Chapter Twenty Nine.

Eva enters the Chapel.

“I took it for a faëry vision
Of some bright creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live
And play i’ the plighted clouds; I was awe-struck,
And, as I passed, I worshipped.”
                    Comus.

The long, long illness that followed, and the weary time which it took to heal the mutilated hand, proved the greatest blessings that could have befallen the weak and erring heart of Edward Kennedy. They spared him the necessity of that heart-rending meeting with those whom he best loved, the dread of which had been the most powerful incitement to urge upon him the thought of suicide. They gave him time to look before and after—they relieved the painful tension of his overwrought mind—they calmed him with the necessity for quiet thought and deep rest after the anguish and turmoil of the bygone months.

When he awoke to consciousness, Eva was sitting by his bedside in the sick-room. Slowly the well-remembered objects and the beloved face broke upon his recollection, but at first he could remember nothing more, nor connect the strange present with the excited past. Still more slowly—as when one breaks the azure sleep of some unruffled mountain mere by the skimming of a stone, and for a long time the clear images of blue sky, and wreathing cloud, and green mountain-top, are shaken and confused on the tremulous and twinkling wave, but unite together into the old picture when the water has recovered its glassy smoothness—so still more slowly did Kennedy’s troubled memory reflect the incidents, (alas! unbeautiful and threatening incidents), of the preceding days. They came back to him as he lay there quite still; and then he groaned.

“Hush! dearest Edward,” said Eva, who had watched his face, and guessed from its expressive workings the progress of his thoughts; “hush, we are with you, and all is going on well. Your hand is healing.”

He found that his right hand was tightly and firmly bandaged, and kept still by a splint.

“Was it much hurt? Shall I recover the use of it?”

“Yes, almost certainly, Dr Leesby says. I will tell papa that you are awake.”

“Is he very, very angry?” asked poor Kennedy.

“He has forgiven all, dear,” she said, kissing his forehead. “It was all very dreadful,”—and a cold shiver ran over her—“but none of us will ever allude to it again. Banish it from your thoughts, Eddy; we will leave Camford as soon as you can be moved.”

She went to fetch her father, and as he came in and leant fondly over his son’s sick-bed, and grasped warmly his unwounded hand, tears of afflicting memory coursed each other fast down the old man’s cheeks. He had been hard, too hard upon Edward; perhaps his severity had driven him of late into such bad courses, and to the brink of such an awful and disgraceful end; perhaps if he had been kinder, gentler, more sympathising for this first offence, he might have been saved the anguish of driving his poor boy to lower and wilder depths of sin and sorrow. It was all over now; and amid the apparent wreck of all his hopes, even after the death-blows which recent events had dealt to his old pride in his noble child, he yet regarded him as he lay there—wounded and in such a way—with all the pity of a Christian’s forgiveness, with all the fondness of a father’s love.

“Oh, father, I have suffered unspeakably. If God ever raises me to health and strength again, I vow with all my heart to serve Him as I have never done before.”

“Yes, Edward, I trust and believe it; think no more of the past; let the dead bury their dead. The golden present is before you, and you will have two friends who never desert the brave man—your Maker and yourself.”

A silence followed, and then Eva said, “I have just seen Dr Leesby, Eddy, and he says that if you are now quite yourself, and the light-headedness has ceased, you may be moved on Monday.”

“And to-day is?—I have lost all count of time.”

“To-day is Saturday. Won’t it be charming, dear, to find ourselves once more at home; quietly at home, with no one but ourselves, and our own love to make us happy.”

“And what am I to do, Eva?”

“Hush, Eddy; sufficient for the day—”

“Does she know, Eva? Do you ever hear from her now?”

“Yes, often—but do not think too much of those things just yet.”

“And Julian?”

“He has often come to ask after you,” she said blushing, “but he is afraid to see you, lest it should do you harm just now.”

“Perhaps he is right. We are not all enemies, then?”

“Enemies with Julian and Violet? Oh no.”

Though the engagement of Kennedy with Violet had been broken off by the common desire of Julian and Mr Kennedy, the two families still continued their affectionate intercourse, and bewailed the sad necessity which drove them to a step so painful, yet so unavoidably required by the welfare of all concerned. And from the first they hoped that all might yet be well, while some among them began to fancy that if Kennedy and Violet should ever be united, it would not be the only close bond between hearts already full of mutual affection.

So Julian still came daily during Kennedy’s illness to see Eva and Mr Kennedy, and to inquire after the sufferer’s health. And sometimes he took them for a walk in the grounds or the immediate neighbourhood of Camford, a place which they had never visited before, and which to them was full of interest.

Eva had often heard of the glories of Saint Werner’s chapel, and on the Sunday she asked Julian if it would be possible for her to go with her father to the evening service there.

“Oh yes,” said Julian; “certainly. I will get one of the Fellows to take you in. It is a remarkable sight, and I think you ought to go.”

The Sunday evening came, and Julian escorted them to the ante-chapel, and showed them the various sculptures and memorials of mighty names. They then waited by the door till some Fellow whom Julian knew should pass into the chapel to escort them to a vacant place in the Fellows’ seats.

Saint Werner’s Chapel consists of a single aisle, along the floor of which are placed rows of benches for the undergraduates; raised above these to a height of three steps are the long seats appropriated to the scholars and the Bachelors of Arts; and again, two steps above these are the seats of the Fellows and Masters of Arts, together with room for such casual strangers as may chance to be admitted. In the centre of these long rows, on either side, are the places for the choristers, men and boys, and the lofty thrones whence the Deans “look down with sleepless eyes upon the world.” By the door on either side are the red-curtained and velvet-cushioned seats of the Master and Vice-master, beyond whom sit the noblemen and fellow-commoners. By the lectern and reading-desk is a step of black and white marble, which extends to the altar, on which are two candlesticks of massive silver; and over them some beautiful carved oaken work covers a great painting, flanked on either side by old gilded pictures of the Saviour and the Madonna. Imagine this space all lighted from wall to wall by wax candles, and at the end by large lamps which shed a brighter and softer light, and imagine it filled, if you can, by five hundred men in snowy surplices, and you have a faint fancy of the scene which broke on the eyes of Mr Kennedy and Eva, as they passed between the statues of the ante-chapel, and under the pealing organ into the inner sanctuary of Saint Werner’s chapel.

                “Could they behold—
Who, less insensible than sodden clay
In a sea river’s bed at ebb of tide—
Could have beheld with undelighted heart
So many happy youths, so wide and fair
A congregation in its budding-time
Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once
So many divers samples from the growth
Of life’s sweet season—could have seen unmoved
That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers,
Decking the matron temples of a place,
So famous through the world?”

It was Mr Norton whom Julian caught hold of as an escort for his friends into the chapel. I well remember, (who that saw it does not?) that entrance. It was rather late; the organ was playing a grand overture, the men were all in their seats, and the service just going to begin, when Eva entered leaning on Mr Norton’s arm, and followed by her father and Julian. Many of the Saint Werner’s men had seen her walking in the grounds the last day or two, and as Kennedy’s sister a peculiar interest attached to her just then. But she needed no such accidental source of interest to attract the liveliest attention of such keen and warm enthusiasts for beauty as the Camford undergraduates. Ladies are comparatively rare apparitions in that semi-monastic body of scholars; and ladies both young and lovely are rare indeed. So as Eva entered, so young and so fair, the bright and graceful and beautiful Eva—with that exquisite rose-tinge which the air of Orton-on-the-Sea had given her, and the folded softness of the tresses which flowed down beside her perfect face, and the light of beaming eyes seen like jewels under her long eyelashes as she bent her glance upon the ground—as Eva entered, I say, leaning on Mr Norton’s arm, and touched, with the floating of her pale silk dress, the surplices of the Saint Werner’s men as they sat on either side down the narrow passage, it was no wonder that every single eye from that of the Senior Dean (Pace Decani dixerim!) to that of the little chorister boy was turned upon her for an instant, as she passed up to the only vacant seats, and Mr Norton caused room to be made for her beside the tutor’s cushion by the chaplain’s desk. She was happily unconscious of the admiration, and the perfect simplicity of her sweet girlish unconsciousness added a fresh charm to the whole grace of her manner and appearance. Only by the slightest possible blush did she show her sense of her unusual position as the cynosure for the admiring gaze of five hundred English youths; and that too though the dark and handsome countenance of Mr Norton glowed visibly with a brighter colour, (as though he were conscious of the thought respecting him, which darted across many an undergraduate’s mind), and even the face of Julian, as he walked to the scholars’ seats among the familiar ranks of his compeers, was flushed with the crimson of a sensitiveness which he would fain have hidden.

And I cannot help it, if even during the noble service—even amid the sound “Of solemn psalms and silver litanies,” the eyes of many men wandered towards a sweet face, and gazed upon it as they might have gazed upon a flower, and if the thoughts of many men were absorbed unwontedly in other emotions than those of prayer; nor can I help it if Julian was one of those whose eyes and thoughts were so employed.

What an evening star she was! And how her very presence filled all hearts with a livelier sense of happiness and hope, and sweet pure yearnings for wedded calm and bridal love! But she—innocent young Eva—little knew of the sensation she had caused by the rare beauty of her blossoming womanhood. Her whole heart was in the act of worship, except when it wandered for a moment to her poor sick Eddy, whom they had left alone, or for another moment to one whom she could not but see before her in the scholars’ seats. She did not know that men were looking at her, as she raised her clear warbling voice amid the silvery trebles of the choir, and uttered with all the expressiveness of genuine emotion those strains of poetry and passion which thrilled from the heart to the harp of the warrior-prophet and poet-king. And never did truer prayers come from a woman’s lips than those which her heart offered as her head was bowed that night.

The service was over, and the congregation streamed out. That evening the ante-chapel was fuller than usual of men, who stayed nominally to hear the organ; but besides those musical souls, who always linger to hear the voluntary, or to talk in little groups, there were others who, on that pretence, waited to catch another glimpse—a last glimpse of eyes whose deep and lovely colour had flowed into their souls. They were disappointed though, for Eva dropped her veil. With a graceful bow to Mr Norton, which he returned with courteous dignity, she took Julian’s proffered arm, and walked out into the court, her father following. A proud man was Julian that evening, and the subject of kindly envy to not a few.

But that little incident—the many eyes that had seen his treasure—determined Julian to take the step which he had long decided upon in his secret heart. He was half-jealous of the open, unconcealed admiration which Eva had excited, and it made him fear lest another should approach the object of his love, and occupy a place in the heart which he had not even demanded as his own. He was positively in a hurry. What if some undergraduate should get an introduction to Eva—some gay and handsome Adonis—and should suddenly carry away her heart?

So when Mr Kennedy went into the sick-room to read to Edward the lessons for the day, and Julian stayed with Eva in the sitting-room, he drew his chair beside hers, and they began to talk about Saint Werner’s.

“Do you think you shall ever be a Fellow, Julian? I should so like you to be?”

“And if I am, I shall hope very soon to exchange it for a happier fellowship, Eva.”

She wouldn’t see what he meant, so he said, “Eva, shall I read to you?”

“Yes,” she said, “I should like it so much; I used to enjoy so much the poetry we read at Grindelwald.”

He took down Coleridge’s poems from the shelf, and read—

“All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame.”

He went on, watching her colour change with the musical variations of his voice, until he came to the verse—

“I told her how he pined,—and ah
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
In which I sang another’s love
Interpreted my own.”

He saw her breast heaving with agitation, and throwing away the book, he bent down beside her, and looked up into her deep eyes, and said, “Oh, Eva, what need of concealment? You have read it long ago, have you not? I love you, Eva, love you so passionately—you cannot tell the depth of my love. Do you return it, Eva?” he said as he gained possession of her hand.

She had won him then—the dream of her latter life. This was the noble Julian kneeling at her side. She trembled for very joy, and whispered—“Oh, Julian, Julian, do you not see that I loved you from the first day we met?” She regretted the speech the next moment, as though it had been wanting in maidenly reserve, but it was the first warm natural utterance of her heart; and Julian sprang up in an ecstasy of joy, and as she rose he claimed as his due a lover’s kiss.

She blushed crimson, but suffered him to sit down beside her; and they sat, hardly knowing anything but the great fact that they loved each other, till Mr Kennedy’s voice had ceased in the adjoining room, and he came in.

“Oh, there you are,” he said. “Edward is sinking to sleep. How good of you to be so quiet!”

They rose up, and Julian led her to him with her hand in his, and his arm supporting her. “Mr Kennedy,” he said, “I am going to ask you for the most priceless jewel you possess.”

“What? Is it indeed so? Ah, you wicked Julian, do not rob me of Eva yet. She is too young; and now that Edward seems likely to be ill so long—ah, me! I am bereaved of my children. Well, well, I suppose it must be so. Come here, darling, to the old father you are going to desert; I daresay Julian won’t grudge me one kiss.”

He kissed her tenderly, and she clung about his neck as she whispered, “But it will not be yet for a long long time, papa.”

“What youth calls long, my Eva; but not long for those who are walking into the shadow down the hill.”

O happy, happy lovers! how gloriously that night did the stars shine out for you in the deep, unfathomable galaxies of heaven, and the dew fall, and the moon dawn into a sky yet flushed with the long-unfading purple of the fading day! Yet there was sadness mixed with their happiness as they heard, until they parted, the plaintive murmurs of Kennedy’s fitful sleep, and thought of all the sufferings of their brother, and how nearly, how very nearly, he had been hurried from the midst of them by self-inflicted death.