ELSIE RETURNS HOME.
“Our child came toward us, pale and cold, as if drifted to her mother’s
bosom by the storm. Her trembling arms were held out pleadingly, her
eyes seemed full of frozen tears. She shivered from head to foot, and
her teeth chattered, partly with cold, partly with anguish. She fell
forward upon her mother’s bosom, moaning; but no words came with the
desolate sound.
“The mother grew strong now—that frail, little woman yonder—and would
not let me help her, as she staggered back to the room, carrying her
child forward also.
“‘Give me fire,’ she said, looking at the black hearth. ‘Is this the
welcome we offer our child?’
“I knelt down upon my hands and knees, thanking God for the return of
that poor girl; while I raked the embers together, and blew them into
life with my lips. I heaped dry wood upon the coals, and when the flame
leaped through, lighting the features of my child, I turned to look upon
her, where she lay upon the mother’s bosom.
“Her eyes were wide open, and a dusky rim that swept under gave
intensity to the blackness. When she saw me looking at her, those poor
lips, all blue and cold, began to quiver, and a gush of tears changed
the stony grief in her whole face to a look of such mournful tenderness,
that I too burst into tears.
“‘Father!’ she cried, reaching forth her two hands as she had done when
a little child,—‘father!’
“I stretched out my arms, and strove to draw her downward to the bosom
that yearned to hold her; but the mother put me back, with a wave of the
hand, and folding Elsie close to her heart, cried out pleadingly,—
“‘Not yet, oh! not yet. Let her be, or my heart will break.’
“She had the best right to her, so I buried my face in Elsie’s mantle,
and felt comforted by something she had touched.
“I tell you, child, no human heart dreams how much it can love, till
sorrow falls on the object it clings to. That child was sacred to us as
an angel then—dearer, a thousand times dearer, because they had
attempted to crush her with disgrace. Her pale cheek, her tremulous
lips, all the traces of wrong and anguish upon her person, were claims
upon our tenderness. There was a sort of worship in our grief and in our
joy.
“The fire burned up clear and brightly, but as the chill left her poor
frame, a sharper consciousness of her position seemed to sting her into
restlessness. She clung first to her mother, then to me; twice she bent
to kiss me, and then drew back with a look of shrinking terror.
“‘You know, father; or must I tell you?’ she said at last.
“I tried to smile and make light of the things we had heard, by looks
rather than speech, and all the time she was perusing my soul with her
wild eyes.
“‘You did not believe it,’ she cried, with a hysterical laugh, ‘I knew
it—I was sure of it. But, father, mother, _he_ has turned me
out-of-doors.’
“‘My child,’ cried the mother, giving way to tenderness. ‘But you are
home, you are with us, your own mother, your dear old father.’
“‘I know,’ said Elsie, ‘I thought of that when they turned me
out-of-doors. I will return, said I, to my father’s house, a prodigal,
but without his sin. Father, believe that; you surely believe that,
mother.’
“‘My child, my own child,’ answered the mother.
“‘I know that you believe me,’ she said, and a faint smile stole across
her lip.
“The mother caressed her, smoothing back the black hair from her
temples, as if she had been a child.
“‘Tell us, daughter, tell us all,’ she whispered, tenderly.
“Elsie started up. Fire sparkled through the tears in her eyes. But
quickly as it had kindled, the angry light went out; and sinking to her
mother’s bosom, she answered, amid her sobs,—
“‘Mother, they have denounced me, they have covered me with scorn.’
“‘They—my child! Of whom are you speaking?’
“‘Of him—my husband—of De Marke and the French woman, who has poisoned
his heart against me. Oh! mother, if she had never entered this house—if
she never had.’
“‘But your child, our grandson?’ I inquired, after she had grown calmer.
“Elsie shook her head wearily. ‘I asked for him, father. I begged on my
knees that they would give me my child. I prayed, I wept, I went mad
before them; but it was all of no use. My boy—my boy!’
“She broke off moaning, and began to rock herself to and fro, calling
out, in tones of piteous tenderness, ‘My boy—my boy!’
“Thus we got the history of her wrongs, in snatches, among tears and
tender wailings over the happiness torn from her.
“It was true, De Marke had turned her from his door; and the
Frenchwoman, her accuser, remained behind. When the sunrise sent its
gleams of gold aslant the snowdrifts around us, we had gathered all the
facts that she could relate. That French fiend, by cunning and
falsehood, had separated my daughter from her husband. Elsie had come
back to us, branded and denounced, but innocent as the angels.
“I sought De Marke, in order to defend my child; but he would not
receive me. I wrote to him, he sent my letters back unanswered. But
Elsie would not believe him in earnest. She, poor child, still had her
dreams and her delusions. They were wearing her to a shadow; but she
could not give them up.
‘The child,’ she would plead, ‘surely he will give back my child.’
“Thus, day after day, she lived and hoped on.
“But the end came at last. De Marke entered proceedings for a divorce. I
employed counsel. I spent half my substance in defending the honor of my
child. But it was all in vain. The divorce was granted, and our daughter
branded forever—forever separated from her husband and child. Now
listen. That Frenchwoman was the principal witness against Elsie, and in
six months De Marke married her. It was this news which drove our
daughter wholly mad.”
The old man ceased. The perspiration stood in drops on his forehead.
This renewal of sorrow had exhausted him.
Catharine looked at him sadly.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I have given you pain. But for this knowledge,
I too must have gone mad! One word more. This Frenchwoman? Have you seen
her?”
“Yes,” answered the old man, “was the woman, you remember her. See how
sin levels down the soul. Tell me, is not the fate of my child
preferable to that?”
“I know this woman!” said Catharine, gently; “she is indeed punished
through the degradation of her own nature. But the son? Did Elsie never
see her son?”
“Poor Elsie! She would not have known him. For many years we were
compelled to keep her in the asylum, from whence she was removed to the
care of Mrs. Barr. I believe that De Marke thought her dead, for until
the day that miserable woman appeared at the library window, we never
saw either of them.”
“And you have never seen her son?”
“He has never inquired after his mother—nor attempted to open any
communication with us. He may even be dead.”
“Is it not possible that he may have been brought up in ignorance of
these facts? I almost think so,” said Catharine.
“I do not know—and poor Elsie, what good would it be to her? She has
forgotten everything.”
As he spoke, the old man arose, and walked into an inner room, closing
the door after him. Catharine looked around, and saw that Mrs. Ford had
disappeared also; indeed, the dear old lady had stolen away in the early
part of this conversation, overcome by the mournful reminiscences it
brought upon her.
When she found herself quite alone, Catharine gave way to a storm of
feeling that shook her to the soul. She walked up and down the room,
murmuring to herself, linking and unlinking her fingers, brushing back
the hair from her hot temples, and tossing her arms upward, as if the
room were too small for such emotions. She seemed, for the time, almost
as wild as her charge. While in this state of excitement, she saw Elsie
moving across the lawn, and struck by a sudden glow of affection, ran
out to meet her.
“Mother! mother, his mother,” she cried, throwing herself on Elsie’s
bosom. “His mother, his mother, and mine. Oh, thank God, thank God, that
he sent me here!”
Elsie looked down upon that glowing face, with a sweet, vacant smile,
and began to sing a lullaby, such as had sent her lost infant to sleep.
With a heavy sigh, Catharine arose from that unconscious bosom, and
wandered away down to the sea-shore, where she could think and resolve
in solitude.