“Oh, Mother Earth, upon thy lap
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o’er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
Fold softly in thy long embrace,
That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken!”
--WHITTIER.
Meanwhile, the friends assembled downstairs, in Mrs. Helmstedt’s
parlor, waited anxiously for her summons.
Presently, the bell rang, and Nellie Houston sprang up quickly to
answer it. And soon after she left, Margaret appeared, but with a face
so changed, so aghast, that all who beheld it were stricken with fear
and wonder. It wore no expression of grief, or terror, or anxiety--it
looked as if all these emotions were impossible to it, henceforth--it
looked awed and appalled, as though some tremendous revelation of sin
or suffering, or both, had fallen like a thunderbolt upon that young
brow, and stricken childhood from it at once and forever.
Ralph Houston, who was waiting for her appearance, sprang up to meet
her, and, alarmed at her expression of countenance, hastened toward
her, exclaiming:
“Margaret, Margaret! what is it?”
But, with a gesture of almost awful solemnity, she waved him away, and,
silent as a visitant from the grave, passed through and left the room.
Ralph gazed after her in consternation, and then turned upon his father
a look of mute inquiry.
The colonel gravely shook his head, and remained silent.
Margaret did not return.
Some hours subsequent to this, near midnight, were assembled, in the
chamber of death, old Colonel and Mrs. Compton, the Houstons, Dr.
Hartley and Mr. Wellworth--all the family and friends, in fact, except
Margaret. She had not made her appearance since. With that look of
annihilated youth, she had passed through the parlor, and gone out. All
wondered at her absence from the dying bed of her idolized mother; but
none expressed an opinion upon the subject.
The chamber was dimly lighted by a shaded lamp that stood upon the
hearth, and, reversing the natural course of light, threw the shadows,
in strange, fantastic shapes, to the ceiling. It projected the shadow
of Mr. Wellworth, who stood at Mrs. Helmstedt’s feet, up over the bed,
until it looked like the form of some dark spirit, swooping down to
snatch the soul of the dying.
Mrs. Helmstedt lay on her back, with her head quite low, and her
hands wandering gently over the white quilt, as if in search of some
other clasping hands--sometimes murmuring softly to herself in calm
delirium, and occasionally opening her eyes and looking around
cognizantly, as though recognizing all who were present, and missing
one who was not.
Nellie stood at her right hand, often bending anxiously over her.
Another hour passed; and still Marguerite Helmstedt lay in a state of
gentle, whispering delirium, varied with brief lucid intervals. Was it
in the former or the latter of these conditions that she breathed the
name of her mother, then of her father, then of Nellie?
At the sound of her own name, Mrs. Houston bent to listen to her words.
“Nellie, dearest,” she murmured, very softly, “when prisoners die,
their bodies are given up to their friends, are they not?”
“Yes, surely, dearest Marguerite, when they have friends to claim their
bodies,” answered the lady, greatly wondering at the strange direction
the dying woman’s delirium had now taken.
“And if they have not friends, then they are buried in the prison
grounds, are they not?” continued Mrs. Helmstedt.
“Of course, I suppose so, dear Marguerite.”
“But, Nellie, I have friends to claim my body, after death, have I not?”
“What do you say, dearest?” inquired Mrs. Houston, bending closer down,
for the voice of the dying was nearly extinct.
“I say, Nellie, dear, when my spirit flees, it would not leave this
poor, racked frame behind in the prison. Claim my body, Nellie, and
bury it anywhere! anywhere! out of this prison!”
“Yes, dearest Marguerite; be content; I will do it,” answered Mrs.
Houston, soothingly, as she would have spoken to a maniac.
“What does she say?” asked old Mrs. Compton.
“Oh, nothing to any purpose, mother. She is wandering dreadfully in her
mind,” whispered the unsuspicious Nellie. As if calmed by her friend’s
promise, Mrs. Helmstedt lay perfectly quiet for a few moments, and then
her fair, thin hand went wandering over the quilt, as if to clasp that
other loving hand, and not meeting it, she opened her large, dark
eyes, turning them about the dusky room, as if in search of some one;
then she raised and fixed them, with a wild gaze, upon that sinister
shadow that swooped over her head.
At this moment, the door was quietly opened, and Margaret entered. Her
face had again changed. It now wore the look of one who had, in this
short space of time, suffered, struggled and overcome--of one who had
gazed steadily in the face of some appalling trial, and nerved her
heart to meet it--the look, in short, of a martyr who had conquered the
fear of torture and of death, and was prepared to offer up her life.
But from this night, through all time, Margaret’s face never resumed
its youthful character of simplicity and freedom.
On coming into the room, her eyes were at once turned toward her
mother, and the first object that met their glance was the large,
starry eyes fixed, as if magnetized, upon the swooping shadow on the
ceiling.
Margaret went at once to the fireplace and removed the lamp from the
hearth to the mantelpiece, and placed an alabaster shade over it,
thus reducing the spectres, and bringing the unnatural relations of
shadow and substance into harmony again. Then she went softly to her
mother’s side and slipped her hand into that wandering hand, that now
closed fondly and contentedly upon it. The clasp of her child’s slender
fingers seemed to recall the wandering senses of Mrs. Helmstedt. Her
dark eyes softened from their fixed and fiery gaze, as she turned then
on her loving child, murmuring:
“Margaret! my little Margaret!”
And presently she said: “It is time you were at rest, dear friends. Bid
me good-night. Margaret will lie down here by me. And we will sleep.”
No one seemed inclined to comply with this proposition, until Mrs.
Helmstedt, looking annoyed, Dr. Hartley beckoned Margaret, who left her
mother’s side for an instant, to hear what he had to say.
“My dear child, I myself am of the opinion that we had all best retire
from the room. Shall you be afraid to stay here and watch alone?”
“Oh, no, doctor, no!”
“‘But not alone art thou, if One above doth guide thee on thy way.’
Very well; return to your watch, my child, and be sure, upon the least
sign of change, to call me quietly. I shall stay in the next room.”
“Yes, doctor,” said Margaret, going softly back to her place.
“Come, friends, I think we had better retire and leave this child with
her mother,” said the doctor.
“Bid me good-night first,” said Mrs. Helmstedt, as they all prepared to
withdraw.
They all drew near her bed--Mrs. Houston nearest.
“You last, Nellie, you last, dear Nellie,” said Mrs. Helmstedt, as Mrs.
Houston stooped to receive her kiss.
One by one they bade her good-night, and left the room. Mrs. Houston,
by request, lingered longer.
“Come closer, Nellie--closer still--bend down,” whispered Mrs.
Helmstedt, “I have one last favor to ask of you, dear Nellie. A trifle,
yet I implore it. A foolish one, perhaps; for little may reck the soul,
even if it survive, where or how the cast-off body lies. But do not lay
me here, Nellie! Lay me at the feet of my father and mother, under the
old trees at Plover’s Point. Do you promise me?”
“Yes, yes, dearest Margaret,” faltered Nellie, through her gushing
tears.
“Now kiss me and go to bed. Good-night.”
Mrs. Houston left the room, and the mother and child were once more
alone together.
“Are you sleepy, little Margaret?”
“No, dearest mamma.”
“I am, and so ought you to be, my dove. Come, loosen your wrapper;
lie down on the bed beside me, and I will pat your little shoulder
softly, until we both fall to sleep, as we used to do long ago,
Margaret,” said Mrs. Helmstedt, speaking with a playfulness strange
and incomprehensible to her child, who, though her heart seemed almost
breaking, and though these tender words and acts weakened and unnerved
her, prepared to comply. Once more she lay down by her mother’s side,
and felt the gentle hand upon her neck, and the cooing voice in her
ear, as that dying mother sought, as heretofore, to soothe her child to
sleep.
Let us draw the curtain and leave them so.
The friends, dismissed from Mrs. Helmstedt’s deathbed, reassembled in
the parlor. The doctor lingered there for a moment to take some little
refreshment previous to resuming his watch in the spare room above.
“What do you think of her now, doctor?” inquired Mrs. Compton.
“I think, madam, that the quieter she remains the longer her life will
last. She will live through the night probably--through the morrow
possibly.”
The night indeed was far spent. No one thought of retiring to rest.
The doctor took a lamp and a book, and went softly upstairs to sit and
watch in the room adjoining Mrs. Helmstedt’s. And the party who were
left below gathered around the little wood fire that, even at this
season, the chilly nights on the bleak island rendered necessary.
Amid the distress and confusion that had reigned throughout the house
since the mistress’ illness, no usual household duty, save only the
getting of meals and the making of beds, had been attended to. Among
other neglected matters, the window shutters had remained open all
night. So that the first faint dawn of morning was plainly visible
through the windows.
As soon as it was daylight the sad party separated--old Mrs. Compton
going about to take upon herself, for the better comfort of the family,
the supervision of domestic affairs, and Nellie stealing softly
on tiptoe up to the death-chamber. Nevertheless, the watchful old
physician heard, and came to speak to her at his own door.
“How has she passed the night, doctor?”
“In perfect repose, as far as I can judge.”
Nellie stole noiselessly into the room, softly took away the night
lamp that was still burning, then gently opened a window to admit the
fresh morning air, and finally went up to the bedside to gaze upon the
mother and child. It was a touching picture. Both were sleeping. The
shadows of death had crept more darkly still over Mrs. Helmstedt’s
beautiful face, but she seemed to rest quietly, with one hand laid over
Margaret’s shoulder, in a protecting, soothing manner. Margaret’s face
had the troubled look of one who had been overcome by sleep, in the
midst, and despite of great sorrow. As Nellie gazed, Mrs. Helmstedt,
with the sensitiveness of the dying, perceived her presence, and opened
her eyes.
“How are you, dear Marguerite?” inquired Nellie.
Her lips moved, and Nellie stopped to catch the faint murmur that came
from them.
“Hush--sh! don’t wake her. It took so long to get her to sleep--and
sleep is such a blessing.”
“Sleep is such a blessing!” These were the last words of Marguerite
Helmstedt. Saying them, her eyes turned with unutterable love upon
the little form sleeping beside her, and her hand essayed again its
soothing part, but that dying hand was too feeble, and it slipped,
powerless, from its work.
Margaret, at the same moment, opened her eyes, with that distressed,
perplexed expression wherewith we first awake after a great sorrow. But
in an instant all was remembered. Her mother dying since yesterday!
Simultaneously with this anguish of recovered memory came that strange
power of self-control, with which this young creature was so greatly
endowed.
“How are you, sweet mother?” she asked, calmly.
The lips of the dying woman fluttered and faintly smiled, but no
audible sound issued thence. Her powers of speech had failed. Margaret
grew deadly pale.
“Do not be alarmed, and do not worry her with questions. She is very
much exhausted. The doctor will give her a cordial presently,” said
the pitying Nellie, seeking to conceal the terrible truth. But had she
looked for an instant into that pale, resolute face she would not have
feared any unseemly outburst of sorrow on the part of that young girl.
Nellie, assisted by Margaret, placed Mrs. Helmstedt in an easier
position and arranged the bed drapery. Then, while old Mrs. Compton
and Dr. Hartley paid a visit to the room, she took Margaret downstairs
and constrained her to take a cup of coffee, that she might be able
to attend upon her mother through the day, Nellie said. And upon this
adjuration, Margaret forced herself to take some refreshment.
After that the young girl resumed her watch, and never again left her
dying mother.
As yesterday passed, so passed this day, except that Mrs. Helmstedt
was sinking faster. As yesterday, so to-day, she lay quietly, in a
gentle, murmuring delirium, not one word of which was audible, but
which flowed on in a continuous stream of inarticulate music. Her life
waned with the day. Late in the afternoon, during a lucid interval, she
signed her wish that all might depart from the room and leave her alone
with her child.
And they went.
And as upon the night preceding, so upon this afternoon, at a sign from
Mrs. Helmstedt, Margaret lay down beside her, as if consenting to take
some rest. At another sign she drew her mother’s powerless hand over
her own shoulder. And then, with a sigh of content, Mrs. Helmstedt
closed her eyes as if to sleep.
The day was dying. The sun was sinking low on the horizon. In the
parlor below the friends of the family were watching its slow but sure
descent, and mentally comparing it with the steady decline of life
in one above, and mournfully wondering whether she could live to see
another sunrise.
In the recess of the beloved bay window Mrs. Helmstedt’s forsaken harp
still stood in mournful splendor. The level beams of the setting sun,
now shining through this window, touched the harp, drawing from its
burnished frame responsive rays, “in lines of golden light.” A moment
thus stood the harp in a blaze of quivering glory, and then, as a sheaf
that is gathered up, the rays were all withdrawn, and the sun sunk
below the horizon. Simultaneously, as if some awful hand had swept
its strings, each chord of that harp in swift succession snapped, in
a long, wild, wailing diapason of melody, that died in silence with
the dying sun, as though all music, light and life went out together,
forever. All arose to their feet and looked into each other’s faces,
in awe-stricken silence. And the same instant a sudden, prolonged,
despairing shriek rang through the house.
“It is Margaret! Something has happened!” exclaimed Ralph Houston,
breaking the spell.
All immediately hurried upstairs with prophetic intimations of what had
occurred.
They were right.
Marguerite Helmstedt was dead, and her daughter was distracted!
With matchless heroism Margaret had maintained her self-control until
now; but the grief restrained for her idolized mother’s sake now broke
all bounds--and raged, a wild, wild storm of sorrow. Who shall dare to
approach her with words of comfort? Who, indeed, can console her? Not
one of you, well-meaning friends; for you never sounded the depths of
woe like hers. Not you, young lover; for in the passionate idolatry of
her grief, she feels that to listen to your voice, beloved as it is,
would, at this hour, be sacrilege to the presence of the dead. Not even
you, holy, eloquent minister of God. Seek not to soothe her sorrow,
any one of you. It were vain, and worse than vain. It was a mockery.
Can you breathe the breath of life again into the cold bosom of the
dead mother that lies in yonder chamber? Can you cause that stilled
heart to beat? those closed eyes to open? those silent lips to speak
and murmur softly, “My little Margaret, my dove?” In a word, can you
raise the dead to life? If not, then go, and trouble her not with your
commonplaces. Before the image of an only child, just orphaned of her
mother, that merely human comforter who best comprehends her sorrow
would stand the most confounded--dumb. Leave her to God. Only He who
wounds can heal.
That afternoon, late as it was, Dr. Hartley set off for his home, to
commence preparations for the burial; as, in accordance with Mrs.
Helmstedt’s directions, she was to be laid beside her father and
mother, in her ancestral resting-ground at Plover’s Point.
It was long before Margaret could be forced to leave her mother’s
chamber, and then no one knew what to do with a child so lost in woe,
until, at last, her old nurse, Hildreth, without venturing a single
word of consolation, just lifted and bore her away from them all--bore
her up to an old quiet attic, a sort of “chamber of desolation,” where
she sat down and held her--still never breathing a word--only making of
her own embracing arms a physical support for the fainting form, and
her affectionate bosom a pillow for the weeping head. And so she held
her for hours while she moaned and wept.
“Oh, mother, come back to me! I cannot bear it--I cannot! Oh, God, have
mercy! Send her back to me! Thou canst do all things, dear God--send
her back!” And sometimes: “Oh, mother! do you hear me? are you near
me? where are you? Oh, take me with you! take me with you! I am your
child, your heart’s child! I cannot live without you, I cannot! Oh, my
mother, call me after you--call me, mother! Don’t you hear me--don’t
you hear your child? Oh, mother, can’t you answer me--can’t you answer
your child? Oh, no--you cannot--you cannot! and I am growing crazy!”
And other wild words like these; to all of which old Hildreth listened
without making any expostulation, uttering any rebuke, or offering any
vain words of comfort. At last, when exhausted nature succumbed to a
deep and trance-like sleep, old Hildreth carried her down and tenderly
undressed and put her to bed, and sat watching hours while she slept.
The next morning, when Margaret opened her eyes, her grief awoke
afresh. She wished to fly immediately to the side of her mother.
But this was strictly forbidden. At last, partly because she had
already shed such floods of tears, and partly because she made almost
superhuman efforts to control herself, she restrained the outward
expression of her grief, and went to Mrs. Houston and said:
“Let me see my mother. If you do not, I shall die. But if you do, I
will be very quiet, I will not make a moan, nor shed a tear, nor utter
a single complaint. Consider--when the coffin is once closed I shall
never--never see her face or hold her hand again! Even now I can never
more hear her voice or meet her eyes; but I can look upon her face, and
hold her hands, and kiss her; but in a little while I cannot even do
that. Consider then how precious, how priceless is every moment of a
time so short; and let me go.”
Margaret spoke with so much self-control and forced calmness that her
words and manner were strangely formal. And Mrs. Houston, deceived by
them, consented to her wish.
And Margaret went down to the favorite parlor, where Mrs. Helmstedt was
laid out. The shutters were all closed to darken the room; but the
windows were up to ventilate it; and the breeze blowing through the
Venetian blinds of the bay window played upon the broken harp, making a
fitful moaning in strange harmony with the scene. Margaret reverently
lifted the covering from the face of the dead, and pressed kiss after
kiss upon the cold brow and lips. And then she took her seat by the
side of her dead mother, and never left her again for a moment while
she lay in that room.
The third day from that, being Saturday, the funeral took place. As it
was to be a boat funeral, all the neighbors of the adjacent shores and
islands sent or brought their boats. A large company assembled at the
house. The religious services were performed in the parlor where the
body had been first laid out.
After which the procession formed and moved down to the beach, where
about fifty boats were moored. Not a single sail among them--all were
large or small rowboats. The oars were all muffled, and the oarsmen
wore badges of mourning on their sleeves.
The island boat, the _Nereide_, had had her sails and masts all taken
away, and had been painted white, and furnished with a canopy of black
velvet raised on four poles. The twelve oarsmen seated in it were
clothed in deep mourning. Into this boat the coffin was reverently
lowered. This was the signal for the embarkation of every one else. In
twenty minutes every boat was ready to fall into the procession that
was beginning to form. The boat containing the Rev. Mr. Wellworth and
Dr. Hartley led the van. Then followed the _Nereide_, with its sacred
freight. Behind that came _The Pearl Shell_, containing the orphaned
girl, Mrs. Houston and Ralph.
After them came a skiff bearing Colonel and Mrs. Compton and Colonel
Houston. Other boats, occupied by friends and acquaintances, and others
still, filled with old family servants, followed in slow succession to
the number of fifty boats or more.
Slowly and silently the long procession moved across the waters.
It formed a spectacle solemn and impressive, as it was strange and
picturesque.
The sun was near its setting when this funeral train reached Plover’s
Point, an abrupt headland crowned with ancient forest trees, that
nearly hid from sight the old graystone dwelling-house. On the west
side of this bluff, under the shadows of great elms and oaks of a
hundred years’ growth, the family resting place lay. Here the boats
landed. The coffin was reverently lifted out. The foot procession
formed and walked slowly up the hill. And just as the latest rays of
the setting sun were flecking all the green foliage with gold, they
gathered around her last bed, that had been opened under the shade of a
mighty oak. There they lay her down to rest--
“There, where with living ear and eye
She heard Potomac’s flowing,
And through her tall, ancestral trees
Saw Autumn’s sunset glowing,
She sleeps, still looking to the West,
Beneath the dark wood shadow,
As if she still would see the sun
Sink down on wave and meadow.”