полная версия

Fern Fanny
Fresh Leaves

CHAPTER X

“How shall we manage to kill time to-day, Jack?” asked Tom Shaw; “race-course – billiards – club – pistol gallery?”

“Kill time! You – a bridegroom of six months! Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. You remember I told you you would soon weary of your new toy. A six-months’ bridegroom!” and Tom laughed merrily.

“Long enough to make love to a statue, were it ever so faultless,” replied Tom, with a yawn. “I’m bored to death, Jack, and I don’t care who knows it. My mother-in-law, who, to do her justice, is clever enough, strolls over the house like a walking tomb-stone. My wife is as lifeless as if half the women in town were not dying for me. It’s cursed monotonous; hang me if I’m not sick of it.”

“Does your wife never speak to you?” asked Jack.

“Never,” said Tom; “there she sits in her chair, playing with her fingers, or else at the window, looking this way, and that, as if she were expecting somebody; when she does so, it seems to worry the old lady, who looks nervously at me, and tries to coax her away – the Lord only knows why; and two or three times I have seen her coax away a faded flower that Mary has a fancy for holding between her fingers. It’s all Greek to me. Confound it, I feel as if I were in a nest of lunatics. It makes me as nervous as the devil. Come, let’s be off. What has become of Susy, the little ballet-girl? Did she take my marriage to heart?”

“Not she, the delicious little monkey; she tossed her pretty head, and said with an arch smile: ‘Mark what I say: he’ll be back to me in six months.’”

“Pretty prophet!” replied Tom.

The two young men locked arms and sauntered down the crowded street, whiffing their cigars; now attracted by some brilliant shop-window, now bandying jests with those miserable women, who, but for just such as they, might have lifted their womanly brows to the starry sky – pure as when first kissed by a mother’s loving lips. Pale seamstresses glided by, unguarded, save by Him who noticeth the sparrow’s fall. Young men of their own age, weary of the slowly accumulating gains of honest toil, looked enviously upon their delicately kidded hands, fine apparel, and care-for-naught air. Passing, at length, the long line of carriages in front of the opera house, they disappeared under the lighted vestibule, and took possession of one of the boxes.

Fair young girls were there, unveiling to the libidinous eye, at Fashion’s bidding, charms of which they should have been chary to the moon. Faded belles throwing out bait at which nobody even nibbled. Married men groaned, looked at their watches, and leaning back in their seats, computed the rise and fall of stocks; married women gazed anxiously around to see if their laces, diamonds, or cashmeres were eclipsed by their neighbors’. Every body was bored to death, stifled by the heat, blinded, by the gas, and scientifically inappreciative of the music, but every body willing to endure ten times as much, rather than not be “in the fashion.” The moon, to be sure, silvered the pretty fountain in the park, close by, and the cool, sweet evening breeze played through the blossoming trees; but the “working people” were stretched upon its benches; the poor man’s child laid his soft cheek to the cool grass; the ragged little urchin, escaping from the stifled air of the noisome lane, threw up his brimless hat in the gravel walk. The parks were plebeian, opera boxes were beyond the reach of “the vulgar.”

But look! Now the audience show signs of animation. All is astir. See, the ballet! A fleecy cloud sails in, enveloping “Susy.” Susy, the favorite pro tem. – Susy, with her jetty locks, creamy skin, and dimpled shoulders. Susy, with her pretty ankles and rounded waist. Susy, with her jeweled arms and rose-banded hair. Susy, with her rounded bosom and twinkling feet. Young men and old men level their glasses in breathless admiration, as Susy languishingly twirls, and tip-toes, and pirouettes. Young girls, who have long since ceased blushing at such exhibitions, wish, for the nonce, that they were Susy, as bouquets and diamond rings are thrown upon the stage. Tom Shaw’s eyes sparkle, and relieving his enthusiasm by some expressive expletives, he leaves Jack for a behind-the-scene tête-à-tête with the danseuse.

CHAPTER XI

 
“Day dawned – within a curtained room,
Filled to faintness with perfume,
A lady lay at point of doom.
Morn broke – an infant saw the light,
But for the lady, fair and bright,
She slumbered in undreaming night.”
 

Life and death had passed each other on the threshold! Lucy Ford’s tears were the baptism of Mary’s motherless babe. The poor weary heart, whose pulse had beat so unevenly above it, had ceased its flutterings. It was nothing new to see Mary lie with marble face, folded hands, and softly-fringed, closed eyes. But, sometimes, the thin hand had been kindly outstretched toward Lucy; sometimes, the glossy head had raised itself, and leaned tenderly on the maternal bosom; sometimes, the blue eye had lingered lovingly on her wrinkled face. Small comfort, God knows – and yet it was much to poor Lucy. She looked at the little gasping, helpless thing before her – a tenant already for her rifled heart – a new claimant for her love and care. Oh, how could she else but welcome it? With soft folds she wrapped its fragile limbs, with motherly care she soothed it on her sunken breast, and with a prayer to God, as she pressed her lips to Mary’s brow, she promised Death to be faithful to the trust of Life.

Days and nights – weeks, months and years came and went, blanching the prisoner’s lip and cheek, but failing to subdue a love which yet had not saved him from incurring a doom so terrible. Had Mary forgotten him? for, since that dreadful, happy day, when he clasped her in his cell, he had heard nothing save the damning sneer of the villain Scraggs. Perhaps she was dead – and his bloodless lip quivered at the thought. Nay – worse – perhaps they might have married her, in her despair, to another. Percy tossed on his narrow cot in agony.

He even welcomed the day-light, which recalled him to his task. Oh, those long, long nights, when locked in his cell, remorse kept him silent company! or worse, the dreary, idle Sunday, when taken out once to chapel, then remanded back to his dark cell, he lay thinking of the pleasant Sabbaths he had passed with Mary, in the little parlor, on the sofa by her side. He could see her now, in the pretty blue dress she wore to please him; the ring he had given her, sparkling on her white hand – her glossy hair, worn the very way he liked to see it, the book opened at the passage he liked best, the little flower pressed between its leaves, because he gave it. Then the little arbor in the garden – where they used to sit the pleasant Sabbath evenings – the song Mary sang him there – with her head upon his breast. Oh, happiness – oh, misery!

Percy knew it was summer, for as he passed through the prison-yard he saw that the green blades of grass were struggling up between the flag-stones, and now and then, he heard the chirp of a passing bird. The sky, too, was softly blue, and the breeze had been where clover and daisies had bloomed, and rifled their sweetness.

Percy looked down on his shrunken limbs, clad in his felon garb – then on his toil-worn hands. He passed them slowly over his shaven crown. Merciful Heaven! he – Percy Lee – Mary’s lover! Fool – thrice-accursed fool; life – liberty – happiness – love – all laid at the feet of the tempting fiend – for this! No tears relieved the fierce fire, which seemed consuming his heart and brain. How long could he bear this? Was his cell to be his grave? Once, seized with a sudden illness, he had been taken to the prison hospital, where the doctor tried pleasant little experiments on the subjects who came under his notice. Around him were poor wretches, groaning under every phase of bodily and mental discomfort. Now roused out of some Heaven-sent slumber, when it suited the doctor to show them to visitors; or to descant upon the commencement and probable duration of their disease, coupled with accounts of patients who had died in those beds, and whom he could have cured under different circumstances.

It was here that Percy shed the only tears which had moistened his eyes since his incarceration. A party of visitors were passing through the wards, listening to the doctor’s egotistical details, and peeping into the different cots. A sweet little girl had strayed away from the rest of her party, and was making her tour of childish observation alone. Her eye fell upon Percy. She stood for a moment, gazing at him with the intensest pity written on her sweet face. Then gliding up to his side, she drooped her bright curls over his pillow, and placing a flower between his fingers, she whispered, “I’ll pray to God to make you well and let you go home.”

“Mary! come here,” said a shrill female voice, recalling the child; “don’t you know that is a horrid bad man! he might kill you.”

“No, he is not,” said the little creature, confidently, with a piteous glance of her soft, blue eyes at Percy; “no, he is not.”

“What makes you think so?” asked one of the party.

“I don’t know,” replied the child; “something tells me so – here;” and she laid her hand on her breast.

“Won’t you please let him go home?” asked she of the doctor.

“Home.”

As the sweet pleader passed out, the room seemed to grow suddenly dark, and Percy turned his face to his pillow, and wept aloud.

Heavenly childhood! that the world should ever chill thy Christ-like heart. That scorn should uproot pity. That suspicion should stifle love. That selfishness should dry up thy tears, and avarice lock thine open palm, with its vice-like grasp! Oh, weep not ye who straighten childhood for the grave; over whose household idols the green grass waves; heaven’s bright rain showers and spring flowers bloom. Let the bird soar, while his song is sweetest, before one stain soil his plumage, or with maimed wing he flutter helplessly. Let him soar. The cloud which hides him from thy straining eye, doth it not hide him from the archer?

CHAPTER XII

“The top o’ the mornin’ to yez, Bridget,” said Pat, poking his head into the kitchen. “Is the ould lady up yet? Sorry a plight masther was in the night – dhrunk as a baste – and he cares no more for his own flesh and blood than I do for a Protestant – bad ’cess to ’em.”

“Thrue for you, Patrick, and may I niver confess again to the praste, if his light o’ love is not misthress here before long; he is as bould-faced about it as if poor Misthress Mary wasn’t fresh under the sod. God rest her sowl.”

Bridget’s prediction was not long being verified. Upholsterers were soon in attendance, re-modeling and re-furnishing poor Mary’s apartments, of which the pretty danseuse shortly took unblushing and triumphant possession. It was understood in the house, that her will was to be law; and implicit obedience to the same the surest passport to head-quarters. Poor Lucy, willing to bear any thing rather than separation from the child – chased from one room to another – finally took refuge with her charge in the attic, whither poor Mary’s portrait had long since been banished. For the little Fanny’s sake, she patiently endured every humiliation; she heeded not the careless insolence of the new régime of servants. She bore every caprice of the tyrannical little danseuse. Patiently her feeble limbs tottered up stairs and down, performing the offices of nurse and servant to her grandchild; patiently she soothed it when ill, or amused it when fretful; uncomplainingly she bore from her son-in-law his maudling curses, when they passed each other on the stairs, or in the hall. Every thing – any thing, but separation from Mary’s child, which nestled every day closer to her heart; and whose soft eyes and glossy curls reminded her every day more forcibly of her lost daughter. Every day she prayed to God to spare the withered trunk till the vine which clambered round it should gather strength to brave the winds and storms. Fanny slept securely on her breast, while the bacchanalian song resounded through the house, and obscene jests, and curses loud and deep, made night hideous. And when the moonbeams penetrated the little window, and, falling upon Mary’s portrait, revealed her in all her beauty, before the shadow had fallen on her fair brow, or dimmed her lustrous eyes, or robbed that dimpled mouth of its sunny smile, poor Lucy would nestle closer to little Fanny, and pray God that so bitter a cup might pass from her.

Dear little Fanny! with her plump little arms thrown carelessly over her curly head, her pearly teeth just gleaming through her parted lips, as if some kind angel even then were promising her exemption from such a doom.

Time crept on, blanching Lucy’s cheek to deadly paleness, tinting Fanny’s with a lovelier rose; thinning Lucy’s silver hair, piling the golden clusters round Fanny’s ivory brow; bending Lucy’s shrunken limbs, rounding Fanny’s into symmetry and grace.

True, the child never left the attic; but what place, how circumscribed soever, will not Love beautify and brighten? True, “mamma’s” pictured semblance responded not to the little upturned face and lisping lips, but who shall say that age and infancy were the only tenants of that lonely room?

Fanny knew that she had a “papa” somewhere in the house, but “papa” was always “sick,” or “busy,” so grandmamma said; that must be the reason why he never came up to see his little girl. Sometimes Fanny amused herself by climbing up to the little window, overlooking the square where a silvery fountain tossed its sparkling diamonds to the sun, who turned them all sorts of pretty colors, and sent them quivering back again. Little Fanny liked that! Then she saw little children playing round the fountain, sailing their tiny boats on its bosom, and clapping their hands gleefully when they rode safely into port. Great shaggy Newfoundland dogs, too, jumped into the water, and swam, with their black noses just above the surface, and ever and anon sprang out upon the mossy bank, shaking their shaggy coats upon the more dainty ones of mamma’s little pets, quite regardless of lace, silk, or ribbon. It was a pretty sight, and little Fanny wanted to go to the fountain too; but grandmamma was so feeble, and she had so much running to do up and down stairs, that she had no strength left to walk; and then grandmamma had to make all Fanny’s little dresses, and keep them tidy and nice; and by the time the sun moved off of mamma’s picture in the afternoon, she was quite ready to go to bed with little Fanny.

Poor old grandmamma! Fanny handed her her spectacles, and a cricket to put her poor tired feet upon, and picked up the spools of cotton when they rolled upon the floor, and learned too to thread her needles quite nicely, for grandmamma’s eyes were getting dim; and sometimes Fanny would try to make the bed, but her hand was so tiny that she could not even cover one of the small roses of its patch-work quilt. Dear little thing! He who blessed little children, recorded of her, “She hath done what she could.”

One day Fanny heard a great noise – a great bumping and tumbling, as if some heavy body were falling down the stairs. Then she heard a deep groan – and then such a shriek! If she lived to be as old as grandma, that shriek would never go out of her ears; then there was a great running to and fro, Patrick and Bridget wrung their hands, and said ochone! ochone! and then grandmamma’s face grew very white, as she took Fanny by the hand and hurried down stairs; and when they got into the lower entry, there lay a gentleman very still on the floor. A beautiful lady was kneeling on the floor beside him, chafing his temples – but it was of no use; feeling of his pulse – but it was quite still. Then the beautiful lady shrieked again – oh, so dreadfully! and then she fell beside him like one dead.

Fanny’s grandma whispered to her, that the gentleman “was her papa,” and that he had fallen down stairs and broken his neck – grandma did not say that he was drunk when he did it. Fanny crept up to him, for she had wanted so much to see her papa – so she put her little rosy face close to his, and said, “Wake up, please, papa, and see me.” But he did not open his eyes at all; then she put her hand on his face, and then she seemed frightened – her little lip quivered, and she clung to her grandmother’s dress – then some men came and carried papa up stairs, and the maid-servants laid the beautiful lady on the sofa, in the parlor; and she and grandma went back up into the attic – and all that day, grandma did not seem to see mamma’s picture at all; and when Fanny came up to her, she wept and said, “God help you – my poor lamb.”

CHAPTER XIII

The bell sounded at Bluff Hill Prison, to call the prisoners to their tasks. They passed out from their cells and crossed, two by two, the prison-yard to their workshops. Percy and a stout negro were the last couple in the file. Just as they were about passing in, the African, who had received the punishment of the douche the day previous, for dilatoriness at his task, sprang upon the officer in waiting, and seized him by the throat. Percy, whose pugilistic science was a match for the African’s muscle, grappled with and secured him in an instant, receiving, as he did so, a severe bite from the fellow’s teeth, in his left shoulder. The negro was handcuffed, and Percy carried to the hospital, to have his wound dressed. The officer, in the flush of his gratitude, assured him, as he left, that the case should be laid before the governor, and would undoubtedly result in his pardon.

Percy’s eye brightened, as he bowed his head in reply, but in truth he took no credit for the deed; it was only following an irresistible impulse to save the life of a fellow-creature.

Liberty! it would be sweet! But, pshaw! why dream of it? Men were proverbially ungrateful. Ten to one, the officer would never think of his promise again; or if he did, the governor would lay it on the table, to be indefinitely postponed, or forgotten, or rejected, with a thousand other troublesome applications. No – suns would rise and set just as they had done, and time for him would be marked only by the prison-bell, with its clanging summons to labor. He should see, every day, as he had done, the poor lame prisoner sunning himself in his favorite corner in the yard – he should see the prisoners’ mattresses, hung on the rails to air – he should see the gleam of the blacksmith’s forge, and hear the stroke of the stonecutter’s hammer; the shuttle would fly, and the wheel turn round. He should sit down to his wooden plate, his square bit of salt meat, and his one potato, and drink water out of his rusty tin cup. He should gasp out the starry nights in his stifling cell; he should hear the rustling of silken robes, as ladies went the prison rounds, and his heart would beat quick as he thought of Mary; he should burn forever with the fire of remorse and shame – yet never consume; the taper would flicker and flicker – yet never go out.

So Percy sat carelessly down on the hospital bench, to have his wound dressed; and listened to the asthmatic breathing of the sick man at his side, and saw the hospital cook stirring in a cauldron some diluted broth, and watched the doctor, as he compounded a plaster, and leisurely smoked a cigar; and looked at a green branch which the wind ever and anon swept across the grated window, showering its snowy blossoms, as if in mockery, on the prison floor.

O, no – liberty was not for him – and why should it be? Had he not forfeited it by his own rash act? – was not his punishment just? – had he not lost the confidence of his fellow men? – crushed the noblest and purest heart that ever God warmed into life and love? It was all too true, and there had been moments when he meekly accepted his punishment, when he toiled in his prison uniform, not as if under the eye of a taskmaster, but willingly, almost cheerfully, as if by expiatory penance he could atone to himself for the wrong he had done that guileless heart. O, did it still beat? and for him? for the thousandth time he questioned. Could Mary look on him? smile on him? love him still? O, what mockery were liberty else! What mattered it how brightly the sun shone, if it shone not on their love purified and intensified by sorrow? What matter how green the earth, if they walked not through it side by side? What mattered it how fresh the breeze – how blue the sky – how soft the moonbeams – how sweet the flowers – how bright the stars – if day and night found not their twin hearts beating like one? Better his cell should be his tomb.