiritual rather than physical beauties. He had a high ideal of womanly excellence, and the woman he chose must be one whom he could reverence as well as admire. How could he help loving her? I say to myself now. "We needs must love the highest when we see it." And all who could really understand Grace, not everyone could, failed not to love and honour her.

But I was hardly conscious of loving Grace at that moment. The truth came home to me with a sharp and selfish pain. All my latent jealousy was roused. Amidst my trials and disappointments, I had ever consoled myself with the thought that my brother at least was all my own. He needed me if no other did; I was everything to him. What a blow shattered this belief when I discovered that another had the first place in his heart! Grace West stood between us.

I cared not whether Edmund noticed how abruptly I left him. It was not yet time to prepare for the midday meal, but I went away and shut myself in my own room till the bell sounded.

Edmund did not call me back.

"He will not miss me," I thought, "he will like to sit alone and think of Grace, and count on seeing her at Grindelwald."

After luncheon, Edmund lay down for a while, hoping to get a little sleep. Unhappy and restless, I wandered forth alone, carefully avoiding the company of any of the ladies who were lodging in the pension.

Instinctively I chose the easier, the downward way, and descended one of the steep little paths that ran down the mountain side into a little valley lying between the mountains to the right of our pension. It was a pleasant path I followed, and soon led me into the shade of pine trees. Steeper and steeper grew the way as I drew nearer to the torrent that roared through the valley, being fed by a glacier at its head. Gradually my walking was exchanged for climbing; but by the help of my alpenstock, I was able to press on, scrambling through bushes and over boulders till at last I gained the high bank above the stream.

Here I found myself in a wilderness of lovely things, old moss-grown trees about whose roots the fragile oak-fern and sturdier beech-fern were growing luxuriously; patches of ground on which the low whortleberry bush grew thickly, tempting me with a profusion of its purple black fruit; a few wild strawberries lingering here and there, finer and redder than any I had seen before; brambles throwing their amber and vermilion-coloured leaves across the path, and scattered everywhere flowers of the loveliest and most varied hues—large, silvery thistles, grand enough to deck a queen, purple gentians, turquoise-blue forget-me-nots that would put our English ones to shame, with blue and white campanulas, as fine as any a garden could show.

Wild, angry, rebellious thoughts had been working in my mind as I made my way down. It was very hard, I told myself, that I should be robbed of all that was most dear to me in life. One precious love after another had been taken from me. Howard Steinthorpe had supplanted me in my sister's affections, death had deprived me of my father, Rose Carsdale was filling my place with Mrs. Lyell, and charming Leonard Glynne into forgetfulness of any faint interest he might have felt in me, and now Edmund, whom I had believed to be my very own, in whose life I could yesterday have declared that I stood first, had given his best love to another! How wronged and wretched I felt! There seemed no longer any place for me in the world. No one loved me best; no one wanted me. My feelings were none the less bitter that I knew them to be utterly unreasonable.

There was within me a dim consciousness that when my mental emotion should subside, my better self would reproach me. For had not Edmund as much right to feel injured as I? What if he craved the first place in my heart, could I honestly say that it was his? How many hours of the past had been filled with thoughts of another! And how often even now did the image of that other cross my mind!

Only gradually, however, did these considerations bring me to a better frame of mind. I was still possessed by perverse, angry imaginations as I strolled amidst the greenness and beauty by the riverside, though nature's sweet influences were beginning to soften my mood.

Presently I came to a woodcutter's shed beneath the pines, and seated myself on one of the felled trunks that lay beside it. It was a lovely spot. A few feet below where I sat rushed the torrent, foaming and dashing over the stones with a roar which was delightful to my ears. On the opposite side of the deep gorge, through which the river cut its way, rose tall pine trees, tapering one above the other, till at a vast height their delicate pinnacles were pencilled against the sky. Here and there a bare, precipitous mountain side showed through their sombre foliage, with other tiny firs fringing its summit.

The sun was shining brilliantly on the stream, but beneath the pines there was welcome shade, and a deliciously cool breeze blew from the mountain heights, odorous with the delightful perfume of the pines. The woodcutter's shed was deserted, and I enjoyed perfect solitude, broken only by those voices of nature, which, as Keble truly says,—

"Make deep silence in the heart,
For thought to do her part."

In that stillness, I experienced a swift reaction of feeling. My proud sense of injury gave place to shame and contrition.

I was heartily ashamed of my outburst of temper; I despised myself for the mean, selfish feelings of which it was the outcome. As I thought of Edmund now, my heart throbbed with emotion of another kind. To think that self-love should have made me oblivious of all that this discovery I had made, meant for him. Poor Edmund, whose life was so uncertain! My own experience taught me that this love of his must cause him much silent suffering. It would have done so probably in any case, but his circumstances were such as would intensify the suffering.

Had he not been the invalid he was, had his position been such as would justify his seeking Grace's love, I could not believe that he would win it. From what I had seen of her, and from a few words she had once said to me, I felt convinced that Grace was one of those with whom to love once was to love for ever, and that she would not tolerate the idea of a second marriage. But what of that?

Alas! Alas! I could not hide from myself the truth. Too surely my heart told me that there could be no such union for Edmund. He was drifting, drifting away from all the loves of earth. And in the presence of that sore fact, what did it matter whether Grace or I were the dearest to him? With the thought came a shower of blinding tears, shutting out all the beauty that surrounded me.

The tears soon passed. Something prompted me to lift my head, and look around. Then I saw a glorious sight. From above the mass of dark pines, which lay behind, looked down on me a mighty, snow-crested peak, shining in purest radiance against a cloudless sky. It was the Jungfrau, of which I caught a side view, and peeping over her shoulder as it were, appeared the unsullied, resplendent dome of the Silberhorn.

Wonderful seemed the vision that broke so suddenly on my view. It had for me the force of a revelation—a revelation of the majesty and holiness of God, and my own utter vileness and meanness. What could I do but cry unto Him who made me and made also the magnificence I beheld?

"Oh, Thou who art all purity, power, love," my heart cried, "have mercy on me, Thy unworthy creature; deliver me from my low, mean, selfish feelings, the feelings which I know to be hateful, even whilst I cherish them. Lift me out of myself. Raise me to a higher, purer, nobler life. Make of me something better than I am."

I waited, yearning for some response, some whisper from above that should promise deliverance. As I watched, the clouds slowly drifted again across the snowy mountain, and its glory vanished from my sight.

The wind rustled the pines, the torrent roared, the foaming water gleamed in the sunshine; all was as before. Yet was my prayer heard, for no such prayer is vain.

When I rose and took my way back to the pension by an easier path than the one I had descended, my heart was quiet, my selfish cravings had ceased.

As I approached the house, there came into sight on the path which ascended on the other side of it, a traveller, attended by a peasant carrying luggage. The gentleman's appearance seemed familiar, and at the second glance, I recognised Ralph Dugdale.

Apparently, he saw me at the same moment, and we hurried forward to greet each other.

"I am so glad you have come," I said, warmly, as we shook hands; "Edmund will be so pleased. We did not expect you till to-morrow."

"Why, how is that? Did not Grace tell you?"

"Yes, but she said to-morrow."

"I expect her to-morrow meant to-day," said Ralph, smiling.

"Oh, to be sure! How stupid of me to make such a mistake! And I misled Edmund too! But come in."

"First, tell me how your brother is," said Ralph, pausing on the threshold of the house. "Has he been getting on as you hoped?"

The question, put with evident anxiety, overwhelmed me. Tears rose to my eyes, my lips quivered; for a moment I could not speak.

Then I said, falteringly, "You will see for yourself."

He looked at me, his eyes full of grave, sad comprehension, and asked no more. We went indoors.