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CHAPTER XXX.
TREMBLING IN THE BALANCE

Another and a yet sharper trial was further to humble and sober the once gay and thoughtless Vibert. If ever a gush of warm gratitude had arisen in his heart, it was drawn forth by the generous effort made in his behalf by his elder brother. Bruce, when in a state of exhaustion and suffering which rendered him fit only for the silence and repose of a sick-chamber, had taken a long journey in winter, and had then encountered the fatigue and excitement of giving evidence in a police-court, acting as one who felt that he had no leisure to be ill, that it was a time for action and not for repose. Bruce had been as a rider forcing his horse to a leap almost beyond its strength; the brave steed just clearing the stone wall, and falling on the opposite side, crushing its rider beneath its weight. An effort had been made, successfully made; but reaction was certain to follow, and in the case of Bruce Trevor terrible was that reaction. Ere nightfall straw was laid down before one of the houses in Grosvenor Square to deaden the sound of passing wheels, and the most skilful physician in London was counting the quick throbs in the pulse of a patient in a high delirious fever.

Emmie had never before watched by a sick-bed; she had been far too young at the time of her mother’s last illness to have had anything to do with nursing. All those who best knew Emmie, with her delicate nerves and timid character, declared that she was utterly unfit to nurse in a case that required both strength and courage; for Bruce’s ravings were often those of a maniac. He had sometimes to be held down in his bed by main force. But the painful lessons of the last few days had not been taught to Emmie in vain. The timid nervous girl had learned to go to the Fount of Strength, and the firmness and faith which she thence received astonished her father and Vibert. When her younger brother would quit the sick-room, unable to endure the harrowing sight of Bruce struggling like a demoniac, Emmie remained at her painful post. The sound of his sister’s voice, the gentle touch of her hand, would sometimes soothe the poor sufferer when nothing else had the slightest effect.

“How can you bear to see him thus?” exclaimed Vibert once to his pale but tearless sister, after one of Bruce’s most distressing paroxysms of brain-fever.

“I try to trust and not be afraid,” the poor girl faintly replied. “I try to trust him to God, to my – his Heavenly Father. I repeat to myself, God is love. He can – oh! He will make all things, even this most fearful anguish, work together for good to those who trust Him!”

But for the ravings of fever, when the mind of Bruce had lost all power of self-control, never would mortal but himself have known the extent of the sufferings which he had endured whilst in the power of the forgers, and during the hours of torture when he had remained pinioned and gagged. In the police-court Bruce had described with calm brevity the events of that trying night and morning. But when reason had fled from the sufferer, what images of horror those events had branded on his mind was apparent to all who approached him. The dreadful scenes through which Bruce had passed were, in the delirium of fever, acted over and over again: now he was struggling with fearful violence to unloose a murderer’s grasp on his throat, calling for help in tones so piercing that they thrilled to the hearts of those watching beside him, and even reached the ears of passengers in the street. Then the sufferer seemed to be listening, gasping and trembling as he listened, to sounds which none but himself could hear. Bruce would mutter words about the pool – the deep, black, icy-cold pool – and clutch the bed-clothes, as if to save himself from being dragged down to a watery grave. At another time the fever-stricken youth would imagine himself as being again bound in the house of Jael, would writhe and struggle to free himself from imaginary cords that cut into his flesh as he struggled; and anon would convulsively start, as if again he heard the thunderbolt strike the dwelling close to his head.

Day after day passed, night after night, in dreadful transitions from frenzy to stupor, deathlike stupor, only exchanged for more fearful frenzy, till even Emmie could scarcely wish for a prolongation of the terrible struggle. Humbly and submissively she prayed that if her loved brother were indeed now passing through the river of death, one ray of reason might gleam through the awful darkness around him, and that the waves and billows might indeed not go over his head.

But Bruce had youth in his favour, and all that man’s skill or woman’s tenderness could throw into the opposite scale to that in which his life appeared to be gradually sinking. With alternations of hope and fear, the watchers by the sick-bed marked the trembling of the balance, scarcely able to believe that from so fearful an attack of fever the sufferer ever again could rise. But the crisis came at last, and the worst was over; the maddening fever quitted the suffering Bruce, but left him helpless as an infant, and more nervous than the most weak and timid of women.

For weeks Bruce could hardly endure the noise of a step crossing his room; a shadow alarmed him, a voice would make every nerve in his frame quiver. The doctor said that for long his patient would be incapable of any mental exertion; he who had been so steady and regular in his work, was condemned to the idleness and inaction which, to a character like that of Bruce, was in itself a most humiliating trial and disappointment.

As soon as the invalid could be with safety removed from London, he was sent to a watering-place in the south of England. Emmie, whose health had suffered from her devoted nursing, accompanied her sick brother. After a while she exchanged places with Vibert, and rejoined at Myst Court her father, who was actively fulfilling his duties as a landlord and benefactor to the poor. In the latter character Mr. Trevor needed the help of his daughter, whose health was now sufficiently restored to enable her to become his able assistant.

Vibert had not seen his brother for more than a month when he joined him at Torquay, and with the sanguine expectations natural to youth he hoped that the change of air and scene, and the effect of so many weeks passed in perfect repose, might have brought back health and strength to the shattered frame of Bruce Trevor. The youth was disappointed to find how slow had been the progress made by the invalid towards recovery. It was not merely the hollow eye, the transparent skin, the faint voice and feeble step that told how far removed convalescence was from vigorous health, for it seemed to Vibert as if his brother’s firmness of mind, and even his moral courage, were gone. Bruce so shrank from any allusions to the sufferings of the past, that Vibert, who had come full of news which he was eager to impart, found that he must avoid even mentioning the names of the Harpers. For some time Bruce did not hear the result of the trial of the forgers, who had all been convicted and condemned to various terms of imprisonment.

But if Bruce’s shattered state was distressing both to himself and to others, it was evident that the character of the young man was ripening under the trial. Bruce had been proud in his self-dependence, impatient of the weakness of others; he had trusted in the power of his own strong will to overcome all difficulties before him. He was now, in conscious infirmity, learning to cast himself simply, humbly, unreservedly upon the strength of his God. The proud soul had had to learn that the kingdom of heaven can only be entered by those who come in the spirit of a little child, and that the haughtiness of man must be brought down, that the Lord alone may be exalted.

“There are many things in life that one can’t understand,” observed Vibert one day, when he had just placed a footstool before the brother who had formerly taunted him with an effeminate love of luxurious ease. “It seems natural enough that I should have had some rough discipline, seeing what a thoughtless, selfish life I had been leading, till I was pulled up sharp by that horrid affair. But you – the steadiest fellow in Christendom – you, who never broke bounds, or turned to the right or the left – I can’t see why the heaviest strokes should be laid upon you, or what good such a long trying illness can possibly do you.”

“Vibert, do you remember what our uncle wrote on those fragments of paper when we were together at Summer Villa?”

Vibert nodded an affirmative reply.

“I have often thought over his words,” continued the invalid; “they conveyed a salutary warning, all the more needed because it raised my anger against him who had laid his finger upon the tender spot. Vibert, I, as well as yourself, had my haunted chamber within the heart, and it has needed the thunderbolt which has smitten me so low to burst open a way for the light to enter.”

A few months before nothing could have extorted from the lips of Bruce Trevor such a confession.

CHAPTER XXXI.
CHANGES

The last month of Bruce’s stay at Torquay was passed at the house of a relative; Vibert had returned to his studies, Emmie’s presence and help were required at home by her father, and the convalescent no longer needed constant attendance. It was arranged that Bruce should remain at the sea-side till his uncle’s return from his voyage, when he and Captain Arrows should travel to Myst Court together.

It is bright sunny noontide in April; earth has long since cast off her fetters of ice and mantle of snow, and the voice of the west wind has called forth innumerable flowers to welcome the spring. The apple-trees and cherry-trees are full of blossom, and the meadows are sheeted with gold. If some clouds flit over the sky, their light shadows but add the beauty of contrast to sunshine. If soft drops occasionally fall, they but make the fair earth the fairer.

Two travellers have just stepped on the platform of the station of S – . The pale thoughtful face of the one is familiar to us as that of Bruce Trevor; in the healthy, bronzed, intelligent countenance of the other we recognize that of Captain Arrows.

“Ah! a hearty welcome to you both!” exclaimed Vibert, who had been awaiting the arrival of the train with impatience. “As the day is so mild and bright, I have driven over in the pony-chaise to meet you. I want the captain to have a good view of the country as we drive to Myst Court.”

The gentlemen were soon in the chaise, which could only conveniently accommodate three; Joe was to follow with the luggage. The captain and Vibert sat in front; Bruce preferred occupying the small seat behind.

Vibert was in the highest spirits, talking and laughing as he drove. It was well that the pony knew the way, and required no guiding. The youth often turned half-round in his seat, to address himself to his brother.

“Doesn’t this remind you, Bruce, of my first coming to meet you at this station, when I ran off with Emmie, and nearly broke both her neck and my own? What a storm we had then to welcome us into our home!”

“We’ve had worse storms since,” thought the silent Bruce Trevor.

Vibert continued his animated conversation with his uncle, pointing out all the landmarks around, telling of the improvements made by his father, and giving lively anecdotes of the people whose dwellings they passed.

“There now – yon unsightly square fortress of brick is the castle of old Bullen, the giant whom my father, armed with a roll of law-papers, boldly attacked and subdued. The stream which runs through our land has ceased to run purple and crimson; it is now a case of ‘Never say dye.’ You see yonder builders busy at work? They have made good progress with the new cottages, designed on the most approved plan. Bruce, don’t you recollect the wretched pig-sties of hovels that stood in that place?”

Bruce’s pale face was lighted up with interest and pleasure; the plans for the cottages had been made by himself, soon after his arrival in Wiltshire. That these plans were actually being carried out, had been purposely kept a secret from him, in order to give him a pleasant surprise.

“Yon field seems to be divided into allotments,” observed Captain Arrows.

“Yes; that’s one of the schemes of my father for improving the state of his peasants; he says that he had the notion from Bruce.”

“And how does Emmie like her new life?” asked the captain.

“Emmie! why, she’s a changed being – changed from the pale, clinging jessamine, into a bright apple-blossom!” cried Vibert. “Emmie is busy from morning till night; she drills her awkward squad of pinafored children in the barn, till a proper school can be built, and has actually coaxed them into washing their faces! She has a book like a parish register, with all the tenants’ names put down, age, number of children, and all that sort of dry information; which seems, however, to interest her. Emmie ventures to enter the dirtiest cottage; but, somehow or other, soap and water are more freely used now than when she first came to the place. Emmie is a kind of guardian, or rather guardian-angel, to the poor. Why, she has even tackled an old ploughman, who was notoriously fond of his glass; and if he gives up gin and whisky, it will be all owing to the influence of the young lady. You will be as much surprised at the change in Emmie, as my father was yesterday, when old Blair told him that I was a steady, promising young man!” Vibert leaned back in his seat, and laughed so merrily, that had not the pony at least been steady, the accident of the first evening might have been repeated, by the chaise being upset into a ditch.

Bruce neither shared the merriment nor joined in the conversation. Though young Trevor’s health had by this time been greatly restored, his shattered nerves had not completely regained their tone. Bruce regarded Myst Court with extreme aversion, from the painful associations connected in his mind with the place, and would have been most glad had his father sold the estate at once. No one knew the shrinking dislike, almost amounting to loathing, with which Bruce thought of reoccupying the room next to that hateful bricked-up chamber in which he had suffered so much. The young man knew that other rooms in Myst Court had by this time been repaired and furnished, and twice had he taken up his pen to write a request that his apartment might be exchanged for another, and twice he had thrown down the pen, ashamed to betray such childish weakness.

“I scorned, even in poor Emmie, what I deemed silly superstition,” thought Bruce. “There is nothing that teaches one to feel for the infirmities of others like suffering, as I now do, from one’s own.”

Bruce’s aversion to the room adjoining the haunted chamber arose, it need scarcely be said, from a different cause from that which had made his sister dread to occupy the apartment. There was neither superstition nor mistrust in the mind of Bruce; he had no fear of apparitions; but he did shrink from reviving the images of horror impressed on memory, which, during his illness, had excited his brain to the point of frenzy. No one knew of the mental struggle in the mind of the convalescent; not to his nearest and dearest friend would he confide a weakness for which he despised himself. Bruce’s post of duty was at Myst Court, and he deemed it a matter of comparatively small importance whether he disliked that post or not. Young Trevor’s habitual self-control was now exercised in overcoming the infirmity left by long illness; and while Bruce was accusing himself of being a despicable coward, he had at no period of his life exercised more that courage which

“Triumphs over fear,

And nobly dares the danger nature shrinks from.”

Mr. Trevor and his daughter met the travellers at the iron gate which has been repeatedly mentioned as opening into the grounds of Myst Court. Emmie’s face, radiant with smiles of welcome, and blooming with happiness and health, did indeed rival the soft beauty of the apple-blossom. Captain Arrows and his nephews quitted the chaise; and while Vibert on foot led the pony, the whole party sauntered at an easy pace along the carriage-drive, Emmie keeping close to the side of her newly-restored brother. With what tender, thankful joy she looked upon him whose step, but for her self-conquest, would never have trod that path again!

The trees on either side of the road were opening their budding leaves to the sunshine; the woods were full of the song of birds; and amidst the copse clusters of violets, primroses, and wood anemones, enamelled with their varied tints the carpet of moss.

“You see Myst Court in its beauty,” said Vibert to his uncle, as a turn in the road brought the party in view of the stately mansion. “My first sight of the haunted house was on a stormy night in November, when poor Emmie and I arrived dripping and half-drowned, and Bruce welcomed us home with a scowl and a growl. – Now, Bruce, does not the garden do credit to Emmie? Look at the flowers in those classically-shaped vases, and the beds all ablaze with crocuses, purple, golden, and white!”

“The garden is greatly improved,” said Bruce, forcing himself to speak in a cheerful tone.

“But what will you say to the interior of the house? it is there that most has been done,” cried Vibert. “Emmie has now her own boudoir, and I think that you will own that it is a gem! I’ve done much of the ornamenting part myself, and am not a little proud of my taste.”

Vibert was so impatient to show the boudoir that, after the party had entered the hall, he insisted with boyish vehemence upon their at once proceeding up the broad oaken staircase, which on their first coming had led only to the sleeping apartments and the corridor upon which they had opened. Vibert, leading the way, drew back the heavy tapestry curtain, beyond which lay the two rooms which have so often been mentioned. The first apartment was that which Bruce had occupied, and which he was to occupy still; but it was not here that Vibert stopped. A little beyond it was an open door, and through the doorway the eager youth led the party into a fairy-like apartment, where sunshine streamed through the diamond-shaped panes of a mullioned window, while shining mirrors reflected graceful ornaments within, and pictures wreathed with garlands of spring wild-flowers, or imaged on their clear surfaces the beauty of the woodland without.

“I call this Emmie’s boudoir; but she insists that it shall be your study, Bruce,” cried Vibert. “It’s a pretty fairy-like retreat for you to read or for her to sing in.”

“Surely this must be —the haunted chamber!” exclaimed the astonished Bruce.

“The disenchanted chamber, without its gloom or its spectres,” observed the smiling Emmie.

“But there was a codicil to the old lady’s will which obliged us to keep this room bricked up,” observed Bruce.

“That codicil was a forgery,” interrupted Mr. Trevor. “Harper, as unprincipled in devising schemes of fraud as he was skilful in carrying them out, had in this forged codicil attempted to achieve a double purpose. He made over to his wife a house and property to which she had no real claim, and he for a while contrived to secure to himself what was called the haunted chamber. Here were left his graving tools, his printing-press, and whatever else was required for his nefarious work; and here he pursued his occupation, shielded from interruption by the superstitious fears which his wife took pains to instil. The guilty man, with his associates, now reaps the reward of his crimes.”

Bruce looked around him with admiring wonder. It was impossible to recognize the place, which he had only once seen before, when fire and lamp-light threw a red glare on instruments of guilt, and the threatening countenances of ruffians disturbed at their unhallowed work. Turning towards his sister with a brightening countenance, young Trevor exclaimed, “What a change is made by admitting the pure light of heaven!”

And it is with these words, taken in a loftier sense, that I would now close my story. Its object has been to lead the reader to search the haunted chamber of his own heart, to discover there the lurking ministers of evil who may, unknown even to himself, have made it their secret abode. Let us resolutely and prayerfully resolve, at whatever cost of humiliation or shame, to know ourselves, to recognize and face the sin that so easily besets us. Let the brickwork of ignorance be thrown down, and let not spiritual sunshine be shut out from the self-deceived heart. Pride, Self-love, cowardly Mistrust of God’s wisdom and goodness, are natural to our fallen nature; but the entrance of His Word into the heart is as that of the glorious beams of the day, – joy, brightness, and holiness follow the admission into its deepest recesses of the pure, life-giving light of Heaven!