Alas! for Bell. Man proposes, but God disposes, and the thing which no power on earth could induce her to do was to be forced upon her whether she would have it or not.
The Christmas dinner was a sumptuous one, and after it was over the guests repaired to the parlors, where music and a little dance formed a part of the evening’s entertainment. Mrs. Walter Scott was playing for the dance. Her fingers had not yet forgotten their skill, and she had good-naturedly offered to take the place of Grace Burleigh, who gave up the more willingly because of the young clergyman looking over a book of engravings and casting wistful glances toward her. Whether it was the dinner, or the excitement, or a combination of both, none could tell, but there was suddenly a cessation of the music, a crash among the keys, and Mrs. Walter Scott turned toward the astonished dancers a face which frightened them, it was so white, so strange, and so distorted. Paralysis of one entire side was the verdict of the physician who was summoned immediately and did all he could for the stricken woman, from one half of whose body the sense of feeling was gone, and who lay in her room as helpless as a child. Gradually her face began to look more natural, her speech came back again, thick and stammering, but tolerably intelligible, and her limp right hand moved feebly, showing that she was in part recovering. For three weeks they nursed her with the utmost care, and Bell stayed by and shrank from the future which she saw before her, and from which she wished so much to escape. In her womanly pity and sympathy Magdalen would have kept the paralytic woman at Millbank, but Roger was not willing that her young life should be burdened in this way, and he said to Frank and Bell:
“Your mother’s place is with her children. If you are not able to take care of her, I am willing to help; but I cannot suffer Magdalen to take that load of care.”
So it was settled, and Bell went home to Boston and prepared an upper room, which overlooked the Common, and then came back to Millbank, where they made the invalid ready for the journey. Her face was very white and there was a look of dreary despair and dread in her eyes, but she uttered no word of protest against the plan, and thanked Roger for his kindness, and kissed the little Jessie and cried softly over her, and whispered to Magdalen: “Come and see me often. It is the only pleasant thing I can look forward too.”
And then Frank and Roger carried her out to the carriage which took her to the cars, and that night she heard the winter wind howl around the windows of the room to which she felt that she was doomed for life, and which, taking that view of it seemed to her like a prison.
“The Lord is sure to remember first or last,” old Hester said, as she watched the carriage moving slowly down the avenue, “and though I can’t say I would have given her the shakin’ palsy if I’d of been the Lord, I know it’s right and just, and a warnin’ to all liars and deceitful, snoopin’ critters.”
Still Hester was sorry for the woman, and went to see her almost as often as Magdalen herself, and once stayed three whole weeks, and took care of her when Mrs. Franklin was away. Bell did not trouble herself very much about her mother-in-law, or spend much time with her. She gave orders that she should be well cared for and have everything she wished for, and she saw that her orders were obeyed. She also went once a day to see her and ask if she was comfortable; but after that she felt that nothing further was incumbent upon her. And so for all Mrs. Walter Scott knew of the outer world and the life she had once enjoyed so much, she was indebted to Grace, who before her marriage passed many hours with the invalid, telling her of things which she thought would interest her, and sometimes reading to her until she fell asleep. But after Grace was gone Mrs. Walter Scott’s days passed in dreary loneliness and wretched discontent. She had no pleasure in recalling the past, and nothing to look forward to in the future. The remainder of her wretched life she knew must be passed where she was not wanted, and where her son came but once a day to see her and that in the evening just after dinner, when he usually fell asleep while she was trying to talk to him.
Bell would not suffer Frank to go into the city evenings unless she accompanied him, for she had no fancy for having him brought to her in a state of intoxication, as was once the case. And Frank, who was a good deal afraid of her, remained obediently at home, and, preferring his mother’s society to that of his wife, stayed in the sick-room a portion of every evening; then, when wholly wearied there, went to his own apartment and smoked in dreary solitude until midnight.
Such was Frank’s life and such the life of his mother, until there came to her a change in the form of a second shock, which rendered one hand and foot entirely helpless, and distorted her features so badly that she insisted that the blinds should be kept closed and the curtains down, so that those who came into her room could not see how disfigured she was. And so in darkness and solitude her days pass drearily, with impatient longings for the night, and when the night comes she moans and weeps, and wishes it was morning. Poor woman! She is a burden to herself and a terrible skeleton to her fashionable daughter-in-law, who in the gayest scenes in which she mingles never long forgets the paralytic at home, sinking so fast into utter imbecility, and as she becomes more and more childish and helpless, requiring more and more care and attention.
The curse of wrong-doing is resting on Bell as well as on her husband and his mother, and though she is proud and haughty and reserved as ever, she is far from being happy, and her friends say to each other that she is growing old and losing her brilliant beauty. Frank often tells her of it when he has been drinking wine. He is not afraid of her then, and after he found that it annoyed her he delighted to tease her about her fading beauty, and to ask why she could not keep as young and fresh and handsome as Magdalen. There was not a wrinkle in her face, he said, and she looked younger and handsomer than when he first came home from Europe and saw her at the Exhibition.