A month after these silent events, Eva gave birth to a son. When, for the first time, they brought the child to her, the widowed mother pronounced the name “William,” and tears, ready tears, too long refused to her grief, gushed in torrents from her eyes. The infant bore the beloved name of William, and its little cradle was placed close by the bed of its mother. Then Eva’s gaze, which had been directed to heaven, returned once more to earth. She now looked on her son as she had on heaven. She would bend over him to trace the likeness to his father, for God had permitted a perfect resemblance between William and the son he was never destined to see. A great change took place. Eva, who had consented to live till her babe was born, I could see wished still to live, since she felt how much it needed the protection of her love. She passed whole days and nights by its cradle, and when I came to see her, O! then she spoke to me, questioned me as to the duties requisite for her son; when he suffered told me of it, and asked me what ought to be done to spare him the smallest pain. She feared for the babe the heat of a ray of the sun or the cold of the least breeze. She would hug him to her bosom and warm him with her caresses; once I even thought I perceived a smile on her lips, but she never would sing to him while rocking the cradle—she called the nurse and told her to sing his lullaby, during which time her tears would flow over her darling William. Poor babe! he was beautiful, mild, tractable, but, as though his mother’s grief had even before his birth had an effect on him, he rarely cried and never smiled. He was calm, and calmness at that age makes us think of suffering. It seemed to me that the tears shed over his cradle had chilled his little soul. I wished that his caressing arms should already be thrown round his mother’s neck; I could have wished him to return the kisses lavished on him. But what am I dreaming? thought I, can one expect that this little creature, scarcely a year old, should have an idea that it was born to love and console this woman?
It was, I assure you, ladies, a touching sight to look upon, this young mother, pale, exhausted, having renounced all the future for herself, returning as it were to life for a little infant which could not even say “thanks, mother.” What a mystery is the human heart! that of so little it can make so much! Give it but a grain of sand, it will raise a mountain; or in its last throb show it an atom to love, and it again commences to beat; it does not cease its pulsations forever till nothing is left around it but space, and even the shadow of what was dear to it has fled from earth!
Eva placed her child on a rug at her feet, then looking at it, she would say to me—“Doctor, when my son is grown up I wish him to become distinguished, and when once taught I will choose for him a noble career. I will follow him everywhere—on the sea if he is in the navy, in India if in the army: he must win glory and honors; and I will lean on his arm and proudly say—I am his mother! Will he not let me follow him, doctor? a poor woman who needs but silence and solitude that she may weep, can incommode no one, is it not so?”
And then we would discuss the different pursuits to be chosen; we placed twenty years on that infant’s head, both of us forgetting that those twenty years would make us old. But, alas! we rarely dwell on ourselves, and never think of being otherwise than young and happy, when youth and happiness abide within us.
In listening to those bright anticipations, I could not help regarding with fear the child on whom another’s existence so materially depended. An indefinable dread crept over me in spite of myself; but, thought I, she has shed tears enough, and God, whom she implores, owes her some happiness.
Things were in this situation when I received a letter from my uncle, (the only surviving relation I had.) My uncle, a member of the faculty at Montpellier, sent for me that I might in that learned city perfect myself in the secrets of my profession. This letter, worded like a request, was in fact a command, and I was forced to go. The next morning, with a heart swelling at the thought of the isolation in which I should leave the widow and orphan, I repaired to the white house, to bid adieu to Eva Meredith. When I told her that I was about to quit her for a long time, I scarcely know if a shade of sadness passed over her features, her beautiful face since William’s death had worn a look of such deep melancholy, that it was impossible ever to trace on it more than the faintest smile; as for sadness, it was always there.
“Are you going to leave us,” she said, “your services were so beneficial to my child!”
The poor woman had no word of regret for her only friend who was leaving her, the mother alone grieved for the doctor so useful to her son; I did not complain. To be of use is the sweetest recompense for our devotion to others.
“Farewell,” she said, giving me her hand. “Wherever you may be, may God bless you; and if at any time it is his will that you should be unhappy, may He provide you a heart as compassionate as your own.” I bent my forehead to her hand and retired deeply affected.
The child lay sleeping on the lawn before the steps, I took him in my arms and embraced him over and over again; I gazed on him for a long time attentively, and sadly, and a tear dimmed my eye. “Oh! no, it cannot be, I am deceived,” I murmured, and hurried from the house.