Chapter VII: A Golden String

THE brightest day may close in wind and rain—the joyous hopes which spring from the young heart, like free birds on the wing, be driven back chilled and drooping, like the same birds cowering for shelter from the rattling hail and roughening blast. How different was Philomel when she sought her quiet chamber that night from what she had seemed when, with elastic step, she had crossed the fields on her way to Burnesbey Abbey! Schemes of philanthropy had then blended in her fancy with dreams of earthly delight, so closely intertwined, that she had deluded herself into the idea that she was devoting herself to her duty. Caleb Coffin's hand had rudely drawn aside a silvery veil, had disenchanted fairy-land, and awakened a dreamer who would willingly have dreamed on her pleasant dream still.

Philomel Lamb sat at her toilette-table, before an old-fashioned oval mirror; the light of a single candle fell upon her fair face and luxuriant hair, and their reflection in the glass looked like some antique picture of a Saxon beauty, with a dark background to throw out the figure. Almost as motionless as if they were indeed a work of the painter's art, the thoughtful sad eyes from the mirror, seemed to gaze into the living eyes which they reflected. Philomel was lost in thought, and scarcely conscious that she was looking upon her own image, as she sat with her cheek resting on the hand which was half hidden beneath tresses of falling gold.

"He said that he would give his right hand," murmured Philomel, "and with him it was no idle boast; what my father says, he would do. For the good of his flock, for the honour of his Master, I believe, I know that my father would cheerfully bear the loss, the suffering, the dependence which such a sacrifice must bring. And I,—no anguish of frame, no daily, hourly deprivation of comfort is required of me; a temporary disfigurement, a sacrifice of petty vanity is all that is now asked, and from that sacrifice I draw back! Yet, in my enthusiasm, I have oft envied the missionary's labours, almost coveted the martyr's crown. It has seemed nothing strange to me that tenderly nurtured women should give themselves up to a living death, hardship, separation from all that they loved, if but the sacrifice could be sweetened by thought that it was accepted.

"I have longed for more ample means, that I might employ my wealth in works of charity. Now every one of these locks is worth a hundred times its weight in gold! In a few seconds, I could do more for the good of others than I am likely to accomplish in all the course of my future life. My uncle would keep his word, he has never yet broken his promise; he believes, indeed, that he will never be called upon to fulfil it, that a woman's vanity must be stronger within her than mercy, gratitude, devotion! Can he be right—can he be right, at least, in his judgment of 'mine!'"

Philomel raised her head, and stretched out the hand upon which it had been resting towards a small work-box, which lay so near that she could reach it without rising. Slowly she drew the box towards her, slowly she opened it, and took out a little pair of scissors, fashioned in the shape of a stork, the two points uniting to form the bill. Philomel's large cutting-out scissors were in her workbasket below, in the sitting-room, where the vicar, whose hours were later than his daughter's, usually read or wrote for some time before he retired to rest. Mr. Lamb was neither reading nor writing at this moment; Philomel heard the sound of his steps as he paced up and down the room below, as he never did but when his mind was troubled.

"Oh, that I could but go to him now!" thought Philomel, with her hand on the scissors. "Lay my head upon his shoulder, ask his advice, tell him what is disturbing my conscience. If I had but papa's smile and word of encouragement, I believe—yes—I do believe, that I could let his dear fingers clip off every one of these locks. He would be more proud of his school than ever, if he owed its preservation to his child. But I must not consult even my father, he must not know my secret; if he did, it would soon be a secret to no one."

Philomel smiled to herself, as she thought how impossible it would be to her parent to keep silence upon such a subject.

"Why, I might make papa angry at the very time when I was doing my utmost to please him. Lady Macaw would have the credit of being the one to influence my uncle, and confer a benefit upon all the village."

And, in the mirror of her fancy, Philomel saw the lady patroness of Thwayte in her sweeping robe of rustling silk, with a smile even more self-complacent than usual, receiving congratulations and thanks from the little circle of which she was the self-constituted queen. Impatiently, Philomel pushed the scissors aside, she would never sacrifice her hair to swell the pride of that stately dame. Let the school be given up, rather than be retained as a memorial of what one pushing, managing, ostentatious woman could accomplish.

"There comes the spirit of emulation and pride again," exclaimed the vicar's daughter, half aloud; "the very spirit which impelled me onwards a few hours ago, is now drawing me back. Why should I care, if another be thanked and lauded for a work which is not her own? I must prize, indeed, those crackling bank-notes of praise, when I am thus jealous of their being appropriated by another. Where is my purity of motive? Where my simple desire to do my duty, seeking for no earthly reward?"

Philomel took up the scissors; again she fixedly gazed into the glass of the old-fashioned mirror.

"Cutting off the hair—why, to that every nun submits before she takes the black veil! But then, all the world knows why the nun is clipped, and she has not to go the next day to an archery-meeting."

The point of the scissors drooped, the hold on the rings relaxed;—fair reader, had you been in Philomel's place, would you have grasped than more firmly?

For several minutes Philomel sat buried in thought, or listening to the restless footsteps heard from below, or the mellow note of a nightingale warbling from a neighbouring tree. Then again the maiden raised the scissors, opened them, and enclosed one fair little lock within the gaping bill of the stork—but she had not the courage to press the two steel rings together. Pride and jealousy might be overcome indeed, but there was a more powerful obstacle than either in the heart of the poor little maiden. A very different form from that of Lady Macaw was flitting before her fancy. Once more the stork, and the little hand which held it, rested upon the table—the released tress fell again to its accustomed place on Philomel's temple. The maiden shook her head, as if in reply to some question which she put to herself, and leaving the scissors before the mirror, rose and went to the window.

Philomel drew back the little white muslin curtain, opened the lattice, and looked forth into the night. The balmy spring-air came softly through the leaves of the clustering creepers, cooled the maiden's flushed cheek, and stirred her golden hair. In the deep blue vault, a few stars were glimmering with pale pure light. There are few things that so raise and solemnize the mind as silent contemplation of these orbs of beauty. Philomel thought for how many ages these "sentinel stars had kept watch in the sky," while generations of men came and passed, like successive waves on the beach, rising, rolling onward with their freight of hopes, fears, sorrows, and joys, breaking and passing away. Thousands of years before, the same feelings which moved her spirit had influenced hearts which were now undistinguishable dust!

"They suffered—but their pangs are o'er;
Enjoyed—but their delights are fled;
Had friends—their friends are now no more;
And foes—their foes are dead!"

Was there then nothing enduring amidst that ever-flowing tide and ebb of human existence and decay, nothing firm and solid, nothing abiding, more lasting even than those stars upon which Eve gazed from Eden? Yes; the memory, the joy, the blessing of God on the smallest act done "unto Him!"

The mind of Philomel reverted to her father, his simple earnestness, his fervent prayer; and linked with that thought came one, if sadder yet sweeter, of the deathbed by which she had once stood in childish awe, which almost overpowered sorrow, when she had felt the last pressure of a thin wasted hand on her head, and heard a mother's faintly-whispered blessing. But Philomel now thought not of her mother as dead. Might not the spirit's home be amongst those glittering stars; might she not be hovering near, her eyes looking down on her child; could her voice be heard on the night-breeze, would it not be an echo of what conscience was even now whispering so clearly?

Philomel turned suddenly from the casement, her eyes brimming over with tears. She took up the little scissors and again enclosed a golden forelock. This time she did her work in earnest. But it seemed as if the delicate instrument refused to obey her will; Philomel found a mechanical difficulty in severing the hair by the bill of the stork—the screw of the scissors loosened with the strain on the lever, and some seconds elapsed ere the forelock dropped on the toilette-table—the first real sacrifice, perhaps, that the vicar's daughter ever had made.

A gasping sigh escaped from the maiden as she gazed on the soft severed tress which lay before her; she was startled at her own act. It was cutting the bridge behind her, for it would be almost as difficult to account for the loss of one lock as for that of all. The sacrifice of the first made that of the rest more easy—more indispensable—for if it remained alone, it would be a sacrifice made in vain. But Philomel laid down the little fancy scissors.

"I should be half the night cutting off my hair with these," she said to herself; "I will go for the large pair in my basket down-stairs as soon as papa has left the parlour; just now I could not bear to meet him."

A strange feeling of impatience came over Philomel Lamb. Either she mistrusted her own resolution, or the delay in its execution was to her a prolonged mental torture from which she longed to escape. The sound of her father's tramping excited in the girl painful nervous irritation. To soothe it, Philomel employed the waiting-time in devotion, making the school for which she was sacrificing so much, a subject for special prayer. Philomel remained on her knees till she heard the parlour door open, and then her father's well-known tread up the stair. She rose and intuitively counted each step, and listened to hear the closing of Mr. Lamb's door, before, with a nervous touch, she noiselessly opened her own.

The staircase was quite dark, save for the feeble glimmer of starlight through the unshuttered window which looked on the staircase. But Philomel could find her way about the familiar dwelling without need of using her eyes. She knew well the little table in the angle of the sitting-room where her basket was regularly placed at night, for order as well as punctuality was the rule in the vicarage of Thwayte. Philomel in the darkness easily found what she sought, but the cold feel of the scissors made her shiver as she carried it away.

Mr. Lamb heard the rustle of her dress as she reascended the stairs. He opened his door a little, surprised at his daughter's moving about the house at so late an hour.

"My darling, is anything wrong? Why are you not at rest?" he inquired.

"I only went for my scissors, papa," replied Philomel Lamb.

There was a "Good night," and a "Bless you, my child!" The blessing went warm to poor Philomel's heart, and when she had regained her own apartment, she set to her stern work with more courage.

There was certainly nothing of the stoic about the vicar's daughter. Philomel dared scarcely trust herself to think of what she was doing; but as each tress was shorn from her head, she tried to fix her thoughts upon some individual child in her little school-class who would benefit by the sacrifice which she was painfully making.

"There is for my little Mary. She did not plead to-day in vain, but she little guessed what the pleading would cost me. There is for my dark-eyed Katie; how her eyes will sparkle to-morrow when she hears the good news that my uncle will keep up the school! There is for Annie Wakefield, poor child, who prays night and morning that 'father may keep sober.'"

This blending of personal interest in individuals did not detract from Philomel's "purity of motive," while it softened the pain of sacrifice, and increased her "strength of self-denial."

It was over—all over—at last; the golden fleece lay a mass of rich beauty on Philomel's knee; she had done what could not be undone. Did the maiden repent of the act? She could hardly have answered that question, but she dared not look in her mirror. Philomel gathered the fair hair in a little heap and placed it upon her toilette-table; she then rose and went to a drawer, from which she took out a white card-board box. From this, she emptied out the contents—a few ribbons, laces, and trinkets, which had once belonged to her mother. Philomel returned to her seat with the box, and then, one by one, placed in it the golden tresses which since her childhood had been her richest adornment. The girl handled each lock with a kind of tender regret, as though it had been a living thing—and if she left a few diamond drops on the gold, few young ladies will blame her for the weakness. Philomel closed the lid over the box which held her offering, went to her little desk, and wrote a few hurried lines:—

"The other conditions will be kept as faithfully as the first. Remember your part of the bond."

Philomel put the note on the top of the box, enclosed the whole in paper; and after carefully sealing up the parcel, addressed it to Caleb Coffin. A little flash of triumph came over the maiden's spirit as she directed that packet. She fancied the look of surprise on the crafty merchant's face when he should raise the lid of the box, and see the golden contents. Would not the cynic be convinced at last that woman is capable of making a silent sacrifice, not only of her selfishness but of her vanity!

And so the weary girl at last retired to rest, with a sweet consciousness that she had indeed kept her promise, and done her best—she would not now reflect at what a price. If her sleep was not altogether refreshing—if her dreams were troubled—it was because there was one special hope—undefined, unconfessed, yet perhaps the most precious of all—that was driven shivering back upon her heart, as the bird cowering in its nest from the force of the pitiless storm.