Helen and Arthur; or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel. Caroline Lee Hentz
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 God 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 noble 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 associated 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 nobody left but my brother—and—me. He was the strangest being that ever lived. He locked up his heart and kept the key, so nobody could get a peep inside. I had nobody to love, nobody 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, “God 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 God and truth. If I talk of the grave more than common, it’s because I know it’s nothing but an underground passage to eternity.”
“I thank God 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 glass 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 glass, 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, passing his hand gently over the child’s wan brow. “You must trust them, without asking them for reasons for what they do.”
Helen