HOPING AGAINST HOPE.
’Tis hard, so young—so young as I am still,
To feel forevermore from life depart
All that can flatter the poor human will,
Or fill the heart.
Yet there was nothing in that sweet and brief.
And perished intercourse, now closed to me,
To add one thought unto my bitterest grief
Upbraiding thee. —OWEN MEREDITH.
It would be too painful to follow the young and deeply wronged wife
through the first weeks of her great trouble.
They were passed in paroxysms of vehement and inconsolable sorrow,
alternating with periods of dull stupor, partly the result of reaction
from high excitement, and partly the influence of the nervine sedative
administered by her nurse.
The course pursued by this woman in the treatment of her young patient
was upon the whole very judicious. She did not lecture her on the
subject of her inordinate abandonment to grief and despair. But she
artfully drew her attention away from the contemplation of her troubles,
to the consideration of those last and most important preparations for
the arrival of the little expected stranger, in which mothers and nurses
usually find such absorbing interest.
She amused the youthful matron with certain necessary alterations in the
arrangements of her chamber, with fitting up of an adjoining room as a
nursery, with the decorating and furnishing of an infant’s basket, and a
berceaunette or wicker cradle, and with the arranging of the liliputian
wardrobe in a beautiful miniature bureau.
In these natural and pleasing occupations, Drusilla found some relief
from her heavy sorrow.
The late October weather was glorious with all the gorgeous splendor of
the Indian summer, glowing through the heavens and the earth, and
kindling up the foliage around the wildwood home with a beauty and
refulgence of color, richer and brighter than those of spring or summer.
With the advice of the nurse, Drusilla every morning took a short drive
through the woods, and every afternoon a slow saunter into the flower
garden.
Under happier auspices, this child of nature would have derived much
enjoyment from the season and the scene. Even in her misery she felt
something of their soothing and cheering influence.
And the beneficial effect of this course was soon apparent in her. Her
paroxysms of grief became less frequent and violent. Her nerves grew
calmer, and her brain clearer. With this healthy reaction came
reflection. She thought upon the fixed past, the troubled present, and
the doubtful future.
She now exonerated Alexander of all blame in his cruel neglect of her.
He thought, she mused, that their marriage was illegal, and therefore he
was just in his avoidance of her. He knew that the separation would go
near to kill her, and therefore he was merciful in gently loosening the
tie, instead of suddenly wrenching it apart. He felt that loving and
tender letters would but melt and weaken her heart, and therefore he was
wise in writing shortly and coldly. No doubt he suffered—poor Alick! as
much as she did, though he would not add to her distress by telling her
so. He had loved her so much! so much! and now he was heroic in his
self-restraint for her sake! So she justified him to her own heart. For
to honor him was with her even a greater necessity than to love him.
But she wondered that he did not tell her the reason why he thought his
marriage with her was illegal. And more than all she wondered what that
untold reason could be. Her conjectures wandered over every possible and
impossible theory of the case:
First, that Alexander while at college, or while in Europe, had
contracted a secret marriage; that when he wedded her he believed
himself a widower; and that he had recently discovered the existence of
his first wife. But this theory was no sooner conceived than rejected;
for she remembered that he had been solemnly betrothed to his Cousin
Anna from her earliest youth, and that upon his return from Europe he
had been about to marry her, when the wedding was arrested by the death
of his father.
Secondly, that this very pre-contract to Anna Lyon, might have rendered
his marriage with her (Drusilla) illegal. But this was also set aside as
unreasonable, for she recollected that the contract had been broken by
Miss Lyon, as he himself had assured his bride.
Thirdly, that Alexander had discovered some very near blood relationship
between himself and his wife that made their union unlawful. But this
was at once repudiated as quite impossible, for she knew his genealogy,
as well as her own, could be too distinctly and too far traced to admit
of such an idea.
So imagination traversed the whole field of possibility and
impossibility, and found nothing to invalidate her marriage.
Then she came to this conclusion: (and in it her instinct sided with her
reason)—that there never had existed any sort of impediment to her union
with her husband, and her marriage was perfectly lawful and righteous.
And _now_ did she blame him?
Oh no! she ascribed his whole conduct to——
MONOMANIA!
And when she found this answer to her inexplicable riddle, she could
have sung and danced for joy!
Her marriage was not illegal; it was only private. And her adored
husband was not faithless; he was only mistaken.
She had been told of monomania—she had heard how men might be a little
insane for a time upon one single subject, while perfectly sane upon all
others. She knew also that this was not a dangerous type of madness, but
was often only the transient effects of fever, passing off with
returning health. She wondered whether he had been ill.
Under this view of the case, she resolved to write to him. True, he had
forbidden her to do so; and even assured her it would be useless for her
to write, as he was about to leave Richmond for a tour through the
counties.
But she reflected he must have left directions at the Richmond
post-office to have his letters forwarded to him wherever he should be,
and her letter directed to Richmond would be sent after him with the
rest of his correspondents’.
So she sat down and wrote him a letter—patient, loving, pitiful, and
even cheerful; gravely reasoning with him upon the fallacy of his idea
that their marriage could possibly be unlawful; playfully inviting him
to return that she might convince him how very righteous and legal their
union was; then tenderly pleading with him to come and be with her in
her approaching hour of trial and danger. She said no word, dropped no
hint of the bitter anguish his letter had inflicted upon her, of how
nearly her brain had been crazed, her heart broken, and her life lost in
despair. Nothing that could possibly distress him did she write; but all
she could think of to convince, comfort and cheer him. And she prayed
Heaven to bless him; and she signed herself his true wife, for time and
for eternity.
When she had sent off this letter, which she did early on a splendid
morning of the last days of Indian summer, she felt so hopeful and so
light-hearted, that she longed for a pleasant gossip with some one. So
she rang for her old nurse.
“Well, honey! gracious knows it does me good to see you so chirping!”
said the old woman, dropping cozily into a soft, low chair by the fire.
“Nurse,” said Drusilla, cautiously approaching the subject that now
occupied her thoughts—for she was determined to keep her husband’s name
out of the question—“nurse, in all your professional experience did you
ever encounter monomaniacs?”
“’Count—_which_, honey? ‘Many money knacks?’ What’s that? tricks to make
money? No, child, I can’t say as I ever did.”
“I meant to ask,” said Drusilla, smiling, “if in all your tending of the
sick in these many years you ever met with anybody who was mad on one
subject only and sane on all others.”
“Cracked in one place? Yes, child, many and many a one.”
“Tell me about them.”
“There was young Rowse Jordan—I mean young Mr. Rowsby Jordan. He had
typhoid fever, and after he got well for ever so long he fancyfied
himself to be a coffee-pot and sat roosted upon the top of the table
with one arm curved around for a handle and the other stuck out straight
for a spout.”
“How long did the hallucination last?”
“The—hally—which, honey?”
“Tut! How long did he fancy himself a tea-pot?”
“Coffee-pot, honey—it was coffee-pot.—Oh, for days and days.”
“Did he get quite well again?”
“Oh yes, honey, and laughs now at his mad notion, for he ’members all
about it.”
“Tell me some more.”
“Well, there was a lady patient of my own who would have it her legs was
made of glass, and she kept them propped up against the wall behind the
bed and wouldn’t let anybody come near for fear of breaking of ’em.”
“Was her head right on other things?”
“As right as yours or mine.”
“And she got over it?”
“Yes, when she got well.”
“Nurse, tell me—When a person is mad upon one subject, it is no sign
that his mind is unsound, is it?”
“When his brain pan is cracked in one place, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, honey, if a bowl leaks anywheres you can’t call it whole, can you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Well, then, no more can’t you call a man’s brain pan sound if it’s
cracked ever so little,” argued the old woman.
“But they get over it. You have proved to me that they get over it,”
said Drusilla, anxiously.
“Oh yes, they get over it. Bowls and brain pans both may be mended.”
“Nurse, such a monomania is only a temporary affair, like the delirium
of fever, is it not? It leaves no after ill effects upon the mind, does
it?” she eagerly inquired.
Mammy, who did not quite understand the question, but perceived that her
patient was, for some reason or other unknown to her, troubled upon this
subject, hastened to soothe her by replying:
“Lors, no, indeed, honey—not the leastest bit in the world. ’Taint
nothink, honey, only somethink to laugh at when it’s all over.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that,” said Drusilla, with a sigh of relief.
“And now, honey, if you’ll scuse me, I’ll go down in the kitchen and see
arter the chicking jelly for your dinner. I know as how that gal, Pina
’ll spile it if I leaves it to her.”
“Very well, nurse, go.”
“And I ’vises of you, ma’am, to put on your hat and go for a walk in the
garden. It’s right to go out and joy these fine days, which few of ’em
will be left for this season, and if there was you wouldn’t be likely to
get the good of ’em.”
“Thanks, nurse, I think I will take your advice.”
And mammy went down to her fancy cooking.
And mammy’s young patient put on her hat and cloak, caught up a little
hand-basket and went out and took a turn in the garden among the broad
parterres of gorgeous autumn flowers that studded the spacious lawn in
front of the house. She amused herself with carefully gathering the
falling seed and tying up each sort in a separate paper, and putting it
in her little basket, for future use.