Helen and Arthur Part 3

"You had better put her back in bed," said Mr. Gleason; "children acquire such bad habits by indulgence."

Helen trembled and clung close to her mother's bosom.

"I fear she may again rise in her sleep and fall down stairs," said the more anxious mother.

"Turn the key on the outside, till we retire ourselves," observed the father.

To be locked up alone in the darkness! Helen felt as if she had heard her death-warrant, and pale even to _blueness_, she leaned against her mother, incapable of articulating the prayer that trembled on her ashy lips.

"Give her to me," said Miss Thusa, "I will take her up stairs and stay with her till you come."

"Oh, no, there is no fire in the room, and you will be cold. Mr.

Gleason, the child is sick and faint. She has scarcely any pulse--and look, what a blue shade round her mouth. Helen, my darling, do tell me what _is_ the matter with you."

"Her eyes do look very wild," said her father, catching the infection of his wife's fears; "and her temples are hot and throbbing. I hope she is not threatened with an inflammation of the brain."

"Oh! Mr. Gleason, pray don't suggest such a thought; I cannot bear it,"

cried Mrs. Gleason, with quivering accents. They had lost one lovely child, the very counterpart of Helen, by that fearful disease, and she felt as if the gleaming sword of the destroying angel were again waving over her household.

"You had better send for the doctor," she continued; "just so suddenly was our lost darling attacked."

Mr. Gleason started up and seized his hat, but Louis sprang to the door first.

"Let me go, father--I can run the fastest."

And those who met the excited boy running through the street, supposed it was a life-errand on which he was dispatched.

The doctor came--not the old family physician, whose age and experience ent.i.tled him to the most implicit confidence--but a youthful partner, to whom childhood was a mysterious and somewhat unapproachable thing.

Of what fine, almost imperceptible links is the chain of deception formed! Helen had no intention of acting the part of a dissembler when she formed the desperate resolution of leaving her lonely chamber. She expected to meet reproaches, perhaps punishment, but anything was preferable to the horrors of her own imagination. But when she found herself greeted as a sleep-walker, she had not the moral courage to close, by an avowal of the truth, the door of escape a mother's gentle hand had unconsciously opened. She did nut mean to dissemble sickness, but when her mother pleaded sickness as a reason for not sending her back to the lone, dark chamber, she yielded to the plea, and really began to think herself very ill. Her head did throb and ache, and her eyes burned, as if hot sand were sprinkled over the b.a.l.l.s. She was not afraid of the doctor's medicine, for the last time he had prescribed for her, he had given her peppermint, dropped on white sugar, which had a very pleasing and palatable taste. She loved the old doctor, with his frosty hair and sunny smile, and lay quietly in her mother's arms, quite resigned to her fate, surprising as it was. But when she beheld a strange and youthful face bending over her, with a pair of penetrating, dark eyes, that looked as if they could read the deepest secrets of the heart, she shrank back in dismay, a.s.sured the mystery of her illness would all be revealed. The next glance rea.s.sured her. She was sure he would be kind, and not give her anything nauseous or dreadful. She watched his cheek, as he leaned over her, to feel her pulse, wondering what made such a beautiful color steal over it growing brighter and brighter, till it looked as if the fire had been glowing upon it. She did not know how very young he was, and this was the first time he had ever been called to visit a patient alone, and that she, little child as she was, was a very formidable object to him--considered as a being for whose life he might be in a measure responsible.

"I would give her a composing mixture," said he, gently releasing the slender wrist of his patient--"her brain seems greatly excited, but I do not apprehend anything like an inflammation need be dreaded. She is very nervous, and must be kept quiet."

Helen felt such inexpressible relief, that forgetting her character of an invalid, she lifted her head, and gave him such a radiant look of grat.i.tude it quite startled him.

"See!" exclaimed Louis, rubbing his hands, "how bright she looks. The doctor's coming has made her well."

"Don't make such a fuss, brother, I can't study," cried Mittie, tossing her hair impatiently from her brow. "I don't believe she's any more sick than I am, she just does it to be petted."

"Mittie!" said her mother, glancing towards the young doctor.

Mittie, with a sudden motion of the head peculiar to herself, brought the hair again over her face, till it touched the leaves of the book, in whose contents she seemed absorbed; but she peeped at the young doctor through her thick, falling locks, and thought if she were sick, she would much rather send for him than old Doctor Sennar.

The next morning Helen was really ill and feverish. The excitement of the previous evening had caused a tension of the brain, which justified the mother's fears. At night she became delirious, and raved incoherently about _the worm-eaten traveler_, the spinning-woman, and the grave-house to which they were bound.

Mrs. Gleason sat on one side of her, holding her restless hand in hers, while Miss Thusa applied wet napkins to her burning temples. The mother shuddered as she listened to the child's wild words, and something of the truth flashed upon her mind.

"I fear," said she, raising her eyes, and fixing them mildly but reproachfully on Miss Thusa's face--"you have been exciting my little girl's imagination in a dangerous manner, by relating tales of dreadful import. I know you have done it in kindness," added she, fearful of giving pain, "but Helen is different from other children, and cannot bear the least excitement."

"She's always asking me to tell her stories," answered Miss Thusa, "and I love the dear child too well to deny her. There is something very uncommon about her. I never saw a child that would set and listen to old people as she will. I never did think she would live to grow up; she wasn't well last night, or she wouldn't have been scared; I noticed that one cheek was red as a cherry, and the other as white as snow--a sign the fever was in her blood."

Miss Thusa, like many other metaphysicians, mistook the effect for the cause, and thus stilled, with unconscious sophistry, the upbraidings of her conscience.

Helen here tossed upon her feverish couch, and opening her eyes, looked wildly towards the chimney.

"Hark! Miss Thusa," she exclaimed, "it's coming. Don't you hear it clattering down the chimney? Don't leave me--don't leave me in the dark--I'm afraid--I'm afraid."

It was well for Miss Thusa that Mr. Gleason was not present, to hear the ravings of his child, or his doors would hereafter have been barred against her. Mrs. Gleason, while she mourned over the consequences of her admission, would as soon have cut off her own right hand as she would have spoken harshly or unkindly to the poor, lone woman. She warned her, however, from feeding, in this insane manner, the morbid imagination of her child, and gently forbid her ever repeating _that awful story_, which had made, apparently, so dark and deep an impression.

"Above all things, my dear Miss Thusa," said she, repressing a little dry, hacking cough, that often interrupted her speech--"never give her any horrible idea of death. I know that such impressions can never be effaced--I know it by my own experience. The grave has ever been to me a gloomy subject of contemplation, though I gaze upon it with the lamp of faith in my hand, and the remembrance that the Son of G.o.d made His bed in its darkness, that light might be left there for me and mine."

Miss Thusa looked at Mrs. Gleason as she uttered these sentiments, and the glance of her solemn eye grew earnest as she gazed. Such was the usual quietness and reserve of the speaker, she was not prepared for so much depth of thought and feeling. As she gazed, too, she remarked an appearance of emaciation and suffering about her face, which had hitherto escaped her observation. She recollected her as she first saw her, a beautiful and blooming woman, and now there was bloom without beauty, and brightness without beauty, for the color on the cheek and the gleam of the eye, made one wish for pallor and dimness, as less painful and less prophetic.

"Yes, Miss Thusa," resumed Mrs. Gleason, after a long pause, "if my child lives, I wish her guarded most carefully from all gloomy influences. I know that I must soon leave her, for I have an hereditary malady, whose symptoms have lately been much aggravated. I have long since resigned myself to my doom, knowing that my Heavenly Father knows when it is best to call me home. But I cannot bear that my children should shrink from all I shall leave behind, my memory. Louis is a bold and n.o.ble boy. I fear not for him. His reason even now has the strength of manhood. Mittie has very little sensibility or imagination; too little of the first I fear to be very lovable. But perhaps it will be better for her in the end. Helen is all sensibility and imagination. I tremble for her. I am haunted by a strange apprehension that my memory will be a ghost that she will seek to shun. Oh! Miss Thusa, you cannot think how painful this idea is to me. I want her to love me when I am gone, to think of me as a guardian angel watching over and blessing her.

I want her to think of me as living in Heaven, not mouldering away in the cold ground. Promise me that you will never more give her any terrible idea a.s.sociated with death and the grave."

Mrs. Gleason paused, and pressing her handkerchief over her eyes, leaned back in her chair with a deep sigh. Was this the quiet, practical housekeeper, who always went with stilly steps so noiselessly about her daily tasks that no one would think she was doing anything if it were not for the results?

Was _she_ talking of dying, who had never yet omitted one household duty or one neighborly office? Yes! in the stillness of the night, interrupted only by the delirious moanings of the sick child, she laid aside the mantle of reserve that usually enveloped her, and suffered her soul to be visible--for a little while.

"I will try to remember all you've said, and abide by it," said Miss Thusa, who, in her dark gray dress, and black silk handkerchief tied under her chin, looked something like a cowled friar, of "orders gray,"

"but when one has a _gift_ it's hard to keep it back. I don't always know myself what I'm going to tell, but speak as I'm moved, as the Bible men used to do in old times. Every body has a way and a taste of their own, I know, and some take to one thing, and some to another. Now, I always did take to what some folks thinks dreadful things. Perhaps it's because I've been a lone woman, and led a sort of spiritual life. I never took any pleasure in merry-making and frolicking. I'd rather go to a funeral than a wedding, any day, and I'd rather look at a shrouded corpse, than a bride tricked out in her laces and flowers. I know it's strange, but it's true--and there's no use in going against the natural grain. You can't do it. If I take up a newspaper, I see the deaths and murders before anything else. They stare one right in the face, and I don't see anything else."

"What a very peculiar temperament," said Mrs. Gleason, thoughtfully.

"Were you conscious of the same tastes when a child?"

"I can hardly remember being a child. It seems to me I never was one. I always had such old feelings. My father and mother died when I was a baby. There was n.o.body left but my brother--and--me. He was the strangest being that ever lived. He locked up his heart and kept the key, so n.o.body could get a peep inside. I had n.o.body to love, n.o.body who loved me, so I got to loving my spinning-wheel and my own thoughts. When brother fell sick and grew nervous and peevish, he didn't like the hum of the wheel, and I had to spin at night in the chimney corner, by the flash of the embers, and the company I was to myself the Lord only knows. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Gleason," added she, taking her spectacles from her forehead, wiping them carefully, and then putting them right on the top of her head, "G.o.d didn't mean every body to be alike. Some look up and some look down, but if they've got the right spirit, they're all looking after G.o.d and truth. If I talk of the grave more than common, it's because I know it's nothing but an underground pa.s.sage to eternity."

"I thank G.o.d for teaching me to look upward at last," cried Mrs.

Gleason, and the quick, panting breath of little Helen was heard distinctly in the silence that followed. Her soul reached forward anxiously into futurity. If it were possible to change Miss Thusa's opinions and peculiarities into something after the similitude of her kind! Change Miss Thusa! As soon might you expect to change the gnarled and rooted oak into the flexible and breeze-bowed willow. Her idiosyncrasy had been so nursed and strengthened by the two great influences, time and solitude, it spread like the banyan tree, making a dark pavilion, where legions of weird spirits gathered and revelled.

Miss Thusa is one instance out of many, of a being with strong mind and warm heart, cheated of objects on which to expend the vigor of the one, or the fervor of the other. The energies of her character, finding no legitimate outlet, beat back upon herself, wearing away by continued friction the fine perception of beauty and susceptibility of true enjoyment. The vine that finds no support for its _upward_ growth, grovels on the earth and covers it with rank, unshapely leaves. The mountain stream, turned back from its course, becomes a dark and stagnant pool. Even if the rank and long-neglected vine is made to twine round some sustaining fabric, it carries with it the dampness and the soil of the earth to which it has been clinging. Its tendrils are heavy, and have a downward tendency.

In a few days the fever-tide subsided in the veins of Helen.

"I will not take it," said she, when the young doctor gave her some bitter draught to swallow; "it tastes too bad."

"You _will_ take it," he replied, calmly, holding the gla.s.s in his hand, and fixing on her the serene darkness of his eyes. He did not press it to her lips, or use any coercion. He merely looked steadfastly, yet gently into her face, while the deep color she had noticed the first night she saw him came slowly into his cheeks. He did not say "you _must_," but "you _will_," and she felt the difference. She felt the singular union of gentleness and power exhibited in his countenance, and was constrained to yield. Without making farther resistance, she put forth her hand, took the gla.s.s, and swallowed the potion at one draught.

"It will do you good," said he, with a grave smile, but he did not praise her.

"Why didn't you tell me so before?" she asked.

"You must learn to confide in your friends," he replied, pa.s.sing his hand gently over the child's wan brow. "You must trust them, without asking them for reasons for what they do."

Helen thought she would try to remember this, and it seemed easy to remember what the young doctor said, for the voice of Arthur Hazleton was very sweet and clear, and seemed to vibrate on the ear like a musical instrument.