Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author. Caroline Lee Hentz
my arms across her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of the motherless were already mine.
"Grief does not kill, my Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me. "It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking. Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy be dead—lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its burning thirst—lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy gust, "would to God that we might die together—that the same almighty mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin. I have prayed for resignation—I have prayed for faith; but, O my God! I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."
She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold, caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.
"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on so, I wonder—and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break her into atoms. There—go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."
She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior were addressing me. I obeyed—but not till I had seen the hue of returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I felt suffocated, oppressed—I jumped over the railing and plunged into the woods—the wild, ample woods—my home—my wealth—my God-granted inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest trees. I heard nothing but the soft rustling of the leaves—I saw nothing but the lonely magnificence of nature.
Here I became calm. It seemed a matter of perfect indifference to me then what I did, or what became of me—whether I was henceforth to be a teacher, a seamstress, or a servant. Every consideration was swallowed in one—every fear lost in one absorbing dread. I had but one prayer—"Let my mother live, or let me die with her!"
Poverty offered no privation, toil no weariness, suffering no pang, compared to the one great evil which my imagination grasped with firm and desperate clench.
Three years had passed since I had lain a weeping child under the shadow of the oaks, smarting from the lash of derision, burning with shame, shrinking with humiliation. I was now fifteen years old—at that age when youth turns trembling from the dizzy verge of childhood to a mother's guardian arms, a mother's sheltering heart. How weak, how puerile now seemed the emotions, which three years ago had worn such a majestic semblance.
I was but a foolish child then—what was I now? A child still, but somewhat wiser, not more worldly wise. I knew no more of the world, of what is called the world, than I did of those golden cities seen through the cloud-vistas of sunset. It seemed as grand, as remote, and as inaccessible.
At this moment I turned my gaze towards the distant cloud-turrets gleaming above, walls on which chariots and horsemen of fire seemed passing and repassing, and I was conscious of but one deep, earnest thought—"my mother!"
One prayer, sole and agonizing, trembled on my lips:—
"Take her not from me, O my God! I will drink the cup of poverty and humiliation to the dregs if thou wilt, without a murmur, but spare, O spare my mother!"
God did spare her for a little while. The dark hands on the dial-plate of destiny once moved back at the mighty breath of prayer.
CHAPTER VII.
"Gabriella—is it you? How glad I am to see you!"
That clear, distinct, ringing voice!—I knew it well, though a year had passed since I had heard its sound. The three years which made me, as I said before, a wiser child, had matured my champion, the boy of fifteen, into a youth of eighteen, a collegian of great promise and signal endowments. I felt very sorry when he left the academy, for he had been my steadfast friend and defender, and a great assistant in my scholastic tasks. But after he entered a college, I felt as if there were a great gulf between us, never more to be passed over. I had very superb ideas of collegians. I had seen them during their holidays, which they frequently came into the country to spend, dashing through the streets like the wild huntsmen, on horses that struck fire as they flew along. I had seen them lounging in the streets, with long, wild hair, and corsair visages and Byronian collars, and imagined them a most formidable race of beings. I did not know that these were the scape-goats of their class, suspended for rebellion, or expelled for greater offences—that having lost their character as students, they were resolved to distinguish themselves as dandies, the lowest ambition a son of Adam's race can feel. It is true, I did not dream that Richard Clyde could be transformed into their image, but I thought some marvellous change must take place, which would henceforth render him as much a stranger to me as though we had never met.
Now, when I heard the clear, glad accents of his voice, so natural, so unchanged, I looked up with a glance of delighted recognition into the young student's manly face. My first sensation was pleasure, the pleasure which congenial youth inspires, my next shame, for the homeliness of my occupation. I was standing by a beautiful bubbling spring, at the foot of a little hill near my mother's cottage. The welling spring, the rock over which it gushed, the trees which bent their branches over the fountain to guard it from the sunbeams, the sweet music the falling waters—all these were romantic and picturesque. I might imagine myself "a nymph, a naiad, or a grace." Or, had I carried a pitcher in my hand, I might have thought myself another Rebecca, and poised on my shoulder the not ungraceful burden. But I was dipping water from the spring, in a tin pail, of a broad, clumsy, unclassic form—too heavy for the shoulder, and extremely difficult to carry in the hand, in consequence of the small, wiry handle. In my confusion I dropped the pail, which went gaily floating to the opposite side of the spring, entirely out of my reach. The strong, bubbling current bore it upward, and it danced and sparkled and turned its sides of mimic silver, first one way and then the other, as if rejoicing in its liberty.
Richard laughed, his old merry laugh, and jumping on the rock over which the waters were leaping, caught the pail, and waved it as a trophy over his head. Then stooping down he filled it to the brim, gave one spring to the spot where I stood, whirled the bucket upside down and set it down on the grass without spilling a drop.
"That is too large and heavy for you to carry, Gabriella," said he. "Look at the palm of your hand, there is quite a red groove there made by that iron handle."
"Never mind," I answered, twisting my handkerchief carelessly round the tingling palm, "I must get used to it. Peggy is sick and there is no one to carry water now but myself. When she is well, she will never let me do any thing of the kind."
"You should not," said he, decidedly. "You are not strong enough—you must get another servant.—I will inquire in the village myself this morning, and send you one."
"O no, my mother would never consent to a stranger coming into the family. Besides, no one could take Peggy's place. She is less a servant than a friend."
I turned away to hide the tears that I could not keep back. Peggy's illness, though not of an alarming character, showed that even her iron constitution was not exempt from the ills which flesh is heir to—that the strong pillar