Shirley
conferred; but the heart and the brain are _mine_. The germs are from
_me_, and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I esteem
and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her."
"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?"
"I wish it were as true that the substance and colour of health were
restored to your cheek."
"My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People
generally did not like her--so I have been given to understand."
"They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having
the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not
care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or
reject her?"
"But if you _are_ my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I
can live. I should like to recover----"
"You _must_ recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you
were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I
beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my
heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we
have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again."
She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms; she rocked her
softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.
"My mother--my own mother!"
The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment
and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with
noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering
its young.
There was silence in the room for a long while.
* * * * *
"Does my uncle know?"
"Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here."
"Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?"
"How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was
prepared to see my child."
"It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed."
"You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell
what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that
elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never
tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me."
"Why? Were you disappointed?"
"What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were
like, I could have dropped."
"Mamma, why?"
"I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall
never know me."
"But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the
thought of an introduction to strangers--that was all."
"I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured
me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content."
"You puzzle me."
"I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to
shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability
had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant--a
toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before
her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels.
I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without
reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a
transfiguration on the domestic hearth--to see the white mask lifted,
the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down---- O God, I
_have_ suffered!"
She sank on the pillow.
"I _have_ suffered! None saw--none knew. There was no sympathy, no
redemption, no redress!"
"Take comfort, mother. It is over now."
"It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His
patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with
terror--I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through
to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has
cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But,
Caroline----"
Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.
"Mother!"
"I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect
the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred
his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All
_you_ derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave,
between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. Meddle not.
God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us--never! They
were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me--impotent as idiot
babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; the grave
lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this
night, what I have never said before, 'James, slumber peacefully! See!
your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black
account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living likeness
of you--this thing with your perfect features--this one good gift you
gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me
"mother." Husband, rest forgiven!'"
"Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he
comforted to know that we still love him?"
"I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child;
I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there
to see me enter, will I maintain that."
"O mother, you must have suffered!"
"O child, the human heart _can_ suffer! It can hold more tears than the
ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery
begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness."
"Mother, forget."
"Forget!" she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. "The north
pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into
the bays of Australia ere I forget."
"Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!"
And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the
child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those
tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her
daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The
soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the damp brow she
refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence.
"Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle
to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your
daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one
minute to-night."
"O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I
shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You
inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be
'mamma' prefacing a mandate--softly spoken, though, from you, thank God!
Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly too, once, like a
flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to
listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood--sounds to
inspire insanity."
"It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want
nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let
me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach."
"You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over
yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is
that which has made me an unnatural parent--which has kept me apart from
my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's
death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved
my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to
be snatched prematurely from their embrace."
"How, mamma?"
"I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your
loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your
portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears.
Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic--a heavy, blunt-featured,
commonplace child--I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under
the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic
flower--'little lady' was written on every trait. I had too recently
crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman--escaped galled,
crushed, paralyzed, dying--to dare to encounter his still finer and most
fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with
dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my
experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the
concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must
conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of
education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my
own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear
you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone
I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought
hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be
misjudged."
"Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?"
"It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live
unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I
could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return
to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a
home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old
occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of
sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How
safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid
reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was
solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!"
"But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it
happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not
recognized?"
"I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was
very different to what I am now--slender, almost as slender as my
daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my
hair, my style of dress--everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a
slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare
arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round
Grecian curls above my forehead?"
"You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door
open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and
let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not
dreaming or delirious."
The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor
summoned him to his niece's apartment.
"She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily.
"I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger."
"Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room.--"Ha, Cary! how do? Did
you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself."
"I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite
alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you
in."
The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was
willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes,
since it was her whim to wish it; but what means to employ for her
entertainment he knew not. He hemmed--he fidgeted.
"You'll be up in a trice," he observed, by way of saying something. "The
little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine--a
pipe, if you can--and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if
they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong as
Samson before we're done with you."
"Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed-foot?"
"Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering, is she, ma'am?"
Mrs. Pryor smiled.