Phemie Keller

That was a happy time—the happiest Phemie ever knew. It was the bright summer holiday of her life, and not even when, a child, she built her perishable houses of sand and shells on the seashore—not even when, a girl, she had wandered over the Cumberland hills gathering flowers and wreathing them into garlands for her hair, had Phemie been so happy as she was in those swiftly-passing hours that sped by, rapidly, noiselessly, like a wild bird on the wing.

Considering how much happiness this world holds for even the wretchedest among us, it is strange that we so rarely get it unalloyed.

The inevitable “but” that seems to dog our pleasures is incessantly trampling on the heels of happiness; and thus it comes about that whenever we can manage to outstrip our haunting shadow, whenever we do chance to drain a draught which leaves no bitter after-taste behind, we remember those pleasant hours, that delicious vintage, for ever and for ever.

The enjoyment may not be so great when we come to analyse it, but it has been perfect of its kind; the diamond may not be large, but it is without flaw or blemish. We have known no drawback, we have had no mist, no cloud, no cold, no sorrow. We have enjoyed—wholly and entirely—for once we have basked in the warmth of complete happiness; and the memory of that glory of sunshine which has flooded our lives, and forced its way into the darkest chambers of our hearts, can never be effaced by the darkness of the tempestuous days that follow.

Do we forget the summer in the winter? Do we forget the flowers when the frost is covering the ground? We have enjoyed the summer, we have loved the flowers, and we can no more cease to recollect the sunshine and the gay parterres than we can forget to remember the warm grasp of a hand that may now be cold enough—than we can lay the coffin-lid over the face of the dead, and shut out by that act the recollection of the smiles, the tears, the tones whose immortality has commenced for us on earth.

Did Phemie forget? My friends, if one of you stood for a time in Paradise, should you be likely to let that part of your existence slip out of your memory? If you have ever for a moment stood in the Garden of Eden, without knowing there was a tempter in it; eaten of the pleasant fruit, without thinking there was a worm lying at the very core; drank of the waters of gladness, without dreaming there was poison in the draught, death in their sweetness; I can only say you have felt what Phemie Stondon felt in those days which were happy as heaven unto her. And as the spot where you lay down and took your rest will remain green in your heart till the end, so the memory of that happy summer holiday, through all the after years, faded not away.

Whether they took long excursions into the country, whether they walked on the sands, whether they sate by the beach, whether under the moonlight their boat glided over the sea, while the dipping oars kept time to the sweet voices of the fair singers, whether they were talking, or laughing, or silent, they were happy. If there had been no such things as sin and care and sorrow, they could not have enjoyed themselves more. Had there been no to-morrow in life, to-day could not have seemed brighter. Mr. Aggland, from his farm, from his isolated existence, from his uncongenial home; Duncan, from his hard work in the heart of London; Helen, from her lessons; Phemie, from company; Miss Derno, from her relations; Captain Stondon, from the cares of ownership; Basil, from anxieties concerning his future,—took holiday.

They carried no skeleton, they left no one at home that they wished at the seashore with them, and they enjoyed—if I were to write for ever I could never hope to tell how fully they enjoyed that time!

As for Phemie, in those happy, happy days, she forgot her rise in the world—she forgot her accomplishments—she forgot that Basil was to come after her husband—she forgot everything that had made her womanhood so much less lovely than her girlhood, and grew softer, gentler, sweeter.

Away from the familiar family circle—always on her guard before strangers—she had grown worldly and selfish, and self-conscious; but by the lonely seashore, where the waves sung the dear song she had listened to in her childhood, Phemie changed once again—not to the girl who had won Captain Stondon’s heart among the Cumberland hills, but to something far different—to a woman who might have won any man’s heart. Alas! for Phemie!

In those days she grew pliable as wax in the hand of the moulder; she grew loving and loveable, and tender; she would sit with her uncle’s hand in hers, listening to his discourses, smiling at his quotations, pleased to hear him say how happy he was, how for years and years and years he had never enjoyed himself so much before.

She would talk to Duncan about his future life—about his plans, his hopes, his prospects, for hours at a time, while the waves kept rippling, rippling at their feet. She delighted to have Helen beside her, and the old caressing attitude, so long discontinued, came back naturally to them both. Her admiration for Miss Derno woke to life once more; and best of all, there came into her manner towards her husband a graceful thoughtfulness, a grateful appreciation, that comforted Mr. Aggland exceedingly.

Phemie! Phemie! my love, my darling!—Phemie of the blue eyes, of the auburn hair!—vain, fanciful, exacting, jealous Phemie!—if I were to leave you now sitting by the seashore, leave you at the acme of your happiness, and close the book, and clasp the rest of the story within its leaves, would the world like you, as I have done, I wonder!

Rather would you not seem a mere sketch, a fair faint outline, an unfinished portrait, beautiful though you may be, lingering in the sunlight of those bright summer days, when your life was full—full to overflowing—of prosperity and happiness, and love. And love, poor child—and love! It was the dream-hero come too late, for the Phemie Keller who had waited for him by the tarn and the waterfall, who had listened for his footsteps over the hills, was free no longer to greet his appearing. She had owned but one life—but one, and this was what she had made of it. Never to be able to love sinlessly, never to be able to love openly, never to be able to whisper the sweet secret to herself save with tears of bitterness, with pangs of anguish. This was what “I will” had meant for her when she uttered the words in Tordale church—where the everlasting hills looked down on the beautiful valley below.

Never, O God! never—so long as the sun shone—so long as the rivers flowed to the sea—as the birds sang—as the snow fell—as the rain descended—never!

And yet the waves rippled, and the sunbeams danced on the waters, and the green leaves rustled in the summer breeze, and the earth looked lovely in its robes of green all broidered and festooned with flowers, and Phemie came to love the man she had disliked, and was happy, unknowing what such happiness meant.

Knowledge came to her soon enough; but not in those sunshiny days when she walked by the seashore, and rejoiced in the summer gladness, when she “grew,” as she said to herself, “to like Basil better,” and to wonder less at his popularity.

Poor Phemie! with careful hands and loving hearts all around, was there no one to see whither you were drifting? No one to notice the rock whereon your poor ship went to pieces?

It was holiday time, and all seem too busy taking their ease, enjoying their hours of idleness, to think of danger or of distress. Besides, we do not ordinarily dream of ice catching fire, of purity itself dragging her garments through the mire. She was innocent. How should knowledge of sin ever enter into such a home as Phemie’s? And yet, oh, reader! given this position: on the one hand duty and an unsatisfied heart, a heart that the love of man had never filled, that the faithlessness of man had never broken, that was as inexperienced as the heart of a child; and on the other, temptation, youth, romance—how was it likely to end?

Can one pass through the fire unscorched? Is it virtue, never having even seen the furnace, to reach the end of life with no smell of burning on our garments?

Had sin never stood in the path before her, how would it have been with Phemie Keller—who can tell? And who can tell either, oh, friends, how it would fare with any of us if at some point of our journey we had to buckle on our armour, and wage war with the devil and his legions?

It is one thing to be a criminal and another to be a judge. I pray you to remember this, you who from the heights of virtue look down on these pages, and read therein the story of Phemie’s struggle.

Slowly as the waves steal in upon the shore, as the leaves come upon the bare branches, crept this love into Mrs. Stondon’s heart.

That the sky seemed clearer, that the days were shorter, that the whole earth appeared more beautiful, that there was a stillness on the sea, a glory over the landscape such as she had never before dreamed of, Phemie knew; but that the brightness and the beauty, the calm and the glory, were all born of love she did not suspect till she wakened from her slumber—till, like the gold and the silver of a fairy tale, her happiness turned to misery, her rejoicing to despair.

But at the time of which I am speaking, what did love mean to a woman who had never felt its power? It meant nothing. No more than religion means to the infidel—than the Word of God signifies to the atheist. She had never believed in it; she had treated it as an idea, a folly, a delusive dream. Children put faith in stories of dwarfs and giants, of enchanted castles, of magicians, of sprites and gnomes; boys and girls, in a similar manner, placed confidence in love tales, in romantic legends, in sentimental songs; but when children grew up to be boys and girls, and when boys and girls grew up to be men and women, they abandoned their old superstitions, and became like unto Phemie herself, a wise individual who believed in nothing out of the common course of events, who thought that marriage meant no more than what the prayer-book said it did, who would have gone before a magistrate and sworn to the fact, had such testimony been desired of her who laughed at love, and whose firm opinion was, that love between a man and a woman not related to one another by blood meant either folly or sin.

Folly! In the day of her bitterest distress, she learnt that the strongest love may be the highest wisdom. Sin! I think Phemie, through much suffering, came to understand that there may be as much sin in loving too little as in loving too much.

Till she had eaten of that tree, however, how was she to distinguish between good and evil? Till she had felt danger, how was she to arm herself against harm? Are the blind to be blamed for walking on straight towards a precipice? Was Phemie a sinner, then, because she rejoiced in the sunlight on the waters, because she delighted to hear the birds sing, because she thought the country had never before looked so beautiful, because she looked with dreamy eyes up at the pure blue summer sky, because the floating clouds were lovely to her imagination, because there was a glory on the sea, on the land, on the fields, on the woods, because she was happy, unknowing why?

Was she to blame? Was she a worse woman, then, in the day of her temptation, than she had been in that of her prosperity? Was the dead heart holier than the erring one? Who may answer? I can only tell the story as it came to pass—only show how the error produced fruit of sorrow, how her fault brought forth trouble and remorse.

They were all talking on this subject one Sunday evening after their return to Marshlands. Talking, I mean, about how his sin finds a man out even in this world. How the fault committed and forgotten by the creature is not forgotten by the Creator; how it is rather like seed cast into the ground, sure to spring up, and to bring forth abundantly sooner or later after its kind—either private sorrow or public shame, when Captain Stondon remarked—

“The last time I heard a sermon on the same text as that this afternoon was among the Cumberland hills. Do you remember Mr. Conbyr’s ‘Wages of Sin,’ Phemie?” he added, turning to his wife: “the day I first saw you—the day I first saw Tordale—the day I sat on the side of Helbeck, and watched the sun set among the mountains—the day I broke my arm and sprained my ankle—that day Mr. Conbyr told us that the wages of sin is death?”

“And have you seen any reason since to believe that he told you what was not true?” asked Mr. Aggland.

“I am afraid I have never thought about the subject from that day to this,” answered Captain Stondon. “Sin seems so strong a word, so utterly outside the ordinary experience of an everyday life.”

“Perhaps so,” was Mr. Aggland’s reply; “yet still we acknowledge every Sunday that we are sinners. What does that signify? I only ask for information,” went on Phemie’s uncle. “What is the sin of which the wages is death, if it be one which we can ward off with a fine house, good fires, and purple and fine linen? And if we are not all offenders, if we are not every day committing some fault, what do we mean by confessing we are miserable sinners? We either attribute some meaning to the words, or we do not. Which is it?”

There was a moment’s pause before any one answered. Then Miss Derno said—

“I think you and Captain Stondon are traversing different mental lines. You are taking sin in its broadest sense; you are thinking of sins of omission, and sins of commission, of sins of temper, of sins of selfishness, of sins of which the law of the land takes no cognizance; while Captain Stondon was speaking of those that are punished by Calcraft, or by fine, or by imprisonment.”

“Which are not usually committed in well-regulated households,” put in Basil Stondon.

“As, for instance, theft, murder, and so on,” added Captain Stondon.

“But the text refers to death in the next world, not in this,” remarked Phemie. They were talking the matter over, just as people do talk such matters over—neither theologically nor philosophically—not pursuing any distinct line of argument, but speaking out whatever thought chanced to come uppermost at the moment.

“I should rather say death in the next world or in this,” amended Mr. Aggland.

“Will you explain your meaning a little more clearly?” asked Miss Derno.

It was an interesting group on which the beams of the departing sun fell aslant—interesting because of the beauty of the women, of the faces of the men; because of the way in which the light wandered in and out among the trees that overshadowed the talkers; because of the golden track that lay upon the grass; because of the stillness of that holy summer’s evening; because, taking sin in the sense we generally use the word, it seemed so strange a subject for such a “well-ordered household,” to quote Basil Stondon, to have selected for conversation.

Sin! If a select party, standing about the bar of a public-house in Whitechapel had commenced such a discussion, it would have appeared only natural. If rags and filth and vice had been able to tell all about it, we should only have said it was right and proper for the natives to speak of a plant indigenous to their soil. But twice now Captain Stondon had heard the same text preached from, under circumstances that had impressed it on his mind. Both times the preacher had addressed himself not to the men and the women from contact with whom virtue in this world shrinks decorously. In Tordale, Captain Stondon had wondered for a short space as to what sin the farmers among the hills were likely to commit; at Marshlands, when the clergyman had not above twenty of a congregation, the text grew almost personal.

Sin! The rector had discoursed to them about all sorts of sin—about the sins of idolatry, and the sins of disobedience; about the sins of the Israelites—about the sins of Ahab—about the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat—about the sins of Saul, and the sins of David, and the sins of Gehazi, and the sins of the Jews, and all the offences which are counted as sins in the New Testament. He had told them how “sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.” And now they were discussing the subject, and Mr. Aggland said sin brought death in this world or in the next or in both.

“Unrepented sin,” he observed, in answer to Miss Derno, “may bring death in the next world; being no divine, however, that is a point I should prefer not meddling with; but any man has a right to speak of what he has seen in this world—he has a right, I mean, to talk of the ways of Providence, so far as he has been able to trace them on this side of the grave; and I have seen even in this world that the wages of sin is death.”

“Death by disease or violence—which?” demanded Basil Stondon.

“Neither,” replied Mr. Aggland; “but death to every hope, to every wish; death to peace and contentment, to every pleasant memory, to the happiness of every passing hour. ‘We have all our vices,’ says Horace, and Baxter advises us to kill them before they kill us. ‘Use sin’ are his words, ‘as it will use you—spare it not, for it will not spare you: use it therefore as a murderer should be used, and though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls; though it bring you to the grave, it shall not be able to keep you there.’”

“I am still at a loss,” remarked Captain Stondon, “to understand what sin could produce such effects as you speak of. What sin, for instance, as any among us would be likely to commit?”

“What sin did Dives commit?” asked Mr. Aggland in reply. And the evening sun fell, as he spoke, on his strange face, on his hollow cheeks, on his tangled hair, on his thoughtful eyes, on his mouth, which he opened wider than ever while he put his question—“What sin did Dives commit? He was a rich man, and not a bad man. So far as we can see, he wore purple and fine linen; he lived in a grand house; he fared sumptuously every day. No death came to him in this world, but hell fire in the next. Look over the Bible for yourself, and you will find it is not sin which the law of the land punishes the most severely that we are warned against with the greatest frequency. It would be a hard thing if it were more difficult for the poor to reach heaven than the rich—for Lazarus than for Dives. It would be an awful thing if God despised the poor as we do; if there were ‘respect in the next world for him who weareth the gay clothing, who enters the assembly with a gold ring, and in goodly apparel.’ (You look at me, Miss Derno, as though you did not know I am quoting Scripture.) Though we go to the grave in a carriage with nodding plumes; though we are followed thither by the wealthy and titled of the land; though we lie down and take our rest in a coffin covered with velvet and lined with silk, yet we shall all have to enter heaven as paupers. Happy will he be in that day who, finding himself naked, shall yet not be ashamed.”

And Mr. Aggland looked up to the western sky, all crimson and purple and gold, as he concluded his little sermon,—looked up as though he there saw what he had been talking about, while Miss Derno said—

“You give us the truth naked enough, at any rate, Mr. Aggland.”

“For anatomical purposes clothing is unnecessary, Miss Derno,” he answered. At which remark they all laughed, excepting Phemie, who, sitting a little apart, was looking, like her uncle, at the pomp and splendour that surrounded the setting sun.

“Does not some one say something about our sins resembling our shadows, uncle?” she asked, with a sad, thoughtful expression on her lovely face.

“Suckling does,” he answered. “His idea is that in our noon they, like our shadows,

“And it is evening now, and too late for us to sit talking here much longer,” observed Captain Stondon, offering his arm to Miss Derno.

Mr. Aggland arose, and followed after Basil Stondon and his niece. Before he passed into the house he paused, and looked once again towards the west, and as he looked, sighed.

That was the last night of their happy holiday, and their talk had been of sin!