Kitabı oku: «The Lights and Shadows of Real Life», sayfa 29

Her voice lost its steadiness, trembled a moment, and then she hid her face, in silence and in tears, upon his bosom.

As Wilmer had foreseen, the strength for further labour was gone for ever. He lingered about for a few weeks, and then took to his bed. And now came the time for the full trial of Mrs. Wilmer's mental and bodily strength.

Notwithstanding all her close application at the needle, the small sum that had been saved from former earnings, slowly, but steadily diminished. Daily she increased her exertions, and encroached further upon the hours of rest; but still there was a steady withdrawal of the hoarded treasure. At first, her confidence in the Divine Providence was measurably shaken; but soon the wavering needle of her faith turned steadily to its polar star. Her own health, never vigorous, began also to give way under the increased application which became necessary for the support of the beloved ones, now entirely dependent upon her labour for food and raiment. Her appetite, never very good, failed considerably, and consequently there was a withdrawal instead of an increase of strength. But none knew of her pain or weakness. Her pale face was ever a cheerful one, and her voice full of tenderness.

When the next spring opened, Wilmer was not only confined to the house, but unable to sit up, except for a few hours at a time through the day. His wife's health had suffered much, and all the hours she sat at her needle, were hours of painful endurance. Spring passed away, and summer came. But the milder airs had no kind effect upon the fast sinking frame of her husband. He was rapidly going down to the grave, his last hours embittered by the sight of his wife and children suffering before him.

During the month of August, Wilmer declined so fast, and needed such constant attention, that his wife could find but little time to devote to her needle. What she thus lost in the day-time, she had to make up, as far as possible, by encroaching upon the night hours, and often the lamp by her side would grow dim before the light of day, while she still bent in weariness and pain, over the work that was to give bread to her children.

For some months her work had been confined to one shop, the master of which was not always punctual in paying her the pittance she earned. Instead of handing her, whenever she called, the trifle due her, he made her procure a little book in which he would enter the work, promising to pay when it would amount to a certain sum. In anxious hope would Mrs. Wilmer wait until her earnings rose to the required amount; but not always then could she get her due; there would too frequently be a part payment, or a request to call in a day or two.

One day towards the first of September, she found that both food and money were out. She was just finishing a couple of vests for the clothing-shop, and there were more than three dollars due to her. While turning over in her own mind the hope that Mr.—would pay her the small sum due, when she carried in the work, and troubled the While with fears lest he should deny her, as he had often done before; her husband, whose bright eye had been upon her for some time, and whose countenance, unseen by her, had expressed an earnest, yet hesitating desire to ask for something, said—

"Constance, I don't know whether you are able to get them, but if you can, I should like, above all things, to have some grapes."

"Then you shall have some," Constance replied, earnestly and affectionately. "I am sure they will help you. Why did I not think of this for you long ago?"

Resuming her needle, she plied it with double swiftness, her heart trembling lest when she asked for her money at the shop, it should be refused her. At last the work was done and she carried it in. It was entered, and her book handed back to her. She paused a moment, then turned to go out, but she could not go home without some money. Hesitatingly she asked to have her due, but it was refused on some excuse of having a large payment to make on that very day. Again she turned to go, but again turned to ask for only a part of what was her own. One dollar was thrown her with an unkind remark. The first she seized with avidity, the last passed her ear unheeded.

How swiftly did she hurry home with her little treasure! more precious than a hundred times the sum had ever been before. It was to meet the first expressed want of her husband, to gratify which she would herself have abstained days from food.

The grapes were soon obtained, with some bread, and a small portion of meat, for the children. They proved very grateful and refreshing to Wilmer, who, soon after he had eaten a few of them, fell into a gentle sleep.

The food which Mrs. Wilmer had bought would last them probably about two days—not longer. Two months' rent would be due in a week, amounting to eight dollars. Their landlord had threatened to take some of their things to satisfy the last months' rent, and she had little hope of his being put off longer than the expiration of the two months. There were still two-and-a-half dollars due her by the keeper of the clothing-store, which she knew it would be almost as hard to get as to earn.

Not disposed, however, to sit down and brood over her difficulties, which only made them worse, she went to work in the best spirit possible to overcome them. She obtained more work, and bent herself again over her daily employment.

She was sitting with an aching head and troubled heart at her work on the next morning, having only sought a brief repose through the night, when a smart tap at the door roused her from her abstraction of mind.

"Does Mrs. Wilmer live here, ma'am?" asked a man.

"That is my name."

"Then I am directed to leave this basket,"—and the man deposited his burden on the floor, and was gone before another word could be spoken.

Mrs. Wilmer stood for a moment in mute surprise, and then removed the covering off the basket. It contained tea, coffee, sugar, rice, meat, bread, and various other articles of food; and also, a letter directed to "Constance Wilmer." She broke the seal with an anxious and trembling heart. It contained a fifty dollar note, and these brief words:—

"Put by your work—you are cared for—there is help coming, and now very nigh—be of good cheer!"

The coarse garment she still held in her hand, fell to the floor. Her fingers released themselves from it by an instinctive effort which she could not control. Her head reeled for a moment, and she sunk into a chair, overcome by a tumult of contending feelings. From this, she was aroused by the voice of her husband, who anxiously inquired the contents of the letter. He read it, and saw the enclosure, and the supply of food in the basket, and then clasped his hands and looked up with mute thankfulness to heaven. Mrs. Wilmer obeyed, with a confidence for which she could not account, the injunction of her stranger-friend, and almost hourly for the first day referred to the characters of the letter, which seemed familiar to her eye. That she had seen the writing before, she was certain; but where, or when, she could not tell.

Relieved from daily care and toil, she had more time to give to her sick husband. She found him nearer the grave than she had supposed.

Four days more passed away, and Wilmer had come down to the very brink of the dark river of death.

It was night. The two younger children were asleep, and the oldest boy, just in his tenth year, with his mother, stood anxiously over the low bed, upon which lay, gasping for breath, the dying husband and father. The widow, who cannot forget the dear image of her departed one; the orphan, who remembers the dying agony of a fond father, can realize in a great degree the sorrows which pressed upon the hearts of these lone watchers by the bed of death.

The last hours of Wilmer's life were hours of distinct consciousness.

"Constance," he whispered, in a low difficult whisper, while his bright eyes were fixed upon her face—"Constance, what will you do when I am gone? I am but a burden on you now; but my presence I feel is something."

His stricken-hearted wife could make no answer; but the tears rolled over her face in great drops, and fell fast upon the pillow of her dying husband.

"I cannot say, 'do not weep,'" continued Wilmer. "O that I could give a word of comfort! but your cup is full, running over, and I cannot dash it from your lips:—Dear Constance! you have been to me a wife and a mother. Let me feel your warm cheek once more against mine, for it is cold, very cold. Hark! did you not hear voices?" And he strained his eyes towards the door, half-lifting himself up.

For a few moments he looked eagerly for some one to enter, and then fell back upon the bed with a heavy sigh, murmuring to himself, in a low disappointed tone—

"I thought they were coming."

"Who, love?" asked Mrs. Wilmer, eagerly. But her husband did not seem to hear her question; but lay gasping for breath, the muscles of his neck and face distorted and giving to his countenance the ghastly expression of death.

"Who, love?—who were coming?" eagerly asked Mrs. Wilmer again, her own heart trembling with a recurrence of the vague hopes with which the mysterious letter and timely supply had inspired her,—hopes that had never been hinted to her husband. But it seemed that he had given the incident his own interpretation.

But he heeded not her question. For some time mother and son again stood over him, in troubled silence. Perhaps half an hour had passed since he had spoken, when a slight bustle was heard, on the steps below, and then feet were heard quickly ascending, and hastening along the passage towards their chamber door.

"They come! They come!" half-shrieked the dying man, springing up in the bed, and bending over towards the door, which was hastily flung open. His eyes glared upon the two persons, a man and woman, both well advanced in life, as they entered. That one anxious gaze was enough. Looking up into the face of Constance, against whose breast his head had sunk, his countenance changed into an expression of intense delight, and he whispered—

"They have come, Constance! they have come. Think of me as at rest and happy. I die in peace!"

His eye-lids closed naturally—there was no longer any convulsive play of the muscles, and as an infant sinking into slumber, so quietly did Theodore Wilmer sleep the sleep of death.

One month from that night of sorrow, the darkest one in the many gloomy seasons of Mrs. Wilmer's life, might have been seen this child of many afflictions, with her three little ones, at home in one of the most pleasant houses in the vicinity of New York. There was something sad and subdued in the expression of her pale face, but it was from the recollection of the past. Her mother, who ten years before had cast her off as unworthy, now gazed upon her with a look of the intensest affection; and the father, who had sworn never to call her his child, sat holding her thin white hand in his, and listening to her first recital of all she had passed through since she left the home of her childhood, while the tears fell from his eyes in large drops, upon the hand that lay within his own.

THE SISTERS

[THE following unadorned narrative, the reminiscence of a friend, I give as if related by him from whom I received it. He was, in early years, the apprentice of a tradesman, in whose family the principal incidents occurred. The picture presented is one of every-day life.]

MR. WILLIAMS, to whom, when a boy, I was apprenticed to learn the art and mystery by which he supported a pretty large family, was not rich, although, by industry and economy, he had gathered together a few thousand dollars, and owned, besides, two or three neat little houses, the aggregate annual rent of which was something like six hundred dollars. His wife, a weak-minded woman, however, considered him independent, in regard to wealth, and valued herself accordingly. Few held their heads higher, or trode the pavement with a statelier step than Mrs. Williams.

An elder sister, greatly her superior in every quality of mind, had been far less fortunate in her marriage. She was the wife of a man, who, instead of increasing his worldly goods, the fruit of some twenty years' prudence and industry, had become dissipated, and at the time now referred to, was sinking rapidly, and bearing his family, of course, down with him. All energy seemed lost, and though his family was steadily increasing, he grew more and more careless every day.

He spent much time in taverns, and wasted there a good deal of money, that his family needed. Mrs. Haller, his wife, was, as has been said, in intelligence and feeling, much the superior of Mrs. Williams, but appeared to little advantage in her peculiar situation. She was the elder sister, by four or five years. At the time of which I am now writing, Mrs. Haller had five children, two of them grown up, and the rest small. Her husband had become so indolent and sottish, that all her exertions were needed to keep her little flock from suffering with cold and hunger. No woman could have laboured more untiringly than she did, but it was labouring against a strong current that bore her little bark slowly, but surely backward. Here, then, are the two sisters; one, the elder, and superior in all the endowments of head and heart—the other with few claims to estimation other than those afforded by a competence of worldly goods. Let us view them a little closer. Perhaps we can read a lesson in their mutual conduct that will not soon be forgotten.

In earlier years, I have learned, that they were much attached to each other. In their father's house, they knew no cares, and when they married, which was within a few years of each other, their prospects were equal for future happiness. While this equality existed, their intercourse was uninterrupted and affectionate. But, as Mr. Haller began to neglect his family, the cloud that settled upon the brow of his poor wife was not pleasant for Mrs. Williams to look upon. Nor were the complaints that a full heart too often forced to the lips, at all agreeable to her ears. Naturally proud and selfish, these two feelings had been gaining strength with the progress of years, and were now so confirmed, that even towards an only sister in changed circumstances they remained in full activity.

When I first went to live with Mr. Williams, Mrs. Haller resided in a neatly furnished, small two-story brick house. Her husband had not then shown his vagabond propensities very distinctly, though he spent in his family, and otherwise, all that he earned each week, thus leaving nothing for a rainy day. He was a little in debt, too, but not so much as to make him feel uneasy. Mrs. Haller was anxious to lay up something, and to be getting ahead in the world, and was, consequently, always troubled because things never got any better. She came to our house every week, and Mr. Williams would visit her once in a month or two. Mrs. Haller often talked of her troubles to her sister, who used then to sympathize with her, and make many suggestions of means to gender things more accordant with her desires. As matters gradually grew worse in the progress of time, and Mrs. Haller began to make rather an indifferent appearance, the manner of her sister became evidently constrained and unsympathizing. She began to look upon her in the light of a "poor relation." Her children, cousins of course to Mrs. Williams's, were not treated encouragingly when they came to our house, and if company happened to be there, they were kept out of sight, or sent home. Mrs. Williams rarely visited Mrs. Haller—not so often as once in six months.

Long before the period of which I am now writing, Haller had become drunken and very lazy. Their comfortable house and furniture had been changed for poor rooms, with little in them, except what was barely necessary. The oldest child, a son, about nineteen years of age, on to whose maturity the mother had often looked with a lively hope, following the example of his father, had become idle and dissipated; spending most of his time in low taverns and gambling-shops. Here was a keen sorrow which no heart but a mother's can understand. Oh, what a darkening of all the dreams of early years! When a warm-hearted girl, looking into the pleasant future with a tremulous joy, she stood beside her chosen one at the altar, how little did she dream of the shadows and darkness that were to fall upon her path! And alas! how little does many a careless girl, who gives herself away, thoughtlessly, to a young man of unformed character, dream of the sorrow too deep for tears that awaits her. Surely this were anguish enough,—and surely it called for the sustaining sympathy of friends. But the friend of her early years, the sister in whose arms, in the days of innocent childhood, she had slept peacefully, now turned from her coldly, and even repulsively.

So unnatural and revolting seems the picture I am drawing, even in its dim outlines, that I turn from it myself, half-resolved to leave it unfinished. But many reasons, stronger than feeling, urge me to complete my task with the imperfect skill I possess, and I take the pencil which I had laid down in shame and disgust, and proceed to fill up more distinctly.

I had observed for some time the growing coolness of Mrs. Williams towards her unfortunate sister, and had noted more than once the deep dejection of Mrs. Haller's manner, whenever she went away from our house. She began to come less and less frequently, and her children at still more remote intervals. Things became desperate with her at length, and she came, forced by necessity, to seek a little aid and comfort in her sorrow from her once kind sister, and with the faint hope that some relief would be offered. I was sitting in the neatly furnished breakfast-room, one evening, a little after tea, reading a book, when Mrs Haller came in. She had on a dark calico dress, faded, but clean, a rusty shawl that had once been black, and a bonnet that Mrs. Williams's kitchen-servant would not have worn. My eye instinctively glanced to the face of Mrs. Williams as she entered; it had at once contracted into a cold and forbidding expression. She neither rose from her chair, nor asked Mrs. Haller to take one, greeting her only with a chilling "well, Sally." The latter naturally sought a chair, and waited silently, and surely with an aching heart, for a kinder manifestation of sisterly regard. I immediately left the room; but learned afterwards enough of the interview to make it distinct to the imagination of the reader.

The sisters sat silent for some moments, the one vainly trying to keep down the struggling anguish of a stricken heart, and the other, half-angry at the intrusion, endeavouring to fashion a form of greeting that should convey her real impressions, without being verbally committed. At length the latter said, half-kindly, half-repulsively:—

"Why, Sally, what has brought you so far from home, after dark?"

"Nothing very particular. Only I thought I would like to drop in a little while and see how you all did. Besides, little Thomas is sick, and I wanted to get a few herbs from you, as you always keep them."

"What kind of herbs do you want?"

"Only a few sprigs of balm, and some woodbitney."

"Kitty"—bawled out this unfeeling woman to the servant in the kitchen—"go up into the garret and bring me a handful of balm and woodbitney—and don't stay all night!"

"No, ma'am," said Kitty, thinking the last part of the order most requiring a reply.

A further pause of a few minutes ensued, when Mrs. Haller, after almost struggling to keep silence, at length ventured to say, sadly, and despondingly, that she should have to move again.

"And what, in the name of heaven, Sally, are you going to move again for? You can't be suited much better."

"Nor much worse, either, Mary. But John has paid no rent, and we can't stay any longer. The landlord has ordered us to leave by next Wednesday, or he will throw our few things into the street."

"Well, I declare, there is always something occurring with you to worry my mind. Why do you constantly harass me with your troubles? I have enough at home in my own family to perplex me, without being made to bear your burdens. I never trouble you with my grievances, or anybody else, and do not think it kind in you to make me feel bad every time you come here. I declare, I grow nervous whenever I see you!"

Poor Mrs. Haller, already bending beneath her burden, found this adding a weight that made it past calm endurance, and she burst into tears, and sobbed aloud. But not the slightest impression did this exhibition of sorrow make upon Mrs. Williams. She even reproached her with unbecoming weakness.

Although her sister had before shown indifference and great coolness, yet never had she spoken thus unkindly. In a few moments Mrs. Haller regained her calmness, and with it came back some of her former pride of feeling. For a moment she sat with her eyes cast upon the floor, endeavouring to keep down her struggling emotions; in the next she rose up, and looking her sister fixedly in the face, read her this impressive lesson.

"Mary, I could not have dreamed of such harshness from you! I have thought you cold and indifferent, long; but I tried hard to believe that you were not unkind. I have never come to see you in the last three years, that I did not go away sad in spirit. There was something in your manner that seemed to say that you thought my presence irksome, and as you were the only friend I had to speak to about my wearying cares and anxieties, it grieved me more than I can tell to think that that only friend was growing cold—and that friend a sister! As things have become worse with me, your manner has grown colder, and now you have spoken out distinctly, and destroyed the little resting place I sometimes sought when wearied to faintness. Mary, may God who has afflicted me, grant you a happier lot in the future! May you never know the anguish of one who sees a once idolized husband become a brute—her children growing up worthless under the dreadful example of their father, and all often wanting food to sustain nature! You have everything you desire. I have not the necessaries of life. We were born of the same mother, and nursed at the same bosom. We played together in childhood,—once I saved your life. And now, because our ways are different; yours even and flowery, and mine rough and thorny, you turn from me, as from an importunate beggar. Mary, we shall meet our father and mother at the bar of God!"

Thus saying, Mrs. Haller turned slowly away, and left the house before her sister, who was startled at this unexpected appeal, could sufficiently collect her senses to reply. Her real errand, or, rather, her principal errand to the house of Mrs. Williams, had been to ask for some food for her children. It was many weeks since her husband had contributed a single dollar towards the daily family expenses, and all the burden of their support devolved upon the wife and mother. Night and day, in pain, and exhaustion of body and mind, had she toiled to get food for those who looked up to her, but all her efforts were inadequate. Like thousands of others, when a girl, she had acquired an education that was more ornamental than useful. The consequence was, that she had no ready means of earning money. The wants of a family of children, had, it is true, given her some skill with her needle, but not of a kind that would enable her to earn much by sewing.

She did, however, at first try what she could do by working for the cheap clothing-stores. But twelve-and-a-half cents a pair for pantaloons, ten cents for vests, and eight cents for shirts, yielded so little, that she was driven to something else. That something else was the washtub; over which, and the ironing-table, she toiled early and late, often ready to sink to the floor from exhaustion.

Of this, she said nothing to Mrs. Williams, who would have been terribly mortified at the idea of her sister, taking in washing for a support. The labour of one pair of hands in the wash-tub, was, however, unequal to the task of providing food for seven mouths, even of a very poor quality. Consequently, Mrs. Haller found the wants of her family pressing, every day, harder and harder upon the slender means by which they were supplied. Often, when she carried home her work, there was no food in the house, and often did she work half the night, so as to be able to take her clothes home early on the next day, and get the money she had earned to meet that day's wants.

Among those for whom she washed and ironed, was a woman in good circumstances, who never paid her anything until she asked for it, and then the money came with an air of reluctance. Of course, she applied to her for her hard earnings, only when pressed by necessity. On the morning before the interview with her sister, just detailed, Mrs. Haller found herself nearly out of everything, and with not a cent in the world. The woman just alluded to, owed her two dollars, and she had nearly completed another week's washing for her, which would make the amount due her two dollars and a half. At dinner-time, every mouthful of food, and that a scanty portion, was consumed, and there would be nothing for supper, or breakfast, on the next morning, unless Mrs. Hamil should pay her. It was nearly night when she finished ironing the last piece. Hurriedly putting on her things, after sending two of her children with the clothes in a basket, she joined them as they were about entering the dwelling of Mrs. Hamil.

Her heart beat, audibly to her own ear, as she went in, and asked to see the woman for whom she had been labouring. Although, heretofore, whenever she had asked for her money, she had received it, sometimes with reluctance, it is true, yet her extremity being now so great, she trembled lest, from some cause, she should not be able to get the pittance due her.

For a few moments she sat in the kitchen hesitating to ask for Mrs. Hamil, after the clothes had been given to the servant. When she did do so, she was told that she was engaged and could not be seen.

"Ask her, then, for me, if you please," she said, "to send me a dollar. I want it very much."

The servant went up and delivered her message, and in a few moments came back with the answer, that Mrs. Hamil was engaged, and could not attend to such matters;—that she could step in on the next day, and get her money.

The words fell coldly upon her feelings, and oppressed her with a faint sickness. Then she got up slowly from her chair, hesitated a moment, took one or two steps towards the door, and then pausing, said to the servant,

"Go up and tell Mrs. Hamil, that I am sorry to trouble her, but that I want the money very much, and that if she will send it down to me, she will confer a very great favour, indeed."

"I had rather not," the servant replied. "She didn't appear pleased at my going up the first time. And I am sure she will be less pleased if I go again."

"But you do not know how much I am in want of this money, Jane—" and the poor woman's voice quivered.

"Well, Mrs. Haller, I will try again," the kind-hearted girl said, "but I can't promise to be successful. Mrs. Hamil is very queer sometimes."

In a few minutes Jane returned with a positive refusal. Mrs. Hamil couldn't and wouldn't be troubled in that way.

In a state of half-conscious, dreamy wretchedness, did Mrs. Haller turn her steps slowly homewards. The shadows of evening were falling thickly around, adding a deeper gloom to her feelings.

"O, mother! I'm glad you've come. I'm so hungry!" cried one of her little ones, springing to her side as she entered. "Won't we have supper soon, now?"

This was too much for her, and she sank exhausted and almost fainting into a chair. Tears soon brought temporary relief to an overburdened heart. Then she soothed her hungry little ones as well as she could, promising them a good supper before they went to bed.

"But why can't we have it now?" urged one, more impatient, or more hungry, than the rest.

"Because mother hasn't got any good bread for little Henry—" she replied—"But she will have some soon. So all be good children, and wait until mother goes out and gets some bread and meat, and then we will all have a nice supper."

After quieting the importunities of her children in this way, and soothing little Thomas, who was sick and fretful, Mrs. Haller again left them, and bent her steps, with a reluctant spirit, towards the comfortable dwelling of her sister, nearly a mile away from where she lived. The interview with that sister has already been given.

When she turned away, as has been seen, empty-handed, from the door of that sister, it was with feelings that few can imagine. It seemed to her as if she were forsaken both of earth and heaven. How she got home, she hardly knew, but when she entered that cheerless place she found her poor sick child, for whom she had no money to buy medicine, burning with fever, and crying bitterly. Her brutal husband was snoring on the bed the smaller children quarrelling among themselves, and her oldest boy, half-intoxicated, leaning over the back of a chair, and swinging his body backward and forward in the (sic) idiotcy of drunkenness. As she entered, the children crowded round her, asking fretfully for their suppers; but nothing had she to give them, for she had come away empty-handed and repulsed from the door of her affluent sister, to whose dwelling she had gone solely to ask for some food for her children! In the momentary energy of despair she roused her husband rudely from the bed, and bade him, in an excited tone, to go and get some bread for the children: The brute, angered by her words and manner, struck her a blow upon the head, which brought her senseless to the floor.

An hour at least passed before she recovered her senses; when she opened her eyes, she found herself on a bed, her sister sitting by her side, weeping, and Mr. Williams standing over her. Her husband was not there, some of the children were crying about the room, and others had fallen asleep on the floor. The oldest boy was sitting in the position before-mentioned. Brief explanations were made, and Mrs. Williams offered a faint apology for her harsh treatment. The appeal of her sister had touched her feelings, and she had proposed to Mr. Williams to go over and see her. On entering her dwelling they found her senseless on the floor, and the children screaming around her. The husband was not there.