A Wife's Duty Part 16

"Not I," she replied, folding her arms submissively on her breast, "and still less that poor trembling girl. No, Pendarves, my only resource now is supplication and entreaty: and I conjure you, by the dear name of your beloved mother, and by the memory of past fond and endearing circ.u.mstances, and hours, to grant the prayer of a dying woman, and not to force your wife to this abode of revelry and riot. I feel my days are already numbered; and when I am taken from you, bitter will be your recollections if you refuse, my son, and soothing if you grant my prayer. I know you, Seymour, and I know that you cannot do any great cruelty without great remorse."

It was some moments before Pendarves could speak; at length he said--"Your request alone would have been sufficient, without your calling up such agonizing ideas. Helen, my best love, tell your mother you shall never go to Oswald Lodge again." He then put his handkerchief to his eyes, and rushed out of the room.

"The foolish boy's heart is in the right place still," said my mother, giving way to tears, but smiling at the same time.

But I, alas! could neither smile nor speak. She had called herself a dying woman; and through the rest of the day I could do nothing but look at and watch her, and go out of the room to weep; and my night was pa.s.sed in wretchedness and prayer.

The next day I found my husband cold and sullen in manner; and I suspected that, having engaged to bring me to Oswald Lodge, he was mortified and ashamed to go thither without me, and would, I doubted not, make some excuse for my staying away which was not strictly true.

No one could feel more strongly or more virtuously than Pendarves: but good feelings, unless they are under the guard of strict principles, are subject to run away when summoned by the voice of pleasure and of error: and before he set off for the archery ground, he told me he sincerely repented his promise to my mother.

I did not reply, but shook my head mournfully.

"Psha!" said he, "that ever a fine woman like you, Helen, should wish to appear in her husband's eyes little better than a constant _memento mori_! Helen, an arrow cannot fly as far in a wet as in a dry air; and a laughing eye hits where a tearful one fails. You see I already steal my metaphors from my new study. But, good bye, sweet Helen! and when I return let me find you a little less dismal."

This was not the way to make me so; nor were his daily visits at this seducing house, which began in the morning, and lasted till he came home to dress for dinner; he then returned thither to stay till evening. At last he chose to dress there, and he did not return till night; nor, perhaps, would he have done that, had there not been some house-breaking in our neighbourhood, and he was afraid of leaving the house so ill-defended. I think that pique and resentment had some share in making him thus increase in the length as well as constancy of his visits; for I saw but too clearly that he continued offended with my poor mother: and I doubted not but that he had owned she was the cause of my refusal to visit at the house, and that Lady Martindale had added full force to this bitter feeling.

But he soon lost all resentment against my beloved parent.--Not very long after his painful conversation with her I was summoned to her, as she was too ill to rise, and had sent for medical advice.

"Go for my husband instantly," cried I.

"My mistress forbade me go for him," replied her faithful Juan (one of my father's manumised slaves), "and I canno go."

"Then she does not think very ill of herself?" said I.

"No, but I think very bad indeed."

And when I saw her, my fears were as strongly excited.

"I am going, I am going fast, my child," said she: "but I do not wish to have Pendarves sent for yet: I wish to have you a little while without any divided feelings, and all my own once more; when he comes, the wife will seduce away the child."

"How can you think so?" said I, giving way to an agony of grief; "and how can you be so barbarous as to tell me you are dying?"

"My poor child! I wished long ago to prepare you, but you would not be prepared. For your sake I still wished to live. You would have better spared me years ago, Helen! but this is cruel; and I will try to behave better."

As soon as her physician arrived, and had felt her pulse, I saw by his countenance that he was considerably alarmed; and the first feeling of my heart was to send for my husband, for him on whom I had been accustomed to rely in the hour of affliction. But I dared not, after what had pa.s.sed! and I tried to rally all the powers of my mind to meet the impending evil, while I raised my thoughts to Him who listens to the cry of the orphan.

The physician had promised to come again in the evening. He did so; and then I learnt that there was indeed no hope; and I also learnt, by the agony of that moment, that I had in reality hoped till then; and, more like an automaton then aught alive, I sat by the fast exhausting sufferer.

Pendarves returned at night, and heard with anguish uncontrollable, not only that my mother was dying, but had forbidden that he should be sent for; and he arrived at the house in a state little short of distraction, nor could he be kept from the chamber of death.

His countenance, as he stood at the foot of the bed, told all the agony of his mind. They tell me so, for I saw him not; I could only see that object whom I was soon to behold no more!

My mother knew him; read, no doubt, all his wild wan look expressed; and smiling kindly, held out her hand to him. He was instantly on his knees by her bed-side; and she seemed, from the look she gave him, to feel all the maternal love for him revive which she had experienced through life.

Your husband, my dear friend, now came to perform his interesting duty, and we left her alone with him.

Oh! what a night succeeded! But Pendarves felt more than I. My faculties were benumbed: I had made such unnatural efforts for some time past to appear cheerful, while my heart was breaking, that I was too much exhausted to be able to endure this new demand on my fort.i.tude and my strength; therefore already was that merciful stupor coming over me, which saved, I firmly believe, both my life and my reason.

My mother frequently, during that night, joined my hand in that of Pendarves, grasped them thus united, while her eyes were raised to heaven in prayer, but spoke not. At length, however, just as the last moment was approaching, she faltered out--"Seymour, be kind, be very kind to my poor child; she has only you now."

He replied by clasping me to his breast; and in one moment more all was over!

You know what followed; you know that for many weeks I was blessedly unconscious of every thing, and that I lay between death and life under the dominion of fever. My first return of consciousness and of speech showed itself thus:--I heard voices below, and recognised them, no doubt, as female voices; for I drew back the curtain, and asked my mother's faithful Alice whose voice I heard. But the joy my speaking gave the poor creature was instantly damped, for I added--"But I conclude it is my mother's voice, and I dare say she will be here presently."

Alice, bursting into tears, replied--"Your blessed mother never come now."

"Oh, but by-and-by will do:" and I closed my eyes again.

Alice now ran down stairs to call my husband, and tell him what had pa.s.sed. The voices I heard were those of Mrs. Oswald and Lady Martindale, who had called every day to inquire for me; and Pendarves had been this day prevailed upon to go down to them. But he bitterly repented his complaisance when he found I had heard them talking; though he rejoiced in my restored hearing, which had seemed quite gone.

He hastily, therefore, dismissed his visitors, and resumed his station by my bed-side. I knew him, and spoke to him; but damped all his satisfaction by asking for my mother, and wondering where she was. He could not answer me, and was doubtful what he ought to reply when he recovered himself.

At this moment the physician entered; and hearing what had pa.s.sed, declared that the sooner he could make me understand what had happened, and shed tears (for I had shed none yet), the sooner I should recover, and he advised his beginning to do it directly.

Accordingly, when I again asked for her he said--"Do you not see my black coat, Helen? and do you not remember our loss?"

"O, yes; but I thought our mourning for the dear child was over."

"You see!" said Pendarves mournfully.

The physician replied--"Till her memory is restored, though her life is spared, a cure is far distant; but persevere."

In a fortnight I was able to take air; but I still wondered where my mother was, though I soon forgot her again.

But one day Pendarves asked me if I would go and visit the grave of my child, which I had not visited for some time. I thankfully complied, and he dragged me in a garden chair to the church door.

It was not without considerable emotion that he supported me to that marble slab which now covered my mother as well as my child, and I caught some of his trembling agitation.

"Look there, my poor Helen!" said he.

I did look, and read the name of my child.

"Look lower yet."

I did so, and the words 'Julia Pendarves;' with the sad _et cetera_, met my view, and seemed to restore my shattered comprehension.

In a moment the whole agonizing truth rushed upon my mind; and throwing myself on the cold stone, I called upon my departed parent, and wept till I was deluged in tears, and had sobbed myself into the stillness of exhaustion.

"Thank G.o.d! thou art restored, my beloved, and all will yet, I trust, be well," said my husband as he bore me away.

From that time my memory returned, and with it so acute a feeling of what I had lost, that I fear I was ungrateful enough to regret my imbecility.

I now insisted on hearing details of all that had occurred since my illness; and I found that my uncle and aunt had come down to attend the funeral of my mother, and that Lord Charles had attended uninvited to pay her that tribute of respect, nor had he returned to London till my life was declared out of danger. How deeply I felt this attention! I also heard that the ladies at the Lodge pestered my husband with letters, to prevail on him to spare his sensibility the pain of following my lost parent to the grave: but that, however he shrunk from the task, he had treated their request with the utmost disregard, saying, that if he had no other motive, the certainty that he was doing what _I_ should have wished, was sufficient.

When I was quite restored to strength, both of mind and body, Pendarves gave me the key of my mother's papers, which he had carefully sealed up.

My mother left no will, as she wished me to inherit every thing; but in a little paper directed to Pendarves she desired that an income might be settled on Juan and Alice, which would make them comfortable and independent for life; that her friends the De Waldens might have some memorial of her given to them; and that Lord Charles might have her travelling writing-desk.

Oh! what overwhelming feelings I endured while looking over her papers, containing a sketch of her life, her reflections and prayers when I married Pendarves, a character of Lady Helen, of her husband and of my father, and many fragments, all indicative of a mother's love and a mother's anxiety! But tender sorrow was suspended by curiosity, when I found one letter from Ferdinand de Walden! It was evidently written in answer to one from her, in which she had described me as suffering deeply, but, on principle, trying to appear cheerful, and for her sake dutifully trying to conceal from her the agony of my heart. What else she had said, was very evident from the part of the letter which I transcribe, translating it from the French.