WAITING FOR THE MORNING.
All night long Marguerite Gosner lay by her mother’s side, with that
precious paper folded close to her heart. She did not sleep, though the
last two days had been full of excitement and fatigue; but her wild,
bright eyes were wide open, looking through the darkness, and picturing
there a scene of exceeding joy that would come to them upon the morrow.
How often during that night did she steal her hand under the pillow, and
draw forth the ivory crucifix hidden there, that her lips, all quivering
with thankfulness, might kiss it in blessing of the Holy Mother for the
great happiness that filled her heart. Yet all this was done so quietly
that the woman by her side thought the girl asleep, and scarcely dared
to draw an irregular breath lest she might disturb her. Thus the morning
found both mother and child so restless with happiness, that it amounted
almost to pain.
“What if they would not give him up,” thought the poor woman, who had
been so often thrust back from her hope, that nothing good ever seemed
quite sure to her; “or he may be taken suddenly ill and unable to move.
The king might be persuaded to retract his mercy—she had heard of such
things.”
Thus the poor woman, who had been so long inured to suffering that she
did not know how to be happy, tormented herself through that long, long
night; but when the day broke and Marguerite’s eyes looked into hers all
this changed. Her heart leaped toward the hope held out to it. She
reached forth her arms, and drawing the young girl to her bosom with an
intensity of affection never known to her before, cried out,
“To-day, this very day, we shall see your father, so good, so learned,
so wonderfully beautiful! Ah, Marguerite, my child! I almost feel his
last kiss on my lips, my forehead, my hair. You were clinging to me, one
arm about my neck, the other reaching forth to him. ‘Only a few days,’
he said, ‘and I may come back covered with honors. The King of France
has sent for me—Louis has learned that Gosner is wise, that he has a
knowledge of wonderful things. Perhaps, my wife, we may yet lay up
honors and riches for our little one.’ Then in this beautiful hope he
would come back and embrace us again. I was weeping, for a strange,
black presentiment of evil crept over me; but you sent kisses after him,
fluttering that little hand in the air like a butterfly. He waved his
hand in adieu; I saw him through my blinding tears; I watched him
depart. His voice sounded like a knell through my whole being; the
sorrows of an eternal parting fell upon me. Then I felt your arms around
my neck, and the soft pressure of your lips on my face; your tiny hands,
soft and white as rose-leaves brushed away my tears. Oh! how I loved
you, how I do love you—_his_ child, his child and mine.”
She threw her arms around the girl in a passion of love; then she pushed
the young creature away, and looked down in her face with a wild
consciousness of the great change that had fallen upon her. Beautiful as
the face was, it seemed to fill her with infinite regret.
“But his child is gone,” she cried out; “this is a woman who holds up
her arms and tries to comfort me. Gosner will not know her; he will not
know me. This child is the creature I was when he left us, young,
beautiful, delicate. In her he may recognize the woman he loved; but in
me what will he find, lines of sorrow where he left dimples, golden hair
turned to ashes, which long years of suffering strews upon the head.
Alas, alas! this is not all joy; these cruel people have dug a gulf
between us since I was like you, my child. When we meet, the young man
and that girlish wife will have disappeared forever. A man and a woman
will clasp hands, broken down with sorrow, each carrying a weight of
years that cruelty has rendered a dead blank. The king has pardoned him,
the queen has smiled on you; but is there in all their royalty power
enough to take back the awful wrong that has been done to us?”
Marguerite trembled and grew pale in her mother’s arms. Never, since her
first remembrance, had she seen that look of wild excitement on her
face, or heard that thrill of agony in her voice. And this was the
morning that should have been so resplendent in their lives. What did it
mean? Was it possible that the woman who had suffered so long and
struggled so bravely was lost to all sense of enjoyment? Had sorrow
absolutely killed hope in her bosom?
“But, mamma, you would both have grown older even if this great calamity
had not fallen upon you,” said the young girl, striving to reassure her
mother.
“Yes; but not here, not here,” cried Madame Gosner, pressing a hand upon
her heart. “Ah! this is terrible—we shall meet and not know each other.
We shall look into each other’s eyes and see nothing there but wondering
sorrow.”
“But there will be love also,” murmured the girl.
“Love? Yes, but never again the old love; regret, compassion, that
infinite tenderness which springs out of infinite sorrow will be ours;
but the darkness of the past will forever cast its shadows upon us.”
“Not so, mamma. We will leave this terrible country; back in your own
home, you and my poor father will yet find that life has its sunshine.”
“But this is my own native land.”
“I know it, mamma; but it has only given you sorrow.”
“And what have I given it? Nothing but the selfishness of my grief.”
“What else had you to give? Alas! what else?”
“My life, my energies, every thought of my brain, every pulse of my
heart; but I was selfish—one idea filled my existence. In my love for
him all other duties, all other wrongs merged themselves. I was a wife,
and could not be a patriot.”
“God be thanked that it is so!” said Marguerite. “The woman who loves
her husband and her home best is a patriot in spite of herself, for she
gives strength and power to the man whose duty it is to govern.”
Madame Gosner kissed the lips that uttered this noble truth, and lay
back upon her pillow silent and thoughtful. Then she murmured to
herself, “He will know, he will decide.”
Marguerite was also silent, the words uttered so passionately by her
mother troubled her. Did she, indeed, think with so much regret of the
country they were in? Could that overbalance the gratitude for the royal
clemency? Could she accept this noble act of pardon with a feeling of
revolt in her mind?
“Henceforth,” said Marguerite, with gentle firmness, “it will be our
duty to pray for the King and Queen of France, to live for them, die for
them, if need be.”
The mother was silent; to her this obligation of eternal gratitude was a
question of sacrifice. In her heart she loved France; but her life in
Paris had gradually uprooted all love of royalty there. To save her own
life she would not have asked mercy at the hands of a Bourbon king; to
save her husband she had done more, sunk upon her knees at the roadside,
only to be covered with mud by the royal cavalcade as it swept by her.
She remembered, though her daughter did not, that the pardon had been
granted as a reward for services rendered to the queen, not from an
absolute sense of justice. With all the passions and prejudices of a
Jacobin strong in her bosom, it was hard for this woman to accept simple
obligations of gratitude from a king she had learned to hate, and a
queen slander and misrepresentation had taught her to despise.
All this passed while the gray dawn was breaking, and after a night of
utter sleeplessness; but when the sunshine came, warm and golden, into
the windows, the woman arose in her bed, held out her arms to the light,
and thanked God for the blessed day, which was to give back her husband
from his living tomb! Then a feeling of intense gratitude possessed her.
She flung aside the dark thoughts that had haunted her soul in the
night, and was once more pure, womanly. All that she asked, was, that
_he_ might share her life in any peaceful place that promised safety and
shelter for the coming age which would soon be upon them.
Marguerite saw the change, and it completed her happiness. To her
gratitude had been prompt and natural as rain is to the earth. Heart and
soul she was devoted to the royal couple of France. Next to her mother,
and the father she expected to see, at perfect liberty, that day, her
thoughts were given to the two persons who had been so good and kind to
her.
The sun was scarcely up when these two persons were ready for the
summons which they expected from Monsieur Jacques. The remnants of a
poor wardrobe were brought forth and arranged by Marguerite so deftly
that an air of youth and refinement was imparted to the mother, which
gave back something of her lost loveliness. Never had that girl’s face
looked so bright; never had the eyes danced with such living joy; those
slender fingers absolutely seemed to be doing fairy-work with the
ravages of time.