Transcriber's Notes: Italics are indicated by _underscores_.
ALONE.
BY MARION HARLAND,
OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.
"Through long, long years, to seek, to strive, to yearn
For human love,--and never quench that thirst;
To pour the soul out winning no return--
O'er fragile idols, by delusions nursed,--
On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean,
To mourn the changed, the far-away, the dead,
To send our troubled spirits through the unseen
Intensely questioning for treasures fled."
HEMANS.
NINETEENTH THOUSAND.
NEW YORK:
J.C.DERBY, 119 NASSAU STREET.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & CO.
CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY.
1856.
ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
A. MORRIS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Eastern District of Virginia.
DEDICATION.
_To my Brother and Sister._
It is meet that those whose sympathy has been dew and sunshine to the
nursery plant, should watch over its transplantation into the public
garden. And as this Dedication is the only portion of the book which
is new to you, you do not require that it should remind you of the
welcome stormy evenings, when I laid down my pen, to read to you the
chapters written since our last "select party;" how the fictitious
names of my real characters were household words to our trio: and
your flattering interest--grateful because sincere--stimulated my
flagging spirits in the performance of my task. You know, too, what
many may not believe--with what misgivings it was entered upon, and
prosecuted; what fears of the licensed critic's ban, and the unlicensed
public's sneer;--above all, you comprehend the motive that held me to
the work--an earnest desire to contribute my mite for the promotion
of the happiness and usefulness of my kind. Coming as it does from my
heart--penned under the shadow of our home-altar, I cannot but feel
that the mission of my offering is to the hearts of others,--ask for
it no higher place than the fireside circle. Readers and judges like
yourselves, I may not, do not hope to find; but I trust there are
those who will pardon the lack of artistic skill in the plot, or the
deficiency of stirring incident, in consideration of the fact, that my
story is what it purports to be, a simple tale of life--common joy and
sorrow, whose merits, if it has any, consist in its truthfulness to
Nature, and the fervent spirit which animated its narration.
MARION HARLAND.
Richmond, 1854.
ALONE.
CHAPTER I.
The Sermon was over; the funeral psalm chanted brokenly, by reason
of quick-drawn sobs, and bursts of tender remembrance; the heart's
tribute to the memory of the departed. "The services will be concluded
at the grave," pronounced the clergyman in an unwilling voice; and
a shuddering awe fell, as it ever does, upon all. "The Grave!" Even
in the presence of the sheeted dead, listening to the rehearsal of
excellences lost to earth,--set as living stars in a firmament of
unchanging splendor;--we cannot comprehend the dread reality of
bereavement. Earth smiles the same; familiar faces surround us; and
if the absence of one is painfully noted, the soul would fain delude
itself with the belief that his departure is not forever;--"he is
not dead, but sleepeth." But "the Grave!" These two words convey an
irrevocable sentence. We feel for the first time the extent of the
gulf that separates us from the clay, beloved, although inanimate; the
dissevering of every bond of companionship. For us the earth has, as
before, its griefs, its joys and its duties;--for the dear one--but a
grave! The story of a life is ended there. The bearers advanced and
took up the coffin. They were no hired officials, performing their
work with ill-concealed indifference, or faces robed in borrowed
lugubriousness; but old family servants, who had sported with the
deceased in infancy; faithfully served her in later years, and had
now solicited and obtained this mournful privilege. Tears coursed
down their dusky cheeks as they lifted their burden and bore it forth
from the portal which seemed to grow darker, as she, the light of
the dwelling, quitted it, to return no more. They wound through the
flowery labyrinth whose mazes were her care and delight. The dews of
evening were beginning to descend upon the thirsting petals, and in
the breezeless air hung, in an almost visible cloud, the grateful
return of spicy and languishing odors. A tall rose tree drooped over
the path, and as the bearers brushed by its stem, a shower, like
perfumed snow-flakes, lay upon the pall. The end of the journey was
reached; a secluded and beautiful spot in the lower part of the garden,
where were many mounds clustered together--graves of a household. A
weeping willow, years before, a little shoot, planted by the hand of
the wife to mark her husband's resting-place, now grown into a stately
tree, swept its feathery pendants above her pillow. The cords were
lashed around the coffin, and the word given to lower it into the pit;
when--with a shriek that chilled the blood of the bystanders--a slight
figure darted forward, and clasped it in her arms. "Mother! oh mother!
come back!" Men of iron nerve bowed in childlike weakness, and wept,
as this desolate cry rent the air. She spoke not another word, but
lay, her cheek to the cold wood, enclosing the colder form, and her
fingers interlocked in a vice-like grasp. "Ida! my child!" said the
old minister, bending to raise her; "She is not here. She is with her
God. Can you wish her again upon this sinful earth?" His consolation
was addressed to an ear as dull as that of the corpse. In that outburst
of frenzied supplication, consciousness had left her. "It is best so!"
said the venerable man. "She could not have borne it else."
The ceremony was concluded--"dust to dust--ashes to ashes;"--and the
crowd turned sorrowfully away. It was not in pity for the orphan alone.
There were none there who could not recount some deed of love or
charity done by her, whom they had given to the earth. Since the deaths
of a fondly loved partner and three sweet children, Mrs. Ross had
sought balm for her wounds, by binding up those of others. Environed
by neighbours, whose position and means were more humble than her
own, she had ample exercise for her active benevolence;--benevolence
evincing itself,--not in studied graciousness and lavish almsgiving,
but in kindly sympathy, and those nameless offices of friendship, so
easily rendered, so dear to the recipient. "Her children shall rise
up and call her blessed," was the text of her funeral discourse,
and the pastor but uttered the feelings of his auditory, when he
called the community in which her blameless life had been passed,
her family--loving her, and through her, united together in bonds
of fraternal affection. In this genial clime, had Ida Ross been
nurtured;--beloved for her mother's sake, as for the warm impulses
of her generous nature; petted and indulged; yet obeying the least
expression of her parent's wishes, not in slavish fear, but a devotion
amounting to worship. She had no companions of her own age who were
her equals in education or refinement, and from intimate connection
with vulgarity she shrank instinctively. Her pride was not offensively
displayed. No one could live in the sphere of which Mrs. Ross was
the ruling power and feel aught like superciliousness or contempt of
inferiors. From infancy, Ida was her mother's companion; at an early
age her confidante and co-adviser; had read her pure heart as a richly
illuminated missal, from which self-examination and severe criticism
had expunged whatever could sully or disfigure. Can we marvel that she
shrined her in her heart of hearts as a being more than human--scarcely
less than divine?
That mysterious Providence who guides the fowler's messenger of death
to the breast of the parent bird, leaving the callow nestling to
perish with hunger, recalled the mother's spirit ere her labor of
love was completed. Ida was an orphan in her fifteenth year;--the age
of all others when a mother's counsels are needed;--when the child
stands tremblingly upon the threshold of girlhood, and looks with
wondering, wistful eyes into the rosy vista opened to her sight. Babes
in knowledge, nine girls out of ten are grown in heart at fifteen.
A stroke, whether of extraordinary joy or sorrow, will oftentimes
demolish the gew-gaws of the child, and reveal instead, the patient
endurance, the steady faith, the all-absorbing love of a woman. A
week had passed--a week devoted by the bereaved to thoughts of, and
weepings for the lost, by others to preparations for her residence
among strangers. Years might elapse before her return. That night, as
stealthily as though seeking a forbidden spot, she trod the path to
her mother's grave. It was clear starlight, and she sat down beside
the newly sodded mound, and rested her brow upon it. Cold--cold and
hard! but it entombed her mother;--aye! and _her_ heart! for what had
she to love now? There was no loving breast to receive that aching
head;--no solace for the wounded spirit. The dew-gems lay freshly upon
the grass;--for her the dewiness of life was gone;--earth was one vast
sepulchre. She looked up to the stars. In the summer evenings her
mother's chair used to stand in the piazza, and she sat at her feet,
her eyes fixed alternately upon her angelic face, and the shining
orbs above them. Mrs. Ross loved to think of them as the abodes of
the blest; the mansions prepared for those who had sojourned in this
sin-stained world and yet worn their white robes unblemished; and the
theory was confidently adopted by the imaginative child. She drank
in descriptions of the glories of those celestial regions until her
straining eyes seemed to catch a glimpse of a seraph's glittering
robe, and she leaned breathlessly forward to hear the music of his
golden harp. But to-night the sparkling smiles of those effulgent ones,
"forever singing as they shine," were changed to pitying regards as
they beheld her so sad and lonely;--the gleam of the seraph's wings was
dimmed; his far-off melody plaintive and low, and the burden of his
song was "alone." The wind waved the willow-boughs, and a whispering
ran through the leaves--"Alone--alone!" The words were so audibly
breathed that the girl started in her delirious sorrow, and gazed
wildly around. "Oh mother! cannot you leave Heaven for one short minute
to comfort your child? Who will love her now? Alone, all alone! mother!
_dear_ mother!"