Family Pride CHAPTER 7.
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Gradually, and by small accumulations of strength, did Mrs. Watson, now fairly in the effort of reformation, aided by a kind and constant monitor, gain a degree of power over herself, which promised an entire change in her character. Of course, the reacting energy of evil in her mind, would often bring into temporary subjection the good principles which were forming there; but the good only retired for brief periods. It rallied again with renewed activity.
This process of reformation had been progressing slowly but surely, for nearly six months, when the matron, who had become much attached to her, came into her room one day, and said,
"Mrs. Watson, I have just learned something that I think it my duty to communicate to you. Your mother died yesterday."
The matron could not calculate the effect of such a communication upon a mind but half restored to fortitude and self-control, and under circumstances of privation and mortification. She had hesitated and debated some time before determining to make the communication. The shock was painful in the extreme. The sudden consciousness that all hope was forever cut off of again seeing her mother's face in reconciliation, a hope she had not ceased to cherish in the inner chamber of her heart, like a solitary and dim candle, serving only to reveal the surrounding gloom — weighed down her spirits, and paralyzed every energy of her mind. All through the day she sat in dreamy abstraction, scarcely answering any question put to her by the matron, and not offering to resume the work which she had laid aside.
On the day preceding, a solemn scene was passing in the house from which, for ten years, Emily had been banished. But two people were present, besides a poor trembler on the brink of mortality. One was the husband. General Thompson — and the other a slender and beautiful little girl, not much beyond her ninth summer. The former sat upon one side of the bed, his face expressive of deep affliction. The latter stood upon the other side, her hand clasped within that of the dying woman, while large drops were stealing slowly down her young cheeks. A profound silence reigned for some time through the chamber where death was about to enter; at length the dying woman said, in a feeble voice, looking at the child, "Go downstairs for a little while, Agnes, dear. We will send for you again in a few minutes."
The child obeyed. As the door closed after her, Mrs. Thompson turned toward her husband and said:
"We have never allowed ourselves to breathe the name of Emily for years. But I must speak of her, now that the fatal and ruinous pride of my heart has lost its power over me. I wish to see her!"
"You cannot!" ejaculated General Thompson, with sudden energy, a dark passionate shadow passing over his brow. "She is no longer our child!"
"No denial of ours, can change the relationship! She is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh! Years ago I thought all natural affection for her extinguished, but it is swelling up in my heart with unutterable yearnings. Oh, husband, let me see my child before I die!" and she raised herself up, and leaned over toward him with a look of pleading agony.
"You cannot!" was the brief stern answer.
The face of the dying woman became convulsed with the wild energy of her maternal feelings, now rushing with the force acquired by their long accumulation.
"On my knees, I plead with you!" she said, endeavoring to raise herself in the bed.
"No, no, no!" he responded, taking her in his arms and laying her gently back upon the pillow. "Why will you poison the last moments of your life, by a vain and weak desire?"
"Oh, my child! my child! my child!" murmured the dying mother, sinking down upon the pillow. "My poor child! My poor child!"
In a few moments, the powerful struggle that had convulsed her frame, subsided, and with her face nearly hid in the pillow, she lay for a long time as still and as motionless, as if thesleep of death had passed upon her.
General Thompson sat by her side, with his thoughts and feelings in a whirlpool of agitation. Suddenly she startled, quivered as if struck by an invisible arrow, and half raising herself up, looked her husband in the face with a terror-stricken countenance.
"One word!" she said, in a husky whisper, leaning over toward him.
General Thompson bent his head down and listened.
"Promise me!" urged the dying woman, "promise me, in the name of Heaven!"
The proud, stern man, drew himself up with forced composure.
"Anything but that!" he said, impatiently, while his frame shook with deep internal agitation.
"God will require her of our hands, and it is now, for me, too late to be merciful, or I would hope for mercy. Promise me, then!"
The eye of the dying woman, dilated to its full extent, glared wildly upon General Thompson.
Her lips were again about to part.
"I promise!" said her husband, in a low, hesitating voice.
"It is enough!" murmured the dying mother, clasping her hands together, and sinking back upon her pillow. In the next moment, her spirit had taken its flight!
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