If I thought any language of mine could do justice to her character, I
would try to describe my mother. Were I to _speak_ of her, my voice
would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over
my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of
which it is born.
I have said that we were poor,--but ours was not abject poverty,
hereditary poverty,--though _I_ had never known affluence, or even that
sufficiency which casts out the fear of want. I knew that my mother was
the child of wealth, and that she had been nurtured in elegance and
splendor. I inherited from her the most fastidious tastes, without the
means of gratifying them. I felt that I had a right to be wealthy, and
that misfortune alone had made my mother poor, had made her an alien
from her kindred and the scenes of her nativity. I felt a strange pride
in this conviction. Indeed there was a singular union of pride and
diffidence in my character, that kept me aloof from my young companions,
and closed up the avenues to the social joys of childhood.
My mother thought a school life would counteract the influence of her
own solitary habits and example. She did not wish me to be a hermit
child, and for this reason accepted the offer Mr. Regulus made through
the minister to become a pupil in the academy. She might have sent me to
the free schools in the neighborhood, but she did not wish me to form
associations incompatible with the refinement she had so carefully
cultivated in me. She might have continued to teach me at home, for she
was mistress of every accomplishment, but she thought the discipline of
an institution like this would give tone and firmness to my poetic and
dreaming mind. She wanted me to become practical,--she wanted to see the
bark growing and hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She
anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse
destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I
read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep
black eyes, whenever they rested on me. Those beautiful, mysterious
eyes!
There was a mystery about her that gave power to her excellence and
beauty. Through the twilight shades of her sorrowful loneliness, I could
trace only the dim outline of her past life. I was fatherless,--and
annihilation, as well as death, seemed the doom of him who had given me
being. I was forbidden to mention his name. No similitude of his
features, no token of his existence, cherished by love and hallowed by
reverence, invested him with the immortality of memory. It was as if he
had never been.
Thus mantled in mystery, his image assumed a sublimity and grandeur in
my imagination, dark and oppressive as night. I would sit and ponder
over his mystic attributes, till he seemed like those gods of mythology,
who, veiling their divinity in clouds, came down and wooed the daughters
of men. A being so lovely and good as my mother would never have loved a
common mortal. Perhaps he was some royal exile, who had found her in his
wanderings a beauteous flower, but dared not transplant her to the
garden of kings.
My mother little thought, when I sat in my simple calico dress, my
school-book open on my knees, conning my daily lessons, or seeming so to
do, what wild, absurd ideas were revelling in my brain. She little
thought how high the "aspiring blood" of mine mounted in that lowly,
woodland cottage.
I told her the history of my humiliation, passion, and flight,--of
Richard Clyde's brave defence and undaunted resolution,--of my sorrow on
his account,--of my shame and indignation on my own.
"My poor Gabriella!"
"You are not angry with me, my mother?"
"Angry! No, my child, it was a hard trial,--very hard for one so young.
I did not think Mr. Regulus capable of so much unkindness. He has
cancelled this day a debt of gratitude."
"My poor Gabriella," she again repeated, laying her delicate hand gently
on my head. "I fear you have a great deal to contend with in this rough
world. The flowers of poesy are sweet, but poverty is a barren soil, my
child. The dew that moistens it, is tears."
I felt a tear on my hand as she spoke. Child as I was, I thought that
tear more holy and precious than the dew of heaven. Flowers nurtured by
such moisture must be sweet.
"I will never write any more," I exclaimed, with desperate resolution.
"I will never more expose myself to ridicule and contempt."
"Write as you have hitherto done, for my gratification and your own.
Your simple strains have beguiled my lonely hours. But had I known your
purpose, I would have warned you of the consequences. The child who
attempts to soar above its companions is sure to be dragged down by the
hand of envy. Your teacher saw in your effusion an unpardonable effort
to rise above himself,--to diverge from the beaten track. You may have
indulged too much in the dreams of imagination. You may have neglected
your duties as a pupil. Lay your hand on your heart and ask it to
reply."
She spoke so calmly, so soothingly, so rationally, the fever of
imagination subsided. I saw the triumph of reason and principle in her
own self-control,--for, when I was describing the scene, her mild eye
flashed, and her pale cheek colored with an unwonted depth of hue. She
had to struggle with her own emotions, that she might subdue mine.
"May I ask him to pardon Richard Clyde, mother?"
"The act would become your gratitude, but I fear it would avail nothing.
If he has required submission of him, he will hardly accept yours as a
substitute."
"Must I ask him to forgive me? Must I return?"
I hung breathlessly on her reply.
"Wait till morning, my daughter. We shall both feel differently then. I
would not have you yield to the dictates of passion, neither would I
have you forfeit your self-respect. I must not rashly counsel."
"I would not let her go back at all," exclaimed a firm, decided voice.
"They ain't fit to hold the water to wash her hands."
"Peggy," said my mother, rebukingly, "you forget yourself."
"I always try to do that," she replied, while she placed on the table my
customary supper of bread and milk.
"Yes, indeed you do," answered my mother, gratefully,--"kind and
faithful friend. But humility becometh my child better than pride."
Peggy looked hard at my mother, with a mixture of reverence, pity, and
admiration in her clear, honest eye, then taking a coarse towel, she
rubbed a large silver spoon, till it shone brighter and brighter, and
laid it by the side of my bowl. She had first spread a white napkin
under it, to give my simple repast an appearance of neatness and
gentility. The bowl itself was white, with a wreath of roses round the
rim, both inside and out. Those rosy garlands had been for years the
delight of my eyes. I always hailed the appearance of the glowing
leaves, when the milky fluid sunk below them, with a fresh appreciation
of their beauty. They gave an added relish to the Arcadian meal. They
fed my love of the beautiful and the pure. That large, bright silver
spoon,--I was never weary of admiring that also. It was massive--it was
grand--and whispered a tale of former grandeur. Indeed, though the
furniture of our cottage was of the simplest, plainest kind, there were
many things indicative of an earlier state of luxury and elegance. My
mother always used a golden thimble,--she had a toilet case inlaid with
pearl, and many little articles appropriate only to wealth, and which
wealth only purchases. These were never displayed, but I had seen them,
and made them the corner-stones of many an airy castle.