"BABY FINGERS, WAXEN TOUCHES."
"My heart grew softer as I gazed upon
That youthful mother as she soothed to rest,
With a low song, her loved and cherished one,
The bud of promise on her gentle breast;
For 'tis a sight that angel ones above
May stoop to gaze on from their bowers of bliss,
When Innocence upon the breast of Love
Is cradled in a sinful world like this."
--AMELIA B. WELBY.
The telegraphic message that flashed across the ocean to Lulu Conway
with such mournful tidings never reached her; she was already on the
ocean, homeward bound, having just received the letter that told of
Willard's illness at Memphis. It was not until she reached home in May,
and was safely domiciled at Ocean View, that Bruce went into Norfolk
and brought back the sad-faced mother, whose mourning weeds were the
first indication to Lulu of her bitter bereavement.
Mrs. Winans, too, was domiciled safely at home again, to the great
delight of honest Norah, who had been left in entire charge of the
stately Winans' mansion, and had fretted herself almost to a shadow in
anticipation of losing her mistress by that "fatal yellow fever." Even
now Norah was hardly morally convinced that this were really she. But
as the days went by and the young lady's cheek began to gather color
and roundness again, and her soft, unwonted laugh to wake the sweeping
echoes of the large, silent house, Norah's doubts were displaced by
joyful certainty, and she began to hope that a happier life for the
young lady was presaged by her returning smile and lighter spirits.
Norah did not know that the hope springing softly in the wife's heart
had such sure foundation to build upon. Grace had withheld from her the
fact that General Winans was coming home in May, and Norah's secret
thoughts and misgivings on this subject were many.
Poor Norah had never forgiven herself for the loss of the little child
that had been left in its father's care to be so strangely spirited
away. She reproached herself always, in her sensitive soul feeling
herself entirely to blame, and humbly wondering sometimes how Mrs.
Winans could abide the sight of her, much less her daily personal
attendance; while Mrs. Winans herself, always just, gentle, and
considerate to her domestics as to others, never blamed her in the
least, really was fond of the honest creature, and in her sensitive
dread of new faces around, would not have consented to be deprived of
Norah. Indeed, her whole domestic staff had entered her service when
she came as a bride to Senator Winans' new and beautiful home, and were
likely to remain as long as they behaved passably well. She never drew
a tight rein on the poor creatures, following as nearly as she could,
in her daily life, the golden rule.
A charmingly affectionate billet from Mrs. Conway, the morning
succeeding their return to Ocean View, invited Grace to come out and
see them, as they were all in the deepest grief for the poor, dear
captain--Lulu, indeed, being excessively shocked and ill, with the
physician in close attendance.
The afternoon found Gracie springing from her phaeton at the gates of
Ocean View, where John, as of old, met her with an adoring smile on his
dark visage.
"And what is the news with you, John?" she asked, good-naturedly, as
she saw that some unusual news agitated his shallow brain. "What have
you been doing all this time with yourself?"
"Only jist gittin' married, Miss Grace," he responded, with a
glittering smile, "to jist the prettiest yaller gal ole mis' eber
owned! You 'members of Julie, de chambermaid?"
Grace supplemented her uncontrollable smile with a solid congratulation
in the shape of a bridal gift from her well-filled porte-monnaie, and
swept on to the house.
Mrs. Conway and her nephew met her in the hall, both unaffectedly glad
to see her, and in the midst of much whispering, they left Bruce below,
and went up to Lulu's chamber.
It was so dark in here that Grace, coming directly in from the May
sunshine, at first saw nothing; then, as the gloom cleared away a
little, she distinguished Mrs. Clendenon's black-robed form sitting
near the bed where Lulu lay, white, and still, and grief-stricken,
under the white draperies, with a tiny mite of a girl-baby (prematurely
hurried into the world by grief that oftenest hurries people out of it)
on her arm.
She stooped and kissed the quivering lips that tried to speak, but
could not; and, indeed, what could either say that breathed aught of
comfort to that shocked and distressed young spirit whose life hung
vibrant on a quivering thread? Silence was perhaps the best comforter
then, and Grace took the little newcomer in her arms, and gently
diverted the young mother's thoughts by tracing vague resemblances to
its handsome parents in the pink and infinitesimal morsel of life--and
what a power there is in a simple baby-life sometimes!
Lulu's pain was softened momentarily by this idle feminine chatter and
small talk so vigorously maintained, and her tears remained awhile
unwept in their fountains, while now and then a low whisper to her old
friend showed how welcome and appreciated was that visit.
"If baby lives," she murmured in an undertone to Grace, "we mean to
call it _Grace Willard_, for you--and--brother," with a falter over the
name. "I think he would have liked it so."
And Mrs. Winans has hard work to keep back her own tears at the
memories that flow while she holds Lulu's mite of a girl in her
arms--thronging memories of her own early days of motherhood--her
nestling baby-boy, her darling so rudely torn from her breast. She is
glad when the afternoon wanes and it is time to go for she cannot bear
to sit there smiling and outwardly content with that heavy, aching
heart.
"Gracie"--Lulu draws her down to whisper with pink lips against her
ear--"you may expect him--General Winans--at any hour. He gets into
Norfolk to-day. We traveled from Europe together, but he had to stop in
Washington on business, and gets here this evening, I think. Will you
be glad, dear?"
She cannot answer. Her heart is in a great whirl of painful feelings.
Her baby! She wants _her_ baby! The unhealed wound in the mother-heart
will not be satisfied thus. Lulu's motherhood has thrilled that aching
chord afresh; the years that have passed are but a dream, and she
longs to hold her rosy, laughing boy again to her tortured breast.
Mother-love never grows cold nor dead, mother-grief never can be healed
nor even seared. It "lives eternal" in the mother's breast, the most
exquisite joy, the most exquisite searching pain the human heart can
know.
"You are going to be so happy," Lulu whispers again in her loving
tone, "and, Gracie," with a fluttering sigh. "I have been so happy in
anticipating your happiness!"
Touched to the depths of her warm heart Grace bends to leave a tender
kiss on the pale brow, and promising to come again, goes out. Her
adieus are hastily made to the rest, and once more in the little pony
phaeton she skims over the miles between her and home. The bright roses
that blossom on her cheeks are sources of undisguised admiration to
Norah, who opines that Mrs. Winans ought to drive every evening.
"Never mind about that, Norah," she answers, indifferently; "only
please brush my curls over fresh, and give me a pretty white muslin
dress to wear this evening."
And Norah obeys in secret wonder at her mistress' suddenly-developed
vanity.
She is lovely enough to be vain when Norah turns her off her hands as
"finished." All that golden glory of ringlets ripples away from the
fair, pure brow enchantingly, sweeping to her dainty waist in a sweet
girlish fashion. A faint flush covers her cheeks, two stars burn in
the violet depths of her eyes, her lips are unwontedly tender and
sweet. The slim, perfect figure is draped in the misty folds of a snowy
muslin, whose loose sleeves falling open, leave bare her dimpled white
arms and hands. The low frill of misty lace leaves the white curve of
her throat exposed, with no other ornament than a tea-rose budding
against its lovely whiteness. So as lovely as one can fancy Eve, fresh
from the hands of her Creator, the beautiful, unhappy, wronged young
wife passed from her dressing-room and into that lovely shrine of her
garnered griefs that saw what the world saw not--the desolation of that
sensitive heart--the nursery of her loved, lost baby!