Books: Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them

T >> T.S. Arthur >> Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them

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An engagement took place in a few months after their acquaintance
commenced. It was shortly afterwards that the conversation detailed
in the opening of our story commenced, from which it will appear
that Charles had not yet ventured to inform his mother of the choice
he had made. Knowing the strength of her peculiar prejudices, he had
every thing to fear, as far as opposition was concerned. The fact
that Ellen appeared so anxious to obtain her favour made him less
willing to risk the consequences of informing his mother that he had
made his choice of a wife. He knew she would oppose a marriage most
strenuously. What the effect of such opposition upon Ellen would be,
it would be impossible to tell;--it might, he feared, lead her to
decline his offer. For this reason, he urged an immediate union; and
wished it to take place without his parent's knowledge. Ellen
opposed this earnestly, but was finally induced to yield. They were
married, and started the next morning to visit Mrs. Linden. Two days
before, Charles had written to inform his mother of what had taken
place, and of his intended return home, on a short visit, with his
bride.

"My dear mother," a portion of his letter read, "I know you will be
grieved, and, I fear, offended at what I have done; but wait only
for a day or two, until you see my Ellen--your Ellen, let me
say--and you will be grieved and angry no longer. She will love you
as only an unselfish child can love a mother; and you will love her
the moment you see her. I have talked to her from the first about
you, and she has already so pure an affection for you, that she is
longing to see you and throw herself upon your bosom. Oh! let me beg
of you to receive her in the spirit with which she is coming to you.
Be to her a mother, as she wishes to be to you a child."

It was not without many misgivings at heart that Charles Linden set
out to visit his mother. These could not be felt without their
effects being perceived by Ellen, who was tremblingly anxious about
her reception. Her spirits became in consequence depressed, and more
than once Charles found tears stealing from beneath her half-closed
eyelids. He understood well the cause, and strove, but vainly, to
assure her that all would be as her heart could wish.

It was nearly nightfall when the carriage that conveyed them from
the steamboat landing drew up before the elegant residence of Mrs.
Linden. Charles hurried in with his bride in a tumult of anxiety. A
servant was sent up to announce his arrival. Five minutes passed,
and they still sat alone in the parlour--Charles deeply agitated,
and Ellen looking pale and frightened.

"What can keep her so long?" the young man had just said, in a husky
whisper, when the door opened and his mother entered with a slow,
dignified step, her face calm, but severe, and her tall person drawn
up to its full height. Charles started forward, but the instantly
raised hand and forbidding aspect of his mother restrained him.

"Don't come near me," said she, coldly--"you have done that for
which I never shall forgive you. Go at once from my presence, with
the mean-spirited creature who has dared to suppose that I would
acknowledge as my daughter one who has corrupted and robbed me of my
son. Go! We are mother and son no longer. I dissolve the tie. Go!"

And the mother, whose assumed calmness had given way to a highly
excited manner, waved her hand imperatively towards the door.

Ellen, who had started up at the moment Mrs. Linden appeared, now
came forward, and, throwing herself at her feet, clasped her hands
together, and lifted her sweet pale face and tearful eyes. For an
instant the mother's face grew dark with passion; then she made a
movement as if she were about to spurn the supplicant indignantly,
when Charles sprang before her, and lifting Ellen in his arms, bore
her from the house, and placed her half fainting in the carriage
that still stood at the door. A hurried direction was given to the
driver, who mounted his box and drove off to a hotel, where they
passed the night, and, on the next morning, returned home to the
city they had left on the previous day.

It was long before a smile lighted the countenance of the young
bride. In silence she upbraided herself for having been the cause of
estranging from each other mother and son.

"It was wrong," she said, in a sad tone, when, after the passage of
a month, the subject was conversed about between them with more than
usual calmness. "You should, first of all, have written to your
mother, and asked her consent."

"But I knew she would not give it. I knew her peculiar prejudices
too well. My only hope was the impression your dear face would make
upon her. I was sure that for her to see you would be to love you.
But I was mistaken."

"Alas! too sadly mistaken. We have made her unhappy through life.
Oh! how that thought distresses me."

"She deserves all the unhappiness she may feel. For me, I do not
pity her." Charles Linden said this with a good deal of bitterness.

"Oh! Charles--do not speak so--do not feel so. She is your mother,
and you acted against what you knew to be one of her strongest
prejudices," Ellen said earnestly. "I do not feel angry with her.
When I think of her, it is with grief, that she is unhappy. The time
may yet come--pray heaven it come quickly!--when she will feel
differently toward one whose heart she does not know--when she will
love me as a mother."

"She does not deserve the love of one like you," was the bitterly
spoken reply.

"Ah, Charles! why will you speak so? It is not right."

"I can no more help it than I can help feeling and thinking, Ellen.
I am indignant, and I must express my feelings. What a poor
substitute is birth, or family connexion, or standing in society for
a mother to offer to her son, in the place of a pure heart that can
love fervently. If I had yielded to dictation on this subject, I
would long ago have been the unhappy husband of a vain, selfish,
proud creature, whom I never could have loved. No--no--Ellen. I
cannot help being angry, if I may so speak, at the thought of such
unjust, such unwise assumption of the prerogative in a parent. It is
God who joins together in orderly marriage--not man; and when man
attempts to assume the place of God in this matter, his work is
evil. I would give my child, were I a parent, all the light, all the
intelligence in my power to give him, and then let him choose for
himself. To do more, would be, in my opinion, a sin against God,
and, as such, I would shun it with horror."

In time, the deep affliction of mind which Ellen had experienced
subsided. She felt the injustice of Mrs. Linden's conduct, and,
though she had no indignant nor unkind feeling toward her, she
thought of her without an emotion of filial regard. Year after year
went by, and, as no notice whatever was taken of Charles and his
wife by Mrs. Linden, they did not again venture near her, nor take
any pains to conciliate her favour. Her treatment of Ellen had so
outraged her son, that he tried to forget that he had a mother; for
he could not think of her without a bitterness which he did not wish
to feel. The only means of knowing what took place at home was
through his sister, between whom and himself had always existed a
warm affection. She wrote to him frequently, and he as well as his
wife wrote to her often. Their letters to her were, at her request,
sent under cover to a friend, to prevent the unpleasant consequences
that would ensue, should the proud, overbearing mother become aware
of the correspondence.

From his sister, who had something of his own independence of
feeling, Charles learned, that his brother William, at his mother's
instance, was about to marry Antoinette Billings. And, also, that an
application had been made to the legislature to have his name
changed to Beauchamp, his mother's family name. As an inducement for
him to gratify her pride in this thing, Mrs. Linden had promised
William, that, on the very day that the legislature granted the
petition, she should transfer to him the whole amount of her
property, with the exception of about twenty thousand dollars.
Subsequently, Charles learned that the name of his brother had been
changed; that the marriage had taken place; and that his mother had
relinquished all her property, with a small reservation, into the
hands of her son. All this took place within three years after his
marriage.

The next intelligence was of an attempt being made to force
Florence, his sister, into a marriage most repugnant to her
feelings. This aroused his indignation afresh. He wrote to her
strongly, and conjured her by every high and holy consideration not
to permit the sacrifice to take place. Florence possessed too much
of the same spirit that he did to yield tamely in a matter like
this. His frequent letters strengthened her to resist all the
attempts of her mother and brother to induce her to yield to their
mercenary wishes. Finding that she was firm, a system of
persecution, in the hope of forcing her to an assent, was commenced
against her. As soon as Charles learned this, he went immediately to
P--, and saw Florence at the home of a mutual friend. He had
little difficulty in persuading her to return home with him. Neither
her mother nor William showed her any real affection, and they were
both plotting against her happiness for life. On the other hand,
there had always been between her and Charles a deep attachment. She
not only loved him, but confided in him. She had never seen his
wife; but Charles had written so much about her, and Ellen's letters
had pictured a mind so gentle, so good, that Florence loved her only
less than she loved her brother. And there was another there to
love, of whom she had heard much--a fair-haired girl named Florence.
Is it a subject of wonder that she fled from her mother, to find a
paradise in comparison to what she had left, in the home of Charles
and his pure-hearted companion? We think not.

The meeting between her and Ellen was one in which both their hearts
overflowed--in which affections mingled--in which two loving spirits
became united in bonds that nothing could break.

We turn, now, to the disappointed Mrs. Linden. Knowing that to
inform her mother of the step she had resolved to take would do no
good, but only cause her to endure a storm of passion, Florence left
home without the slightest intimation of her purpose.

Mrs. Linden, in settling upon her son William her whole estate, with
the small reservation before mentioned, gave up to him the splendid
mansion in which she lived, with its costly furniture--and the
entire control of it, as a matter that followed of course, to his
young wife. Many months had not passed, before doubts of the
propriety of what she had done began to creep into the mind of Mrs.
Linden. Her pride of family had been gratified--but already had her
pride of independence been assailed. It was plain that she was not
now of as much importance in the eyes of her son as before. As to
Antoinette, the more she came intimately in contact with her, the
less she liked her. She found little in her that she could love. The
scheme of marrying Florence to a young man of "one of the first
families" (the only recommendation he had) was heartily entered into
by this worthy trio, and while there was a prospect of its
accomplishment, they drew together with much appearance of harmony.

The end united them. But after Florence had broken away from the
toils they had been throwing around her, and they became satisfied
from the strong independent letters which she sent home, that all
hope of bending her to their wishes was at an end, the true
character of each began to show itself more fully.

Mrs. Linden had an imperious will. She had always exercised over her
children a rigid control, at the same time that in their earlier
years she had won their affections. The freedom of mature years, and
the sense of individual responsibility which it brings, caused all
of them to rebel against the continued exercise of parental
domination. In the case of Charles and Florence, the effect was a
broad separation. William had sinister ends to gain in yielding a
passive obedience to his mother's will. When the bulk of her
property was transferred to him, those ends were gained, and he felt
no longer disposed to suffer any encroachment upon his freedom. In
one act of obedience he had fulfilled all obligations of filial
duty, and was not disposed to trouble himself further. He had
consented to give up his father's name, and to marry a woman for
whom he had no affection, to please his mother and get an estate.
The estate set off against these balanced the account; and now,
there being nothing more to gain, he had nothing more to yield.
When, therefore, after the design of marrying Florence to a man of
"good family" had failed, the first effort on the part of his mother
to exercise control over him was met in a very decided way. His
wife, likewise, showed a disposition to make her keep in her own
place. She was mistress in the house now, and she let it be clearly
seen. It was not long before the mother's eyes were fully open to
the folly she had committed. But true sight had come too late.
Reflection on the ungratefulness of her children aroused her
indignation, instead of subduing her feelings. An open rupture
ensued, and then came a separation. Mrs. Linden left the house of
her son--but a short time before it was her own house--and took
lodgings in the family of an old friend, with a heart full of
bitterness toward her children. In Antoinette she had been miserably
disappointed. A weak, vain, passionate, selfish creature, she had
shown not the slightest regard for Mrs. Linden, but had exhibited
toward her a most unamiable temper.

When it was communicated to Antoinette by her husband that his
mother had left them, she tossed her head and said--"I'm glad to
hear it."

"No, you must not say that," was William's reply, with an effort to
look serious and offended.

"And why not? It's the truth. She has made herself as disagreeable
as she could, ever since we were married, and I would be a hypocrite
to say that I was not glad to be rid of her."

"She is my mother, and you must not speak so about her," returned
William, now feeling really offended.

"How will you help it, pray?" was the stinging reply. And the
ill-tempered creature looked at her husband with a curl of the lip.

Muttering a curse, he turned from her and left the house. The rage
of a husband who is only restrained by the fear of disgrace from
striking his wife, is impotent. His only resource is to fly from the
object of indignation. So felt and acted William Beauchamp. A mere
wordy contention with his wife, experience had already proved to
him, would be an inglorious one.

Fearing, from his knowledge of his brother's character and
disposition, a result, sooner or later, like that which had taken
place, Charles Linden, although he had no correspondence with any of
his family, had the most accurate information from a friend of all
that transpired at P--.

One evening, on coming home from business and joining his wife and
sister, between whom love had grown into a strong uniting bond, he
said--"I have rather painful news from P--."

"What is it?" was asked by both Ellen and Florence, with anxious
concern on both their faces.

"Mother has separated herself from William and his wife."

"What I have been expecting to hear almost every day," Florence
replied. "Antoinette has never treated mother as if she had the
slightest regard for her. As to love, she has but one object upon
which to lavish it--that is herself. She cares no more for William
than she does for mother, and is only bound to him by external
consideration. But where has mother gone?"

"To the house of Mrs. R---."

"An old friend?"

"Yes. But she must be very unhappy."

"Miserable." And tears came to the eyes of Ellen.

"In the end, it will no doubt be best for her, Florence," said the
brother. "She will suffer acutely, but her false views of life, let
us hope, will be corrected, and then we shall have it in our power
to make her last days the best and happiest of her life."

"Oh, how gladly will I join in that work!" Mrs. Linden said, with a
glow of pure enthusiasm on her face. "Write to her, dear husband, at
once, and tell her that our home shall be her home, and that we will
love her with an unwavering love."

"Not yet, dear," returned Charles Linden, in a voice scarcely
audible from emotion, turning to Ellen and regarding her a moment
with a look of loving approval. "Not yet; the time for that will
come, but it is not now. My mother's heart is full of haughty pride,
and she would spurn, indignantly, any overtures we might make."

Much conversation passed as to what should be their future conduct
in regard to the mother. Ellen was anxious to make advances at once,
but the husband and his sister, who knew Mrs. Linden much better
than she did, objected.

"Time will indicate what is right for us to do," her husband said.
"Let us keep our hearts willing, and we shall have the opportunity
to act before many years pass by."

"Years?" said Ellen, in an earnest, doubting voice.

"It may be only months, dear, and yet it may be years. It takes time
to break a haughty will, to humble a proud heart; but you shall yet
see the day when my mother will love you for yourself alone."

"Heaven grant that it may come soon!" was the fervent response.

Many months passed away, and yet the mother and son remained as
before--unreconciled. He had kept himself accurately informed in
regard to her--that is, accurately informed as it was possible for
him to be. During that time, she had never been seen abroad. Those
who had met her, represented her as being greatly changed; all the
softness of character that had been assumed in her intercourse with
the world had been laid aside; she was silent, cold, and stern to
all who met her.

Deeply did this intelligence afflict Charles, and he yearned to draw
near to his mother; but he feared to do so, lest, in her haughty
pride, she should throw him off again, and thus render a
reconciliation still more difficult, if not impossible.

While in this state of doubt, affairs assumed a new feature. Charles
received a letter from a friend, stating that the banking
institution, in the stocks of which his mother's entire property was
invested, had failed, and that she was penniless.

"O Charles, go to her at once!" was the exclamation of Ellen, the
moment her husband read to her the intelligence. "It is time now;
all else has failed her."

"I do not know," he said, doubtingly. "This circumstance will make
William sensible of his duty; he will, no doubt, restore her a part
of the property received from her hands. This is the least he can
do."

Florence differed with her brother. She did not believe that either
William or his wife would regard their mother in any way; both were
too selfish and too unforgiving. Much was said all around, but no
clear course of action was perceived.

"I'll tell you what you can do," spoke up Mrs. Linden, her eyes
sparkling. A thought had flashed over her mind.

"What is it, Ellen?" asked her husband.

"You can send her, under a blank envelope, a thousand dollars or
more, and thus keep her above the bitter feeling of dependence. More
can be sent when more is required."

"True! true!" was the husband's quick reply. "And I will do it."

When the news of the failure of the bank in which the little remnant
of her property was contained reached the ears of Mrs. Linden, her
spirits sank. Pride had kept her up before; but now her haughty
self-dependence, her indignation, her bitterness of feeling toward
her children, gave way, and, in conscious weakness, she bowed her
head and prayed for oblivion. She felt deserted by all; but
indignation at this desertion was not the feeling that ruled in her
heart; she felt weak, lonely, and powerless. From a high position,
which she had held with imperious pride, she had fallen almost
suddenly into obscurity, desertion, and dependence. A week passed,
and she began to think of her children; none of them had yet come
near her, or inquired for her. The thoughts of William and his
heartless wife caused old feelings of indignation to awaken and
burn; but when the image of Charles and Florence came up before her
mind, her eyes were ready to overflow. It was now that she
remembered, with changed emotions, the cruel manner in which she had
spurned Charles and the wife of his bosom. A sigh struggled up from
her heart, and she leaned down her face upon the table before which
she was sitting. Just at this time, a small sealed package was
handed to her. She broke it open carelessly; but its contents made
her heart bound, coming as they did just at that crisis. Under cover
was a bank-bill amounting to one thousand dollars, and this
memorandum--"It is yours."

Quickly turning to the direction, she read it over two or three
times before satisfying herself that there was no mistake. Then she
examined the writing within and without closely, in order to
ascertain, if possible, from whom the timely aid had come, but
without arriving at any certain conclusion.

This incident caused a new train of thoughts to pass through the
mind of Mrs. Linden. It brought before her, she could not tell why,
the image of her son Charles with greater distinctness than ever;
and with that came thoughts of his wife, and regret that she had
thrown her off with such cruel anger. Acute pain of mind succeeded
to this. She saw more clearly her own position in that act, and felt
deeply the wrong she had committed.

"I will write to my son at once and ask his forgiveness, and that of
his wife, whom I have wronged," she said, with a suddenly formed
resolution. But pride rushed up instantly.

"No, no," it objected; "not now. You should have done this before:
it is too late; they will not believe you sincere."

A painful conflict ensued, which continued with increasing violence
until, in consequence of prolonged mental excitement, a slow nervous
fever took hold of Mrs. Linden's physical system, and in a short
time reduced her to a very critical state. Intelligence of this was
conveyed to her son William, but, for some cause or other, neither
himself nor wife visited her. At the end of a week she was so low as
to be considered in great danger; she, no longer recognised the
person of her attendant, or appeared to be conscious of what was
passing around her.

A letter from a friend, through whom he was kept informed of all
that occurred to her, apprized Charles Linden of his mother's
critical situation.

"Florence," said he to his sister, in reading the letter to her and
his wife, "I think you and I should go to P--immediately. You can
be mother's nurse until she recovers, and then it may not be hard to
reconcile all that is past."

Ellen looked earnestly in the face of her husband; something was on
her tongue, but she appeared to hesitate about giving it utterance.

"Does not that meet your approval?" asked Charles.

"Why may not I be the nurse?" was asked in hesitating tones.

"You!" said Charles, in a voice of surprise. "That should be the
duty of Florence."

"And my privilege," returned Ellen, speaking more firmly.

"What good would be the result?"

"Great good, I trust. Let me go and be the angel to her
sick-chamber. She is too ill to notice any one; she will not,
therefore, perceive that a stranger is ministering to her. As she
begins to recover, and I have an inward assurance that she will, I
will bestow upon her the most assiduous attentions. I will inspire
her heart with grateful affection for one whom she knows not; and
when she asks for my name, I will conceal it until the right moment,
and then throw myself at her feet and call her mother. Oh! let it be
my task to watch in her sick-chamber."

Neither Charles nor his sister said one word in opposition. On the
next day, they all started for P--. Charles Linden went with his
excellent wife to the house where his mother was residing with an
old friend, and opened to this friend their wishes. She readily
entered into their plans, and Ellen was at once constituted nurse.

For the first two days, there were but few encouraging symptoms.
Mrs. Linden was in a very critical situation. At the end of a week,
the fever abated, leaving the patient as helpless as an infant, and
with scarcely more consciousness of external things. During this
time, Ellen attended her with some of the feeling with which a
mother watches over her babe. Gradually the life-current in the
veins of the sick woman became fuller and stronger. Gradually her
mind acquired the power of acting through the external senses. Ellen
perceived this. Now had come the ardently hoped-for time. With a
noiseless step, with a voice low and tender, with hands that did
their office almost caressingly, she anticipated and met every want
of the invalid.

As light began again to dawn upon the mind of Mrs. Linden, she could
not but notice the sweet-faced, gentle, assiduous stranger who had
become her nurse. Her first feeling was one of gratitude, blended
with affection. Never before had any one been so devoted to her;
never before had any one appeared to regard her with such a real
wish to do her good.

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