“William, my dear William,” I anxiously said, taking his hand in mine,
“why do you weep?”
William again turned his head toward me, and with a look of the deepest
grief, he answered, “My mother is dead!”
No words can tell you what I then felt. William’s eyes beamed with
intelligence; his tears were sorrowful as though not flowing by chance;
and his voice was broken like that of one whose heart suffers. I uttered
a cry, and knelt beside the bed of Eva.
“Oh! Eva,” I murmured, “you had reason not to despair of the mercy of
Heaven!”
Even Lord Kysington trembled, and Lady Mary grew as pale as the corpse
before her.
“My mother! my mother!” William sobbed, in accents that filled me with
joy; then repeating the words of Eva Meredith—those words which she so
truly had said he would find in the depth of his heart, the child
continued aloud,
“I am dying, my son—your father is dead—you are alone on earth—but
pray to God!”
I placed my hand gently on William’s shoulder, to induce him to fall on
his knees; he bent down, joined his trembling hands of his own accord,
and with a supplicating look to Heaven, replete with animation, he
ejaculated, “O, God! pity me!”
I bent over the form of Eva; I took her cold hand, “O, thou mother that
hast suffered so much!” I exclaimed, “dost thou hear thy child? Dost
thou look on him from above? Be thrice happy! thy son is saved! poor
woman, who has wept so much.”
Eva lay stretched in death at Lady Mary’s feet; but this time, at least,
her rival trembled before her—for it was not I who led William from the
room, it was Lord Kysington, carrying his child in his arms.
What more need I say, ladies; William had regained his reason, and left
in company with Lord Kysington. Soon afterward, restored to his rights,
he became the sole heir to his family’s estate. Science has verified
some rare examples of an intellect restored by a violent moral shock.
Thus the fact, which I have related to you, finds its natural
explanation; but the good women of the village, who had taken care of
Eva Meredith during her illness, and who heard her fervent prayers,
still believe that the soul of the mother had passed into the body of
her child, even as she besought her Maker.
“She was so good,” the villagers would say, “that God would not deny her
any thing.” This unsophisticated belief is established throughout this
part of the country. No one mourned Eva as one dead.
“She still lives,” they would say; “speak to her son—it is she who
answers.”
And when Lord William Kysington, who had become the possessor of his
grandfather’s estate, each year sent abundant alms to the village which
witnessed his birth and his mother’s death, the poor exclaimed—“It is
the good soul of Madame Meredith still caring for us! Ah! when she goes
to heaven, the unfortunate will have cause to be pitied!”
It is not to her tomb that flowers are brought—they are laid on the
steps of the altar of the Virgin, where she had so often prayed to Mary
to send her son a soul, and depositing their garlands of flowers, the
villagers say to each other,
“When she prayed so fervently, the holy Virgin answered her, in low
accents—‘I will give thy son a soul.’”
The curate bequeathed to our peasants this touching belief. As for
myself when Lord William visited me in this village; when he looked at
me with eyes so like his mother’s; when his voice, in accents familiar
to my ear, said to me, as Madame Meredith had said—“Doctor, my friend,
I thank you!” then—you may smile, ladies, if you will—then I wept, and
thought with others, that Eva Meredith stood before me.
This unhappy woman, whose life was a series of misfortunes, left at her
death a sweet, consoling remembrance, which had no pain for those who
loved her. In thinking of her, we think of the mercy of God; and if
there exist a hope within our hearts, we hope the more confidingly.
* * * * *
But it is quite late, ladies, your carriages have been at the door this
some while. Excuse this long narrative; at my age one cannot be brief,
when speaking of the memories of youth. Forgive the old man for having
caused you to smile on his arrival, and weep when you condescended to
listen to him.
These last words were spoken in a milder and more paternal tone, and a
faint smile played on his lips. They all gathered round him, and began a
thousand thanks; but Doctor Barnabé rose from his seat, and brought his
great coat, that was lined with puce-colored taffeta, which he had
thrown over a chair, and while his young auditors assisted him in
putting it on, he said, “Adieu, gentlemen! adieu, ladies! my cabriolet
is ready, night is coming on, and the roads are bad; I must take my
leave—good night!”
When Dr. Barnabé, in his cabriolet of green osier, and the little gray
horse, tickled by the whip, were about starting, Madame de Moncar rose
quickly, and placing her foot on the step she leaned over toward the
doctor, and said to him in a low tone—so low none else could hear—
“Doctor, I give you the white house, and will have it arranged the same
as——when you loved Eva Meredith.” And she hastened away without giving
him time to answer; in a few minutes the carriages and cabriolet left in
different directions.
* * * * *