CHAPTER XLIV.
THE MOTHER, THE SON, AND THE ORPHAN
Age is august, and goodness is sublime,
When years have given them a solemn power.
But souls that grow not with advancing time,
Like withered fruit, but mock life's opening flower.
"Mother!"
"My son, don't speak so loud; you quite make me start; and with these delicate nerves you know a shock is quite dreadful—why don't you say mamma, softly, with the pure French pronunciation, and an Italian tone; that's the proper medium, Fred. 'Mother!' I did hope, after travelling so many years, that you would have forgotten the word."
"No, mother; I have not lost the dear old English of that word, and pray God that I never may. Still more do I hope never to lose that respect, that affection, which should make the name of mother a holy thing to every son."
"My dear son, don't you understand that affection uttered in vulgar language loses its—its—yes, its perfume, as I may express it. Now there is something so sweet in the word mamma, so softly fraternal—in short, I quite hear you cry from your little crib with its lace curtains, when you utter it."
"Mother, let us be serious a moment."
"Serious, my child? What on earth do you want to be serious for?"
Here young Farnham took a paper from his pocket, and held it before his mother's face. "Mother, what is this? Did you authorize the purchase of these claims against the helpless old man and woman down yonder?" he said.
Mrs. Farnham turned her head aside, and taking a crystal flask from the table before her, refreshed herself languidly with its perfume.
"Did you authorize this, madam?" cried the young man, impatiently, dashing one hand against the paper that he held in the other. "This purchase, and after that the seizure of the old man's property?"
"Dear me, how worrying you are," answered the lady, burying the pale wrinkles of her forehead in the lace of her handkerchief; "how can I remember all the orders with regard to a property like ours?"
"But do you remember this?"
"Why, no, of course I don't," cried the lady, with a flush stealing up through her wrinkles, as the miserable falsehood crept out from her heart; "of course the man did it all on his own account, there's no medium with such people. Certainly it was his own work. What do I know about business?"
The young man looked at her sternly. She had not deceived him, and a bitter thought of her utter unworthiness made the proud heart sink in his bosom.
"Mother," he said, coldly, and with a look of profound sorrow, "whoever has been the instigator, this is a cruel act; but I have prevented the evil it might have done."
"You prevented it, how?" cried the mother, starting to her feet, white with rage, all her langour and affectation forgotten in the burst of malicious surprise, that trembled on her thin lips, and gave to her pale, watery eyes the expression, without the brilliancy, that we find in those of a trodden serpent. "What have you done, I say?"
"I paid the money!"
Mrs. Farnham sat down, and remained a moment gazing on the calm, severe face of the youth, with her thin hand clenched upon the folds of her morning dress, and her foot moving impetuously up and down on the carpet, as if she wanted to spring up and rend him to pieces.
The youth had evidently witnessed these paroxysms of rage before, for he bent his eyes to the ground as if the sight awoke some old pain, and turning quietly, seemed about to leave the room.
"You have done this without consulting me—countermanded my orders, defeated my object—how like you are to your father, now."
The last words were uttered with a burst of spite, as if they contained the very essence of bitterness, the last drop in the vials of her wrath.
The youth turned and lifted his eyes, full of sorrowful sternness, to her face. "Then you did—you did!" He paused, and his lips began to tremble under the muttered reproaches that sprang up from his heart.
"Yes," cried the woman, weak in everything but her malice, "yes, then, I did order it done—these people have tormented me enough with their miserable old house, always before my eyes, and that grim ugly face staring at me as I go to church. I tell you they shall leave the neighborhood, or I will. Give me the papers."
The youth lifted his eyes and regarded her sternly.
"They are cancelled, madam, and torn to ribbons, that our name might not be disgraced."
"Torn to pieces?"
"Into a thousand pieces, madam. I would have ground them to dust, if possible."
"You shall answer for this," cried the baffled woman, and with that sort of weak ferocity which is so repulsive, she sat down and began to cry.
The young man drew close to her chair, for though his whole soul recoiled from sympathy with her, he forced himself to remember that she was his mother, and in tears.
"Why do you dislike these old people so much?" he urged, with an attempt at soothing her.
"Because he liked them!" she answered, dashing his proffered hand aside; "because his low tastes followed him to the last; he was always talking of the creature that died the night you were born. He cared more for her to the last, than he ever did for me; and I hate them for it. Now, are you satisfied?"
"Mother, you are talking of things that I do not understand."
"Well, your father was engaged to Anna, the girl that died in the old hovel down yonder; engaged to her when he married me."
"Then my father committed a great wrong!"
"A great wrong! Who ever doubted it, I should like to know? Even to think of her after marrying me—to say nothing of the way he went on—sometimes talking about her in my presence, with tears in his eyes. Once, once, would you believe it! he said—to me—me, his lawful wife, that your eyes—it was when you just began to walk—that my own baby's eyes put him in mind of her."
"I know very little of my father, nothing in fact, for he was a reserved man, always; but it is hard to believe that he would willfully do this foul wrong to a woman."
"Willfully! I wish you could have seen him when I, with the proper spirit of a woman, felt it my duty to expostulate with him about his feelings for that creature; how he took me up as if I were to blame for being young and beautiful, and engaged in the bazar just under his hotel, as if I had some design in standing at the door about meal-times, or could help him coming in after collars and cravats afterward, and, and"—
She stopped suddenly, and all the sallow wrinkles of her face burned with a crimson more vivid than exposure in the actual commission of a crime would have kindled there. Her mean spirit cowered beneath the looks of surprise that her son fixed upon her, as this confession of original poverty escaped her lips.
"I mean, I mean," she stammered, after biting her lips half through in impatient wrath, "that he should want my advice about such things before he was married."
It is a mournful thing when respect becomes a duty impossible to perform. Young Farnham felt this, and again his eyes drooped, while a flush of shame stole over his forehead.
"Well, madam," a woman of more sensitive feelings would have noticed that he did not call her mother, "well, madam, whatever cause of dislike may have been in this case, I cannot regret that all power to harm these old people is now at an end. The notes are cancelled, the money paid to your agent from my own pocket."
"But you had no right to pay this. You are not yet of age by some months. I will not sanction this extravagance."
"Nay, madam, this money is mine, and was saved from the extravagance that you did sanction. I had intended to purchase a gift for Isabel with it, but she will be better pleased as it is."
"To Isabel, five hundred dollars to Isabel!" cried the harsh woman.
"This is putting a beggar on horseback with a vengeance."
"Hush, madam, I will not listen to this; you know, or might have seen long before this, that the young girl your language insults, has refused to become my wife."
"Your wife! Isabel Chester your wife! A pauper, and the child of a pauper! Say it again, say that again if you dare!" cried the woman in a whirlwind of passion. "Say that the policeman's daughter has refused you!"
"When you are calmer, madam, I will repeat it, for no truth can be more fixed, but now it would only exasperate you."
"Go on—go on, let me hear it again. It proves the Farnham blood in your veins, always sighing and grovelling after low objects. Go on, sir, I am listening—you intend to make me mother-in-law to a pauper; a miserable thing that I took to keep me company, as I would a poodle-dog, and dressed and petted just in the same way. Marry her! try it, and I'll make a beggar of you!"
"I do not know that you have the power to make me a beggar, madam, but a slave you never shall make me; as for Isabel," he added, with a scornful smile on his lips, firing up with something of her own ungovernable anger, "she is at least your equal and mine."
"My equal, the pauper, the—the—oh—oh!"
Insane with bitter passion, the woman stamped her foot fiercely on the floor, and began tearing the delicate lace from her handkerchief with her teeth, laughter and hysterical sobs hissing through them at the same moment.
"Madam, restrain yourself," pleaded the young man, greatly shocked, "I have been to blame, I should have told you of this some other time."
"Never, never," she answered, tearing the handkerchief from her teeth, and dashing it fiercely to the floor. "The miserable Alms-House bird shall leave my roof. I have got her pauper garments yet—would you like to see them?—a blue chambrey frock and checked sun-bonnet—it was all she brought here—and shall be all she takes away."
Again she stamped fiercely with her foot, and menaced her son with her hand. "Send the girl to me, I say!"
"I am here, madam," said Isabel, arising from a chair by the door, where she had fallen paralyzed and unnoticed, on her entrance, just as her name was brought up. Her cheeks were in a blaze of red, and her eyes emitted quick gleams of light. "I am here to take leave of you for ever." Isabel's voice was constrained and hoarse; her face was white with passion.
"Isabel, Isabel Chester!" exclaimed young Farnham, turning pale, and yet with a glow of animation in his fine eyes, "my mother was angry; she would not repeat those offensive words; she loves you!"
"But I do not love her!" answered the proud girl, regarding the woman whom the world called her benefactress, with a glance of queenly scorn. "Her very kindness has always been oppressive; her presence almost hateful; now it is entirely so."
"Isabel, Isabel!" exclaimed the young man, "remember she is my mother, and you, beloved—oh, let me say to her, that you will be my wife!"
Isabel Chester turned her beautiful eyes upon him, and proud fire gleamed through the tears that filled them like star-light in the evening mist.
"No!" she answered in a very firm voice, "never will I become the wife of that woman's son. My very soul recoils from the thought that she who can so insult, ever had the power to confer benefits upon me. She is right; I will go forth in the pauper garments in which she found me at first. God has given me health, talent, energy; with his help I will yet repay this lady, dollar for dollar, all that she has ever expended on me. I shall never breathe deeply again till this is done."
"This is gratitude, this is just what I expected from the first," said Mrs. Farnham, applying the mutilated handkerchief to her eyes. "It's enough to sicken one with benevolence for ever. This girl, now, that I've educated, taught everything, music, painting, all the ologies and other sciences see how she has repaid me, after putting herself in the way of my son, and tempting him to degrade himself by marrying her!"
Young Farnham started forward and attempted to arrest Isabel, who had turned in proud silence, and was leaving the room.
"Isabel, where are you going?"
She turned, and looking into his anxious eyes, answered,
"Anywhere out of this house, and away from her presence."
"No, no, you shall not do this."
"I must; ask yourself if I could remain here another hour without being in soul what she has called me in name—a pauper."
Farnham paused. Rapid changes, the shadows of many a turbulent thought, swept over his face. Isabel lifted her eyes to his with a look of sorrowful appeal, as if in waiting for him to confirm her resolution.
"But where will you go, my Isabel?"
"I have not yet determined—but this lady has taught an to respect myself. I have been spending an idle, useless life, dependent on her bounty, a pet, a protege which no human being endowed with health and energy should ever content herself with being. Henceforth I will redeem the past."
"Stay with me, my Isabel, stay in your own home, not as a dependent, not subject to any one's caprice. Isabel Chester throw off these cruel prejudices; become my wife, and this day shall you have a right here, holy as any that ever existed!"
"Farnham!" cried the old lady, starting fiercely upon the scene, "remember the difference, remember who she is, who you are and who I am!"
"He need not, madam. I remember all this. But only to assure myself that I am incapable of becoming his wife," answered Isabel. "Do not suppose that I have any of that miserable pride what would make me reject this noble offer, because, in the chances of life, he happens to be rich and I poor. I give to wealth no such importance. Human souls should match themselves without trappings, that have nothing to do with their greatness. To say that I will not marry Mr. Farnham because he would give me a legal right to spend wealth, which I have no power to increase, would be to acknowledge a mean reluctance to receive where I would gladly give. No, madam, it is not because I deem myself in any way an unfit wife for Mr. Farnham, that I reject, gratefully reject, his offer; but I will never enter a family where these things can be supposed to give superiority, never while one of its members rejects me because of my poverty. More than this, I have taken a solemn vow, for causes for which you are not responsible, madam, never to marry your son."
"Isabel, Isabel!" exclaimed young Farnham, with a look of distress, "you cannot love me, or this pride—this wicked vow, would not separate us."
Isabel laid her hand on his arm; her eyes filled, and her lips began to tremble.
"I do love you, heart and soul I love you! but I cannot become your wife. It would be to separate the son from his mother; to grasp at happiness through an act of disobedience; it would be to mingle my life with—with—you know, Frederick, it is impossible."
"But my mother will consent," cried the young man, turning with a look of anxious appeal to Mrs. Farnham, who stood near a window, angrily beating the carpet with her foot.
"You needn't look this way—you needn't expect it. I never will give my consent. If Mr. Farnham's son chooses to marry a pauper, I will never own him again."
Isabel cast one sorrowful look at her lover, and feeling her eyes grow misty as they met his, turned away.
"I will go now," she said, in a hollow voice, and, with a heart that lay heavy and burning like heated lead in her bosom, she left the room.
Young Farnham followed her, pale and anxious.
"Isabel, sweet Isabel! you cannot be in earnest!"
"Miserably in earnest!" she answered, staggering blindly forward, for a faintness crept over her.
He caught her in his arms.
"I knew—I knew it could not be! you have no strength to put this cruel threat in force against me."
"Don't—oh! don't, I am faint, my heart is breaking—let me go while I can!"
She clung to him as she spoke, and rested her head wearily on his shoulder, as he strained her closer to his heart.
"Oh, my Isabel, you love me, you have told me so now for the first time, with the very lips that renounce me for ever. You love me, Isabel!"
"You felt it—before this you knew it," she murmured amid her tears.
"Yes, yes, I felt it; what need has the heart of words? I felt it truly, as now; but the sound is so sweet from your lips. Isabel; say it again."
"Yes, why not, as we shall part so soon. I love you, oh, how much I love you!"
"Then stay with me."
"No, no!"
"I can and will protect you from every annoyance. Stay with me,
Isabel!"
"Oh, if I could—if I only could!" cried the young creature, looking wistfully at him, "but that terrible, terrible oath."
"Forget it—the oath, if you made one, was an act of frenzy—cast it aside as such. You can, you will, my beloved. A little time, a little patience, and all will be well. Come, come, stop crying, my heart aches to see your tears. Be comforted, and say once more that you love me."
"I do, I do!"
"And that you will never leave me?"
She drew a deep, unsteady breath; her eyes began to brighten through their tears; he held her close to his breast, and pressed his lips, quivering with an ecstasy of love, upon her forehead.
"You will stay—you will stay!"
She released herself gently from his arms, her eyes were flooded with tenderness, her cheeks lighted up with a glow of joyous shame. With that graceful homage which comes so naturally to the heart of a loving woman, she took his hand and pressed it to her lips, and stood drooping beneath the overflow of tenderness that filled her heart, as a flower bends on its stock when loaded with honey-dew.
But this beautiful submission did not satisfy him; he encircled her again with his arm.
"Tell me in words, dearest—tell me in words, consenting words, or I shall gather them from your lips."
Blushing and agitated, she attempted to withdraw from his arms, but softly as a bird moves in its nest.
"Speak, Isabel—speak, and promise me!"
Her eyes were filled with tears, and her face burned with blushes; where was her pride, where all her haughty resolutions now? Her lips trembled apart, and the words he coveted were forming upon them—but that instant the door opened, and Mrs. Farnham looked through, regarding them with a cold sneer.
Isabel started as if a viper had stung her, tore herself from
Farnham's arms, and fled.