Was It Right to Forgive?

Chapter 7

Rose’s happiness was now running at full tide, and she was carried with it, amid the sympathies of those who loved her and the congratulations of all her acquaintances. Mr. Filmer abandoned his great book until after the marriage. Harry took pride in introducing his future brother-in-law to his best club acquaintances, and then was agreeably surprised to find Antony’s financial standing well known to the magnates of the money world. Mrs. Filmer spoke with well controlled elation of their satisfaction in the intended marriage, of the bridegroom’s fine character and great wealth, and of the old Dutch ancestry which he shared with Miss Alida and the eminent Van Hoosen family.

On Antony’s side, the marriage gave equal satisfaction. Peter had a pleasant memory of the bright girl; and Adriana thought far more of Rose’s good points than of her evil ones. With Miss Alida, she planned all kinds of sweet surprises for the bride elect; and busied herself continually concerning the details of the ceremony and the preparations for it. And without a word to each other on the subject, there appeared to be a tacit agreement among all who loved Rose that she was not to be left to herself; and that all temptation must be kept out of her path. This was an easy thing to do under the circumstances; there was so much shopping to attend to; and there were the wonderful wedding and travelling costumes to prepare, and the dresses of the eight maids to be decided on, and all the exact paraphernalia of a fashionable wedding to accomplish. Rose was wanted everywhere. She had suddenly become the most important person in her little world. Her tastes and inclinations settled all disputed points; and perpetual offerings, of many kinds, were made to her.

Indeed, each day brought her some token of remembrance or congratulation from relatives and acquaintances; and Antony’s gifts realized all of even Rose’s exacting ideas concerning the proper evidences of love. Certainly, if jewels could typify affection, Antony’s must have been very great; for when at length the bridal satin and lace were assumed, her favorite gems fastened its veil, and glittered in her ears, and sparkled round her throat, and clasped her snowy belt. There was a crowded church to witness the wedding, and the atmosphere was sensitive with interest and pleasure, with the odors of flowers, and the bright reverberations of joyful music. Antony, also, on this occasion, was singularly handsome-as a man ought to be on his wedding day; he walked as if he were all spirit, and too happy for words. And yet many remarked his emphatic speech in the bridal ceremony; his serious assumption of all it demanded; and the proud tenderness with which at its close he turned to Rose and said, “My wife!”

So the affair was handsomely and happily over, and Peter Van Hoosen-who stood by his son’s side-admitted that it was “a very pretty spectacle.” And yet, even while it was in progress, his memory had gone back with a graver pleasure to his own marriage with Antony’s mother. He remembered her as young and as fair as Adriana, standing in her gown of white muslin, with no ornaments but the white roses in her hair and the pretty Bible in her hand. Loving and proud as Antony was that day, he had been equally so; and the bare kirk, and the solemn charge of the minister, and the kindly smiles of the friends who stood by them, seemed even at this hour just the kind of marriage he would prefer, if he were a young man again with Antony’s mother beside him.

There was a grand wedding breakfast, at which Miss Alida took a prominent part; and then the young couple went off to sea together; and the company sighed and departed; and when the sun set, the bridal day was quite over. Mr. and Mrs. Filmer sat talking, a little sad, and yet gratefully satisfied. Harry was with Miss Alida and Adriana, and disposed to talk of his own marriage. Nobody wanted dinner; they had a cup of tea by the parlor fire, and as they were drinking it and talking over the events of the day, Professor Snowdon came in.

“Well, well!” he cried, rubbing his hands gleefully, “the great performance is over; and it is evident the modern bride and bridegroom profit by the old stage direction: ‘Flourish of trumpets! Alarum! Exeunt!’” Then he looked at Peter, who was Miss Alida’s guest for the night, and Adriana said: “This is my father, Professor.”

“I am glad to see you, sir. What were you talking of? Do not let me interrupt the conversation.”

“I was talking, as old men will talk, of their youth, and of my own marriage in the old Dutch kirk at Woodsome.”

“I thought so. I meet many old men, and all of them, no matter how successful their later years have been, like best of all to talk of their life in childhood and early youth upon some farm; to recall the

‘-whistling boys and lowing cows,

And earthy sounds of cleaving ploughs;’

or the

‘Youthful love and maidens gay,

And bliss that found its wedding day,’

and when they do so, a different look comes into their faces, and their laugh grows young again-that is the strange thing. And I myself, I too, remember love in my sweet youth.”

“If any one has ever loved,” said Peter, “he cannot forget. Nothing goes to heaven but love.”

“Is it not heaven? We have a way of inferring that heaven is far off and walled in, but really all eternal things are so very near to us that a single step, a sudden ‘accident’ brings the disembodied spirit into an immediate recognition of them.”

“Then,” said Harry, clasping Adriana’s hand, “let us live now, for time is short.”

“No, sir,” answered the Professor, promptly, “man has forever.”

“If in spiritual things, we could only see with our eyes and hear with our ears!” said Miss Alida.

“And if so, madame, what grace would there be in believing?”

“Who does believe?” asked Harry. “The great German philosopher, Frederick Gotfield, says, all religions are alike dead, and there is no faith left in the heart of man; no, nor yet capacity for faith.”

“Well, Mr. Filmer, the disciple is not above his master. If you sit at the feet of Mr. Frederick Gotfield, you cannot rise above his doubts and scoffing.”

“Harry does not sit at the feet of any such master, sir,” explained Adriana.

“I am glad of it; for Mr. Gotfield is not in search of salvation; his way leads-but we will not talk of him. Oh, for a generation perplexed with no vague fears, worn with no infinite yearnings, perfectly happy and healthy, and aiming at the noblest ends! How good it would be!”

“However,” said Harry, “whether we believe or not, we can love.”

“Then love wisely. I have read that St. Bernard thought that at the Last Day we shall not be asked what we have done, nor yet what we have believed, but what we have loved. That will indeed be a supreme test of character.”

Harry became very thoughtful, and clasped Adriana’s hand tighter; and just then Miss Alida’s lawyer called, and she was compelled to leave her company for a while. So the Professor and Peter began to talk of Free Will and Calvinism, and Harry and Adriana withdrew to the curtained window, where they sat in happy silence, listening to that speech which is heard with the heart, and yet dimly conscious of the argument in progress. This way and that way it veered, Peter holding grimly fast to his stern plan of sin and retribution; the Professor doubting, qualifying, extolling free grace, and averring he would “consider the burning of all Calvin’s books to be most justifiable Libricide”-making the statement, however, with such sweet, calm good nature, that it was impossible to be angry, even had Peter desired to be so. But Peter was far too firmly fixed on his foundation to feel anger; his opposition took the form of a sublime confidence, and he closed the discussion with a sudden outburst of enthusiasm it was impossible not to respect.

“Say what you will about the deadness of our faith, Professor!” he cried, “there is life in the old kirk yet!”

He rose to his full stature with the words, his face kindling, and his head thrown back and upward with the aspiring assertion. Adriana felt the magnetism of his faith and stood up also, and the Professor answered, gently:

“Mr. Van Hoosen, I respect your sentiments with all my intellect and all my heart. One thing in your sturdy creed makes it omnipotent-the utter absence of such an enfeebling thought as that this life was meant to be a pleasure-house. How, indeed, could it fit into your creed? and yet, to make life happy, to have pleasure, is not this the question of existence to a majority?”

“Duty, not pleasure, was John Calvin’s central idea. We are to obey, not to grumble, or to desire. We are to receive all life’s ills as plain facts of discipline:

‘Willing from first to last to take