Idones

Front matter

IDONEA. a IDONEA. BY THALIA MARSDEN. " The law of the past cannot be eluded, The law of the present and the future cannot be eluded, The law of the living cannot be eluded — it is eternal." Walt Whitman. ILxmbtftt : EDEN, REMINGTON & CO., 15 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 1891. CONTENTS, CBAP. Page I. Miss Power, .... 1 II. The Intera'iew, .... 9 III. " Light, Bare, TJntellable, Lighting the very Light," . . . 19 IV. " Hope was seen beaming through the Mists of Fear," ... 28 V. Motherless, .... 42 VI. Norman Eoy, .... 54 VII. Miss Fawcett interferes, . . 61 VIII. Muriel, ..... 76 IX. A Refuge, ..... 92 X. Broken Down, . . . .106 XL Longings Irrepressible, . . . 113 XII. "Some there be that Shadows kiss," 119 XIII. "Such have but a Shadow's Bliss," . 128 XIV. A Woman's Judgment, . . .141 XV. A Conversation, . . . .154 XVI.

Changes, ..... 168 XVII. At St Stephen's, . . . .176 vi Contents. PAGE CHAP. XVIII. The Two Offers, . . . .183 XIX. The Choice, . . . .190 XX. After a Year, . . . .197 XXI. It is Norman Roy, . . .210 XXII. Loosening the Coil, . • • 2i7 XXIII. A Golden Day, . . . .231 XXIV. "An Inborn Passion gives a Rebel's Right," 238 XXV. "Prophetic Joys of Better, Loftier Love Ideals," .... 252 XXVI. Idonea's Decision, . . .258 XXVII. The Shadow of the Sword, . . 266 XXVIII. The Fall of the Sword, . . .272 XXIX. The End, ..... IDONEA. IDONEA.

Chapter I. Miss Power

" Will you go over to Wyberton for me this afternoon, Miss Ido ? " " Not this afternoon, nurse ; any other time." "But I particularly want you to go to day." " You particularly want me to go somewhere every day." " And how are you to stand this nursing unless you take exercise ? Dr Sharpely is always telling me you must go out," the old servant remonstrated. " Oh, yes, I know ; but I am too strong for anything to hurt me, and I had a long A Idonea. 2 walk last evening. It is so delightful to have the house all to ourselves that I could not think of leaving it this afternoon. I want to move mamma into the drawing-room for an hour." But Alice kept to her point with remarkable persistency ; and her pleasant, homely face told as plainly as words could have done that for once she was actuated by more than the ordinary desire that she should take her pre scribed constitutional.

Idonea watched the nervous twitching of her lips, and noted the uncertain little puckers in her forehead, wondering vaguely what could be the cause of these unwonted si_;ns of emotion on her usually placid countenance. Alice was painfully conscious of those searching eyes. They embarrassed her, and made her forget the carefully -prepared excuses she had meant to put Miss Ido off with. It was very silly, she knew, but she could think of nothing to say to her, and fell back upon her old nursery resources, which, after all, were more likely to be effective with the young lady than one of those impressive speeches, intended to give her a due sense of her nurse's superior age and wisdom, and falling, most frequently, far short of the mark. Miss Power. 3 " Just run away, Miss Ido dear, without asking any questions," she said coaxingly.

" And nursie will give you some butter scotch if you're a good girl," Idonea added teasingly. Alice wished she could dispose of the difficulty thus easily. How often she regretted that Miss Ido was no longer a child who might be cajoled with promises and sweetmeats. " What mischief are you plotting, nurse ? " she asked. " I am afraid it must be something; very shocking or you would not be so des perately anxious to get me out of the way." "For once you are right, Miss Ido. I've took a great responsibility upon myself to-day. I've many misgivings, but I can only trust no harm may come of it ; it is as if I had been prompted to it by something outside of myself." Good gracious, nurse, what do you mean ? " " I'd rather you had known nothing of it." " Nonsense ! what have you done, nurse ? " " I have sent for Miss Power to come this afternoon.

Your mamma asked the master last week if she mioht not see her, but as he raised several objections, she gave in, as she always does ; but she told me the other clay how the longing for her friend had taken Idonea. 4 possession of her ; and I've seen by her face she was craving for her. You know, dearie, the two were brought up together like sisters. Miss Power's mother was a mother to your mamma, and Miss Power was dearer to her than a sister." " And papa would not have her sent for ? " " He was afraid it would cause a scandal in the parish." " What has Miss Pow7er done to make her, as papa says she is, a bye-word through the land ? " "She has written blasphemous books." Alice spoke with the reluctance a person usually betrays when confessing to the obliquities of one they love. " I do not rightly understand, Miss Idonea — she does not believe in God, and she thinks we have all descended from monkeys.

It is all a mystification to me. Miss Power is a good woman. She lovesthe poor and suffering, and spends the whole of her time in doing good, as I know from my brother who lives in London, and Hannah, her maid, who is my cousin. If it wasn't for these books, I should say, if ever there was a Christian, it was she. It must be that too much learning has made her mad in this respect. I think, maybe, your dear mamma Miss Power. 5 may have some message for her. I took upon myself to write and ask her to come this afternoon. It could not be wrong of me ; the mistress is too near heaven to have a wish that was not holy." She looked at Idonea for a confirmation of her assertion. She did not at once reply, her brain was taking a rapid resume of all she had heard in connection with this lady whose name had been whispered in her presence in such a manner as to arouse her childish curiosity and imaginative speculations.

She had heard her mother speak of her with the tenderest affection ; she had seen her weeping over a faded photograph, and she had a hazy recol lection of a distant time when she used to pray for some one, whose name her father had said it was desecration even to utter. She knew that name was Miss Power's ; and when her mother had dwelt long upon the bene diction on all people, which had been insti tuted for the objectionable person, she had prayed in her heart for the one. Once she had ventured to ask about Miss Power, but the subject had then been evaded, and lately she had seen it was too painful for her mother to enter upon ; and this was her first intima- Idonea. tion of the dreadful thing of which Miss Power had been guilty. Blasphemy — Alice Gray said ; and she had but an imperfect conception of what that meant.

"You did quite right," she replied confi dently, in answer to the nurse's unspoken query. "It was not right to deceive my master, Miss Idonea, but I have clone it." " Indeed it was," she assented summarily. " He cares more for what the parish may say than my mother's happiness, although she is dying," the girl replied bitterly. " A clergyman must consider these things," Alice said, with quiet decision. She would never permit Idonea to speak disrespectfully of her father in her presence. From the time her charge had first began, as children will, to criticise the behaviour of their parents and elders, the nurse had spent her best efforts in trying to instil into her a due reverence for all in authority over her, but where her father was concerned she had failed signally. Indeed, her teachings had had a directly opposite effect ; and to prove to her own conscience she was right in her conclusions, she had spied and peered and watched for every defect in the one parent, Miss Power. 7 whilst she had seen nothing but perfection in the other, as must be the case when a child grows up in a home where the marriage ties form but a bond, binding and fastening with a gordian knot the loved parent to a life of martyrdom and misery.

Sad for the parent, sadder still for the child who loses in it all the gladsome joyousness of youth, for which no after life can compensate it, as well as the trust in humanity that can alone lift the character above sordid, barbaric egotism. By her own action Alice had shown in this instance, as in many a preceding one, that she believed her master was in the wrong ; but Idonea was not to be allowed the same free dom of thought. She returned to her object, "You will go out now, Miss Ido?" she pleaded. " Go out ! go out and not see Miss Power ! How can you expect it, nurse ? " " You will not see Miss Power if you stay in, and you will prevent her from seeing your mother also, for I shall go to the station, and not allow her to come to the house. I could not face your papa again if I let you see her."

Idonea. There was a doste-ed determination in Alice that Idonea's more dominant will could not overcome. Vexed and irritated by what she considered her stupid obstinacy, she reluct antly submitted to her decision.

Chapter II. The Interview

St Michael's Vicarage stood near the church — a comparatively modern structure, in the most fashionable suburb of Denton, a busy, unfashionable town in the south of Yorkshire. A black, dreary town, polluted by the foul smoke that issued from the tall chimneys, and the iron and locomotive works carried on there. " No wonder she could not live in such an atmosphere," Miss Power thought sadly, as she left Denton station that afternoon. " Pretty, fragile Greta, who wanted beauty, and sunshine, and love, how she must have pined in this cold, bleak country ! " She listened to the clanging of the great hammers in the ironworks, and suffered in sympathy with her early friend. Boom, boom, boom ! deep, monotonous and sad as a dirge for all the broken-hearted, the huge sledge hammers were tolling from early morning Idonea. 10 until night.

The faces of the people she met in the streets were stamped with a peculiar melancholy, as if the iron had in very truth entered their souls. They were mostly men, toilers whose clays wrere passed in those living furnaces, that sapped not only the physical vigour, but with it the life and the soul. Miss Power sighed heavily. " Yet w7ork is good, even such work as this, and these are strong men who could do it, and take their share of this world's joy too, if the many hours of labour did not make it slavery," she thought. Amongst the strange faces which attracted her notice was a young girl's, whose dress and appearance betokened that she belonged to the upper class : it was a remarkable face. Miss Power forgot for the time her dying friend, and the workmen in the foundries whom she had seen in her mind's eye, as w7ell as the strange, dull countenances she had observed on her way.

She w7as absorbed by that slight, young figure, and the face that was indelibly photographed on her brain. " Poor child ! I never saw such abject misery on such a young face : soul misery, worse than the pangs of poverty, or the traces hardships leave behind them. Her body, too, is full of dejection," she decided, as she watched her retreating form. She would fain have turned back after her, and have given her to drink of the well of refreshing water experience and love had stored her mind with. " Perhaps the child is making sorrow for herself, because, amongst all these labourers, she has no work ; for want of better occupation, she is grinding at her own heart, as so many of them do," she thought pitifully. Constance Power's sympathies were always going out towards the humanity around her.

She lived in it, breathed in it, suffered with it. The turning brought her within sight of St Michael's Church and Vicarage, and she proceeded towards the house which Idonea had so lately left. The nurse, who was watching for her, admitted her, and Miss Power was left in the Vicar's study until she prepared her mistress to receive her. It was sixteen years since she was last in that room. She looked around her upon the artistic hangings, the luxurious sofa, and cut flowers upon a most unclerical writing-table. " He has grown more selfish with years," she concluded. "It is more like a lady's boudoir than a gentleman's Idonea. 12 study; and there is a photograph of that woman," observing a likeness on a side-table. She turned her back upon the room with an action indicative of extreme disgust.

Alice Gray returned, saying, — " I have not seen the mistress so pleased this many a year as when I told her you were here, miss. But she is very weak, and a little talking tries her," she explained. " I will be most careful, nurse." And Miss Power followed her across the hall to a room at the back of the house, which, for the invalid's convenience, had been given up to her for a bedroom. " You will see a great alteration in her," Alice whispered. But this was no preparation for the change in her friend. She was indeed a pitiable wreck. Miss Power was inexpressibly pained and shocked. Greta had lived in her memory as the lovely, golden-haired maiden, radiant and beautiful as a summer flower, who had flitted like a sunbeam about their old home in South Germany. When she thought of her, she forgot the years that had passed since that happy time.

It scarcely seemed possible that the pale, prematurely-aged woman before her could ever have been that bright, smilins: sir]. O ' o o She endeavoured to conceal her emotion, but her momentary start of pained surprise had not escaped the invalid's notice. " I am more changed than you expected?" she said, after the nurse had left the room. " Yes, Greta. I fear you must have suffered greatly." " At times — yes ; but it is almost over now. I shall be so glad of the rest in the happy home beyond. Oh, Connie, from the borders of the grave I have prayed for you ; prayed that I might be able to tell you that our religion is true — that our Christ is the Saviour of the world. I know it — I feel it. My dear one, before it is too late, turn unto His loving arms, is the Christ, the Son of God : almost from the other world I tell you this."

All the energy that was left in the poor frail body was put into her words. She sank back exhausted. Miss Power took her cold, thin hand, and held it lovingly. " You believe me, dear ? " she whispered faintly. " Yes, Greta. I know it is true to you." And she wondered where this poor bruised heart would have found its resting-place had there been no tender human Saviour to whom to turn. Idonea. 14 Mrs Sinclair closed her eyes. To a less ex perienced person than Miss Power, it would have seemed as if she had already found the lono-ed-for rest. She watched her for some O minutes ; low and feeble as it was, her breath ing was smooth and regular. She looked from her pain-worn face to her surroundings. The sofa on which she lay, like all the furniture in the room, was worn and shabby; the colour less carpet w7as almost threadbare ; a faded flower stood in a common glass vase amongst O O the medicine bottles on the dressing - table, which served to increase the pervading air of dreariness.

But for the white covers and cur tains, which no doubt Alice saw to, the room would have appeared quite desolate. Miss Power remembered the flowers in the vicar's study, the bric-a-brac, the curtains and hangings, the inviting couch and luxurious chair. It was well that Greta opened her weary eyes again and broke in upon this train of thought. O " I hope you are safe, Connie. You look as if you were. I am so thankful," and Mrs Sinclair's wan features were illuminated by a smile that reminded her friend of her lost youth and beauty. They drifted into those remembrances of former days, so dear to those who have loved and lived together. It was sixteen years since last they met, years in w7hich Constance Power had seen much and lived truly ; and Greta Sinclair had suffered and endured as only such loving, patient natures as hers can endure.

They did not ask each other of this intervening time ; it was bridged over by an unchangeable affection. Constance was waiting and wishing, though, to hear something of her friend's child. It was strange that she did not speak of her. Was the daughter callous and neglectful as the father, she began to ask herself. Judging from the mother's surroundings, it seemed like it. It was strange to Constance how a woman could live in such a room. Had Greta no friends whose pictured faces could cheer her solitude ? no souvenirs of the past ? none of those treasures of so little value in them selves, but so precious for the memories asso ciated with them which she loved to have around her ? A book was lying on the window-sill, which, w7ith the true book-lover's curiosity, she was longing to examine. She knew by its brown binding it was a work of Carlyle's. There was a pause in the conversation, and she Idonea. seized the opportunity to possess herself of the volume, "Sartor Resartus."

" Idonea is reading it," Greta informed her. " She is quite a bookworm, and outread me long ao;o." __."S c5^. " Tell me of your daughter, dear. " Connie, I cannot. It rends my heart. My poor, poor darling, so young, to be left utterly alone. I cannot speak of her, I dare not. I can only pray for her. He will not leave her comfortless, though I, in my ignorance, am wanting in faith in His divine com passion. Constance, the child has loved me with all her strength — loved me to idolatry — loved me as — as I fear it is sinful that one human being should love another. Perhaps God in His wisdom is removing the temptation from her. I can only leave her in His care." " And her father ? " Constance felt impelled to inquire. " I tried, and my faithful Alice helped me, to hide his failings from her, and to bring her O ' O up to reverence his office, and that which was best in him ; but we did not succeed.

She is a strange girl. I tremble for her future." She broke down with a painful sob, that ended in a straining paroxysm of coughing. Miss Power was afraid the interview had been too much for her ; but when she spoke of taking her leave, Mrs Sinclair replied, — " Before you go, there is one thing more I must say to you, Connie. Do not blame my husband. I see now the fault was not entirely his. We drifted apart because I was too weak and cowardly to hold out against it. He loved me until we came to this miserable place. We were happy at first ; but here all was strange and new to me. I did not understand the English ways, and these women were jealous of their clergyman's ' foreign wife.' They were cruel, and they frightened me. I suc cumbed too easily, and left my husband to go amongst them alone.

I suffered — oh, how I suffered ! Idonea and the other poor babies came. I was ill and unhappy, and I was no longer young and pretty. He no longer cared to sit and watch me, as once he did, because I was so fair. He loves beauty ; it is necessary to him. He cannot help it ; he is so much more sensitive than ordinary men. You must not blame him, Constance." This was asking more than she was capable of. There was a life's history in this sad con fession. She could in no sense excuse this man, whose coldness and neglect had broken B Idonea. his wife's heart. To her mind, his refined cruelty was worse than the ruffian's blows. He was no better than the brutal wretches condemned to expiate their crime on the gallows. She took her leave, pondering over this domestic tragedy — a commonplace one enough, alas ! under our present social system.

Chapter III

" LIGHT, RARE, UNTELLABLE, LIGHTING THE VERY LIGHT." Idonea had made no further attempt to combat the nurse's decision. When the time for Miss Power's expected arrival drew near, she had gone out passively enough, wanting only to be alone. There were days when her mother seemed better — and she forgot her sorrow in the joy of the moment. Other days, the flickering flame that lingered in the poor, frail body appeared almost spent, and the poor child was overwhelmed by the passionate burning grief that con sumed her. She had no one to turn to for sympathy ; nothing within herself to help her to bear her sorrow. All the affection her strong nature was capable of was centred on this one being — the mother who was dying and leaving her desolate. She could not find any consolation in religion. Her heart hungered after the living Idonea. 20 parent, and not the distant God.

He was a cruel God. It was long ago, when, with bated breath, she had first whispered aloud those awful words, " He is a cruel God." She had half-expected to be struck clown, as Ananias and Sapphira were when they hid, for the Bible told her He was a God of love, contrary to the evidence of her own senses, and she could not tell which was truth. Her mother loved Him ; all her happiness w7as found at the Saviour's Cross ! Then it would seem to Idonea that the fault must lie in her own evil nature, w7hich caused her to look at things differently from what they were. Her mother's example might have led her to the bosom of the Church. She had fitful seasons of emotional yearnino for the Christ, but she could not disassociate the Church from her father. He entered his pulpit strong in his assumption of the apostolic succession, and her heart closed up, and she drifted hither and thither, like a frail bark on a stormy sea, without helm or rudder to guide its course.

In all Denton town, there w7ere none so sad as she. She was utterly spent this afternoon, after a violent paroxysm of weeping in the solitude of her own chamber. With bent Light, Rare, Unte liable, etc. 21 head she walked through the smoke-begrimed streets. Miss Pow7er was likely to be on her way to St Michael's, but even this had not the power to arouse her from her gloomy meditations. She winded her way towards a green and gently undulating hill that stretched to the north of the town — an oasis in this wilderness of black chimneys and barren waste. It escaped the blighting contact with the burning smoke, and was glowing in spring's luxurious mantle. On the outskirts of the town there was an old book shop in close proximity to the grammar school. She stayed to look in the window at the usual miscellaneous collection of old and shabby volumes.

Conspicuous amongst them was a green covered book, ticketed one shilling; ; a O O volume of essays by Constance Power. It was as if an electric shock had gone through her frame. She was once more alive to a consciousness of her own being. She re-read the inscription on the cover, which stated that the essays had been delivered as lectures by Miss Power on different occasions. She felt in her pocket for her purse, and counted its contents. It was somewhat wonderful that she should have possessed a whole shilling, for money was scarce in St Idonea. 22 Michael's vicarage after its master's numerous requirements were supplied, and little enough found its ways into Idonea's shabby purse. She went into the shop and purchased the book of the old bookseller, who knew her very well ; for he was under the patronage of the clergy of the neighbourhood.

He knew their times and movements, and that green volume had only been placed in the windows during such intervals as he could count upon none of them passing, for they were his best customers, and it might offend them. He had no fears in selling it to a daughter O O of one of these gentlemen, not he. It was always the parson's son who bought up those sort of books, and although it was a daughter this time, it did not alter his fore gone conclusions. She was only going the way of the rest of them, he reflected : " First, she wants Kingsley's Works, as good a Christian that ever lived he was — but it's astonishing how those books of his do lead them on — then she had a go at Carlyle ; now she comes out and asks for Miss Power's book — downright atheist as she is — and with out having a turn at Mill and Spencer, as the young men do first."

Idonea hugged her precious possession close, Light, Rare, Unsellable, etc. 23 and with the natural exuberance of youth, her spirits rose, until it seemed as if a new heaven and a new earth were about her. When she reached the open fields, she sat down on the gnarled roots of a great elm tree, whose long, arm-like branches cast broad shadows on the green sward. The sun shone through the intricate network of brown branchless, and gave to the translucent young leaves an emerald-like brightness. O " It is good to be here," cried a small voice within her. It was a glorious day, late in May. The wdnds had wooed — "All vital things that wake to bring News of birds and blossoming." Her own pulses quickened in unison with the glowing life around her. She, too, was young, and for the moment she had escaped from the demon of death, who shadowed her path with his ghostly wing.

She opened her book and glanced cursorily over its contents. It contained articles on various subjects, all of material interest in the world's progress ; but Idonea knew next to nothing of those stirring questions belonging to the times. She experienced a sense of disappointment. The book did not appear to contain anything that would interest her : Idonea. 24 such subjects as The Organisation of Labour, Taxation and Rent were entirely out of her ken. She turned to an address given by Miss Power at the opening of a college for girls, w-hich she had been instrumental in founding. She commenced it listlessly enough, but before she had read many lines her interest arose. Miss Power's heart had been in this particular work, and her admirers declared she excelled herself in this lecture. No wonder Idonea was, before long, completely carried away by the rich, flowing oratory.

She read it as the early Protestants must have read the Scrip tures which had been so long hidden from them. The words were inspired, and for her — Idonea, sitting alone beneath the elm tree — for her, and not for that distant audience ! If she had stopped to consider, she would have said that amongst all those girls Miss Power had assembled together, there was not one to whom her w7ords appealed as they did to her ; there was not one wdio wanted that message as she wanted it. It w7as so new, so astonishing ! She pro ceeded with bated breath, ever and anon retracing her sentences, to be sure that the message was true. The message that she Light, Rare, Unsellable, etc. 25 felt could save her soul alive, for it told of the dignity of womanhood in an enlarged sphere, where her salvation should be worked out without the suppression of many of her noblest aspirations.

She learnt from it that the undefined longings, the vague desires and consciousness of power which she felt in her own nature, could all be used for her own good, and the benefit of the community at large. She, who had tried and failed, to believe that they must be suppressed; that her strength and her intellect were to be re o-retted on account of her sex! How often she had sat under that very tree, and sobbed aloud in her childish anger because God had not made her a boy; and she hated the life before her. "Men must work, and women must weep," her mother had taught her, both by precept and example. She had rebelled against this creed ; her cry had ever been that she would w7ork, she w-ould not weep. Circumstances had been too strong for her. Her childhood had been shadowed by her mother's unhappiness ; she had scarcely verged from childhood into youth before she was made aware that her mother was stricken by an incurable disease.