Ernest Linwood Part 6

The history of a human heart! a true history of that mystery of mysteries! a description of that city of our G.o.d, more magnificent than the streets of the New Jerusalem! This is what I have commenced to write. I will go on.

For nine days Peggy wrestled with the destroying angel. During that time, nineteen funerals had darkened the winding avenue which led to the grave-yard, and she who was first attacked lingered last. It was astonis.h.i.+ng how my mother sustained herself during these days and nights of intense anxiety. She seemed unconscious of fatigue, pa.s.sive, enduring as the marble statue she resembled. She ate nothing,--she did not sleep.

I know not what supported her. Dr. Harlowe brought her some of that generous wine which had infused such life into my young veins, and forced her to swallow it, but it never brought any color to her hueless cheeks.

On the morning of the ninth day, Peggy sunk into a deathlike stupor. Her mind had wandered during all her sickness, though most of the time she lay in a deep lethargy, from which nothing could rouse her.

"Go down to the spring and breathe the fresh air," said the doctor; "there should be perfect quiet here,--a few hours will decide her fate."

I went down to the spring, where the twilight shades were gathering. The air came with balmy freshness to my anxious, feverish brow. I scooped up the cold water in the hollow of my hand and bathed my face. I shook my hair over my shoulders, and dashed the water over every disordered tress. I began to breathe more freely. The burning weight, the oppression, the suffocation were pa.s.sing away, but a dreary sense of misery, of coming desolation remained. I sat down on the long gra.s.s, and leaning my head on my clasped hands, watched the drops as they fell from my dropping hair on the mossy rock below.

"Is it not too damp for you here?"

I knew Richard Clyde was by me,--I heard his light footsteps on the sward, but I did not look up.

"It is not as damp as the grave will be," I answered.

"Don't talk so, Gabriella, don't. I cannot bear to hear you. This will be all over soon, and it will be to you like a dark and troubled dream."

"Yes; I know it will be all over soon. We shall all lie in the churchyard together,--Peggy, my mother, and I,--and you will plant a white rose over my mother's grave, will you not? Not over mine. No flowers have bloomed for me in life,--it would be nothing to place them over my sleeping dust."

"Gabriella! You are excited,--you are ill. Give me your hand. I know you have a feverish pulse."

I laid my hand on his, with an involuntary motion. Though it was moist with the drops that had been oozing over it, it had a burning heat. He startled at its touch.

"You are ill,--you are feveris.h.!.+" he cried. "The close air of that little room has been killing you. I knew it would. You should have gone to Mrs. Linwood's, you and your mother, when she sent for you. Peggy would have been abundantly cared for."

"What, leave her here to die!--her, so good, so faithful, and affectionate, who would have died a thousand times over for us. Oh Richard, how can you speak of such a thing! Peggy is dying now,--I know that she is. I never looked on death, but I saw its shadow on her livid face. Why did Dr. Harlowe send me away? I am not afraid to see her die.

Hark! my mother calls me."

I started up, but my head was dizzy, and I should have fallen had not Richard put his arm around me.

"Poor girl," said he, "I wish I had a sister to be with and comfort you.

These are dark hours for us all, for we feel the pressure of G.o.d Almighty's hand. I do not wonder that you are crushed. You, so young and tender. But bear up, Gabriella. The day-spring will yet dawn, and the shadows fly away."

So he kept talking, soothingly, kindly, keeping me out in the balminess and freshness of the evening, while the fever atmosphere burned within.

I knew not how long I sat. I knew not when I returned to the house. I have forgotten that. But I remember standing that night over a still, immovable form, on whose pale, peaceful brow, those purplish spots, of which I had heard in awful whispers, were distinctly visible. The tossing arms were crossed reposingly over the pulseless bosom,--the restless limbs were rigid as stone. I remember seeing my mother, whom they tried to lead into another chamber,--my mother, usually so calm and placid,--throw herself wildly on that humble, fever-blasted form, and cling to it in an agony of despair. It was only by the exertion of main force that she was separated from it and carried to her own apartment.

There she fell into one of those deadly fainting fits, from which the faithful, affectionate Peggy had so often brought her back to life.

Never shall I forget that awful night. The cold presence of mortality in its most appalling form, the shadow of my mother's doom that was rolling heavily down upon me with prophetic darkness, the dismal preparations, the hurrying steps echoing so drearily through the midnight gloom; the cold burden of life, the mystery of death, the omnipotence of G.o.d, the unfathomableness of Eternity,--all pressed upon me with such a crus.h.i.+ng weight, my spirit gasped and fainted beneath the burden.

One moment it seemed that worlds would not tempt me to look again on that shrouded form, so majestic in its dread immobility,--its cold, icy calmness,--then drawn by an awful fascination, I would gaze and gaze as if my straining eyes could penetrate the depths of that abyss, which no sounding line has ever reached.

I saw her laid in her lowly grave. My mother, too, was there. Dr.

Harlowe did every thing but command her to remain at home, but she would not stay behind.

"I would follow her to her last home," said she, "if I had to walk barefoot over a path of thorns."

Only one sun rose on her unburied form,--its setting rays fell on a mound of freshly heaved sods, where a little while before was a mournful cavity.

Mrs. Linwood sent her beautiful carriage to take us to the churchyard.

Slowly it rolled along behind the shadow of the dark, flapping pall.

Very few beside ourselves were present, so great a panic pervaded the community; and very humble was the position Peggy occupied in the world.

People wondered at the greatness of our grief, for she was _only_ a servant. They did not know all that she was to us,--how could they? Even I dreamed not then of the magnitude of our obligations.

I never shall forget the countenance of my mother as she sat leaning from the carriage windows, for she was too feeble to stand during the burial, while I stood with Dr. Harlowe at the head of the grave. The sun was just sinking behind the blue undulation of the distant hills, and a mellow, golden l.u.s.tre calmly settled on the level plain around us. It lighted up her pallid features with a kind of unearthly glow, similar to that which rested on the marble monuments gleaming through the weeping willows. Every thing looked as serene and lovely, as green and rejoicing, as if there were no such things as sickness and death in the world.

My mother's eyes wandered slowly over the whole inclosure, shut in by the plain white railing, edged with black,--gleamed on every gray stone, white slab, and green hillock,--rested a moment on me, then turned towards heaven, with such an expression!

"Not yet, my mother, oh, not yet!" I cried aloud in an agony that could not be repressed, clinging to Dr. Harlowe's arm as if every earthly stay and friend were sliding from my grasp. I knew the meaning of that mute, expressive glance. She was measuring her own grave by the side of Peggy's clay cold bed,--she was commending her desolate orphan to the Father of the fatherless, the G.o.d of the widow. She knew she would soon be there, and I knew it too. And after the first sharp pang,--after the arrow of conviction fastened in my heart,--I pressed it there with a kind of stern, vindictive joy, triumphing in my capacity of suffering. I wonder if any one ever felt as I did,--I wonder if any worm of the dust ever writhed so impotently under the foot of Almighty G.o.d!

O kind and compa.s.sionate Father! Now I know thou art kind even in thy chastis.e.m.e.nts, merciful even in thy judgments, by the bitter chalice I have drained, by all the waves and billows that have gone over me, by anguish, humiliation, repentance, and prayer. Forgive, forgive! for I knew not what I was doing!

From that night my mother never left her bed. The fever spared her, but she wilted like the gra.s.s beneath the scythe of the mower. Gone was the unnatural excitement which had sustained her the last nine days; severed the silver cord so long dimmed by secret tears.

Thank heaven! I was not doomed to see her tortured by pain, or raving in delirious agony,--to see those exquisite features distorted by frenzy,--or to hear that low, sweet voice untuned, the key-note of reason lost.

Thank heaven! even death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so lovely.

CHAPTER X.

I said, death laid its hand gently on one so gentle and so lovely. Week after week she lingered, almost imperceptibly fading, pa.s.sing away like a soft rolling cloud that melts into the sky. The pestilence had stayed its ravages. The terror, the thick gloom had pa.s.sed by.

If I looked abroad at sunset, I could see the windows of the village mansions, crimsoned and glowing with the last flames of day; but no light was reflected on our darkened home. It was all in shadow. And at night, when the windows of Grandison Place were all illuminated, glittering off by itself like a great lantern, the traveller could scarcely have caught the glimmering ray of the little lamp dimly burning in our curtained room.

Do you think I was resigned? That because I was dumb, I lay like a lamb before the stroke of the shearer? I will tell you how resigned, how submissive I was. I have read of the tortures of the Inquisition. I have read of one who was chained on his back to the dungeon floor, without the power to move one muscle,--hand and foot, body and limb bound. As he lay thus p.r.o.ne, looking up, ever upwards, he saw a circular knife, slowly descending, swinging like a pendulum, swinging nearer and nearer; and he knew that every breath he drew it came nearer and nearer, and that he _must_ feel anon the cold, sharp edge. Yet he lay still, immovable, frozen, waiting, with his glazed eyes fixed on the terrible weapon. Such was _my_ resignation--_my_ submission.

Friends gathered around the desolate; but they could not avert the descending stroke. Mrs. Linwood came, with her angelic looking daughter, and their presence lighted up, momentarily, our saddened dwelling, as if they had been messengers from heaven,--they were so kind, so sympathizing, so un.o.btrusive. When Edith first crossed our threshold, she did indeed look like one of those ministering spirits, sent to watch over those who shall be heirs of salvation. She seemed to float forward, light and airy as the down wafted by the summer gale. Her crutches, the ends of which were wrapped with something soft and velvety, so as to m.u.f.fle their sound, rather added than detracted from the interest and grace of her appearance, so gracefully they sustained her fair, white-robed form, just lifting it above the earth.

A little while before, I should have shrunk with nervous diffidence from the approach of guests like these. I should have contrasted painfully the splendor of their position with the lowliness of our own,--but now, what were wealth or rank or earthly distinctions to me?

I was sitting by my mother's bed, fanning her slumbers, as they entered.

Mrs. Linwood walked noiselessly forward, took the fan gently from my hand, and motioned me to resign my seat to her. I did so mechanically, for it seemed she had a right to be there. Then Edith took me by the hand and looked in my face with an expression of such sweet, unaffected sympathy, I turned aside to hide the quick-gus.h.i.+ng tears. Not a word was uttered, yet I knew they came to soothe and comfort.

When my mother opened her eyes and saw the face of a stranger bending over her, she started and trembled; but there was something in the mild, Christian countenance of Mrs. Linwood that disarmed her fears, and inspired confidence. The pride which had hitherto repelled the advances of friends.h.i.+p, was all chastened and subdued. Death, the great leveller, had entered the house, and the mountains of human distinction flowed down at his presence.

"I am come to nurse you," said Mrs. Linwood, taking my mother's pale, emaciated hand and pressing it in both her own. "Do not look upon me as a stranger, but as a friend--a sister. You will let me stay, will you not?"

She seemed soliciting a favor, not conferring one.

"Thank you,--bless you!" answered my mother, her large dark eyes fixed with thrilling intensity on her face. Then she added, in a lower voice, glancing towards me, "_she_ will not be left friendless, then. You will remember _her_ when I am gone."

"Kindly, tenderly, even with a mother's care," replied Mrs. Linwood, tears suffusing her mild eyes, and testifying the sincerity of her words.

My mother laid Mrs. Linwood's hand on her heart, whose languid beating scarcely stirred the linen that covered it; then looking up to heaven, her lips moved in silent prayer. A smile, faint but beautiful, pa.s.sed over her features, and left its sweetness on her face. From that hour to the death-hour Mrs. Linwood did minister to her, as a loving sister would have done. Edith often accompanied her mother and tried to comfort me, but I was then inaccessible to comfort, as I was deaf to hope. When she stayed away, I missed the soft floating of her airy figure, the pitying glance of her heavenly blue eye; but when she came, I said to myself,