At Last Part 24

"I dreaded the effect of a child's high animal spirits and thoughtless bustle upon her mother's health"--the shadow thickening into trouble.

"The next best thing to having her with me is to know that she is kindly and lovingly looked after by my married sister, of whom she is very fond. Florence is merrier, if not always happier, with her young cousins than if she were condemned to the repression and joyless routine of a house where the care of the sick is the most engrossing business to all."

The more Mrs. Sutton meditated upon this conversation, the more enigmatical it appeared that the mother never spoke of missing her only living child--never pined for the sound of her vivacious talk and the sight of her winning ways. Curiosity--her strong love for all children, and a lively interest in Florence and Florence's father, the two who a.s.suredly did feel the separation--got the ascendency over discretion that night, when Rosa, too nervous to sleep, begged her to talk, "to scare away the horrors that were sitting, a blue-black brood, upon her pillow."

"Your little daughter would be an endless source of entertainment to you if she were here," said downright Aunt Rachel, with no show of circ.u.mlocution. "I am surprised you do not send for her."

"Children of that age are a nuisance!" returned Rosa, peevishly. "And of all tiresome ones that I ever saw, Florence is the most trying. She doesn't talk after I bid her hold her tongue, but her big, solemn eyes see and her ears hear all that pa.s.ses. If there is one thing that pushes me nearer to the verge of distraction than another it is to have my own words quoted to me when I have forgotten that I ever uttered them. And she--literal little bore!--is always pretending to take all that I say in earnest. If I were to tell her to go to Guinea, it is my belief she would put on her bonnet, cloak, and gloves, pocket a biscuit for luncheon and a story-book to read by the way, and set out forthwith, asking the first decent-looking man she met in the street at what wharf she would find a vessel bound for Africa."

Mrs. Sutton was obliged to laugh.

"She must be a truthful, sincere little thing!"

"Didn't I tell you she is TOO outrageously literal and unimaginative?

Just let me give you an example of how she tires and vexes me. One day, about a fortnight before I left home, she set her heart upon spending the whole of Sat.u.r.day afternoon with me. Her father objected, for he understands, if he does not sympathize with me, what a trial she is to flesh and spirit. But I was moderately comfortable, and my nerves were less unruly than usual, so I said we would try and get on together.

"No sooner had he gone than the catechism commenced:

"'Now, mamma, what can I do to amuse you?'

"She talks like a woman of fifty.

"'What should you propose if I were to leave it to you?' I asked.

"'I suppose,' said my Lady Cutshort, 'that it would excite you too much to talk, so I had better read aloud. What book do you prefer?'

"I named one--a novel I had not finished--and resigned myself to martyrdom. She reads fluently--her father says prettily; but the piping voice rasped my auriculars to the quick, and I soon stopped the exhibition. Then we essayed conversation, but our range of themes was limited, and a dismal silence succeeded to a short dialogue. By and by I told her that I was sleepy, hoping she would take the hint and leave my room.

"'Then, mamma, I will just get my work-basket, and sit here, as still as a mouse, and prevent all disturbance.'

"With that, she gets out her miniature thimble and scissors, and falls to work upon a pair of slippers she was embroidering for her father's birthday present, sitting up, starched and prim as an old maid, her lips pursed, and her forehead gravely consequential. I could not close my eyes without seeing her still, like an undersized nightmare, her hair smooth to the least hair, her dress neat to the smallest fold, st.i.tching, st.i.tching, the affected, conceited marmoset!

"At last I said:

"'Put down your sewing, Florence, and look out of the window at the people going by. You must be very tired.'

"'Not in the least, mamma, dear,' answered Miss Pert. 'I like to work, and there is nothing interesting going on outside.'

"I tossed and sighed, and she was by me in a second.

"'Darling mamma! my poor, sweet little mother!' in her reed-like chirp; 'can I do nothing to make you feel better?' putting her hands upon my head and stroking my face until my flesh crawled.

"'Yes,' said I, out of all patience. 'Take yourself off, and don't let me see you again until to-morrow morning! You kill me with your teasing.'

"And would you believe it? she just put up her sewing in the basket and went directly out, without a tear or a murmur, and when her father came home he could not prevail upon her, by commands or persuasions, to accompany him further than the door of my chamber. So he, who won't admit that she can do anything wrong, instead of whipping her for her obstinacy, as he ought to have done, guessed she 'had some reason' for her disobedience which she did not like to tell, and interrogated poor, persecuted me. When he had heard my version of the manner in which we had spent the afternoon, he only said, 'I should have foreseen this. But the child--she is only a child, Rosa!--did her best!' and he looked so mournful that I, knowing he blamed me for his bantling's freak of temper, told him plainly that he cared a thousand times more for this diminutive bundle of hypocrisy than he ever did for me, and that his absurd favoritism was fast begetting in me a positive dislike for her. I couldn't endure the sight of the sulky little mischief-maker for a week after her complaint of barbarity had brought the look into his face I knew so well."

"O Rosa, she is your own flesh and blood! and, as her father said, a mere baby yet! You said, too, that she refused to a.s.sign any cause to him for her singular conduct."

"She might better have made open outcry than have left upon his mind the impression that I had banished her cruelly and unnecessarily. But I despair of giving you an idea of how provoking she can be. She is a Chilton, through and through, in feature, manner, and disposition--one of those 'goody' children, you know! a cla.s.s of animals that are simply intolerable to me. She is too precocious and unbaby-like to be in the least interesting. You should have seen my little Violet to understand what a constant disappointment Florence is. She was myself in miniature, and moreover the most witching, prankish, peppery elf that was ever made. The best trait in Florence's character was her love for her baby-sister. She gave up everything to her while she was alive, and they told me that she would not eat, and scarcely slept, for days after her death. Her father will have it that she is singularly sensitive, and has marvellous depths of feeling; but if this be so, it is queer I never found it out. n.o.body could help adoring Violet--my sweet, lost, beautiful angel!"

The hysterical sobs were pumping up the tears now in hot torrents, and these Mrs. Sutton was fain to a.s.suage by loving arts she would not--but for the danger of allowing them to flow--have been in the temper to employ, so full was her heart of yearning pity for the hardly-used babe, and displeasure at the mother's weak selfishness. It was easier to forgive and forget Rosa's sins; to lessen, in the retrospect, her worst faults into foibles, than it would have been to overlook the more venal failings of one less mercurial, and whose personal fascinations did not equal hers.

Ere the close of another day, Mrs. Sutton had excused her unnatural insensibility to her child's virtues and affection, by representing to herself how fearfully disease had warped judgment and perception; had cast over the enormities she could not palliate the pall of solemn remembrance of the truth that death's dark door was already as surely shut between mother and daughter, as if the grave held the former. A week of chill March rains and wind was disastrous to the patient, who had seemed to draw her main supplies of strength from the sunshine admitted freely to her room, with the spring air, redolent with the delicious odors of the freshly-turned earth, the budding trees, and early blossoms from the garden beneath her windows. She shrank and shivered under the ungenial sky, while the drizzling mist soaked life and animation out of the fragile body. Occasional fits of delirium, increased difficulty of breathing, and a steady decline of the slender remains of vital force, warned her attendants that their care would not be required much longer. She was still obstinate in her disbelief of the grave nature of her malady. The most distant reference to her decease would arouse her to angry refutation of the hinted doubt of her recovery, and excited her to offer proof of her declaration that she was less ill than others supposed; she would summon up a poor counterfeit of energy and mirth, more ghastly than her previous la.s.situde; deny that she suffered from any cause, save the unfailing nervous depression consequent upon the unfavorable weather.

Then came a day on which the sun looked forth with augmented splendor from his sombrely curtained pavilion; when the naked branches of the deciduous trees, the serried lances of the evergreens, and the broad leaves of the tent-like magnolias--the pride of the Tazewell place--shone as from a bath of molten silver. The battered flowers ventured into later and healthier bloom, and a robin, swinging upon the lilac spray nearest Rosa's window, sang blithe greeting to the reinstated spring.

Rosa heard him--opened her eyes, and smiled.

"One--maybe the very same--used to sing there every morning when I was a girl--used to awake me from my second nap. I could sleep all night then, and never dream once!"

A messenger had been sent, at daybreak, for her sisters and brother, who resided several miles away, but as yet Mrs. Sutton and Frederic were her only nurses. She had dozed almost constantly during the night, and been delirious when awakened to take nourishment or tonics, muttering senseless and disconnected words, and moaning in pain, the location and nature of which she could not describe to the solicitous watchers.

"I remember that Mabel and I," she continued, dreamily, after a long pause--then correcting herself, "I ask your pardon, Frederic! I said I wouldn't speak of her ever again to you, but we were so much together in those days. Moreover, it has troubled me at times, that you did not know who your real friends were, and she did like you--and--and--what am I saying! You shouldn't let me run on so!"

She raised her hand with difficulty, and tried to wipe away the film gathering over her dilated eyes.

"Never mind, my darling! Do not attempt to talk! You are too weak and tired!" said her husband, tenderly.

"Tired!" catching at the word, "That is it! There is nothing else the matter, whatever Dr. Ritchie and the rest of them may say. Tired! for how many years I have been THAT! It seems like a thousand. This world is a tiresome place to most people, I think I shall never forget how jaded Mabel looked that week," breaking off, as before, with a frightened start, such as a dreamer gives when he fancies he is falling from an immeasurable height. "Indeed, Fred, dear!" feeling for his hand upon the coverlet, "I did not mean to wound or offend you. It was a terrible ordeal for you, my love! But you came out of it as silver seven times refined. That is what the text says--isn't it? And you and Aunt Rachel are friends once more! That is one good deed I have done. I hope it will be recorded up THERE! Heaven knows there are not so many that I can afford to have one overlooked!"

Another season of dozing, and she awoke, rubbing her hands feebly together, as to cleanse them.

"My hands ought to be whiter--purer! I know what ails them. I should have picked up the letter she--Mrs. Sutton--wrote you. But I loved you so--even then!" beseechingly. "You will not hate me when I am gone? I mean when you get back to Philadelphia, and I am well enough to be left here. I was sure, if you got it, you would come to Ridgeley, and I let it go down the stream--down--down! Frederic!"

"I am here, dearest!" slipping his arm under, and raising her, as her shrill cry rang out, and she grasped the empty air. "Rosa, my WIFE!"

"I thought I was strangling--in the water! I am your wife--am I not? She couldn't take you from me if she were here. I wish she were! I always liked Mabel. She was a good, true woman--but she did not love you as I did!"

Panting for breath, she leaned upon her husband's breast, and her eyelids fell together again. Only for a moment! Then a smile--fond, sweet, and penitent--played among the ashy shadows encircling her mouth.

"Poor little Florence! I am sorry I was cross to her. Tell her so, papa!" Her husband stooped to kiss her, laid her back upon the pillows, closed the sightless eyes, and left Mrs. Sutton alone with the dead.

CHAPTER XVII. -- AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS.

"OLD Mrs. Tazewell has departed this life at last!" said Winston Aylett, entering his own parlor one bleak November evening on his return from the village post-office. "I met Al. Branch on the road just now. For a wonder he was sober--in honor of the occasion, I suppose. He and Gus.

Tabb are to sit up with the corpse to-night."

"When did she die?" queried his wife, drawing her skirts aside, that he might get nearer the fire.

"At twelve o'clock to-day. That is, she ceased the unprofitable business of respiration at that hour. She died, virtually, five years ago. She has been little better than a mummy for that period."

"Poor old lady!" said Mabel Dorrance, regretfully, from her corner of the hearth. "Hers was a kind heart, while she could think and act intelligently. One of my earliest recollections is of the dainties with which she used to ply me when I visited Rosa. She was an indulgent parent and mistress, yet I suppose few even of those most nearly related to her will mourn her loss."

"It would be very foolish if they did!" Mr. Aylett picked up the tongs to mend the fire. "And very unnatural did they not rejoice at being rid of a burden. The old place has been going to destruction all these years, and it could not be sold while she c.u.mbered the upper earth."

No one replied directly to this delicate and feeling observation, and Mrs. Aylett presently diverted the conversation slightly by saying,--