Books: The Home Mission
T >>
T.S. Arthur >> The Home Mission
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12
"James, I will thank you, another time, when we are spending an
evening out, not to suggest as publicly as you did to-night that it
is time to go home. It's very bad manners, let me tell you, in the
first place; and in the second place, I don't like it at all. I do
not wish people to think that I have to come and go just at your
beck or nod. I was about starting when you spoke to me, but sat an
hour longer just on purpose."
The mind of Canning, already fretted, was set on fire by this.
"You did?" he said.
"Yes, I did. And I can tell you, once for all, that I wish this to
be the last time you speak to me as you did to-night."
It was as much as the impatient spirit of Canning could do to keep
from replying--
"It's the last time I will ever speak to you at all," and then
leaving her in the street, with the intention of never seeing her
again. But suddenly he thought of Lilly, and the presence of the
child in his mind kept back the mad words from his lips. Not one
syllable did he utter during their walk home, although his wife said
much to irritate rather than soothe him. Nor did a sentence pass his
lips that night.
At the breakfast table on the next morning, the husband and wife
were coldly polite to each other. When the meal was completed,
Canning retired to his office, and his wife sought her chamber to
weep. The latter half repented of what she had done, but her
contrition was not hearty enough to prompt to a confession of her
fault. The fact that she considered her husband to blame, stood in
the way of this.
Reserve and coldness marked the intercourse of the unhappy couple
for several weeks; and then the clouds began to break, and there
were occasional glimpses of sunshine.
But, before there was a clear sky, some trifling occurrence put them
again at variance. From this time, unhappily, one circumstance after
another transpired to fret them with each other, and to separate,
rather than unite them. Daily, Canning grew more cold and reserved,
and his wife met him in a like uncompromising spirit. Even their
lovely child--their darling blue-eyed Lilly--with her sweet little
voice and smiling face, could not soften their hearts toward each
other.
To add fuel to this rapidly enkindling fire of discord, was the fact
that Mrs. Canning was on particularly intimate terms with the wife
of a man toward whom her husband entertained a settled and
well-grounded dislike, and visited her more frequently than she did
any one of her friends. He did not interfere with her in the matter,
but it annoyed him to hear her speak, occasionally, of meeting Mr.
Richards at his house, and repeating the polite language he used to
her, when he detested the character of Richards, and had not spoken
to him for more than a year.
One day Mrs. Canning expressed a wish to go in the evening to a
party.
"It will be impossible for me to go to-night, or, indeed, this
week," Canning said. "I am engaged in a very important case, which
will come up for trial on Friday, and it will take all my time
properly to prepare for it. I shall be engaged every evening, and
perhaps late every night."
Mrs. Canning looked disappointed, and said she thought he might
spare her one evening.
"You know I would do so, Margaret, with pleasure," he replied, "but
the case is one involving too much to be endangered by any
consideration. Next week we will go to a party."
When Canning came home to tea, he found his wife dressed to go out.
"I'm going to the party, for all you can't go with me," said she.
"Indeed! With whom are you going?"
"Mrs. Richards came in to see me after dinner, when I told her how
much disappointed I was about not being able to go to the party
to-night. She said that she and her husband were going, and that it
would give them great pleasure to call for me. Am I not fortunate?"
"But you are not going with Mr. and Mrs. Richards?"
"Indeed I am! Why not?"
"Margaret! You must not go."
"Must not, indeed! You speak in quite a tone of authority, Mr.
Canning;" and the wife drew herself up haughtily.
"Authority, or no authority, Margaret"--Canning now spoke calmly,
but his lips were pale--"I will never consent that my wife shall be
seen in a public assembly with Richards. You know my opinion of the
man."
"I know you are prejudiced against him, though I believe unjustly."
"Madness!" exclaimed Canning, thrown off his guard. "And this from
you?"
"I don't see that you have any cause for getting into a passion, Mr.
Canning," said his wife, with provoking coolness. "And, I must say,
that you interfere with my freedom rather more than a husband has
any right to do. But, to cut this matter short, let me tell you,
once for all, that I am going to the assembly to-night with Mr. and
Mrs. Richards. Having promised to do so, I mean to keep my promise."
"Margaret, I positively forbid your going!" said Canning, in much
excitement.
"I deny your right to command me! In consenting to become your wife,
I did not make myself your slave; although it is clear from this,
and other things that have occurred since our marriage, that you
consider me as occupying that position."
"Then it is your intention to go with this man?" said Canning, again
speaking in a calm but deep voice.
"Certainly it is."
"Very well. I will not make any threat of what I will do, Margaret.
But this I can assure you, that lightly as you may think of this
matter, if persevered in, it will cause you more sorrow than you
have ever known. Go! Go against my wish--against my command, if you
will have it so--and when you feel the consequence, lay the blame
upon no one but yourself. And now let me say to you, Margaret, that
your conduct as a wife has tended rather to estrange your husband's
heart from you than to win his love. I say this now, because I may
not have--"
"James! It is folly for you to talk to me after that fashion,"
exclaimed Margaret, breaking in upon him. "I--"
But before she could finish the sentence, Canning had left the room,
closing the door hard after him.
Just an hour from this time, Mr. and Mrs. Richards called in their
carriage for Mrs. Canning, who went with them to the assembly. An
hour was a long period for reflection, and ought to have afforded
sufficient time for the wife of Canning to come to a wiser
determination than that from which she acted.
Not half a dozen revolutions of the carriage wheels had been made,
however, before Margaret repented of what she had done. But it was
now too late. The pleasure of the entertainment passed before her,
but it found no response in her breast. She saw little but the pale,
compressed lip and knit brow of her husband, and heard little but
his word of disapproval. Oh! how she did long for the confused
pageant that was moving before her, and the discordant mingling of
voices and instruments, to pass away, that she might return and tell
him that she repented of all that she had done.
At last the assembly broke up, and she was free to go back again to
the home that had not, alas! proved as pleasant a spot to her as her
imagination had once pictured it.
"And that it has not been so," she murmured to herself, "he has not
been all to blame."
On being left at the door, Mrs. Canning rang the bell impatiently.
As soon as admitted, she flew up stairs to meet her husband,
intending to confess her error, and beg him earnestly to forgive her
for having acted so directly in opposition to his wishes. But she
did not find him in the chamber. Throwing off her bonnet and shawl,
she went down into the parlours, but found all dark there.
"Where is Mr. Canning?" she asked of a servant.
"He went away about ten o'clock, and has not returned yet," was
replied.
This intelligence caused Mrs. Canning to lean hard on the
stair-railing for support. She felt in an instant weak almost as an
infant.
Without further question, she went back to her chamber, and looked
about fearfully on bureaus and tables for a letter addressed to her
in her husband's handwriting. But nothing of this met her eye. Then
she sat down to await her husband's return. But she waited long.
Daylight found her an anxious watcher; he was still away.
The anguish of mind experienced during that unhappy night, it would
be vain for us to attempt to picture. In the morning, on descending
to the parlour, she found on one of the pier-tables a letter bearing
her name. She broke the seal tremblingly. It did not contain many
words, but they fell upon her heart with an icy coldness.
"MARGARET: Your conduct to-night has decided me to separate myself
from a woman who I feel neither truly loves nor respects me. The
issue which I have for some time dreaded has come. It is better for
us to part than to live in open discord. I shall arrange every thing
for your comfortable support, and then leave the city, perhaps for
ever. You need not tell our child that her father lives. I would
rather she would think him dead than at variance with her mother.
'JAMES CANNING.'"
These were the words. Their effect was paralyzing. Mrs. Canning had
presence of mind enough to crush the fatal letter into her bosom,
and strength enough to take her back to her chamber. When there, she
sunk powerless upon her bed, and remained throughout the day too
weak in both body and mind to rise or think. She could do little
else but feel.
Five years from the day of that unhappy separation, we find Mrs.
Canning in the unobtrusive home of Aunt Hannah, who took the almost
heart-broken wife into the bosom of her own family, after the
passage of nearly a year had made her almost hopeless of ever seeing
him again. No one knew where he was. Only once did Margaret hear
from him, and that was on the third day after he had parted from
her, when he appeared in the court-room, and made a most powerful
argument in favour of the client whose important case had prevented
his going with his wife to the assembly. After that he disappeared,
and no one could tell aught of him. A liberal annuity had been
settled upon his wife, and the necessary papers to enable her to
claim it transmitted to her under a blank envelope.
Five years had changed Margaret sadly. The high-spirited, blooming,
happy woman, was now a meek, quiet, pale-faced sufferer. Lilly had
grown finely, all unconscious of her mother's suffering, and was a
very beautiful child. She attracted the notice of everyone.
"Aunt Hannah," said Margaret, one day after this long, long period
of suffering, "I have what you will call a strange idea in my mind.
It has been visiting me for weeks, and now I feel much inclined to
act from its dictates. You know that Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are going
to Paris next month. Ever since Mrs. Edwards mentioned it to me, I
have felt a desire to go with them. I don't know why, but so it is.
I think it would do me good to go to Paris and spend a few months
there. When a young girl, I always had a great desire to see London
and Paris; and this desire is again in my mind."
"I would go, then," said Aunt Hannah, who thought favourably of any
thing likely to divert the mind of her niece from the brooding
melancholy in which it was shrouded.
To Paris Mrs. Canning went, accompanied by her little daughter, who
was the favourite of every one on board the steamer in which they
sailed. In this gray city, however, she did not attain as much
relief of mind as she had anticipated. She found it almost
impossible to take interest in any thing, and soon began to long for
the time to come when she could go back to the home and heart of her
good Aunt Hannah. The greatest pleasure she took was in going with
Lilly to the Gardens of the Tuileries, and amid the crowd there to
feel alone with nature in some of her most beautiful aspects. Lilly
was always delighted to get there, and never failed to bring
something in her pocket for the pure white swans that floated so
gracefully in the marble basin into which the water dashed cool and
sparkling from beautiful fountains.
One day, while the child was playing at a short distance from her
mother, a man seated beside a bronze statue, over which drooped a
large orange tree, fixed his eyes upon her admiringly, as hundreds
of others had done. Presently she came up and stood close to him,
looking up into the face of the statue. The man said something to
her in French, but Lilly only smiled and shook her head.
"What is your name, dear?" he then said in English.
"Lilly," replied the child.
A quick change passed over the man's face. With much more interest
in his voice, he said--
"Where do you live? In London?"
"Oh no, sir; I live in America."
"What is your name besides Lilly?"
"Lilly Canning, sir."
The man now became strongly agitated. But he contended vigorously
with his feelings.
"Where is your mother, dear?" he asked, taking her hand as he spoke,
and gently pressing it between his own.
"She is here, sir," returned Lilly, looking inquiringly into the
man's face.
"Here!"
"Yes, sir. We come here every day."
"Where is your mother now?"
"Just on the other side of the fountain. You can't see her for the
lime-tree."
"Is your father here, also?" continued the man.
"No, I don't know where my father is." "Is he dead?" "No, sir;
mother says he is not dead, and that she hopes he will come home
soon. Oh! I wish he would come home. We would all love him so!"
The man rose up quickly, and turning from the child, walked
hurriedly away. Lilly looked after him for a moment or two, and then
ran back to her mother.
On the next day Lilly saw the same man sitting under the bronze
statue. He beckoned to her, and she went to him.
"How long have you been in Paris, dear?" he asked.
"A good many weeks," she replied.
"Are you going to stay much longer?"
"I don't know. But mother wants to go home."
"Do you like to live in Paris?"
"No, sir. I would rather live at home with mother and Aunt Hannah."
"You live with Aunt Hannah, then?"
"Yes, sir. Do you know Aunt Hannah?" and the child looked up
wonderingly into the man's face.
"I used to know her," he replied.
Just then Lilly heard her mother calling her, and she started and
ran away in the direction from which the voice came. The man's face
grew slightly pale, and he was evidently much agitated. As he had
done on the evening previous, he rose up hastily and walked away.
But in a short time he returned, and appeared to be carefully
looking about for some one. At length he caught sight of Lilly's
mother. She was sitting with her eyes upon the ground, the child
leaning upon her, and looking into her face, which he saw was thin
and pale, and overspread with a hue of sadness. Only for a few
moments did he thus gaze upon her, and then he turned and walked
hurriedly from the garden.
Mrs. Canning sat alone with her child that evening, in the
handsomely-furnished apartments she had hired on arriving in Paris.
"He told you that he knew Aunt Hannah?" she said, rousing up from a
state of deep thought.
"Yes, ma. He said he used to know her."
"I wonder"--
A servant opened the door, and said that a gentleman wished to see
Mrs. Canning.
"Tell him to walk in," the mother of Lilly had just power to say. In
breathless suspense she waited for the space of a few seconds, when
the man who had spoken to Lilly in the Gardens of the Tuileries
entered and closed the door after him.
Mrs. Canning raised her eyes to his face. It was her husband! She
did not cry out nor spring forward. She had not the power to do
either.
"That's him now, mother!" exclaimed Lilly.
"It's your father!" said Mrs. Canning, in a deeply breathed whisper.
The child sprung toward him with a quick bound and was instantly
clasped in his arms.
"Lilly, dear Lilly!" he sobbed, pressing his lips upon her brow and
cheeks. "Yes! I am your father!"
The wife and mother sat motionless and tearless with her eyes fixed
upon the face of her husband. After a few passionate embraces,
Canning drew the child's arms from about his neck, and setting her
down upon the floor, advanced slowly toward his wife. Her eyes were
still tearless, but large drops were rolling over his face.
"Margaret!" he said, uttering her name with great tenderness.
He was by her side in time to receive her upon his bosom, as she
sunk forward in a wild passion of tears.
All was reconciled. The desolate hearts were again peopled with
living affections. The arid waste smiled in greenness and beauty.
In their old home, bound by threefold cords of love, they now think
only of the past as a severe lesson by which they have been taught
the heavenly virtue of forbearance. Five years of intense suffering
changed them both, and left marks that after years can never efface.
But selfish impatience and pride were all subdued, and their hearts
melted into each other, until they became almost like one heart.
Those who meet them now, and observe the deep, but unobtrusive
affection with which they regard each other, would never imagine,
did they not know their previous history, that love, during one
period of that married life, had been so long and so totally
eclipsed.
THE SOCIAL SERPENT.
A LADY, whom we will call Mrs. Harding, touched with the destitute
condition of a poor, sick widow, who had three small children,
determined, from an impulse of true humanity, to awaken, if
possible, in the minds of some friends and neighbours, an interest
in her favour. She made a few calls, one morning, with this end in
view, and was gratified to find that her appeal made a favourable
impression. The first lady whom she saw, a Mrs. Miller, promised to
select from her own and children's wardrobe a number of cast-off
garments for the widow, and to aid her in other respects, at the
same time asking Mrs. Harding to call in on the next day, when she
would be able to let her know what she could do.
Pleased with her reception, and encouraged to seek further aid for
the widow, Mrs. Harding withdrew and took her way to the house of
another acquaintance. Scarcely had she left, when a lady, named
Little, dropped in to see Mrs. Miller. To her the latter said, soon
after her entrance:
"I've been very much interested in the case of a poor widow this
morning. She is sick, with three little children dependent on her,
and destitute of almost every thing. Mrs. Harding was telling me
about it."
"Mrs. Harding!" The visitor's countenance changed, and she looked
unutterable things. "I wonder!" she added, in well assumed surprise,
and then was silent.
"What's the matter with Mrs. Harding?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"I should think," said Mrs. Little, "that she was in nice business,
running around, gossiping about indigent widows, when some of her
own relatives are so poor they can hardly keep soul and body
together."
"Is this really so?" asked Mrs. Miller.
"Certainly it is. I had it from my chambermaid, whose sister is cook
next door to where a cousin of Mrs. Harding's lives, and she says
they are, one half of their time, she really believes, in a starving
condition."
"But does Mrs. Harding know this?"
"She ought to know it, for she goes there sometimes, I hear."
"She didn't come merely to gossip about the poor widow," said Mrs.
Miller. "Her errand was to obtain something to relieve her
necessities."
"Did you give her any thing?" asked Mrs. Little.
"No; but I told her to call and see me to-morrow, when I would have
something for her."
"Do you want to know my opinion of this matter?" said Mrs. Little,
drawing herself up, and assuming a very important air.
"What is your opinion?"
"Why, that there is no poor widow in the case at all."
"Mrs. Little!"
"You needn't look surprised. I'm in earnest. I never had much faith
in Mrs. Harding, at the best."
"I _am_ surprised. If there was no poor widow in the case, what did
she want with charity?"
"She has poor relations of her own, for whom, I suppose, she's
ashamed to beg. So you see my meaning now."
"You surely wrong her."
"Don't believe a word of it. At any rate, take my advice, and be the
almoner of your own bounty. When Mrs. Harding comes again, ask her
the name of this poor widow, and where she resides. If she gives you
a name and residence, go and see for yourself."
"I will act on your suggestion," said Mrs. Miller. "Though I can
hardly make up my mind to think so meanly of Mrs. Harding; still,
from the impression your words produce, I deem it only prudent to
be, as you term it, the almoner of my own bounty."
The next lady upon whom Mrs. Harding called, was a Mrs. Johns, and
in her mind she succeeded in also awakening an interest for the poor
widow.
"Call and see me to-morrow," said Mrs. Johns, "and I'll have
something for you."
Not long after Mrs. Harding's departure, Mrs. Little called, in her
round of gossipping visits, and to her Mrs. Johns mentioned the case
of the poor widow, that matter being, for the time, uppermost in her
thoughts.
"Mrs. Harding's poor widow, I suppose," said Mrs. Little, in a
half-sneering, half-malicious tone of voice.
Mrs. Johns looked surprised, as a matter of course.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing, much. Only I've heard of this destitute widow before."
"You have?"
"Yes, and between ourselves,"--the voice of Mrs. Little became low
and confidential--"it's the opinion of Mrs. Miller and myself, that
there is no poor widow in the case."
"Mrs. Little! You astonish me! No poor widow in the case! I can't
understand this. Mrs. Harding was very clear in her statement. She
described the widow's condition, and very much excited my
sympathies. What object can she have in view?"
"Mrs. Miller and I think," said the visitor, "and with good reason,
that this poor widow is only put forward as a cover."
"As a cover to what?"
"To some charities that she has reasons of her own for not wishing
to make public."
"Still in the dark. Speak out more plainly."
"Plainly, then, Mrs. Johns, we have good reasons for believing, Mrs.
Miller and I, that she is begging for some of her own poor
relations. Mrs. Miller is going to see if she can find the widow."
"Indeed! That's another matter altogether. I promised to do
something in the case, but shall now decline. I couldn't have
believed such a thing of Mrs. Harding! But so it is; you never know
people until you find them out."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Johns. You never spoke a truer word in your life,"
replied Mrs. Little, emphatically.
On the day following, after seeing the poor widow, ministering to
some of her immediate wants, and encouraging her to expect more
substantial relief, Mrs. Harding called, as she had promised to do,
on Mrs. Miller. A little to her surprise, that lady received her
with unusual coldness; and yet, plainly, with an effort to seem
friendly.
"You have called about the poor widow you spoke of yesterday?" said
Mrs. Miller.
"Such is the object of my present visit."
"What is her name?"
"Mrs. Aitken."
"Where did you say she lived?"
The residence was promptly given.
"I've been thinking," said Mrs. Miller, slightly colouring, and with
some embarrassment, "that I would call in and see this poor woman
myself."
"I wish you would," was the earnest reply of Mrs. Harding. "I am
sure, if you do so, all your sympathies will be excited in her
favour."
As Mrs. Harding said this, she arose, and with a manner that showed
her feelings to be hurt, as well as mortified, bade Mrs. Miller a
formal good-morning, and retired. Her next call was upon Mrs. Johns.
Much to her surprise, her reception here was quite as cold; in fact,
so cold, that she did not even refer to the object of her visit, and
Mrs. Johns let her go away without calling attention to it herself.
So affected was she by the singular, and to her unaccountable change
in the manner of these ladies, that Mrs. Harding had no heart to
call upon two others, who had promised to do something for the
widow, but went home disappointed, and suffering from a troubled and
depressed state of feeling.
So far as worldly goods were concerned, Mrs. Harding could not boast
very large possessions. She was herself a widow; and her income,
while it sufficed, with economy, to supply the moderate wants of her
family, left her but little for luxuries, the gratification of
taste, or the pleasures of benevolence. Quick to feel the wants of
the needy, no instance of destitution came under her observation
that she did not make some effort toward procuring relief.
What now was to be done? She had excited the sick woman's hopes--had
promised that her immediate wants, and those of her children, should
be supplied. From her own means, without great self-denial, this
could not be effected. True, Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Johns had both
promised to call upon the poor widow, and, in person, administer
relief. But Mrs. Harding did not place much reliance on this; for
something in the manner of both ladies impressed her with the idea
that their promise merely covered a wish to recede from their first
benevolent intentions.
"Something must be done" said she, musingly. And then she set
herself earnestly to the work of devising ways and means. Where
there is a will there is a way. No saying was ever truer than this.
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12