"But she sweats so, nights!"
"Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night, my clothes will be wringing wet. There won"t be a dry thread in my night-clothes and the sheets will be so that Mammy has to hang them up to dry! Eva doesn"t sweat anything like that!"
Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that Eva was fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie, all on a sudden, took a new turn.
"She knew it," she said; "she always felt it, that she was destined to be the most miserable of mothers. Here she was, with her wretched health, and her only darling child going down to the grave before her eyes;"--and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and rump.u.s.s.ed and scolded, with more energy than ever, all day, on the strength of this new misery.
"My dear Marie, don"t talk so!" said St. Clare. "You ought not to give up the case so, at once."
"You have not a mother"s feelings, St. Clare! You never could understand me!--you don"t now."
"But don"t talk so, as if it were a gone case!"
"I can"t take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare. If you don"t feel when your only child is in this alarming state, I do. It"s a blow too much for me, with all I was bearing before."
"It"s true," said St. Clare, "that Eva is very delicate, that I always knew; and that she has grown so rapidly as to exhaust her strength; and that her situation is critical. But just now she is only prostrated by the heat of the weather, and by the excitement of her cousin"s visit, and the exertions she made. The physician says there is room for hope."
"Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do; it"s a mercy if people haven"t sensitive feelings, in this world. I am sure I wish I didn"t feel as I do; it only makes me completely wretched! I wish I could be as easy as the rest of you!"
And the "rest of them" had good reason to breathe the same prayer, for Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology for all sorts of inflictions on every one about her. Every word that was spoken by anybody, everything that was done or was not done everywhere, was only a new proof that she was surrounded by hard-hearted, insensible beings, who were unmindful of her peculiar sorrows. Poor Eva heard some of these speeches; and nearly cried her little eyes out, in pity for her mamma, and in sorrow that she should make her so much distress.
In a week or two, there was a great improvement of symptoms,--one of those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable disease so often beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of the grave. Eva"s step was again in the garden,--in the balconies; she played and laughed again,--and her father, in a transport, declared that they should soon have her as hearty as anybody. Miss Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this illusive truce. There was one other heart, too, that felt the same certainty, and that was the little heart of Eva. What is it that sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or the soul"s impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be it what it may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed, only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.
For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though life was unfolding before her with every brightness that love and wealth could give, had no regret for herself in dying.
In that book which she and her simple old friend had read so much together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the image of one who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and mused, He had ceased to be an image and a picture of the distant past, and come to be a living, all-surrounding reality. His love enfolded her childish heart with more than mortal tenderness; and it was to Him, she said, she was going, and to his home.
But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she was to leave behind. Her father most,--for Eva, though she never distinctly thought so, had an instinctive perception that she was more in his heart than any other. She loved her mother because she was so loving a creature, and all the selfishness that she had seen in her only saddened and perplexed her; for she had a child"s implicit trust that her mother could not do wrong. There was something about her that Eva never could make out; and she always smoothed it over with thinking that, after all, it was mamma, and she loved her very dearly indeed.
She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was as daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize; but Eva was an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she had witnessed of the evils of the system under which they were living had fallen, one by one, into the depths of her thoughtful, pondering heart. She had vague longings to do something for them,--to bless and save not only them, but all in their condition,--longings that contrasted sadly with the feebleness of her little frame.
"Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading to her friend, "I can understand why Jesus wanted to die for us."
"Why, Miss Eva?"
"Because I"ve felt so, too."
"What is it Miss Eva?--I don"t understand."
"I can"t tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on the boat, you know, when you came up and I,--some had lost their mothers, and some their husbands, and some mothers cried for their little children--and when I heard about poor Prue,--oh, wasn"t that dreadful!--and a great many other times, I"ve felt that I would be glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. I would die for them, Tom, if I could," said the child, earnestly, laying her little thin hand on his.
Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her father"s voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as he looked after her.
"It"s jest no use tryin" to keep Miss Eva here," he said to Mammy, whom he met a moment after. "She"s got the Lord"s mark in her forehead."
"Ah, yes, yes," said Mammy, raising her hands; "I"ve allers said so. She wasn"t never like a child that"s to live--there was allers something deep in her eyes. I"ve told Missis so, many the time; it"s a comin" true,--we all sees it,--dear, little, blessed lamb!"
Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. It was late in the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed a kind of glory behind her, as she came forward in her white dress, with her golden hair and glowing cheeks, her eyes unnaturally bright with the slow fever that burned in her veins.
St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had been buying for her; but her appearance, as she came on, impressed him suddenly and painfully. There is a kind of beauty so intense, yet so fragile, that we cannot bear to look at it. Her father folded her suddenly in his arms, and almost forgot what he was going to tell her.
"Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days,--are you not?"
"Papa," said Eva, with sudden firmness "I"ve had things I wanted to say to you, a great while. I want to say them now, before I get weaker."
St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She laid her head on his bosom, and said, "It"s all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer. The time is coming that I am going to leave you. I am going, and never to come back!" and Eva sobbed.
"O, now, my dear little Eva!" said St. Clare, trembling as he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, "you"ve got nervous and low-spirited; you mustn"t indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here, I"ve bought a statuette for you!"
"No, papa," said Eva, putting it gently away, "don"t deceive yourself!--I am not any better, I know it perfectly well,--and I am going, before long. I am not nervous,--I am not low-spirited. If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly happy. I want to go,--I long to go!"
"Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart so sad? You have had everything, to make you happy, that could be given you."
"I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends" sake, I would be willing to live. There are a great many things here that make me sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be there; but I don"t want to leave you,--it almost breaks my heart!"
"What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva?"
"O, things that are done, and done all the time. I feel sad for our poor people; they love me dearly, and they are all good and kind to me. I wish, papa, they were all free."
"Why, Eva, child, don"t you think they are well enough off now?"
"O, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what would become of them? There are very few men like you, papa. Uncle Alfred isn"t like you, and mamma isn"t; and then, think of poor old Prue"s owners! What horrid things people do, and can do!" and Eva shuddered.
"My dear child, you are too sensitive. I"m sorry I ever let you hear such stories."
"O, that"s what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so happy, and never to have any pain,--never suffer anything,--not even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but pain and sorrow, an their lives;--it seems selfish. I ought to know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I"ve thought and thought about them. Papa, isn"t there any way to have all slaves made free?"
"That"s a difficult question, dearest. There"s no doubt that this way is a very bad one; a great many people think so; I do myself I heartily wish that there were not a slave in the land; but, then, I don"t know what is to be done about it!"
"Papa, you are such a good man, and so n.o.ble, and kind, and you always have a way of saying things that is so pleasant, couldn"t you go all round and try to persuade people to do right about this? When I am dead, papa, then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. I would do it, if I could."
"When you are dead, Eva," said St. Clare, pa.s.sionately. "O, child, don"t talk to me so! You are all I have on earth."
"Poor old Prue"s child was all that she had,--and yet she had to hear it crying, and she couldn"t help it! Papa, these poor creatures love their children as much as you do me. O! do something for them! There"s poor Mammy loves her children; I"ve seen her cry when she talked about them. And Tom loves his children; and it"s dreadful, papa, that such things are happening, all the time!"
"There, there, darling," said St. Clare, soothingly; "only don"t distress yourself, don"t talk of dying, and I will do anything you wish."
"And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom as soon as"--she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone--"I am gone!"
"Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world,--anything you could ask me to."
"Dear papa," said the child, laying her burning cheek against his, "how I wish we could go together!"
"Where, dearest?" said St. Clare.
"To our Saviour"s home; it"s so sweet and peaceful there--it is all so loving there!" The child spoke unconsciously, as of a place where she had often been. "Don"t you want to go, papa?" she said.
St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent.
"You will come to me," said the child, speaking in a voice of calm certainty which she often used unconsciously.
"I shall come after you. I shall not forget you."
The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them deeper and deeper, as St. Clare sat silently holding the little frail form to his bosom. He saw no more the deep eyes, but the voice came over him as a spirit voice, and, as in a sort of judgment vision, his whole past life rose in a moment before his eyes: his mother"s prayers and hymns; his own early yearnings and aspirings for good; and, between them and this hour, years of worldliness and scepticism, and what man calls respectable living. We can think much, very much, in a moment. St. Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke nothing; and, as it grew darker, he took his child to her bed-room; and, when she was prepared for rest; he sent away the attendants, and rocked her in his arms, and sung to her till she was asleep.
CHAPTER XXV.
The Little Evangelist.
It was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bamboo lounge in the verandah, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the verandah, closely secluded, under an awning of transparent gauze, from the outrages of the mosquitos, and languidly holding in her hand an elegantly bound prayer-book. She was holding it because it was Sunday, and she imagined she had been reading it,--though, in fact, she had been only taking a succession of short naps, with it open in her hand.
Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, with Tom as driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied them.
"I say, Augustine," said Marie after dozing a while, "I must send to the city after my old Doctor Posey; I"m sure I"ve got the complaint of the heart."
"Well; why need you send for him? This doctor that attends Eva seems skilful."
"I would not trust him in a critical case," said Marie; "and I think I may say mine is becoming so! I"ve been thinking of it, these two or three nights past; I have such distressing pains, and such strange feelings."
"O, Marie, you are blue; I don"t believe it"s heart complaint."
"I dare say you don"t," said Marie; "I was prepared to expect that. You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think of me."
"If it"s particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, why, I"ll try and maintain you have it," said St. Clare; "I didn"t know it was."
"Well, I only hope you won"t be sorry for this, when it"s too late!" said Marie; "but, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, and the exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed what I have long suspected."
What the exertions were which Marie referred to, it would have been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the verandah, and Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted.
Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put away her bonnet and shawl, as was always her manner, before she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came, at St: Clare"s call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an account of the services they had heard.
They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia"s room, which, like the one in which they were sitting, opened on to the verandah and violent reproof addressed to somebody.
"What new witchcraft has Tops been brewing?" asked St. Clare. "That commotion is of her raising, I"ll be bound!"
And, in a moment after, Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came dragging the culprit along.
"Come out here, now!" she said. "I will tell your master!"
"What"s the case now?" asked Augustine.
"The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child, any longer! It"s past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it! Here, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study; and what does she do, but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to my bureau, and got a bonnet-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and cut it all to pieces to make dolls" jackets! I never saw anything like it, in my life!"
"I told you, Cousin," said Marie, "that you"d find out that these creatures can"t be brought up without severity. If I had my way, now," she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, "I"d send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; I"d have her whipped till she couldn"t stand!"
"I don"t doubt it," said St. Clare. "Tell me of the lovely rule of woman! I never saw above a dozen women that wouldn"t half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they had their own way with them!--let alone a man."
"There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare!" said Marie. "Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now, as plain as I do."
Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that belongs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they should have felt just so in her circ.u.mstances; but Marie"s words went beyond her, and she felt less heat.
"I wouldn"t have the child treated so, for the world," she said; "but, I am sure, Augustine, I don"t know what to do. I"ve taught and taught; I"ve talked till I"m tired; I"ve whipped her; I"ve punished her in every way I can think of, and she"s just what she was at first."
"Come here, Tops, you monkey!" said St. Clare, calling the child up to him.
Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery.
"What makes you behave so?" said St. Clare, who could not help being amused with the child"s expression.
"Spects it"s my wicked heart," said Topsy, demurely; "Miss Feely says so."
"Don"t you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you? She says she has done everything she can think of."
"Lor, yes, Mas"r! old Missis used to say so, too. She whipped me a heap harder, and used to pull my har, and knock my head agin the door; but it didn"t do me no good! I spects, if they "s to pull every spire o" har out o" my head, it wouldn"t do no good, neither,--I "s so wicked! Laws! I "s nothin but a n.i.g.g.e.r, no ways!"
"Well, I shall have to give her up," said Miss Ophelia; "I can"t have that trouble any longer."
"Well, I"d just like to ask one question," said St. Clare.
"What is it?"
"Why, if your Gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what"s the use of sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among thousands of just such? I suppose this child is about a fair sample of what thousands of your heathen are."
Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva, who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little gla.s.s-room at the corner of the verandah, which St. Clare used as a sort of reading-room; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this place.
"What"s Eva going about, now?" said St. Clare; "I mean to see."
And, advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered the gla.s.s-door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his finger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with their side faces towards them. Topsy, with her usual air of careless drollery and unconcern; but, opposite to her, Eva, her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large eyes.
"What does make you so bad, Topsy? Why won"t you try and be good? Don"t you love anybody, Topsy?"
"Donno nothing "bout love; I loves candy and sich, that"s all," said Topsy.
"But you love your father and mother?"
"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that, Miss Eva."
"O, I know," said Eva, sadly; "but hadn"t you any brother, or sister, or aunt, or--"
"No, none on "em,--never had nothing nor n.o.body."