Pride and Prudence CHAPTER 4.
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Five years have passed since Mrs. Este gave up the hope of earning anything towards a support by keeping boarders. During that time, she ventured upon opening a small dry goods store, but the result was, a year's attention, and five hundred dollars loss by trusting irresponsible people. When again introduced to the reader, she has two of her children with her, and is living in three rooms. Her oldest boy has been put out to work, and a younger one has been taken into a store to run errands. The youngest, and Emily, a smart, tidy girl of twelve, are at home with her. She has exhausted the last dollar of the money obtained from her husband's administrator, and from the sale of her furniture, and now earns a scanty support by sewing. Emily is attentive, industrious, and kind, thus lightening her labors one half.
For nearly two years, she has not seen her sister, Mrs. Ashton, who does not think it reputable to acknowledge the relation. Indeed, her name is not allowed to be mentioned in the house.
I need not here minutely detail the history of her daily toil, and anxiety, and the feelings, akin to despair, which would sometimes steal over her. She still held a clear title to her building lots, and property was gradually rising in value in the part of the town where they were situated. But she had reserved them for her children, and still remained firm in her determination not to sell them.
One evening her oldest boy, William, came home, and with breathless interest asked, "Mother, have you heard the news?"
"What news, William?"
"Uncle Ashton has failed!"
"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Mrs. Este, turning pale.
"It is true, mother. And a desperate bad failure it is said to be. He cannot pay forty cents in the dollar, and will be stripped of everything."
"My poor sister! How will she bear so sad a reverse," said Mrs. Este in a tone of heart-felt commiseration.
"She will have to bear it, mother, as some other people have had to do. For my part, I am not at all sorry."
"Nor I neither," said Henry, now a bright lad, with five years added to his age since the reader last heard his opinions on matters and things.
"My dear children, this is not right. We must never be glad at the misfortunes of others."
"I know that, mother," said William, "but, indeed! aunt Anna has been so mean toward us, that I cannot help feeling a delight that a change has taken place which will bring her to her senses."
A loud knock at the door arrested the conversation. A black servant in livery asked if Mrs. Este lived there, and being answered that she did, said, that Mrs. Ashton had sent her carriage for her, and wished her to come to her immediately.
"Don't go, mother," said two of the children at once. But Mrs. Este paused not to consider. In a few minutes, she was ready to enter the carriage, in which she rode off, much to the dissatisfaction of the proud spirited boy, who had spoken so bitterly against his aunt.
On arriving at the splendid dwelling of her sister, Mrs. Este was hurried through the richly furnished hall, and up into Mrs. Ashton's chamber. There was a funeral stillness about the house, that caused her heart to sink within her. On entering the room, Mrs. Este was, for the first time in two years, in the presence of her sister. How changed was she now! The work of a few short hours had been fearful. She lay, amid rich curtains, and massive chamber furniture, a pale, terror-stricken woman, with her dark eyes glancing wildly around, and her hair flowing loose and tangled about her brow, neck, and shoulders."
"Mary!" she exclaimed with emphasis, as Mrs. Este entered: "Mary! have you come?"
"Dear sister!" said Mrs. Este in a voice of tender concern, all the past being for a moment forgotten. "Dear sister! what has happened?"
"Come near, and I will tell you," she said in a deep whisper, while a strange smile flitted over her face.
"Here — now — what has happened, sister, tell me?"
"My husband has shot himself!" she replied, in the same deep, unearthly whisper.
Mrs. Este, startled as if the report of a pistol had rang in her ear. It was, alas! too true. Mr. Ashton, sensible that a total reverse of fortune had taken place, and that his name would be bandied about as a bankrupt, dared not brave the storm of adversity. He shrank, coward-like, from the field, and left his helpless and unprotected family to meet the enemy alone!
"Ha! ha! ha!" — broke from the lips of the hysterical Mrs. Ashton, in a wild laugh. "Ha! ha! ha!" —
"Dear sister!" said Mrs. Este, tenderly, entwining an arm around the neck of Mrs. Ashton, and supporting her head upon her bosom —
"Sister — sister!" she exclaimed in a tone of bitter agony — "I have no sister. Hasn't she disgraced herself — and haven't I disowned her? No! I have no sister!" Then looking up into the face of Mrs. Este, she said in a quiet voice, and with a faint smile,
"How much you are like Mary, when we were happy together in our father's house. But Mary didn't do well. She cost me a great deal of trouble. Sometimes I used to wish she was dead. For people would ask me, if that wasn't my sister, who lived in that shabby little house and was so poor. At last I was forced to deny the relationship altogether, and much trouble this cost me, too. Ah, me! she has much to answer for."
Every word fell like ice upon the heart of Mrs. Este. She had felt deeply the cruel neglect of her sister, but could not bring herself to think that this neglect had assumed the form of a fixed principle in the mind of Anna.
"Is that you, Mary?" said Mrs. Ashton, her wandering thoughts returning. "Ah, I am glad to see you, Mary; it was kind of you to come. Oh! — it is dreadful — horrible!" and she covered her face with her hands and sobbed and moaned most piteously.
The distress of her sister roused Mrs. Este from the thoughts that were rapidly passing through her mind, in consequence of the strange, unnatural language of that sister.
"Yes, dear sister!" she said instantly, and in a voice subdued and tender. "It is your own sister, Mary. I have come because you sent for me; and now what can I do for you?"
"O, Mary — Mary!" said Mrs. Ashton, again restored to an acute perception of the present reality. "O Mary, how cruelly I have treated you! And yet, when the hour of dreadful trial came — there was none I wanted but you. O my sister can you ever forgive me?" She covered her face again, and sobbed and wept, and moaned as if her heart were breaking.
"Let the past be forgotten, Anna. It cannot be recalled; and when recollection is painful and unavailing, the thoughts should never go backwards."
"I shall go crazy!" said Mrs. Ashton, rising, and binding her hands together across her forehead. "O, I shall go crazy!" Her daughter Jane, now a tall, graceful girl, just turning seventeen, came in at the moment.
"Jane," said her mother, "here is your aunt Mary that you have begged me so often to let you go and see."
The poor girl spoke not, but with the tears streaming down her pale cheeks, she bowed her head even to the bosom of that aunt; and an arm bound her there with an earnestness that came thrilling from a warm heart. The tears of Mrs. Este mingled with those of her afflicted niece. Many minutes passed, before Jane Ashton could quiet the troubled beatings of her heart. But she at length grew calm.
"Dear aunt!" she said, "if you will allow me to speak to you so tenderly; when we had no trouble, you were neglected and forgotten; and now that the evil day has found us — you are the first to come to us and speak words of comfort."
"Your affliction, my dear Jane, is one of a deep and awful nature. For it, the world can yield no comfort. But turn your thoughts away from earth, and look above and beyond it. There is a divine eye that sleeps not, and a divine love which is unchangeable, watching over you. I have seen many and sore troubles, and but for this abiding confidence in God, I would long since have failed."
Jane made no answer, but shrank closer within the arms of her aunt.
The chamber door again opened, and a young man about twenty, came in with a slow pace and a troubled countenance. His first deep sorrow had found him, as it had both his mother and sister, utterly unprepared. He paused when he perceived that there was a stranger present, and a frown settled upon his face, when she was named as his aunt Mary. Suddenly turning he left the room.
But we will hasten on. We might linger for an hour over this scene of distress, and yet all would be unavailing. Time alone can soften grief.
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