Part 17 (1/2)
What a fair cast-away am I, Agnes?”
”I hope not a cast-away, Jane; but I shall dress you with care and tenderness, notwithstanding.”
”Every day I must dress in my best, because when Charles returns, you know it will be necessary that I should justify his choice, by appearing as beautiful as possible.”
”Give the innocent her own way,” said her father; ”give her, in all that may gratify the child, her own way, where it is not directly wrong to do so.”
Agnes and she then went up to her room, that she might indulge in that harmless happiness, which the fiction of hope had, under the mercy of G.o.d, extracted, from the reality of despair.
When the ceremony of the toilette was over, she and her sister returned to the parlor, and they could notice a slight tinge of color added to her pale cheek, by the proud consciousness of her beauty. The exertion, however, she had undergone, considering her extremely weak and exhausted state of of health was more than she could bear long. But a few minutes had elapsed after her reappearance in the parlor, when she said--
”Mamma, I am unwell; I want to be undressed, and to go to bed; I am very faint; help me to bed, mamma--and if you come and stay with me, I shall tell you every thing about my prospects in life--yes, and in death, too; because I have prospects in death--but ah,” she added, shuddering, ”they are dark--dark!”
Seldom, indeed, was a family tried like this family; and never was the endurance of domestic love, and its triumph over the chilling habit of affliction, more signally manifested than in the undying tenderness of their hearts and hands, in all that was necessary to her comfort, or demanded by the childish caprices of her malady.
On going upstairs, she kissed them all as usual, but they then discovered, for the first time, in all its bitterness, what a dark and melancholy enjoyment it is to kiss the lips of a maniac, who has loved us, and whom we still must love.
”Jane,” said William, struggling to be firm, ”kiss me, too, before you go.”
”Come to me, William,” said she, ”for I am not able to go to you. Oh, my brother, if I did not love you, I would be very wicked.”
The affectionate young man kissed her, and, as he did, the big tears rolled down his cheeks. He wept aloud.
”I never, never gave her up till now,” he exclaimed; ”but”--and his face darkened into deep indignation as he spoke, ”we shall see about it yet, Jane dear. I shall allow a month or two--she may recover; but if I suffer this to go unav----” he paused; ”I meant nothing,” he added, ”except that I will not despair of her yet.”
About ten days restored her to something like health, but it was obvious that her const.i.tution had sustained a shock which it could not long survive. Of this Dr. M'Cormick a.s.sured them.
”In so delicate a subject as she is,” he added, ”we usually find that when reason goes, the physical powers soon follow it. But if my opinion be correct, I think you will have the consolation of seeing her mind clear before she dies. There comes often in such cases what the common people properly, and indeed beautifully, term a light before death, and I think she will have it. As you are unanimous against putting her into a private asylum, you must only watch the sweet girl quietly, and without any appearance of vigilance, allowing her in all that is harmless and indifferent to have her own way. Religious feeling you perceive const.i.tutes a strong feature in her case, the rest is obviously the result of the faithless conduct of Osborne. Poor girl, here she comes, apparently quite happy.” Jane entered as he spoke, after having been dressed as usual for the day, in her best apparel. She glanced for a moment at the gla.s.s, and readjusted her hair which had, she thought, got a little out of order; after which she said, smiling,
”Why should I fear comparisons? He may come as soon as he pleases. I am ready to receive him, but do you know I think that my papa and mamma are not so fond of me as they ought to be. Is it not an honor to have for their daughter a girl whose beauty is unsurpa.s.sed in Europe? I am not proud of it for my own sake, but for his.”
”Jane, do you know this gentleman, dear?” said her mother.
”Oh yes; that is Dr. M'Cormick.”
”I am glad to see that your health is so much improved, my dear,” said the doctor.
”Oh yes;” she replied, ”I am quite well--that is so far as this world is concerned; but for all so happy as I look, you would never guess that I am reprobate. Now could you tell me, doctor, why it is that I look so happy knowing as I do that I am foredoomed to misery?”
”No,” he replied, ”but you will tell us yourself.”
”Why it is because I do know it. Knowing the worst is often a great consolation, I a.s.sure you. I, at least, have felt it so.”
”Oh what a n.o.ble mind is lost in that sweet girl!” exclaimed the worthy physician.
”But it seems, mamma,” she proceeded, ”there is a report gone abroad that I am mad. I met yesterday--was it not yesterday, Agnes?--I met a young woman down on the river side, and she asked me if it were true that I was crazed with love, and how do you think I replied, mamma? I said to her, 'If you would avoid misery--misery, mark--never violate truth even indirectly.' I said that solemnly, and would have said more but that Agnes rebuked her for speaking, and then wept. Did you not weep, Agnes?”
”Oh no wonder I should,” replied her sister, deeply moved; ”the interview she alludes to, doctor, was one that occurred the day before yesterday between her and another poor girl in the neighborhood who is also unsettled, owing to a desertion of a still baser kind. It was becoming too affecting to listen to, and I chid the poor thing off.”
”Yes, indeed, she chid her off, and the poor thing as she told me, about to be a bride to-morrow. She said she was in quest of William that they might be married, and asked me if I had seen him. If you do, she added, tell him that f.a.n.n.y is waiting for him, and that as everything is ready she expects he'll come and marry her to-morrow as he promised. Now, mamma, Agnes said, that although she chid her, she wept for her, but why should you weep, Agnes, for a girl who is about to become a bride to-morrow? Surely you did not weep because she was going to be made happy? Did you?”
”All who are going to become brides are not about to experience happiness, my dear,” replied her sister.