Helen and Arthur Part 31

CHAPTER XIV.

"High minds of native pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse."--_Scott._

"Lord, at Thy feet ashamed I lie, Upward I dare not look-- Pardon my sins before I die, And blot them from Thy book."--_Hymn._

When Mittie awoke from the wild dream of delirium, she was weak as a new-born infant. For a few moments she imagined herself the inhabitant of another world. The deep quietude of the apartment, its soft, subdued, slumberous light, the still, watching figures seated by her bedside, formed so strong a contrast to the gloomy cell, with its chill, damp air, and glimmering lamp--its rough keeper and agitated inmate--that cell which, it appeared to her, she had just quitted. Two fair young forms, with arms interlaced, and heads inclined towards each other, the one with locks of rippling gold, the other of soft, wavy brown, seemed watching angels to her unclosing eyes. She felt a soft pressure on her faintly throbbing pulse, and knew that on the other side, opposite the watching angels, a manly figure was bending over her. She could not turn her head to gaze upon it, but there was a benignity in its presence which soothed and comforted her. Other forms were there also, but they faded away in a soft, hazy atmosphere, and her drooping eye-lids again closed.

In the long, tranquil slumber that followed, she pa.s.sed the crisis of her disease, and the strife-worn, wandering spirit returned to the throne it had abdicated.

And now Mittie became conscious of the unbounded tenderness and care lavished upon her by every member of the household, and of the unwearied attentions of Arthur Hazleton. Helen herself could not have been more kindly, anxiously nursed. She, who had believed herself an object of indifference or dislike to all, was the central point of solicitude now. If she slept, every one moved as if shod with velvet, the curtains were gently let down, all occupation suspended, lest it should disturb the pale slumberer;--if she waked, some kind hand was ever ready to smooth her pillow, wipe the dew of weakness from her brow, and administer the cordial to her wan lips.

"Why do you all nurse me so tenderly?" asked she of her step-mother, one night, when she was watching by her. "Me, who have never done any thing for others?"

"You are sick and helpless, and dependent on our care. The hand of G.o.d is laid upon you, and whosoever He smites, becomes a sacred object in the Christian's eyes."

"Then it is not from love you minister to my weakness. I thought it could not be."

"Yes, Mittie. It is from love. We always love those who depend on us for life. Your sufferings have been great, and great is our sympathy. Pity, sympathy, tenderness, all flow towards you, and no remembrance of the past mingles bitterness with their balm."

"But, mother, I do not wish to live. It were far kinder to let me die."

It was the first time Mittie had ever addressed her thus. The name seemed to glide unconsciously from her lips, breathed by her softened spirit.

Mrs. Gleason was moved even to tears. She felt repaid for all her forbearance, all her trials, by the utterance of this one little word, so long and so ungratefully withheld. Bending forward, with an involuntary movement, she kissed the faded lips, which, when rosy with health, had always repelled her maternal caresses. She felt the feeble arm of the invalid pa.s.s round her neck, and draw her still closer. She felt, too, tears which did not _all_ flow from her own eyes moisten her cheek.

"I do not wish to live, mother," repeated Mittie, after this ebullition of sensibility had subsided. "I can never again be happy. I never can make others happy. I am willing to die. Every time I close my eyes I pray that my sleep may be death, my bed my grave."

"Ah! my child, pray not for death because you have been saved from the curse of a granted prayer. Pray rather that you may live to atone by a life of meekness and humility for past errors. You ought not to be willing to die with so great a purpose unaccomplished, since G.o.d does not now _will_ you to depart. You mistake physical debility for resignation, weariness of life for desire for heaven. Oh, Mittie, not in the sackcloth and ashes of _selfish_ sorrow should the spirit be clothed to meet its G.o.d."

Mittie lay for some time without speaking, then lifting her melancholy black eyes, once so haughty and brilliant, she said--

"I will tell you why I wish to die. I am now humbled and subdued--conscious and ashamed of my errors, grateful for your unexampled goodness. If I die now, you will shed some tears over my grave, and perhaps say, 'Poor girl! she was so young, and so unhappy--we remember her faults only to forgive them.' But if I live to be strong and healthy as I have been before, I fear my heart will harden, and my evil temper recover all its terrible power. It seems to me now as if I had been possessed by one of those fiends which we read of in the Bible, which tore and rent the bosom that they entered. It is not cast out--it only sleeps--and I fear--oh!--I dread its wakening."

"Oh, Mittie, only cry, 'Thou Son of David, have mercy on me--' only cry out, from the depths of a contrite spirit--and it will depart, though its name be legion."

"But I fear this contrition may be transitory. I do pray, I do cry out for mercy now, but to-morrow my heart may harden into stone. You, who are so perfect and pious, think it easy to be good, and so it is, on a sick bed--when gentle, watching eyes and stilly steps are round you, and the air you breathe is embalmed with blessings. With returning health the bosom strife will begin. Your thoughts will no longer centre on me.

Helen will once more absorb your affections, and then the serpent envy will come gliding back, so cold and venomous, to coil itself in my heart."

"My child--there is room enough in the world, room enough in our hearts, and room enough in Heaven, for you and Helen too."

She spoke with solemnity, and she continued to speak soothingly and persuasively till the eyes of the invalid were closed in slumber, and then her thoughts rose in silent prayer for that sin-sick and life-weary soul.

Mittie never alluded to Clinton in her conversation with her mother.

There was only one being to whom she now felt willing to breathe his name, and that was Arthur Hazleton. The first time she was alone with him, she asked the question that had long been hovering on her lips. She was sitting in an easy chair, supported by pillows, her head resting on her wasted hand. The reflection of the crimson curtains gave a glow to the chill whiteness of her face, and softened the gloom of her sable eyes. She looked earnestly at Arthur, who knew all that she wished to ask. The color mounted to his cheek. He could not frame a falsehood, and he feared to reveal the truth.

"Are there any tidings of him?" said she; "is he safe--or has his flight been discovered? But," continued she in a lower voice, "you need not speak. Your looks reveal the whole. He is again imprisoned."

Arthur bowed his head, glad to be spared the painful task of a.s.serting the fact.

"And there is no hope of pardon or acquittal?" she asked.

"None. He _must_ meet his doom. And, Mittie, sad as it is--it is just.

Your own sense of rect.i.tude and justice will in time sanction the decree. You may, you must pity him--but love, unsupported by esteem, must expire. You are mourning now over a bright illusion--a fallen idol--a deserted temple; but believe me, your mourning will change to joy. The illusion is dispelled, that truth may s.h.i.+ne forth in all its splendor; the idol thrown down that the living G.o.d may be enthroned upon the altar; the temple deserted that it may be filled with the glory of the Lord."

"You are right, Arthur, in one thing--would to G.o.d you were in all. It is not love I now feel, but despair. It is dreadful to look forward to a cold, unloving existence. I shudder to think how young I am, and how long I may have yet to live."

"Yours is the natural language of disappointed youth. You have pa.s.sed through a fiery ordeal. The sore and quivering heart shrinks from the contact even of sympathy. You fear the application of even Gilead's balm. You are weak and languid, and I will not weary you with discussion; but spring will soon be here; genial, rejoicing spring. You will revive with its flowers, and your spirit warble with its singing birds. Then we will walk abroad in the hush of twilight--and if you will promise to listen, I will preach you a daily sermon, with nature for my text and inspiration too."

"Ah! such sermons should be breathed to Helen only. She can understand and profit by them."

"There is room enough in G.o.d's temple for you and Helen too," replied Arthur. Mittie remembered the words of her step-mother, so similar, and was struck by the coincidence. Her own views seemed very selfish and narrow, by contrast.

The flowers of spring unfolded, and Mittie did indeed revive and bloom again, but it was as the lily, not the rose. The love tint of the latter had faded, never to blush again.

There was a subdued happiness in the household, which had long been a stranger there.

Louis, though his brow still wore the traces of remorse, was happy in the consciousness of errors forgiven, confidence restored, and good resolutions strengthened and confirmed. He devoted himself to his father's business with an industry and zeal more worthy of praise, because he was obliged to struggle with his natural inclinations. He believed it his father's wish to keep him with him, and he made it his law to obey him, thinking his future life too short for expiation. There was another object, for which he also thought life too short, and that was to secure the happiness of Alice--whom he loved with a purity and intensity that was deepened by her helplessness and almost infantine artlessness. He knew that her blindness was hopeless, but it seemed to him that he loved her the more for her blindness, her entire dependence on his care. It would be such a holy task to protect and cherish her, and to throw around her darkened life the illuminating influence of love.

She was still with them, and Mrs. Hazleton had been induced to leave the seclusion of the Parsonage, and become the guest of Mrs. Gleason. It must have been a strong motive that tempted her from the hallowed shades, which she had never quitted since her husband's death. Reader, can you conjecture what that motive was?

A very handsome new house, built in the cottage style, had been lately erected in the vicinity of Mr. Gleason's, under the superintendence of the young doctor, and rumor said that he was shortly to be married to Helen Gleason. Every one thought it was time for _him_ to be married, if he ever intended to be, but many objected to her extreme youth. That, however, was the only objection urged, as Helen was a universal favorite, and Arthur Hazleton the idol of the town.

Arthur had never made Helen a formal declaration of love. He had never asked her in so many many words, "Will you be my wife?" As imperceptibly and gracefully as the morning twilight brightens into the fervor and glory of noonday, had the watchfulness and tenderness of friends.h.i.+p deepened into the warmth and devotion of perfect love. Helen could not look back to any particular scene, where the character of the friend was merged into that of the lover. She felt the blessed a.s.surance that she was beloved, yet had any one asked her how and when she first received it, she would have found it difficult to answer. He talked to her of the happiness of the future, of _their_ future, of the heaven of mutual trust and faith and love, begun on earth, in the kingdom of their hearts, till it seemed as if her individual existence ceased, and life with him became a heavenly ident.i.ty. There were other life interests, too, twining together, as the following scene will show.

The evening before the wedding-day of Arthur and Helen, as Mrs. Hazleton was walking in the garden, gathering flowers and evergreens for bridal garlands to decorate the room, Louis approached her, hand in hand with her blind child.

"Mrs. Hazleton," said he with trembling eagerness, "will you give me your daughter, and let us hallow the morrow by a double wedding?"

"What, Alice, my poor blind Alice!" exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton, dropping in astonishment the flowers she had gathered. "You cannot mean what you say--and her misfortune should make her sacred from levity."

"I do mean it. I have long and ardently wished it. The consciousness of my unworthiness has till now sealed my lips, but I cannot keep silence longer. My affection has grown too strong for the restraints imposed upon it. Give me your daughter, dearer to me for her blindness, more precious for her helplessness, and I will guard her as the richest treasure ever bestowed on man."

Mrs. Hazleton was greatly agitated. She had always looked on Alice as excluded by her misfortune from the usual destiny of her s.e.x, as consecrated from her birth for a vestal's lot. She had never thought of her being wooed as a wife, and she repelled the idea as something sacrilegious.

"Impossible, Louis," she answered. "You know not what you ask. My Alice is set apart, by her Maker's will, from the sympathies of love. I have disciplined her for a life of loneliness. She looks forward to no other.

Disturb not, I pray thee, the holy simplicity of her feelings, by inspiring hopes which never can be realized."

"Speak, Alice," cried Louis, "and tell your mother all you just now said to me. Let me be justified in her eyes."

Alice lifted her downcast, blus.h.i.+ng face, while the tears rolled gently from her beautiful, sightless eyes.

"Mother, dear mother, forgive me if I have done wrong, but I cannot help my heart's throbbing more quickly at the echo of his footsteps or the music of his voice. And when he asked me to be his wife and be ever with him, I could not help feeling that it would make me the happiest of human beings. Oh, mother, you cannot know how kind, how good, how tender he has been to me. The world never looks dark when he is near."

Alice bowed her head on the shoulder of Louis, while her fair ringlets swept in s.h.i.+ning wreaths over her face.

"This is so unexpected!" cried Mrs. Hazleton. "I must speak with your parents."