Helen and Arthur; or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel

by Caroline Lee Hentz

Helen screwed and twisted till her slender wrists ached, when the brass suddenly parted, and a number of gold pieces rolled upon the floor.

“Pick them up, and put them back,” said Miss Thusa, “and screw it up again—all the joints will open in that way. The wood is hollowed out and filled with gold, which I bequeath to you. My will is in there, too, made by the lawyers where I found the money. You remember when that advertisement was put in the papers, and I went on that journey, part of the way with you. Well, I must tell you the shortest way, though it’s a long story. It was written by a lady, on her death-bed, a widow lady, who had no children, and a large property of her own. You don’t remember my brother, but your father does. He was a hater of the world, and almost made me one. Well, it seemed he had a cause for his misanthropy which I never knew of, for when he was a young man he went away from home, and we didn’t hear from him for years. When he came back, he was sad and sickly, and wanted to get into some little quiet place, where nobody would molest him. Then it was we came to this little cabin, where he died, in this very room, and this very bed, too.”

Miss Thusa paused, and the room and the bed seemed all at once clothed with supernatural solemnity, by the sad consecration of death. Death had been there—death was waiting there.

“Oh! Miss Thusa, you are faint and weary. Do stop and rest, I pray you,” cried Helen, bathing her forehead with camphor, and holding a glass of water to her lips.

But the unnatural strength which opium gives, sustained her, and she continued her narrative.

“This lady, when young, had loved and been betrothed to my brother, and then forsook him for a wealthier man. It was that which ruined him, and I never knew it. He had one of those still natures, where the waters of sorrow lie deep as a well. They never overflow. She told me that she never had had one happy moment from the time she married, and that her conscience gnawed her for her broken faith. Her husband died, and left her a rich widow, without a child to leave her property to. After a while she fell sick of a long and lingering disease, for which there is no cure. Then she thought if she could leave her money to my brother, or he being dead, to some of his kin, she could die with more comfort. So, she put the advertisement in the paper, which you all saw. I didn’t want the money, and wanted to come away without it, but she sent for a lawyer, and had it all fastened upon me by deeds and writings, whether I was willing or not. She didn’t live but a few days after I got there. The lawyer was very kind, and assisted me in my plans, though he thought them very odd. There is no need of wasting my breath in telling how I had the money changed into gold, and the wheel fixed in the way you see it, after a fashion of my own. I would not have touched one cent of it, had it not been for you, and next to you, that poor boy, Louis. I didn’t want any one to know it, and be dinning in my ears about money from morning to night. I had no use for it myself, for habits don’t change when the winter of life is begun. There is no use for it in the dark grave to which I am hastening. There is no use for it near the great white throne of God, where I shall shortly stand. When I am dead and gone, Helen, take that wheel home, and give it a place wherever you are, for old Miss Thusa’s sake. I really think—I’m a strange, foolish old woman—but I really think I should like to have its likeness painted on my coffin lid. A kind of coat-of-arms, you know, child.”

Miss Thusa did not relate all this without pausing many times for breath, and when she concluded she closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort she had made. In a short time she again slept, and Helen sat pondering in mute amazement over the disclosure made by one whom she had imagined so very indigent. The gold weighed heavy on her mind. It did not seem real, so strangely acquired, so mysteriously concealed. It reminded her of the tales of the genii, more than of the actualities of every day life. She prayed that Miss Thusa might live and take care of it herself for long years to come.

Several times during the recital, she thought she heard a sound at the window, but when she turned her head to ascertain the cause, she saw nothing but the curtain slightly fluttering in the wind that crept in at the opening, with a soft, sighing sound.

It was the first time she had ever watched with the sick, and she found it a very solemn thing. Yet with all the solemnity and gloom brooding over her, she felt inexpressible gratitude that she was not haunted by the spectral illusions of her childhood. Reason was no longer the vassal, but the monarch of imagination, and though the latter often proved a restless and wayward subject, it acknowledged the former as its legitimate sovereign.

Miss Thusa, lying so rigid and immovable on her back, with her hands crossed on her breast, a white linen handkerchief folded over her head and fastened under the chin, looked so resembling death, that it was difficult to think of her as a living, breathing thing. Helen gazed upon her with indescribable awe, sometimes believing it was nothing but soulless clay before her, but even then she gazed without horror. Her exceeding terror of death was gone, without her being conscious of its departure. It was like the closing of a dark abyss—there was terra firma, where an awful chasm had been. There was more terror to her in the vitality burning in her own heart, than in that poor, enfeebled form. How strong were its pulsations! how loud they sounded in the midnight stillness!—louder than the death-watch that ticked by the hearth. To escape from the beatings of “this muffled drum” of life, she went to the window, and partly drawing aside the curtain, breathed on a pane of glass, so that the gauzy web the frost had woven might melt away and admit the vertical rays of the midnight moon. How beautiful, how resplendent was the scene that was spread out before her! She had not thought before of looking abroad, and it was the first time the solemn glories of the noon of night had unfolded to her view. In the morning a drizzling rain had fallen, which had frozen as it fell on the branches of the leafless trees, and now on every little twig hung pendant diamonds, glittering in the moonbeams. The ground was partially covered with snow, but where it lay bare, it was powdered with diamond dust. A silvery net-work was drawn over the windows, save one clear spot, which her melting breath had made. She looked up to the moon, shining so high, so lone on the pale azure of a wintry heaven, and felt an impulse to kneel down and worship it, as the loveliest, holiest image of the Creator’s goodness and love. How tranquil, how serene, how soft, yet glorious it shone forth from the still depths of ether! What a divine melancholy it diffused over the sleeping earth! Helen felt as she often did when looking up into the eyes of Arthur Hazleton. So tranquil, so serene, yet so glorious were their beams to her, and so silently and holily did they sink into the soul.