Mabel: A Novel. Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Mrs. C. J. Newby

Wearied with the long conflict, she laid herself down to rest, and was soon asleep.

Strong minds, when they are sick, require strong remedies; had any one watched her calm repose, and quiet breathing, they might have told, that with her the crisis was past.

As she slept—flitting dreams crossed her fancy—once she thought she stood upon a high hill, where a noble castle of fairy and transparent beauty, was built immediately above a rocky precipice. Suddenly, as she lost her footing, and fell, she tried to prepare for death, when invisible hands supported her, and softly placed her on the bank above.

Then her dream became more distinct—she was again at Aston, and the setting sun was going down behind the hills—while its golden rays gave beauty to earth and sky. She was seated on her father's tomb, in the well-known church-yard, and close beside her was the delicate form of the little Amy, which her arm encircled with the covetous clasp of affection. They both gazed upon the setting sun, and the child listened, as she spoke of the ages it had shone in beauty, and the ages it might still shine; of the time it marked, and the eternity it presaged, till her eyes grew brighter, and her color deepened. Then it seemed as if a strain of holy music softly stole upon the evening air, and Amy raised her hand to attract her attention to it—her face grew of more than earthly loveliness, and, as the music died away, Mabel woke and found herself alone. The moonlight streamed into her little room, rendering every object distinctly visible. It is beautiful to see the mingling light of the waning moon and rising sun changing the scenes of the early morning with the rapidity of a diorama; Mabel watched the light for some time with unthinking pleasure, till gradually upon her waking senses arose the remembrance of the night, but with the early morning came the strength for which she had so earnestly pleaded through those hours of darkness.

She had bent before the repeated strokes of Providence with something of the feeling that her earthly duties were finished. But now came purer and holier thoughts. "What right," she asked herself, "had she to say that she had suffered enough?" Had she not already some call to exertion, some friends whom she might perhaps love and serve, and more, the fresh suffering that seemed in preparation, told her that it was right to suffer. "Thy will be done," she repeated, in trembling accents, as she knelt in meek and quiet devotion, and the words came from a heart not untried by many sorrows.

Mabel's mind was anything but morbid, for the dangerous tendency so strongly developed in her mother, had been checked and controlled by that very mother herself, who gladly saw in her more active child, the same delicate perception of the beautiful, the good and the painful, sobered by her care for others, and her love of exertion.

It was then with a feeling of gratitude that she looked round the little room, which, to many would have excited the most painful feelings of neglect and desolation. The small bed had been evidently used, formerly, in the nursery, and was diminutive in size; yet, as Kirk White, humorously observes of his study fireplace:—

"So big, it covered o'er,
Full half the spacious room, and more."

One side, from the ceiling, shelved down to the floor, leaving dark corners, where the light from the small window never penetrated, giving an uncomfortable suspicion of dust and cobwebs. The wide window ledge, which served for the purpose of dressing table, with one shabby chair, completed the fittings of the room—for, as Mrs. Villars had observed in her casual glance—a chest of drawers had been omitted.

It was impossible that any one so careful of the comforts of others—so used to luxury as she had lately been, at Aston, should not read, at a glance, the nature of the apartment which one of her mother's servants would, perhaps, have hesitated to occupy—yet she busied herself in arranging it to advantage. She could scarcely satisfy herself when she had finished, for the room was not quite clean, and nothing she could do could remedy that deficiency—so she turned to the window, and looked out upon the back view it displayed of chimney-pots—dark back windows, as cheerless as her own, and walls blackened by falling smoke. Still, above the low dark, damp, courts, there was a glimpse of the pure blue sky; and as Mabel's eye rested upon it, even the passing shade of discontent vanished from her mind, as she remembered by whom her comforts and trials were meted; and then she turned her eyes again upon the room, and all that was uncomfortable before, seemed to have a light about it that made it look different now. It was all better than she might have had—more than she had any right to claim. Was she not under her aunt's protection, when she might have been left with strangers; left for the first time, in that kind of independence, most trying to a delicate woman? "Was not every thing," she again repeated, "better than she deserved? What could have made her think the room dark, and uncomfortable? What could have changed it so? Nothing but the reflected light of a humble and thankful heart. After remaining some little time longer in consideration, she went down stairs. She soon found the room where she remembered having been introduced the evening before; but, on opening the door, she perceived that it was still darkened, the window-curtains drawn, and the chairs arranged as they had been left on the preceding night. Looking again at her watch to persuade herself that it was really nine o'clock, she found her way to the drawing-room, which was in such dusty confusion, that she was going to return to her own room again, when a side door opened, and Mr. Villars appeared.