Next Part Our Life Romance'.

Back to Main Index Timothy Shay Arthur

A year, fraught with experience, has passed away, silently dropping into the book of life its records; and Ada Ward is within her favorite room. The broad moonbeams slant across the carpet, and fall upon the form lying there in the abjectness of despair. A pale cheek is pressed to the cushion. Ada has that day buried her little babe — and cold, black, ghastly shadows envelop her; colder and blacker than they might have been, because her husband, finding it so gloomy at home, has gone out for a walk.

"Oh, that it should be I!" she groaned, wringing her clasped hands, and pressing them upon her heart, as though she would quiet its great agony. "If I could die! If I could only die! Oh, that such woe should come to me! My glorious temple of love has been broken — dashed to pieces eternally! I must live years, ages, in this blackness of darkness — day after day pressing my hands upon my heart to keep it from bursting! If only we were parted, I think I could endure it better; but to gaze in his face and read no love there; to receive with a grave, repressed face, his acts of politeness; to know that I cannot charm him; that there is no winsome light in my eyes to him; nothing precious in my smile; to have no words pass between us, except those which are necessary; and to see often more smiling words addressed to others, than to me. Oh, my Father! why may I not die? Am I so unlovely, so unworthy of love? Is there no grace in me?

"My mother, my mother! oh, to lay my head on her sheltering bosom! She would weep her soul away to know that her cherished child was an unloved wife. It would strike to the core of my father's heart, to hear the cold words spoken to his 'little bird,' as he used to call me. I am no one's little bird now, only a miserable, blasted wretch, with the elixir of lifeforever dried up in my veins, and burning ashes heaped on my heart.

"Little babe! My little angel! you, too, are taken from me! If you were here, soft tears might perhaps allay this aching. If your dimpled hands could be laid upon my brow, I would think God was merciful to my pain — but He has left me no joy, no blessing! He has bereaved me awfully, cruelly. He has forgotten to be gracious. Ah! that I were stronger; that I could argue with the Almighty. I did not ask for the breath of life — and it is hateful to me now. Oh, this madness, this dreadful rebellion at my lot! This fearful life, without hope, and without God in the world! If only I could sleep, sleep on and get some rest, and grow resigned, and wear a placid face, and quietly tread my way downward to the grave! Perhaps I could bear up better if my health were as strong as it used to be. Oh! my Father and my God, forgive me! Be merciful to your wretched, lost, abandoned child! Shelter me until the storm be over-passed! I will endeavor to bear my cross, to wear my crown of thorns."

This battle with life went on in Ada's soul for months. Sometimes the evil and sometimes the good triumphed; most frequently, a cheerless despair dwelt within her. She saw nothing lovely, nothing to be desired on earth; but she wore a quiet face, and fulfilled the duties of wife and housekeeper. Friends thought she seemed rather pensive since the death of her babe, and not much inclined for society. Her husband thought she had grown to be "excessively sober." He did not remember in whose power it lay to dispel that soberness, or that he had freely and solemnly promised to study her happiness before that of any other mortal. Ada's soft eyes lighted with love when her parents were with her, more tender and caressing than ever; and she tasked herself to the utmost to be as cheerful as their Ada used to be. A thousand sweet and graceful acts of devotion, she performed for them; it was such a comfort to her to anticipate a want. Poor, forlorn one! this was one little fruit of her great sorrow. One day, when her parents had parted with her after a day's visit, her father remarked, earnestly,

"I think, dear, our Ada grows more angelic and thoughtful of our happiness every time we see her. She was always a lovely child, but not as she is now. Have you observed it, Mary?"

"Oh! yes," and the wife looked into her husband's beaming face with a smile, but a tear fell unobserved on her work. The mother remembered that her darling never told her now, how happy she was. When her head lay on her lap, she sometimes said,

"Mother, dear, tell me of all that is noble in life; how we may be purified by sorrow; it was a sorrow to lose my little babe."

And, with fast falling tears, the mother would talk, and Ada would weep quietly, very quietly and softly, until there was no bitterness within her. Then she would go to her splendid home, and with gentle patience give Betsy her accustomed lessons in reading and writing. When her head reposed on her pillow on such nights as these, the recording angel wrote, "Another deed of love is born from her great sorrow."

Ada rarely realized this. She realized that the gaunt demons of unbelief and despair were seeking after her soul, and that they had made a desolation there, and tempted every slumbering evil, while they had withered her every flower.

But the months went on, still silently dropping their records into the book of life, until another year had completed its cycle. Ada had sought her retreat after a busy day, and with a pensive smile had drawn forth her life romance. Thus she wrote —

"When these quiet evening hours come, and I am alone, a tide of great and irrepressible regret rushes through my soul. Sometimes it is terrible in its useless, devouring might — and again it flows more quietly and dreamily. I often fear the bird of resignation will never fold its wings above my heart. I shall never be really happy again; perhaps, alas! never contentand capable of gratitude for the sad gift of existence. I wish to be; none know, but myself, how great are my efforts to banish the memories of that golden, gleaming vision, and to enter heartily into all that is about me. I think the greatest woe is past; that I have drank all that is most bitter in my life's cup; yet it seems very sad to know that the sweetness was all drained before; is all gone! hopelessly gone! Yet I ought to be thankful that it is less dreadful to exist; that I do not momently 'draw the breath of fear,' as I did when my self-deception was being dissolved; thankful that I know it is vain to make those heart-breaking efforts to win back that love; yes, thankful that I am in no suspense; sick no longer from hope deferred; in no new despair when his capricious tenderness vanishes into coldness.

"Certainly I know what to rely upon. I know that it is best for me to interest myself in others' welfare, to think as little of him and of myself as possible, as far as it is consistent with every duty. Another reason I have to be thankful — my anger towards him has ceased; my burning, maddening sense of injury. I have simply made a mistake. I thought he loved me for what I was; he probably thought he loved me somewhat, too; but it was only that my face was new, and bright with joyousness and love for him. It would, I think, have been the same with any other little maiden he had married. Then it is some consolation, that I spare another young and noble heart from this quiet breaking. Why should it not be I, as well as any other? Yes, I know that I can bear it, and perhaps it makes me a comforter to the suffering ones. Ah! I love them in their pain with a tenderness so infinite, compared with what it used to be. Today I went to see Kate Suthington. Ah! that her love should still have power to tear her heart like a vulture; she bears up before others with a noble dignity, and Henry Williams is a weak and erring man to her view, now; he has lost the key with which he unlocked a soul too noble for him. But in her own words —

"'Oh, Ada! that the world should have lost its loveliness; that I should only have learned what happiness, beauty, life were — to have lost them!'

"Then I talk to her from my soul's depths. I cast about to find some recompense for all this, and I believe words of great faith and wonderful hope break from my lips; words which charm me with some deep, strange, all-powerful feeling that God is doing all things well. I feel serene and very peaceful after this, when Kate lays her head on my bosom, folds her arms around me, and says,

"'You do me good, Ada! Yes, there may, there must be a something deep in all this, that we cannot see; perhaps when the ground has been broken and ploughed more deeply — goldmay be found.'

"Then we take out our sewing, and talk of the books we have read, or one reads to the other, and we part with a cheerful glow thrown over our souls from this friendship."

Next Part 1 Our Life Romance'.

Back to Main Index Timothy Shay Arthur