Eve

And now let us spread the golden wings of fancy, and fly the scenes of sorrow – but fly, not in space, but in time; measure not miles, but months.

It is autumn, far on into September, and Michaelmas has brought with it the last days of summer. Not this the autumn that we saw coming on, with the turning dogwood and bird-cherry, but another.

In the garden the colchicum has raised its pale lilac flowers. The Michaelmas daisy is surrounded by the humming-bird moth with transparent wings, but wings that vibrate so fast that they can only be seen as a quiver of light. The mountain ash is hung with clusters of clear crimson berries, and the redbreasts and finches are about it, tearing improvidently at the store, thoughtless of the coming winter, and strewing the soil with wasted coral.

Eve is seated in the sun outside the house, in the garden, and on her knees is a baby – Barbara’s child, and yet Eve’s also, for if Barbara gave it life, Eve gave it a name. Before her sister Barbara kneels, now just restored from her confinement, a little pale and large in eye, looking up at her sister and then down at the child. Jasper stands by contemplating the pretty group.

‘Eve,’ said Barbara in a low tremulous voice, ‘I have had for some months on my heart a great fear lest, when my little one came, I should love it with all my heart, and rob you. I had the same fear before I married Jasper, lest he should snatch some of my love away from the dear suffering sister who needs all. But now I have no such fear any more, for love, I find, is a great mystery – it is infinitely divisible, yet ever complete. It is like’ – she lowered her voice reverently – ’it is like what we Catholics believe about the body of our Lord, the very Sacrament of Love. That is in Heaven and in every church. It is on every altar, and in every communicant, entire. I thought once that when I had a husband, and then a little child, love would suffer diminution – that I could not share love without lessening the portion of each. But it is not so. I love my baby with my whole undivided heart; I love you, my sister, equally with my whole undivided heart; and I love my husband also,’ she turned and smiled at Jasper, ‘with my very whole and undivided heart. It is a great mystery, but love is divine, and divine things are perceived and believed by the heart, though beyond the reason.’

‘So,’ said Eve, smiling, and with her blue eyes filling, ‘my dear, dear Barbara, once so prosaic and so practical, is becoming an idealist and poetical.’

‘Wherever unselfish love reigns, there is poetry,’ said Jasper; ‘the sweetest of the songs of life is the song of self-sacrificing love. Barbara never was prosaic. She was always an idealist; but, my dear Eve, the heart needs culture to see and distinguish true poetry from false sentiment. That you lacked at one time. That you have now. I once knew a little girl, light of heart, and loving only self, with no earnest purpose, blown about by every caprice. Now I see a change – a change from base element to a divine presence. I see a sweet face as of old, but I see something in it, new-born; a soul full of self-reproach and passionate love; a heart that is innocent as of old, but yet that has learned a great deal, and all good, through suffering. I see a life that was once purposeless now instinct with purpose – the purpose to live for duty, in self-sacrifice, and not for pleasure. My dear Eve, the great and solemn priest Pain has laid his hands on you and broken you, and held you up to Heaven, and you are not what you were, and yet – and yet are the same.’

Eve could not speak. She put her arms round her sister’s neck, and clung to her, and the tears flowed from both their eyes, and fell upon the tiny Eve lying on the knees of the elder Eve.

But though they were clasped over the child, no shadow fell on its little face. The baby laughed.

…

Some years ago – the author cannot at the moment say how many, nor does it matter – he paid a visit to Morwell, and saw the sad havoc that had been wrought to the venerable hunting-lodge of the Abbots of Tavistock. The old hall had disappeared, a floor had been put across it, and it had been converted into an upper and lower story of rooms. One wing had been transformed into a range of model cottages for labourers. The house of the Jordans was now a farm.

The author asked if he might see the remains of antiquity within the house.

An old woman who had answered his knock and ring, replied, ‘There are none – all have been swept away.’

‘But,’ said he, ‘in my childhood I remember that the place was full of interest; and by the way, what has become of the good people who lived here? I have been in another part of the country, and indeed a great deal abroad.’

‘Do you mean Mr. Jasper?’

‘No: Jasper, no – the name began with J.’

‘The old Squire Jordan your honour means, no doubt. He be dead ages ago. Mr. Jasper married Miss Jordan – Miss Barbara we called her. When Miss Eve died, they went away to Buckfastleigh, where they had a house and a factory. There was a queer matter about the old squire’s death – did you never hear of that, sir?’

‘I heard something; but I was very young then.’

‘My Joseph could tell you all about it better than I.’

‘Who is your Joseph?’

‘Well, sir, I’m ashamed to say it, but he’s my sweetheart, who’s been a-courting of me these fifty years.’

‘Not married yet?’

‘He’s a slow man is Joseph. I reckon he’d ‘a’ spoken out if he’d been able at last, but the paralysis took ‘m in the legs. He put off and off – and I encouraged him all I could; but he always was a slow man.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Oh, he’s with his married sister. He sits in a chair, and when I can I run to ‘m and take him some backy or barley-sugar. He’s vastly fond o’ sucking sticks o’ barley-sugar. Gentlefolks as come here sometimes give me a shilling, and I lay that out on getting Joseph what he likes. He always had a sweet tooth.’

‘Then you love him still?’

The old woman looked at me with surprise. Her hand and head shook.

‘Of course I does: love is eternal – every fool knows that.’

THE END

1

The author has allowed himself a slight anachronism. The prison was not a convict establishment at the period of this tale.

2

Whisht = uncanny.