She promised. Oh, frail and sandy foundation, on which to build bright
hopes of earthly happiness! Only for four brief weeks, one happy month,
that solemn promise was faithfully remembered. Of the effort that even
this short period of abstinence had cost her, of the burning thirst
which tortured her by day and night, the fierce desire that battled with
and almost overcame her feeble resolution when the enthusiasm that had
at first upheld her died away, of the suffering of those weary weeks of
conflict, only those can tell who, heroes every one, like her, have
battled with this fierce spiritual Apollyon, and who, unlike her, have
overcome. Hour by hour the maddening desire of gratification wasted
little by little her moral strength. The thirst grew stronger, the will
weaker.
The thought of the home she had brightened by her self-denial, the heart
she had gladdened, the little ones who had drawn their life from hers,
whose trust in her was growing stronger day by day, as evening came and
showed the valued promise still remembered, and morning dawned and found
her faithful, held her back at first; but gradually this also lost its
power. Then that torturing, burning, maddening thirst swept over the
doomed soul like a fierce simoom, drying up the fountains of maternal
tenderness, bearing away all sense of duty, all tenderness and sympathy,
the blessed hope of heaven itself, in its desolating track. One wretched
day, when this thirst was so strong upon her that her priceless soul
grew worthless in her eyes, and she would smilingly have bartered it but
for a single draught; one well-remembered, miserable day, when the
little faces were raised to hers, and found upon it no trace of motherly
affection, only that dark foreboding look, and grew pale with fright
when desire had reached that relentless climax which leaves the victim
no choice but of madness or gratification, she had fiercely summoned her
usual messenger, sent for her usual drink, and sat grimly waiting for
it. In vain that trusty messenger, to whose care the wretched father had
confided that pitiful remnant of family honor, the shame of public
exposure, boldly setting fear of her aside, earnestly besought her to
wrestle with the demon yet a little longer, were it but a single day;
and implored her with tears to remember the little ones on whom this
blow would fall so heavily. There was no tone of motherly affection
within that raging breast to respond to that appeal. With parched,
cracked lips, and burning eyes and bloated face fierce with desire, she
had driven her from her presence. Fear lest the lack of this great need
would drive her to distraction quite, and some worse evil yet befall
them, she had gone her way, weeping as she went. She came back
presently. There was enough of that terrible poison in the bottle she
brought to make her mistress drunk a score of times. She may get drunk
_now_, dead drunk; in a little while she may lie upon the floor a
senseless, idiotic, disgusting creature. She almost prays it may be so,
as she hands her the glass which she angrily calls for, for there is yet
a greater evil to be dreaded. The liquor so long untasted, acting upon
her naturally high temper, may arouse within her a wild tempest of
passion; in her frenzy she may fall upon those little ones, beat,
bruise, maim, murder them perhaps. It is not the first time their lives
have been endangered by her violence. To get them from the room without
exciting her opposition, so quietly and naturally that it shall hardly
attract her observation, is her first care; hence, under pretence of
arranging the window curtain, she says to Charley, who is standing near
it:
'Charley, say you want some cakes--a drink of water--anything that's
down stairs, and follow me out of this room.'
'I can't go, Maggie,' returned the child, in the same cautious whisper,
glancing toward his mother with his large dark eyes wildly dilated, and
his small face bleached with fright. 'Harry won't go, and I can't leave
Harry.'
'Harry shall go,' energetically repeated the resolute Maggie, putting
her head out of the window to say her say. 'He is not going to stay here
to be mauled! Harry,' she continued, in the most insinuating tone
imaginable, 'come down stairs with Maggie. There's a darling.'
He was leaning out of the window, apparently looking at something in the
street below, and did not move as she addressed him.
'Harry, Harry,' she called again, in an excited whisper, 'do you hear
me? quick, child, quick!'
He turned toward her his face covered with tears.
'Don't cry, for heaven's sake, child; don't cry _here_,' returned
Maggie, with a suppressed groan, 'or that mother of yours will pounce
upon you in spite of me.'
At the mention of that word, what little self-possession he retained
gave way, and he sobbed outright. It was a sob so passionate and long
suppressed, and it burst forth in spite of him with such vehemence, that
it shook the little form from head to foot, and sounded through the
still room so miserably hopeless, so heart-broken, that it even aroused
the stupefied being nodding in her chair, whom he had the misery to call
by the name of mother. It awakened within her some vague thought of
motherly sympathy; and, stupidly striving to comprehend what it meant,
and idly muttering to her miserable self, she poured out a third glass,
held it in her hand as well as she was able, and came tottering forward,
swaying to and fro in maudlin efforts to keep her feet. She took up her
position directly behind Harry, and looked vacantly out. She was trying
to ask what was the matter, with a tongue whose palsied utterance made
language incomprehensible, when Harry's friend, whom he had been
watching, and whose figure he had, with love's delicate discrimination,
picked out from a score of similar figures, and known to be hers, when
it was but a mere speck in the distance, passed directly under the open
window, and, startled by that sob and by that drunken voice in answer,
looked wonderingly up. Oh, heavens! she read that fearful secret in one
blank, horrified glance. She read it in the despairing hopelessness of
the little face turned toward hers--that look so terrible in a face so
young. She read it still more clearly in that fiery, bloated, senseless
visage looking down upon her with a dull stare, in the swaying form
feebly holding the tell-tale glass. She knew now why that delicate
child, nursed in the lap of affluence, having all that wealth could
purchase, had come so timidly to her lowly dwelling, and earnestly
besought her for a single kiss; what had made the little face sorrowful
and wan, and set that seal of suffering upon it. She saw it all, and,
under the sudden weight of that astounding revelation, she literally
staggered as under the weight of a blow. Looking down through his
tear-dimmed eyes at the face he loved so well, Harry saw upon it no look
of sympathy or recognition for him--only that blank, amazed,
horror-stricken look at that something behind him, a look which embraced
every item of the shameful scene, and showed all too clearly how plainly
it did so. Then, without a word or glance of kindness, she gathered her
veil closely about her pallid visage, and quickly hurried away. Alas for
Harry! he feels that the truth has turned her heart from his, and she
has gone forever. The anguish of that thought was too great for
suppression, and he stretched forth his hands toward the retreating
figure with a forlorn wail of supplication. That look of horror, that
low, plaintive, heart-broken cry, like a child forsaken of its mother,
had sobered her a little. She had been a proud woman once, and a remnant
of the nobler pride which had once uplifted her was still left within
her soul. To have eyes from which shone forth the pure, unsullied spirit
of womanhood, discover her secret, and look upon her in her shame; to
behold in a rival, whom unseen she hated, womanhood enthroned in
excellence; to see its image in herself fallen and defaced, sunken in
degradation; to know that a few kind and well-bestowed caresses had won
her child's love from her, that on that strange maternal bosom the
little head rested more tranquilly and peacefully than on her own; to
owe her a double grudge as discoverer and supplanter--this aroused the
smouldering and now perverted pride yet alive within her bosom, and
fanned it to a flame. She clinched her hands convulsively, her teeth
shut together with a dull, grating sound, the unsteady form swayed to
and fro, like a lithe tree shaken in the wind of a coming tempest, and
the bloated face, dark with wrath, was terrible to look upon. It was a
fearful thing to be alone with that half-drunken creature, and see wave
after wave of passion rolling over her tempest-tossed soul, lashing it
into fury. Maggie felt it to be so _now_. As a trusty confidant and able
protector, one who, by some strange means, had gained an ascendency over
her mistress that no other possessed, and wisely exercised this
controlling power, she had been with these poor children through many
similar scenes, sheltering them under the broad wing of her protection,
but she had never beheld the gathering of so dark a storm, never felt
the vague, shuddering dread, the chill apprehension which seized on her
now. One glance at that terrible being showed her power lost, her
protection insufficient, impotent. To stay with them and endeavor to
breast the coming storm would be madness--to try to get the children
from the room now would be both impolitic and dangerous; at the least
demonstration of the kind that storm would be sure to burst upon them in
all its resistless fury, and before its raging power she felt her
strength would be utter weakness. She must fly for aid. Perhaps even now
some invisible being, conscious of their danger, might be impelling
their father to the rescue.
'Harry,' said Maggie, turning very pale, as she glanced at the dreadful
figure rocking to and fro in fearful communing with itself, and bending
down to whisper a parting injunction as she tied on her bonnet, 'don't
speak to her, don't look toward her. Don't cross her in any way. She's
the devil's own, now.'
A word, a look, a gesture of entreaty to Charley, placing in dumb show
his brother in his charge, and she passed from the room hastily and
noiselessly, but not unperceived. As she vanished, an evil smile of
triumph at thus being so easily rid of an able antagonist, flashed
across the terrible face, giving it almost the look of a demon. In
passing out, Maggie has left the door ajar, which perceiving, the
wretched woman totters across the room, shuts the door, locks it, throws
the key upon the floor, and, tottering back to her seat, again takes a
long, deep draught from the glass upon the table. Fixing her fiery eyes
full on Harry, she calls out imperiously:
'Come here, sir!'
The tone in which the command is given is cruel, stern, and cold,
unsoftened by maternal tenderness, untouched by womanly gentleness, and
the bloated face has the same evil look upon it. Harry shrinks back
affrighted.
'Are you deaf, you adder? Come here, I say, come here.'
There is a fierceness in the tone now which shows a longer delay will be
dangerous; and so Charley, pale and trembling, comes forth from the
corner in which he has been crouching, and, taking his smaller brother
by the hand, they come forward together.
'What made you bawl after that woman--that woman in the street?' she
says, viciously grasping the little shoulder, and giving it a shake.
'Answer me this minute. Speak, sir, speak!'
'I--I can't help loving her, ma,' falters the poor child deprecatingly,
while the blue eyes fill, and the tears fall slowly down his face.
'There, none of your snivelling,' she cries fiercely, giving him another
shake. 'Come up here; come closer. Here! Stand back, you,' pushing
Charley from her with a force that makes him stagger. 'Now then,' she
furiously demands, 'did you ever cry after _me_ when _I_ went away and
left you?'
He is so faint with fright that he can hardly find his voice to answer,
and the words are almost inarticulate as he falters forth:
'Sometimes, ma; sometimes, when you are kind to me.'
'You never did; you know you never did, you little liar,' shrieks the
crazed creature, savagely dealing him a heavy blow which sends him
reeling from her.
'Oh, ma! Oh, ma!' gasps the poor child, crouching down in the extremity
of terror as the terrible figure comes flying toward him. '_Don't_ kill
me, oh, don't kill _me_; I'm such a little boy!'
She pounces upon him like a tigress, lifting the fragile form high in
the air, and dashing it down to the floor again with all her cruel
force. She shakes, she bites him, she rains blows upon the poor,
defenceless child, leaving prints of her vicious fingers all over the
poor little body wherever she touches the tender skin, marks of her
cruel nails on the delicate arms and hands, long, deep scratches from
which the blood exudes slowly. One last cruel blow hushes the suppressed
cries of pain and terror, the low moans for mercy, and lays the bruised
and quivering form senseless at her feet. Then the mad creature, crazed
with drink and passion, goes careering up and down the room, snatching
from table and bureau the costly trinkets with which they are adorned,
and wildly trampling them beneath her feet as she hurries to and fro.
She is so terrible to look upon, with that scarlet, bloated face,
distorted by passion, and the long, thick hair unbound hanging wildly
about it, and that baleful light in her bloodshot eyes, so terrible in
the frenzied excitement of look and motion, that Charley, who has crept
to the side of his prostrate brother, and is tenderly holding the
unconscious head, has no power to cry or move, but sits half frozen with
horror, with his great brown eyes wildly dilated, fixed in a species of
fascination upon the strange motions of that dreadful figure, and merely
in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation endeavors to shield
himself and his insensible charge from the heavy blows aimed at them as
she comes flying past. A few brief moments pass in this way, moments
which to that poor child, alone with that wild being, seem dreadful
hours of torturing length. Then the blessed sounds of coming relief fall
on his ear, footsteps are approaching, a man's firm, hurried tread and
woman's lighter but no less rapid step are heard through the hall below,
up the staircase--on, on they come, crossing the long upper hall,
pausing at the threshold. Then they try the door; swift, crushing blows
are rained upon it, the door is burst open, and they come rushing
distractedly in.
'Oh, pa! pa!' The tongue is loosed whose utterance fear has palsied, and
Charley stretches forth his hands to the strong arm of his earthly
saviour. One hasty glance around the room strewn with fragments of
costly toys, one look at the maniacal form in the centre with wildly
dishevelled hair, and leering, vacant face, then the anguished eyes fall
on _that_ for which they are searching, see the outstretched arms of the
little figure cowering in a corner half hid by the window curtain, see
that other figure lying at its feet, so livid and motionless, so
breathless, with the deathly face upturned, and the long brown lashes,
still wet with tears, resting on the marble cheeks.
'O God! too late! too late!' The strong agony of that father's heart
bursts forth from his bleached lips in that wild, irrepressible cry. He
seizes the tottering form. He shakes it fiercely: 'Woman! fiend! blot on
the name of mother! you have _killed_ my boy!'
That momentary burst of passion past, he leaves the hapless creature to
her witless mumbling, and, with great waves of anguish rolling over his
soul, the broken-hearted father kneels beside his boy.
'Not dead! oh, thank God! not dead.'
There is a slight throbbing motion of the heart, a faint, scarcely
perceptible pulsation at the wrist. They raise the senseless form from
off the floor. Up to his room they bear him; softly on his little bed
they lay him--that little bed from which he is never more to rise.
Gentle footsteps glide noiselessly about the room, loving eyes are bent
above him, and tears fall upon the upturned face. Long days go and come,
fragrant sunny days, bright with the bloom of summer, each day one less
of earth, one nearer heaven. The loving watchers know it, and ever and
anon there are sounds of smothered weeping there. But there are no
answering tears from eyes soon to look on immortal things, for on the
passing soul dawns a vision of a home beyond the shadow and the blight,
where, in meadows fragrant with immortal flowers, the _Great Shepherd
feedeth His sheep_, and, as He tenderly leads them beside the still
waters, gathers the _lambs_ to His bosom. In that clime glows the glory
of unfading light, the bloom of undying beauty. Henceforth the beauty
and the light of this transitory sphere seem wan and cold, and the
fading things of earth grow worthless in the dying eyes, and the tranced
soul longs to be gone, yet bides its time with patient sweetness.
Patient amid all his pain, no groan escapes the parched lips, no
complaining murmur. Bearing all his sufferings with meek endurance,
quiet and very thoughtful he lies upon his little bed, smiling placidly
upon those about him--grateful, very grateful for their love and care;
watching with musing eyes the long hours through the changes of the day
on the sky as seen from his window--gray dawn melting into morning,
morning into mellow day, day, with its varied changes, sinking into
night. The heaven beyond on which he muses as he gazes, the home for
which he longs, baptizes him with its light beforetime. On the sinless
brow the seal of a perfect peace is set, and the air about the child
grows holy. A hush falls on the room mysterious and solemn, and they
know that white-robed immortals are treading earthly courts, mingling in
earthly company; for he murmurs in his dreams of radiant faces that bend
above him; and the wan face, as they watch it in its slumbers, grows
bright with the look of heaven. A few more hours of earth, a little
longer tarrying of the immortal with the mortal part where it has lived
and loved, suffered and rejoiced; a few more moans of pain, and the blue
eyes open and look upon the day whose silent light will dawn upon us
all. They had not thought the end so near at hand; and, worn out with
grief and watching, the father and his faithful nurses had one by one
retired to rest, leaving Charley, at his earnest solicitation, to sit
beside the bed and watch his brother's fitful slumbers. Since that fatal
day, a dread and horror of his mother had seized upon the child. Though
surrounded by those he loved, her near approach would cause strong
nervous chills, and her kiss or touch would throw him into frightful
spasms, from which they could with difficulty recover him; hence, by the
doctor's orders, she was forbidden the room, and it was only when utter
exhaustion had steeped his refined spiritual sense into perfect oblivion
of surrounding objects, that she was permitted to enter there and gaze
for a little on the wan features of her sleeping child. That day,
knowing his time on earth was short, and possessed by a restless and
uncontrollable desire to be near him, even though she could not look
upon his face, into the room of her dying boy she had stolen like a
culprit, and noiselessly shrank into the farthest corner of the room,
screened from his observation by the heavy window-curtain and the high
head-board of the bed. They had discovered her there after a time, but
she, in terms which would have moved the coldest heart to pity, implored
them with tears to allow her to remain; and they, seeing that the demon
had departed from her for a season, and compassionating the forlorn
being, had gone away and left her there. She sits motionless in the
silent room, her despairing eyes fixed on the serene heaven to which her
darling will soon be gone, and from which the stern justice of an
accusing conscience tells her she may be forever excluded.
And oh! if this be truth, if in the world beyond there is no hope for
sinful souls that have gone astray in this, and this parting _is_
eternal, then, oh then, through the long, dark ages of suffering which
may be her future portion, never to look upon her darling more, never
more to kiss the sweet lips that have called her mother, never more to
look upon him here till the silken lashes droop toward the marble cheek
and the half-veiled eyes have lost their lustre, and they lead her in
for a last look ere the little face is shut out from mortal gaze
forever!--oh! the unutterable anguish of that thought, and the remorse
which mingles with it! Not for that last dreadful act, for she never
knew that she had killed him. No clear remembrance of that day lives
within to curse her memory, but she knows that a strange and
unaccountable dread of her has seized upon the child, that she is
banished from his dying presence; and an undefined and vague
remembrance, a misty horror, has fallen on her life, rests on her like
an incubus, pursues her in a thousand phantom shapes through the long,
dark watches of the terror-laden night, and through burdened days of
ceaseless suffering. She knows, for they have told her, that when his
consciousness returned, his first cry had been for the mother of his
heart; that she had left everything and come to him; that she had taken
her place beside his bed, a dearer place than she had ever occupied in
his heart; that no hands like those chill, magnetic ones could soothe
him in his pain, or charm him to his fitful slumbers; that on no bosom
could the throbbing head rest so tranquilly as on her own. What the
mother's heart suffered in that knowledge when her better nature
prevailed, only the Being knows Who framed it. The hours of the long day
wore heavily on. The sun, that had paused awhile in mid-heaven, was now
sinking slowly toward the west. Yet, unmindful of food or rest, seated
in the same corner into which she had shrunk on entering the room, ever
and anon rocking herself to and fro, or wringing her hands in silent
agony, there sits the wretched mother, hidden watcher by the bedside of
her dying boy. The room has been chosen for its retired situation, and
is removed from the noise of household occupations; and the bustle of
the crowded street, even in its busiest hours, falls on the ear in a
distant hum. It is quiet now, very quiet. Harry has awakened once from
his slumbers, asked to be moved nearer the front of the bed, that they
may be very near each other while he sleeps again, and, when that was
done, has smiled lovingly upon the little, sorrowful watcher, and, with
his wasted hand tightly clasped in his, has fallen into sounder
slumbers. In the deathlike stillness which has fallen on the room, she
can hear his breathing, and has ventured twice or thrice, while he slept
thus, to steal softly to the bedside and look upon his face; but as at
each successive attempt he has seemed almost immediately to feel the
dreaded atmosphere, and his slumbers have become broken and uneasy, with
a heavy heart she has crept silently back again. Charley has waited
until the thin hand of the sick child has relaxed its clasp on his own,
then, moved by a loving impulse, noiselessly busies himself in removing
a littered mass of vials, cups, and glasses, which have accumulated on
the stand near the bed, to a table just at hand, and taxes his childish
ingenuity in arranging thereon, in the prettiest possible form, a
multitude of toys and trinkets, gifts sent by the servants of the house
to his brother, putting the new ones in front, so that his eye may fall
on them first when he wakes again. This done, he creeps back to his seat
by the bedside, and silently watches his slumbers as before.
A ray of sunlight, bright and warm, creeps through the lattice and falls
on the veined lids; the eyes open, and instinctively moving from the too
dazzling light, rest placidly on a fragment of blue sky just visible
through the half-closed window. With eyes fixed intently on that hazy
distance, moment after moment, silent and motionless he lies, and the
blue orbs grow lustrous as he gazes with the mystic beauty of eyes whose
inner vision rests on unutterable things, and gradually there comes upon
the little face the look that never comes on any face but once. Oh,
mystic change! Oh, strange solemnity of death! The little watcher by the
bedside, face to face with its mysterious presence for the first time,
ignorant of its processes, feels a dread, half-defined idea of what it
may be, and, with a piteous effort to recall his dying brother back to
his old look and seeming, tremulously falters:
'See all the nice things they've sent you, Harry, all the pretty toys
you've got! Here they are, spread out upon the table. Look, brother,
look!'
The eyes are bright and clear, the shadow of death has not yet dimmed
their light. They turn slowly, very slowly, and, just glancing at the
toy-strewn table, rest upon his brother's face. Oh! what is that look
within them that chills the warm life-current, and makes him cold and
shivering in the heat of that summer day, as the sick child feebly says:
'You may have them all, _all_, Charley; I sha'n't never want them any
more.'
'You've hardly looked at them at all, Harry,' quavers the young voice in
reply, bravely trying to continue the subject. 'You don't know how
handsome they are. The nicest ones, the very nicest ones Betty bought
you! Poor Betty! she has done nothing but cry since you've been
sick--cry, and buy you presents. She says when you get well, Harry--'
and here the brave little voice, that has been tremulous and tear-laden
all along, breaks down entirely, and he puts up his hand to check the
tears that are running down his face. There are no tears in those other
eyes looking into his; the mists of death are gathering within them. He
cannot see the tear-wet face so plainly now, but he feebly strokes the
hand that lies against his own, and says, in a weaker voice, pausing now
and then for breath:
'Poor brother, dear brother! Don't cry, Charley, don't cry! You must
tell Betty not to cry. Poor Betty! I haven't seen her once since I've
been sick. And poor mamma'--the faint voice, forgetful of its weakness,
grows stronger for a moment, and dwells on that name with measureless
compassion--'poor, poor, _poor_ mamma! I don't feel afraid of ma any
more, and I want to see her. I DO so _much_ want to see her!
Where _is_ ma, Charley?'
There is a movement in the lower part of the room, and a bent form comes
tottering forward, with hair hanging wildly about a haggard, despairing,
woeworn face. Her hands are outstretched in piteous supplication.
'Here I am,' a voice choked with sobs makes answer, 'Here's your poor,
miserable, guilty mother, Harry. O Harry! my sins have barred me out
from the heaven you are entering; say you forgive me before we part
forever. Oh! my darling, it is the last time I shall ever ask it; give
me one kiss before you go!' He smiled as only the dying _can_ smile, and
stretched out his feeble arms. 'He smiles upon me, he forgives!'
shrieked the half-demented creature. 'O God! most merciful! Thou hast
not quite forsaken me!' and with a step forward, and a gesture of
embrace, the hapless being falls heavily upon the floor.
'Raise me up, raise me up,' pleads the sick child, after partially
recovering from the shock the fall had given him; and, as he gazes upon
the prostrate form, the white, haggard, insensible features, an angel's
pity and compassion shine in the dying face. 'Oh, I can't kiss _her_,
Charley. Tell poor mamma I _couldn't_ kiss her,' he faintly moans. Then
the fitful strength gives way again, and the tired head droops wearily
on his brother's shoulder. The chilled form creeps closer to a warm
embrace. A little while they hold each other thus--these little ones,
brothers by the ties of blood, bound nearer to each other than any tie
of blood can bind, by the sacred bond of suffering! Then the arm around
poor Charley's neck relaxes its hold, and falls with a dull, lifeless
sound back upon the pillow. The little form grows colder, colder yet. He
has no power to lay it down, no power to cry for help, but sits holding
it, half paralyzed, as he hears them rushing up the stairs, urged wildly
on by the dreadful fear that they have come too late.
There is a piteous supplication in the large, dilated eyes, a mute
prayer for help in the white face he turns upon them as they enter. To
the hurried questions which come pouring forth, the bleached, white lips
make answer:
'He got cold, and went to sleep again; and he has been getting colder
ever since.'
Then the father, stooping, looks into the little face lying on Charley's
shoulder, and, staggering back as if a blow had struck him, cries out:
'Dead!' and the friend that Harry had loved so well raises the curly
head and lays it back upon the pillow. There are no tears in her gentle
eyes for him, for she knows the little, weary heart is resting now on
the great heart of Infinite Love--that he is gone to One who, with
outstretched arms, stood ready to receive him--_One_ who said long ago:
'Suffer little children to come unto Me!'