Chapter XI Doubts
“Sweeter, lovelier, dearer than ever!” thought Mrs. Vernon, as she pressed her daughter closer and closer in her fond embrace. When the flush of excitement at the first meeting had passed away, the eye of affection observed that Flora had become paler and thinner, that there was a thoughtful, preoccupied expression on her gentle brow, as though her mind were wandering far away; but there was deeper feeling in those soft blue eyes, more beaming sweetness in that smile, than even her mother had ever seen before.
Flora retired early to her room, pleading the fatigue of her journey. She had scarcely been able to give even the semblance of attention to the multifarious questions of Emma on the amusements and fashions of London, and had answered them almost at random; but when she found herself in her own apartment, the door closed, and only Mrs. Vernon beside her, she threw herself again on her mother’s bosom, buried her glowing face on her parent’s neck, and, trembling with joyful emotion, uttered, in scarcely articulate accents, “Mother, dear mother, he has spoken!”
“Sir Amery Legrange!” faltered Mrs. Vernon.
“I must tell you all,” continued Flora, without raising her head. “It was yesterday—only yesterday—at Richmond. I did not know—I had scarcely dreamed—oh, mother!” she exclaimed suddenly, bursting into tears of delight, “I never never believed it possible to be so—” the bright, sparkling drops told the rest.
Mrs. Vernon grew very cold. There was a sinking at her heart and a rising in her throat, which made her for the moment unable to speak.
“And he will be a son to you, mother, the most tender and dutiful of sons! He will never separate us—he is so generous—so good!”
“And is he”—said Mrs. Vernon, speaking slowly, as if fearful to break by one word the spell of happiness thrown around her daughter—“is he one who holds the same blessed faith in which your dear father lived and died?”
Flora was silent for a short space. “He does act, I believe—indeed, I know—he does not in all things hold the same opinions as those which I have been taught; he is too candid, too honourable to make false professions; he—he does not view everything in the same light which you do; but his character, his life are beyond reproach; his actions prove that his creed cannot be far wrong! It is from you, mother, that I have learned to value deeds far more than words. Was it not our Saviour himself who said, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them?’”
“He did so, my child; and where the fruits of the Spirit are found, there we may be sure that a blessing abides. But the first fruit is love, supreme love towards God, the love of the redeemed for their Redeemer, of pardoned sinners for their Saviour: where this is wanting, what cause have we to hope that the soul has been ’born again’ unto God?”
Flora raised her head: her cheek was painfully flushed, and the tears of joy which had glistened on her lashes were followed by bitter drops, as she exclaimed, “Some one has been prejudicing you against him; some one has been maligning him, mother!”
“It is himself, then,” replied Mrs. Vernon, calmly; “I have been reading ‘The Master-Mind.’”
“And do you not think it beautiful—sublime—the transcript of a noble heart, an exalted mind?”
“Not the heart of one converted—not the mind of a Christian!”
There was a long and most painful silence. Flora was wounded to the quick, and that by a hand that she loved. Blinded by her affection, she regarded Sir Amery with an enthusiastic admiration which could see no fault, a tender devotion which would have regarded the sacrifice of life itself but a small one for his sake. Every fibre of her loving heart seemed to have twined itself round its new idol, and to breathe even a slighting word of him was to wrench and lacerate those tender heart-strings. She again buried her face, but this time it was not on the bosom of her mother.
“Mamma, you know not how wretched you make me with your doubts!”
“My child—my own child—I would give my life’s blood to render you happy!” Mrs. Vernon took the cold hand of Flora, and pressed it convulsively to her heart. “But I cannot—I dare not—trust you to one who is not treading the same path towards heaven: I cannot—dare not—let you break the command which bids our unions be ‘only in the Lord.’”
“You will refuse your consent?” exclaimed Flora, starting to her feet, and gazing on her mother with a look of wild dismay.
“Oh, God help me!—God guide me!” murmured the unhappy parent, pressing her hand tightly over her brow.
“You will refuse your consent?” repeated Flora, more wildly and passionately than before. “Mother, mother! you know not what you are doing!—you may break my heart, you may lay me in my grave; but”—her manner suddenly changed to one of clinging, confiding affection, as she sank at the feet of her mother, and looked imploringly up into her face—“but you will not, dear mother, you will not; you will let us be happy together. When you see him—when you know him—all these terrible doubts will pass quite away; you will look on him as I look—you will love him: only wait till he comes—till to-morrow.”
“To-morrow! is he coming?” gasped the lady.
“Mother, dearest mother, you are trembling!”
“Oh, this is a very, very bitter cup! God give me strength to drink it,” exclaimed the widow.
“He will bring sunshine with him; he will plead his own cause—”
“Thankful, most deeply, profoundly thankful will I be, Flora, if he can indeed satisfy my mind that he is a faithful servant of our divine Master! I can pass over minor differences—the outer garb of religion—the forms which man hath appointed—we may hold various opinions here, and yet be one in the Lord. But if I find that my fears are but too true—that Sir Amery, gifted and noble as he is, has chosen a path of his own, which is not the narrow one which leadeth alone unto life; that he rests upon a hope of his own, which is not trust in the merits of his Saviour; that he has formed a standard of his own, which is not the standard of the Word of Truth; whatever grief, whatever anguish it may cost me, my duty is plain before me—I must not resign the treasure committed by God to my charge to the keeping of one who is not His disciple.”
And so they parted, the mother and the daughter, and many and bitter were the tears which wet their pillows that night. Mrs. Vernon sought and found relief in prayer—Flora, in thoughts of him whose idolized image stood between her and the light of Heaven.