CHAPTER XXII.
A SHATTERED COLUMN.
In mid June came the blow. George brought up from the post-office, one evening, the following letter:
"PAINESVILLE, June 18, 1837. BARTON RIDGELEY, ESQ.:
"_Dear Sir_,--I write at the request of my sister, Mrs. Hitchc.o.c.k. Your brother is very ill. Wanders in his mind, and we are uneasy about him. He has been sick about a week. Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k is absent at court.
Sincerely yours,
Edward Marshall."
"Henry is ill," said Barton, very quietly, after reading it. "This letter is from Mrs. Hitchc.o.c.k. He has been poorly for a week. I think I had better go to him."
"He did not write himself, it seems," said his mother.
"He probably doesn"t regard himself as very sick, and did not want us sent for," said Bart, "and they may have written without his knowledge. I will take Arab, and ride in the cool of the night."
"You are alarmed, Barton, and don"t tell me all. Read me the letter."
And he read it. "I will go with you, Barton," very quietly, but decidedly.
"How can you go, mother?"
"As you do," firmly.
"You cannot ride thirty miles on horseback, mother, even if we had a horse you could ride at all."
"I shall go with you," was her only answer.
An hour later, with a horse and light buggy, procured from a neighbor, they drove out into the warm, sweet June night. At Chardon, they paused for half an hour, to breathe the horse, and went on. Bart was a good horseman, from loving and knowing horses, and drove with skill and judgment. They talked little on the road, and at about two in the morning they drove up to the old American House in Painesville, and, with his mother on his arm, Barton started out on River Street, to the residence of Mr. Hitchc.o.c.k.
How silent the streets! and how ghostly the white houses stood, in the stillness of the night! and how like a dream it all seemed! They had no difficulty in finding the house, with its ominous lights, that had all night long burned out dim into the darkness.
The door was open, and the bell brought a sweet, matronly woman to receive them.
"We are Henry Ridgeley"s mother and brother," said Barton. "Is he still alive?"
The question indicated his utter hopelessness of his brother"s condition.
"Come in this way, into the parlor," said the lady; and stepping out, "Mother," she called, "Mr. Ridgeley"s mother has come. Please step this way."
A moment later, a tall, elderly lady, sad-faced as was her daughter, and much agitated, entered the room.
"My mother," said the younger lady. "I am Mrs. Hitchc.o.c.k."
"Your son--" said the elder lady.
"Take me to him at once, I pray you! Let me see him! I am his mother!
Who shall keep me from him?"
"Mother," said Barton, stepping up and placing his hands about her, "don"t you feel it? Henry is dead. I knew it ere we stepped in."
"Dead! who says he is dead? He is not dead!"
"Tell her," said Barton; "she is heroic: let her know the worst."
"Take me to him!" she said, as they remained silent.
Up the stairs, in a dimly-lighted room, past two or three young men, and a kind neighbor or two, they conducted her; and there, composed as if in slumber, with his grand head thrown back, and his fine strong face fully upward, she found her third-born, growing chill in death.
She sprang forward--arrested herself when within a step of him, and gazed. The light pa.s.sed from her own eye, and the warmth from her face; a spasm shook her, and nothing more.
She did not shriek; she did not faint; she made no outcry,--scarcely a visible sign; but steadily and almost stonily she gazed on her dead, until the idea of the awful change came fully to her. The chill pa.s.sed from her face and manner; and seating herself on the bed,--"You won"t mind me, ladies. You can do no more for him. Leave him to me for a little;" and she bent over and kissed his pallid lips, and laid her face tenderly to his, and lifted with her thin fingers the damp ma.s.ses of his hair, brown and splendid, like Bart"s, but darker, and without the wave.
"What a grand and splendid man you had become, Henry! and I may toy with and caress you now, as when you were a soft and beautiful baby, and you will permit me!" and lifting herself up, she steadfastly gazed at his emaciated face and shrunken temples, and opening his bosom, and baring its broad and finely-formed contour, she scanned it closely.
"Oh, why could not I see and know, and be warned! I thought he could not die! Oh, I thought that all I had would remain! that in their father G.o.d had taken all he would reclaim from me! that I should go, and together we should adorn a place where they should come to us! Oh, Merciful Father!" and the storm of agony, such as uproots and sweeps away weak natures, came upon her.
As for Barton, his sensibilities were stunned and paralyzed, while his mind was left to work free and clear. All his anguish was for his mother; for himself, the moment had not come. He was appalled to feel the almost indifference with which he looked upon the remains of his manly and high-souled brother, and he repeated over and over to himself: "Henry is dead! he is dead! Don"t you hear? don"t you know?
He is dead! Why don"t you mourn?"
An hour later, came a gentle tap at the door. Barton went to find Mrs.
Hitchc.o.c.k standing there.
"Your mother must be aroused and taken away. My mother and I will take you to her house. She must be cared for now."
"Mother," said Bart, taking her lightly in his arms, "these dear good ladies must care for you. Let me take you out; and our dear Henry must be cared for, too."
How unnatural his voice sounded to him! Had he slain his brother, that he should care so little?--that his voice should sound so hoa.r.s.e and hollow?
His mother was pa.s.sive in his hands,--wearied, broken, and overwhelmed. He carried her across a small open s.p.a.ce, and into a large house, where her kind hostess received and cherished her as only women experienced and chastened by sorrow can.
Barton was conducted to a s.p.a.cious, cool room, luxurious to his eyes; yet he felt no weariness, but somehow supernaturally strained up to an awful tension.
"Why don"t I shriek, and tear my hair, and make some fitting moan over this awful loss? Why can"t I feel it? O G.o.d! am I a wretch without nature, or heart, or soul? He is dead! Why should he die, and now, plucked and torn up by the root, just at flowering? What a vile economy is this! what a waste and incompleteness! and the world full of drivellers and dotards, that it would gladly be quit of. Wasn"t there s.p.a.ce and breath for him? Why should such qualities be so bestowed, to be so wasted? Why kindle such a light, to quench it so soon in the dark river? What a blunder! Why was not I taken?"
Why? Oh, weak, vain questioner!
He threw off part of his clothing, and lay down on the bed and slept.
He awoke, offended and grieved that the sun should shine. Why was it not hidden by thick clouds, and why should they not weep? But why should they, if he did not? And what business had the birds to be glad and joyous, and the perfume of flowers to steal out on the bright air?
He knew he was wrong. He was no longer angry and defiant, but his grief was dry and harsh, and his sensibilities creaked like a dry axle.
He found his mother tender, calm, and pitying him. Awful as was the bereavement to her, she felt that the loss was, after all, to him.