when occasion required, and Mr. Wade was, like all egregious stupidities, fond of hearing himself talk; and occasionally Miss Alsop would ask him to repeat some remark he had made, as if peculiarly struck with its acuteness, or its adaptation to her single-blessed-needs, upon which Mr. Wade would afterward pleasantly reflect, with the mental exclamation, “Sensible woman, that Miss Alsop!” Let it not be supposed that this depth of cunning was at all incompatible with obtuseness of intellect – not at all – there is no cunning like the cunning of a fool. Yes – Miss Alsop knew her man. She knew she could afford to bide her time; besides, were personal charms insufficient, had she not a most potent auxiliary in her bank-book, which placed to her spinster credit twenty thousand dollars in the “People’s Bank?”
CHAPTER VI
Mrs. Wade sat propped up in bed by pillows, for the nature of her disease rendered repose impossible; dreadful spasms – the forerunners of dissolution – at intervals convulsed her frame. Pale, but firm, the gentle Mary Hereford glided about her, now supporting the worn-out frame – now holding to her lips the cup meant for healing – now opening a door, or slightly raising a window, to facilitate the invalid’s labored breathing.
The fire had burned low in the grate, and when the gray light of morning stole in through the half open shutter, and the invalid would have replenished it, Mrs. Wade’s low whispered, “I shall not need it, Mary,” gave expression to the fearful certainty which her own heart had silently throbbed out through the long watches of that agonized night. Not a murmur escaped the sufferer’s lips – there was no request for the presence of the absent sleeper, who had promised “to cherish through sickness and health;” no mention was made of the children, who had been trustingly placed in the hands of Him who doeth all things well, and who wearily slumbered on, unconscious that the brightness of their childhood’s sky was fading out forever. The thin arms were wound around the neck of the first-born, about whom such happy hopes had once so thickly clustered, and peacefully as an infant drops asleep. Susan Wade closed her eyes forever; so peacefully that the daughter knew not the moment in which the desolate word – “motherless” – was written over against her name.
Motherless! – that in that little word should be compressed such weary weight of woe! It were sad to be written fatherless – but God and his ministering angels only know how dark this earth may be, when she who was never weary of us with all our frailties – she, to whom our very weaknesses clamored more loudly for love, lies careless of our tears.
“Henry!” said Mr. Wade to Mr. Hereford, “I had no idea, in fact – I didn’t think” – and the embarrassed man tried to rub open his still sleepy eyes – “I didn’t suppose, really, that Mrs. Wade would die yet; women are so notional, and that doctor seemed to be encouraging Mrs. Wade to be sick, as doctors always do – really I am quite taken by surprise, as one may say; I don’t know any thing about these things – I should like to have you do what is necessary. I suppose it will not be considered the thing for me to go to the store to-day,” and he looked for encouragement to do so in the face of his disgusted son-in-law.
“I should think not, decidedly,” said Mr. Hereford, dryly.
“Of course it would not be my wish,” said Mr. Wade, “when poor Susan lies dead; but one’s duty, you know, sometimes runs a different way from one’s inclination.”
And vice versâ, thought Henry, but he merely remarked that he would take any message for him to his place of business.
Mr. Wade could do no less than accept his offer, so, after eating his usual breakfast with his usual appetite, he paced up and down the parlor; got up and sat down; and looked out at the window, and tried in various ways to stifle certain uncomfortable feelings which began to disturb his digestion. It was uncomfortable – very. The awe-struck face of Betty as she stole in and out, the swollen eyes of the children, the pallid face of Mrs. Hereford, who was trying to give them the consolation she so much needed herself, and the heavy step of the undertaker over-head performing his repulsive office. And so the day wore away; and the form, that a child might have lifted, was laid in the coffin, and no trace of pain or sorrow lay upon the face upon which the death-angel had written Peace!
Why did he fear to look upon its placid sweetness? No reproach ever came from the living lips – did he fear it from the dead?
How still lay the once busy fingers! What a mockery seemed the usual signs and sounds of domestic life! How empty, purposeless, aimless, seemed life’s petty cares and needs. How chilling this total eclipse of light, and love, and warmth! Blessed they, who can ease their pained hearts by sobbing all this out to the listening ear of sympathy. But what if the great agony be pent up within the swelling heart till it is nigh bursting? What if it be pent up thus in the gushing heart of childhood? What if no father’s arms be outstretched to enfold the motherless? What if the paternal hand never rests lovingly on the bowed young head? What if the moistening eye must send back to its source the welling tear? What if the choking sob be an offense? What if childhood’s ark of refuge – mother’s room – echo back only its own restless footsteps? O, how many houses that present only to the careless eye, a blank surface of brick and mortar, are inscribed all over with the handwriting, legible only to those whose baptism has been – tears!
But why count over the tears of the orphans, why tell of their weary days and sleepless nights – of honest Betty’s home-spun attempts at consolation – of Mr. Wade’s repeated refusals of Mrs. Hereford’s invitation for them to spend that part of the day with her in which he was absent at his business? Why tell of the invisible web the cunning Miss Alsop was weaving? Why tell of her speedy success? Why tell of the soft-eyed dove transformed by Hymen to the vulture? Why tell of his astonishment, who prided himself upon his lynx-eyed and infallible penetration of the sex, at being forced to drain to the dregs that bitter cup he had held so unsparingly to the meek lips upon which death had set his seal of silence? Why tell of that pitiful old age, which, having garnered the chaff, and thrown away the wheat of a life-time, finds itself on the grave’s brink with no desire for repentance, clutching with palsied hands the treasure of which Death stands ready to rob it!
VISITING AND VISITORS
“When are you coming to spend the day with us?” asked a lady of my acquaintance of another. “Spend the day with you, my dear!” replied the latter; “I should be tired to death spending the day with you; maybe I’ll take tea with you sometime.”
I have often pleased myself imagining how the wheels of society would creak greased with such honesty as that! and yet how many, if they but dared to speak their real sentiments, would make a similar response. Now, I respect that old lady; she had made good use of her years; she probably knew what it was to talk at a mark for hours on the stretch, to some one-idea-d statue, who, with crossed hands and starched attitude, seemed remorselessly exacting of her weary tongue – Give – Give! She knew what it was to long for dinner to reprieve her aching jaws, or, at least, afford them a diversion of labor. She knew what it was to be gladder to see one’s husband home on such a day, than on any other day in the year; and she knew what it was to have those hopes dashed to earth by that inglorious sneak selfishly retreating behind his newspaper, instead of shouldering the conversation as he ought. She knew what it was to have the hour arrive for her afternoon nap (I won’t call it “siesta,”) instead of which, with leaden lids, and a great goneness of brain and diaphragm, she must still keep on ringing changes on the alphabet, for the edification of the monosyllabic statue, who – horror of horrors! – had “concluded to stay to tea.” She knew what it was in a fit of despair to present a book of engravings to the statue, and to hear that interesting functionary remark as she returned it, that “her eyes were weak.” She knew what it was to send in for a merry little chatterbox of a neighbor to relieve guard, and receive for answer, “that she had gone out of town!” She knew what it was to wish that she had forty babies up stairs, with forty pains under their aprons, if need be, that she might have an excuse for leaving
