CHAPTER 15 The Withered Heart!
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The calmness of feeling which follows sleep — the morning's clearer perceptions — the subsiding of passion through the lapse of time — of all these, had Mr. Hardy the advantage; and yet, there was no softer feeling in his heart for his unhappy wife — no wavering in his purpose towards his child. To send the latter away from home, he saw to be a plain duty; and no pity for the weakness or stubborn self-will of his long-enduring wife, stirred the hard surface of his heart.
On entering the family sitting-room, the next morning, a little scene met his eye, which would have melted the feelings of most men, but which only added another layer of ice to his. Mrs. Hardy sat with her youngest child in her lap, while Helen, the eldest, stood with her arm drawn around her mother's neck, bending over and talking to the babe. Very tenderly did Helen love her mother, and very tenderly did she love the sweet young sister, who was as a sunbeam in their dwelling. All her pure life seemed bound up in theirs. Towards her father, Helen had never manifested a very strong affection. There was something about him that repressed the warm out gushing of her heart; and since she had become old enough to comprehend the meaning of certain things said and done by him to her mother, a feeling of alienation had found lodgement in her heart. A light of gladness was on her face, as she looked up, on hearing the footsteps of her father; but it faded instantly. There was an expression on his countenance that caused a chill to run through her frame.
"Good morning, father!" she said, trying to smile, and struggling at the same time to dispel the feeling that came over her, like a cloud over the sun. Then she left her mother's side, and advanced a few steps to meet him.
"Good morning," was answered almost repulsively, as the father strode past his child; and, lifting the morning-paper from the table on which a servant had placed it, he sat down, and turned himself so much away from the other inhabitants of the room, that only a portion of his face could be seen.
Helen went slowly back to her mother, and drawing her arm around her neck, bent over the babe, and smiled upon it again. But even the babe felt the smile to be feebler, and gave back only a feeble smile in return. A shadow had fallen upon all their spirits.
For some minutes there was a stillness in the room that was oppressive. Even the younger children hushed their prattle, and the older ones looked half in wonder at their father.
"Helen," said Mr. Hardy, laying down the paper, not a single line of which had he read with any intelligent perception of its sense, and turning his face to where his daughter stood with her arms clasping her mother's neck, "come here; I wish to speak to you."
Helen, with a timid wondering look, came towards her father, and stood gazing upon his calm face, in which she saw the reflection of some fixed intention.
"Helen, in what I am now about to say, I wish you to believe me entirely in earnest. The matter is fully settled in my own mind, as a thing best to be done; and I expect your entire acquiescence."
Mr. Hardy spoke slowly, distinctly, and imperiously, his words falling like successive shocks upon the sensitive feelings of his child, whom he had taken entirely off her guard by this abrupt, ill-timed introduction of a subject which he knew beforehand would be painful.
"I am going to send you away from home to school!" Helen startled, and turned very pale.
"Oh, no! don't, father! Don't send me away to school!" she replied instantly, the tears gushing from her eyes.
"Helen! what did I say just now?" Mr. Hardy spoke sternly.
But Helen only stood still and wept.
"Answer me!" The father's voice was calm, but authoritative.
"O father! don't send me away from home. I can't leave my mother!"
Now that reason was the very worst of all that could have been urged.
"You have got to leave her," was almost angrily replied. "So make your mind up to that. You'll be ruined if you stay at home any longer."
"Mother! O mother! won't you say one word for me?" exclaimed Helen.
Mr. Hardy gave his wife a look, that, if he had possessed the power to do so, would have turned her into stone. But it did not seal her lips, for she instantly replied —
"It is not my will, Helen. I wish you to remain at home."
"Weak, perverse, injudicious mother!" exclaimed Mr. Hardy, in a manner more passionate than he had ever before exhibited in his family. "I am tried beyond all endurance! Have all these years passed without your knowing me, that you now so madly throw yourself between my purposes and their certain execution? Your blindness and folly are amazing! I have already said to you that Helen must be sent away to school, and I want nothing on your part but accordant action. My word has gone forth — and it shall not fail!"
Helen uttered not a syllable, but went with slow steps from her father's side, and coming up to where her mother was sitting, threw her arms around her neck, and laid her face upon her bosom — the entire group presenting an image of despair.
And what were Mr. Hardy's thoughts as he looked upon this picture? Did his heart soften? Was there even a slight relenting? These, or such as these, were his thoughts:
"Was ever a man so thwarted in his purposes? Did ever a man, who wished to do right and be right, meet in his own home with such unreasonable opposition, and that too from a wife who made her solemn vows of love and obedience? What end have I in view? Simply the good of my child; and when I seek to attain that good, I am treated as an unreasonable tyrant. Shall I submit? — Shall I tamely yield? — Never! John Hardy is not the man to be driven from his course by a woman!"
The ringing of the breakfast-bell came just in time to prevent the utterance of some very strong language meditated by the incensed husband and father. The gathering at the table was a very embarrassed one. All the children, except the youngest, comprehended the meaning of what their father had said, and were in grief for their sister. The cloud which had fallen on her spirit, shadowed theirs.
Nothing more was said on the subject during the meal; indeed, there was hardly a word spoken by anyone. Mr. Hardy was first to leave the table. True to his intentions, the unyielding father s spent nearly all the forenoon in making inquiries from people likely to be well informed on the subject, relative to various boarding-schools for young ladies. Some with whom he conversed, spoke strongly against the practice of sending daughters away from home for purposes of education, giving it as their opinion, that more evil than good came of it in nine cases out of ten.
Their opinions, being adverse to his own designs — went for nothing. The views of some others ran quite parallel with his, and by these he was strengthened and encouraged.
Satisfied, at last, in regard to one of the schools about which inquiry had been made, he wrote to the principal for more particular information. In three or four days, he received an answer, with terms, favourable statements in regard to the institution, and a list of influential names for reference. The school was two hundred miles away. Several of the parties referred to occupied prominent positions in the community, but lived in distant cities, so that a personal application to them was out of the question. It did not occur to Mr. Hardy, that it might be well to write to one or two of these, and make some more minute investigations. Any good school was, in his opinion, preferable to the existing home-education; and the fact that these gentlemen had permitted their names to be used as referees, was altogether conclusive that this institution was of the highest order. So Mr. Hardy wrote back that he would, in a short time, send or bring his daughter.
"There is too much weak self-indulgence at home," he wrote. "An invalid mother, with morbidly sensitive feelings, is not calculated to give the right tone to her children's minds. She may be loving toward them, and devoted in her care — but she cannot be wise in discipline. Their sensibilities may develop under such a rule, but what is gained here is more than lost in enfeeblement of character. Daily have I seen the evil effects of this state of things upon the mind of my eldest daughter, and I have now determined to remove her from influences that, if continued, will spoil her as a woman. I have a great dislike to your one-sided characters — to your men and women who are nothing except in a single direction. The well-balanced mind is the true one. Its possessor belongs to the happiest and most useful class in the community.
I wish you to give my daughter a good training; to depress the over-matured feelings, and to encourage the intellect and reason; to teach her to think and to endure. This weeping at a word, and starting at the hum of a beetle — all appear to me humiliating weaknesses; and I confess to having no patience with them. It is the fact of their encouragement, rather than repression, at home, that has determined me to remove my daughter from such enervating influences. I shall therefore expect, from the very beginning, a firm course of treatment. The hot-house plant must grow stronger at the root and along the stem, that it may put out vigorous branches; and this it can never do, while it remains in the warm, pulse less air of a sheltered conservatory. I shall rely upon your firmness and your judgment in the case."
A week of entire silence on the subject which had so agitated the home-circle, and thrown over all hearts therein the shadow of a cloud, was allowed to pass away; and then Mr. Hardy announced the fact that he had made arrangements to send Helen from home, and that she must be ready in a two weeks to enter the "Hope Institute for Young Ladies," situated in a quiet village of New York.
What his daughter suffered then, and afterwards, in consequence of this coldly calculated and as coldly executed purpose, Mr. Hardy never knew, and never could know. Her's was a nature, the comprehension of which was wholly above the region of his perceptions. His own emotional character gave him the only standard by which to judge of others; and this was so sluggish in its original constitution, and so obtuse through selfishness, that all feeling in those around him, he regarded as a species of contemptible weakness.
In the world — his love of reputation made him put on a mild and amiable appearance, like that of one possessing a warmly benevolent heart; but at home — he trod ruthlessly upon all weak exhibitions of sensibility.
As was just said, Mr. Hardy had no adequate conception of what his gentle, loving-hearted, sensitive child, who possessed in a high degree the delicate and refined organization of her mother, would necessarily endure in her rough removal from home, and as rough transplantation in a colder, harder soil, and an uncongenial atmosphere. The life of Helen was so bound up in the life and love of her mother, that no separation could take place without the acutest suffering. She had always been shy towards strangers, and never cared to go out unless accompanied by her mother. These were defects that needed to be overcome; but in the wisest and gentlest manner. To crush them out, as was now her father's purpose, was an impossible thing, without destroying the child's life; and the effort to do so involved cruelties, which it makes the heart sad to think of. There was no way in which he could rightly have accomplished the work of giving her character more strength, but by attaching her to himself through loving acts, and then under the shelter, or within the circle of his love — bearing her out into the world, and letting her timid nature gain confidence. If the home-influences were too enervating, if they developed her character in a one sided manner — then it was for him, gently and lovingly, to bring her within the circle of other influences, and to let her breathe by degrees a more invigorating atmosphere. But conciliation towards weaknesses of character, as he regarded them — was no part of John Hardy's home-discipline. His pride would never let him bend to that. What he, in his self-intelligence, decided to be right — that must be done; opposition only created impatience, and made his original purposes as unbending as iron!
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