Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850 - Various - Страница 6

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"No, dearest mother, no! I can not. What! after all the tenderness, care, and love I have received from you, for now one-and-twenty years, to leave you and my father, in your old age, to yourselves! Oh, no! Oh, no!"

"Nay, my child," said the pale, delicate, nervous woman, thus addressed by a blooming girl whose face beamed with every promise for future happiness, which health and cheerfulness, and eyes filled with warm affections could give, "Nay, my child, don't talk so. You must not talk so. It is not to be thought of." And, as she said these words with effort, her poor heart was dying within her, not only from sorrow at the thought of the parting from her darling, but with all sorts of dreary, undefined terrors at the idea of the forlorn, deserted life before her. Abandoned to herself and to servants, so fearful, so weak as she was, and with the poor, invalided, and crippled veteran, her husband, a martyr to that long train of sufferings which honorable wounds, received in the service of country, too often leave behind them, a man at all times so difficult to sooth, so impossible to entertain – and old age creeping upon them both; the little strength she ever had, diminishing; the little spirit she ever possessed, failing; what should she do without this dear, animated, this loving, clever being, who was, in one word, every thing to her?

But she held to her resolution – no martyr ever more courageously than this trembling, timid woman. A prey to ten thousand imaginary fears, and, let alone the imaginary terrors, placed in a position where the help she was now depriving herself of was really so greatly needed.

"No, my dear," she repeated, "don't think of it; don't speak of it. You distress me very much. Pray don't, my dearest Catherine."

"But I should be a shocking creature, mamma, to forsake you; and, I am sure, Edgar would despise me as much as I should myself, if I could think of it. I can not – I ought not to leave you."

The gentle blue eye of the mother was fixed upon the daughter's generous, glowing face. She smothered a sigh. She waited a while to steady her faltering voice. She wished to hide, if possible, from her daughter the extent of the sacrifice she was making.

At last she recovered herself sufficiently to speak with composure, and then she said:

"To accept such a sacrifice from a child, I have always thought the most monstrous piece of selfishness of which a parent could be guilty. My love, this does not come upon me unexpectedly. I have, of course, anticipated it. I knew my sweet girl could not be long known and seen without inspiring and returning the attachment of some valuable man. I have resolved – and God strengthen me in this resolve," she cast up a silent appeal to the fountain of strength and courage – "that nothing should tempt me to what I consider so base. A parent accept the sacrifice of a life in exchange for the poor remnant of her own! A parent, who has had her own portion of the joys of youth in her day, deprive a child of a share in her turn! No, my dearest love, never – never! I would die, and I will die first."

But it was not death she feared. The idea of death did not appall her. What she dreaded was melancholy. She knew the unsoundness of her own nerves; she had often felt herself, as it were, trembling upon the fearful verge of reason, when the mind, unable to support itself, is forced to rest upon another. She had known a feeling, common to many very nervous people, I believe, as though the mind would be overset when pressed far, if not helped, strengthened, and cheered by some more wholesome mind; and she shrank appalled from the prospect.

But even this could not make her waver in her resolution. She was a generous, just, disinterested woman; though the exigencies of a most delicate constitution, and most susceptible nervous system, had too often thrown upon her – from those who did not understand such things, and whose iron nerves and vigorous health rendered sympathy at such times impossible – the reproach of being a tedious, whimsical, selfish hypochondriac.

Poor thing, she knew this well. It was the difficulty of making herself understood; the want of sympathy, the impossibility of rendering needs, most urgent in her case, comprehensible by her friends, which had added so greatly to the timorous cowardice, the fear of circumstances, of changes, which had been the bane of her existence.

And, therefore, this kind, animated, affectionate daughter, whose tenderness seemed never to weary in the task of cheering her; whose activity was never exhausted in the endeavor to assist and serve her; whose good sense and spirit kept every thing right at home, and more especially kept those terrible things, the servants, in order – of whom the poor mother, like many other feeble and languid people, was so foolishly afraid; therefore, this kind daughter was as the very spring of her existence; and the idea of parting with her was really dreadful. Yet she hesitated not. So did that man behave, who stood firm upon the rampart till he had finished his observation, though his hair turned white with fear. Mrs. Melwyn was an heroic coward of this kind.

She had prayed ardently, fervently, that day, for courage, for resolution, to complete the dreaded sacrifice, and she had found it.

"Oh, Lord! I am thy servant. Do with me what thou wilt. Trembling in spirit, the victim of my infirmity – a poor, selfish, cowardly being, I fall down before Thee. Thou hast showed me what is right – the sacrifice I ought to make. Oh, give me strength in my weakness to be faithful to complete it!"

Thus had she prayed. And now resolved in heart, the poor sinking spirit failing her within but, as I said, steadying her voice with an almost heroic constancy, she resisted her grateful and pious child's representation: "I have told Edgar – dear as he is to me – strong as are the claims his generous affection gives him over me – that I will not – I can not forsake you."

"You must not call it forsake," said the mother, gently. "My love, the Lord of life himself has spoken it: 'Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.'"

"And so he is ready to do," cried Catherine, eagerly. "Yes, mother, he desires nothing better – he respects my scruples – he has offered, dear Edgar! to abandon his profession and come and live here, and help me to take care of you and my father. Was not that beautiful?" and the tears stood in her speaking eyes.

"Beautiful! generous! devoted! My Catherine will be a happy woman;" and the mother smiled. A ray of genuine pleasure warmed her beating heart. This respect in the gay, handsome young officer for the filial scruples of her he loved was indeed beautiful! But the mother knew his spirit too well to listen to this proposal for a moment.

"And abandon his profession? No, my sweet child, that would never, never do."

"But he says he is independent of his profession – that his private fortune, though not large, is enough for such simple, moderate people as he and I are. In short, that he shall be miserable without me, and all that charming stuff, mamma; and that he loves me better, for what he calls, dear fellow, my piety to you. And so, dear mother, he says if you and my father will but consent to take him in, he will do his very best in helping me to make you comfortable; and he is so sweet-tempered, so reasonable, so good, so amiable, I am quite sure he would keep his promise, mamma." And she looked anxiously into her mother's face waiting for an answer. The temptation was very, very strong.

Again those domestic spectres which had so appalled her poor timorous spirit rose before her. A desolate, dull fireside – her own tendency to melancholy – her poor maimed suffering, and, alas, too often peevish partner – encroaching, unmanageable servants. The cook, with her careless, saucy ways – the butler so indifferent and negligent – and her own maid, that Randall, who in secret tyrannized over her, exercising the empire of fear to an extent which Catherine, alive as she was to these evils, did not suspect. And again she asked herself, if these things were disagreeable now, when Catherine was here to take care of her, what would they be when she was left alone?

And then such a sweet picture of happiness presented itself to tempt her – Catherine settled there – settled there forever. That handsome, lively young man, with his sweet, cordial ways and polite observance of every one, sitting by their hearth, and talking, as he did, to the general of old days and military matters, the only subject in which this aged military man took any interest, reading the newspaper to him, and making such lively, pleasant comments as he read! How should she ever get through the debates, with her breath so short, and her voice so indistinct and low? The general would lose all patience – he hated to hear her attempt to read such things, and always got Catherine or the young lieutenant-colonel to do it.

Oh! it was a sore temptation. But this poor, dear, good creature resisted it.

"My love," she said, after a little pause, daring which this noble victory was achieved – laugh if you will at the expression, but it was a noble victory over self – "my love," she said, "don't tempt your poor mother beyond her strength. Gladly, gladly, as far as we are concerned, would we enter into this arrangement; but it must not be. No, Catherine; Edgar must not quit his profession. It would not only be a very great sacrifice I am sure now, but it would lay the foundation of endless regrets in future. No, my darling girl, neither his happiness nor your happiness shall be ever sacrificed to mine. A life against a few uncertain years! No – no."

The mother was inflexible. The more these good children offered to give up for her sake, the more she resolved to suffer no such sacrifice to be made.

Edgar could not but rejoice. He was an excellent young fellow, and excessively in love with the charming Catherine, you may be sure, or he never would have thought of offering to abandon a profession for her sake in which he had distinguished himself highly – which opened to him the fairest prospects, and of which he was especially fond – but he was not sorry to be excused. He had resolved upon this sacrifice, for there is something in those who truly love, and whose love is elevated almost to adoration by the moral worth they have observed in the chosen one, which revolts at the idea of lowering the tone of that enthusiastic goodness and self-immolation to principle which has so enchanted them. Edgar could not do it. He could not attempt to persuade this tender, generous daughter, to consider her own welfare and his, in preference to that of her parents. He could only offer, on his own part, to make the greatest sacrifice which could have been demanded from him. Rather than part from her what would he not do? Every thing was possible but that.

However, when the mother positively refused to accept of this act of self-abnegation, I can not say that he regretted it. No: he thought Mrs. Melwyn quite right in what she said; and he loved and respected both her character and understanding very much more than he had done before.

That night Mrs. Melwyn was very, very low indeed. And when she went up into her dressing-room, and Catherine, having kissed her tenderly, with a heart quite divided between anxiety for her, and a sense of happiness that would make itself felt in spite of all, had retired to her room, the mother sat down, poor thing, in the most comfortable arm-chair that ever was invented, but which imparted no comfort to her; and placing herself by a merry blazing fire, which was reflected from all sorts of cheerful pretty things with which the dressing-room was adorned, her feet upon a warm, soft footstool of Catherine's own working, her elbow resting upon her knee, and her head upon her hand, she, with her eyes bent mournfully upon the fire, began crying very much. And so she sat a long time, thinking and crying, very sorrowful, but not in the least repenting. Meditating upon all sorts of dismal things, filled with all kinds of melancholy forebodings, as to how it would, and must be, when Catherine was really gone, she sank at last into a sorrowful reverie, and sate quite absorbed in her own thoughts, till she – who was extremely punctual in her hour of going to bed – for reasons best known to herself, though never confided to any human being, namely, that her maid disliked very much sitting up for her – started as the clock in the hall sounded eleven and two quarters, and almost with the trepidation of a chidden child, rose and rang the bell. Nobody came. This made her still more uneasy. It was Randall's custom not to answer her mistress's bell the first time, when she was cross. And poor Mrs. Melwyn dreaded few things in this world more than cross looks in those about her, especially in Randall; and that Randall knew perfectly well.

"She must be fallen asleep in her chair, poor thing. It was very thoughtless of me," Mrs. Melwyn did not say, but would have said, if people ever did speak to themselves aloud.

Even in this sort of mute soliloquy she did not venture to say, "Randall will be very ill-tempered and unreasonable." She rang again; and then, after a proper time yielded to the claims of offended dignity, it pleased Mrs. Randall to appear.

"I am very sorry, Randall. Really I had no idea how late it was. I was thinking about Miss Catherine, and I missed it when it struck ten. I had not the least idea it was so late," began the mistress in an apologizing tone, to which Randall vouchsafed not an answer, but looked like a thunder cloud – as she went banging up and down the room, opening and shutting drawers with a loud noise, and treading with a rough heavy step; two things particularly annoying, as she very well knew, to the sensitive nerves of her mistress. But Randall settled it with herself – that as her mistress had kept her out of bed an hour and a half longer than usual, for no reason at all but just to please herself, she should find she was none the better for it.

The poor mistress bore all this with patience for some time. She would have gone on bearing the roughness and the noise, however disagreeable, as long as Randall liked; but her soft heart could not bear those glum, cross looks, and this alarming silence.

"I was thinking of Miss Catherine's marriage, Randall. That was what made me forget the hour. What shall I do without her?"

"Yes, that's just like it," said the insolent abigail; "nothing ever can content some people. Most ladies would be glad to settle their daughters so well; but some folk make a crying matter of every thing. It would be well for poor servants, when they're sitting over the fire, their bones aching to death for very weariness, if they'd something pleasant to think about. They wouldn't be crying for nothing, and keeping all the world out of their beds, like those who care for naught but how to please themselves."

Part of this was said, part muttered, part thought; and the poor timid mistress – one of whose domestic occupations it seemed to be to study the humors of her servants – heard a part and divined the rest.

"Well, Randall, I don't quite hear all you are saying; and perhaps it is as well I do not; but I wish you would give me my things and make haste, for I'm really very tired, and I want to go to bed."

"People can't make more haste than they can."

And so it went on. The maid-servant never relaxing an atom of her offended dignity – continuing to look as ill-humored, and to do every thing as disagreeably as she possibly could – and her poor victim, by speaking from time to time in an anxious, most gentle, and almost flattering manner, hoping to mollify her dependent; but all in vain.

"I'll teach her to keep me up again for nothing at all," thought Randall.

And so the poor lady, very miserable in the midst of all her luxuries, at last gained her bed, and lay there not able to sleep for very discomfort. And the abigail retired to her own warm apartment, where she was greeted with a pleasant fire, by which stood a little nice chocolate simmering, to refresh her before she went to bed – not much less miserable than her mistress, for she was dreadfully out of humor – and thought no hardship upon earth could equal that she endured – forced to sit up in consequence of another's whim when she wanted so sadly to go to bed.

While, thus, all that the most abundant possession of the world's goods could bestow, was marred by the weakness of the mistress and the ill-temper of the maid – the plentiful gifts of fortune rendered valueless by the erroneous facility upon one side, and insolent love of domination on the other; how many in the large metropolis, only a few miles distant, and of which the innumerable lights might be seen brightening, like an Aurora, the southern sky; how many laid down their heads supperless that night! Stretched upon miserable pallets, and ignorant where food was to be found on the morrow to satisfy the cravings of hunger; yet, in the midst of their misery, more miserable, also, because they were not exempt from those pests of existence – our own faults and infirmities.

And even, as it was, how many poor creatures did actually lay down their heads that night, far less miserable than poor Mrs. Melwyn. The tyranny of a servant is noticed by the wise man, if I recollect right, as one of the most irritating and insupportable of mortal miseries.

Two young women inhabited one small room of about ten feet by eight, in the upper story of a set of houses somewhere near Mary-le-bone street. These houses appear to have been once intended for rather substantial persons, but have gradually sunk into lodging-houses for the very poor. The premises look upon an old grave-yard; a dreary prospect enough, but perhaps preferable to a close street, and are filled, with decent but very poor people. Every room appears to serve a whole family, and few of the rooms are much larger than the one I have described.

It was now half-past twelve o'clock, and still the miserable dip tallow candle burned in a dilapidated tin candlestick. The wind whistled with that peculiar wintry sound which betokens that snow is falling; it was very, very cold; the fire was out; and the girl who sat plying her needle by the hearth, which was still a little warmer than the rest of the room, had wrapped up her feet in an old worn-out piece of flannel, and had an old black silk wadded cloak thrown over her to keep her from being almost perished. The room was scantily furnished, and bore an air of extreme poverty, amounting almost to absolute destitution. One by one the little articles of property possessed by its inmates had disappeared to supply the calls of urgent want. An old four-post bedstead, with curtains of worn-out serge, stood in one corner; one mattress, with two small thin pillows, and a bolster that was almost flat; three old blankets, cotton sheets of the coarsest description upon it: three rush-bottomed chairs, an old claw-table, very ancient dilapidated chest of drawers – at the top of which were a few battered band-boxes – a miserable bit of carpet before the fire-place; a wooden box for coals; a little low tin fender, a poker, or rather half a poker; a shovel and tongs, much the worse for wear, and a very few kitchen utensils, was all the furniture in the room. What there was, however, was kept clean; the floor was clean, the yellow paint was clean; and, I forgot to say, there was a washing-tub set aside in one corner.

The wind blew shrill, and shook the window, and the snow was heard beating against the panes; the clock went another quarter, but still the indefatigable toiler sewed on. Now and then she lifted up her head, as a sigh came from that corner of the room where the bed stood, and some one might be heard turning and tossing uneasily upon the mattress – then she returned to her occupation and plied her needle with increased assiduity.

The workwoman was a girl of from eighteen to twenty, rather below the middle size, and of a face and form little adapted to figure in a story. One whose life, in all probability, would never be diversified by those romantic adventures which real life in general reserves to the beautiful and the highly-gifted. Her features were rather homely, her hair of a light brown, without golden threads through it, her hands and arms rough and red with cold and labor; her dress ordinary to a degree – her clothes being of the cheapest materials – but then, these clothes were so neat, so carefully mended where they had given way; the hair was so smooth, and so closely and neatly drawn round the face; and the face itself had such a sweet expression, that all the defects of line and color were redeemed to the lover of expression, rather than beauty.

She did not look patient, she did not look resigned; she could not look cheerful exactly. She looked earnest, composed, busy, and exceedingly kind. She had not, it would seem, thought enough of self in the midst of her privations, to require the exercise of the virtues of patience and resignation; she was so occupied with the sufferings of others that she never seemed to think of her own.

She was naturally of the most cheerful, hopeful temper in the world – those people without selfishness usually are. And, though sorrow had a little lowered the tone of her spirits to composure, and work and disappointment had faded the bright colors of hope; still hope was not entirely gone, nor cheerfulness exhausted. But, the predominant expression of every word, and look, and tone, and gesture, was kindness – inexhaustible kindness.

I said she lifted up her head from time to time, as a sigh proceeded from the bed, and its suffering inhabitant tossed and tossed: and at last she broke silence and said,

"Poor Myra, can't you get to sleep?"

"It is so fearfully cold," was the reply; "and when will you have done, and come to bed?"

"One quarter of an hour more, and I shall have finished it. Poor Myra, you are so nervous, you never can get to sleep till all is shut up – but have patience, dear, one little quarter of an hour, and then I will throw my clothes over your feet, and I hope you will be a little warmer."

A sigh for all answer; and then the true heroine – for she was extremely beautiful, or rather had been, poor thing, for she was too wan and wasted to be beautiful now – lifted up her head, from which fell a profusion of the fairest hair in the world, and leaning her head upon her arm, watched in a sort of impatient patience the progress of the indefatigable needle-woman.

"One o'clock striking, and you hav'n't done yet, Lettice? how slowly you do get on."

"I can not work fast and neatly too, dear Myra. I can not get through as some do – I wish I could. But my hands are not so delicate and nimble as yours, such swelled clumsy things," she said, laughing a little, as she looked at them – swelled, indeed, and all mottled over with the cold! "I can not get over the ground nimbly and well at the same time. You are a fine race-horse, I am a poor little drudging pony – but I will make as much haste as I possibly can."

Myra once more uttered an impatient, fretful sigh, and sank down again, saying, "My feet are so dreadfully cold!"

"Take this bit of flannel then, and let me wrap them up."

"Nay, but you will want it."

"Oh, I have only five minutes more to stay, and I can wrap the carpet round my feet."

And she laid down her work and went to the bed, and wrapped her sister's delicate, but now icy feet, in the flannel; and then she sat down; and at last the task was finished. And oh, how glad she was to creep to that mattress, and to lay her aching limbs down upon it! Hard it might be, and wretched the pillows, and scanty the covering, but little felt she such inconveniences. She fell asleep almost immediately, while her sister still tossed and murmered. Presently Lettice, for Lettice it was, awakened a little, and said, "What is it, love? Poor, poor Myra! Oh, that you could but sleep as I do."

And then she drew her own little pillow from under her head, and put it under her sister's, and tried to make her more comfortable; and she partly succeeded, and at last the poor delicate suffering creature fell asleep, and then Lettice slumbered like a baby.