________________________________________________
_ Two days after this, Alfred St. Clare and Augustine parted;
and Eva, who had been stimulated, by the society of her young
cousin, to exertions beyond her strength, began to fail rapidly.
St. Clare was at last willing to call in medical advice,--a thing
from which he had always shrunk, because it was the admission of
an unwelcome truth.
But, for a day or two, Eva was so unwell as to be confined
to the house; and the doctor was called.
Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child's gradually
decaying health and strength, because she was completely absorbed
in studying out two or three new forms of disease to which she
believed she herself was a victim. It was the first principle of
Marie's belief that nobody ever was or could be so great a sufferer
as _herself_; and, therefore, she always repelled quite indignantly
any suggestion that any one around her could be sick. She was
always sure, in such a case, that it was nothing but laziness, or
want of energy; and that, if they had had the suffering _she_ had,
they would soon know the difference.
Miss Ophelia had several times tried to awaken her maternal
fears about Eva; but to no avail.
"I don't see as anything ails the child," she would say;
"she runs about, and plays."
"But she has a cough."
"Cough! you don't need to tell _me_ about a cough. I've always
been subject to a cough, all my days. When I was of Eva's age,
they thought I was in a consumption. Night after night, Mammy
used to sit up with me. O! Eva's cough is not anything."
"But she gets weak, and is short-breathed."
"Law! I've had that, years and years; it's only a nervous affection."
"But she sweats so, nights!"
"Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night,
my clothes will be wringing wet. There won't be a dry thread
in my night-clothes and the sheets will be so that Mammy has to
hang them up to dry! Eva doesn't sweat anything like that!"
Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that Eva
was fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie,
all on a sudden, took a new turn.
"She knew it," she said; "she always felt it, that she was
destined to be the most miserable of mothers. Here she was, with
her wretched health, and her only darling child going down to the
grave before her eyes;"--and Marie routed up Mammy nights, and
rumpussed and scolded, with more energy than ever, all day, on the
strength of this new misery.
"My dear Marie, don't talk so!" said St. Clare. You ought
not to give up the case so, at once."
"You have not a mother's feelings, St. Clare! You never
could understand me!--you don't now."
"But don't talk so, as if it were a gone case!"
"I can't take it as indifferently as you can, St. Clare.
If _you_ don't feel when your only child is in this alarming state,
I do. It's a blow too much for me, with all I was bearing before."
"It's true," said St. Clare, "that Eva is very delicate,
_that_ I always knew; and that she has grown so rapidly as to
exhaust her strength; and that her situation is critical. But just
now she is only prostrated by the heat of the weather, and by the
excitement of her cousin's visit, and the exertions she made.
The physician says there is room for hope."
"Well, of course, if you can look on the bright side, pray do;
it's a mercy if people haven't sensitive feelings, in this world.
I am sure I wish I didn't feel as I do; it only makes me completely
wretched! I wish I _could_ be as easy as the rest of you!"
And the "rest of them" had good reason to breathe the same
prayer, for Marie paraded her new misery as the reason and apology
for all sorts of inflictions on every one about her. Every word
that was spoken by anybody, everything that was done or was not
done everywhere, was only a new proof that she was surrounded by
hard-hearted, insensible beings, who were unmindful of her peculiar
sorrows. Poor Eva heard some of these speeches; and nearly cried
her little eyes out, in pity for her mamma, and in sorrow that she
should make her so much distress.
In a week or two, there was a great improvement of
symptoms,--one of those deceitful lulls, by which her inexorable
disease so often beguiles the anxious heart, even on the verge of
the grave. Eva's step was again in the garden,--in the balconies;
she played and laughed again,--and her father, in a transport,
declared that they should soon have her as hearty as anybody. Miss
Ophelia and the physician alone felt no encouragement from this
illusive truce. There was one other heart, too, that felt the same
certainty, and that was the little heart of Eva. What is it that
sometimes speaks in the soul so calmly, so clearly, that its earthly
time is short? Is it the secret instinct of decaying nature, or
the soul's impulsive throb, as immortality draws on? Be it what it
may, it rested in the heart of Eva, a calm, sweet, prophetic
certainty that Heaven was near; calm as the light of sunset, sweet
as the bright stillness of autumn, there her little heart reposed,
only troubled by sorrow for those who loved her so dearly.
For the child, though nursed so tenderly, and though life was
unfolding before her with every brightness that love and wealth
could give, had no regret for herself in dying.
In that book which she and her simple old friend had read
so much together, she had seen and taken to her young heart the
image of one who loved the little child; and, as she gazed and
mused, He had ceased to be an image and a picture of the distant
past, and come to be a living, all-surrounding reality. His love
enfolded her childish heart with more than mortal tenderness; and
it was to Him, she said, she was going, and to his home.
But her heart yearned with sad tenderness for all that she
was to leave behind. Her father most,--for Eva, though she never
distinctly thought so, had an instinctive perception that she was
more in his heart than any other. She loved her mother because
she was so loving a creature, and all the selfishness that she had
seen in her only saddened and perplexed her; for she had a child's
implicit trust that her mother could not do wrong. There was
something about her that Eva never could make out; and she always
smoothed it over with thinking that, after all, it was mamma, and
she loved her very dearly indeed.
She felt, too, for those fond, faithful servants, to whom she was
as daylight and sunshine. Children do not usually generalize;
but Eva was an uncommonly mature child, and the things that she
had witnessed of the evils of the system under which they were
living had fallen, one by one, into the depths of her thoughtful,
pondering heart. She had vague longings to do something for
them,--to bless and save not only them, but all in their
condition,--longings that contrasted sadly with the feebleness of
her little frame.
"Uncle Tom," she said, one day, when she was reading to
her friend, "I can understand why Jesus _wanted_ to die for us."
"Why, Miss Eva?"
"Because I've felt so, too."
"What is it Miss Eva?--I don't understand."
"I can't tell you; but, when I saw those poor creatures on
the boat, you know, when you came up and I,--some had lost their
mothers, and some their husbands, and some mothers cried for their
little children--and when I heard about poor Prue,--oh, wasn't that
dreadful!--and a great many other times, I've felt that I would be
glad to die, if my dying could stop all this misery. _I would_
die for them, Tom, if I could," said the child, earnestly, laying
her little thin hand on his.
Tom looked at the child with awe; and when she, hearing her
father's voice, glided away, he wiped his eyes many times, as
he looked after her.
"It's jest no use tryin' to keep Miss Eva here," he said to
Mammy, whom he met a moment after. "She's got the Lord's mark
in her forehead."
"Ah, yes, yes," said Mammy, raising her hands; "I've allers
said so. She wasn't never like a child that's to live--there was
allers something deep in her eyes. I've told Missis so, many the
time; it's a comin' true,--we all sees it,--dear, little, blessed lamb!"
Eva came tripping up the verandah steps to her father. It was
late in the afternoon, and the rays of the sun formed a kind
of glory behind her, as she came forward in her white dress, with
her golden hair and glowing cheeks, her eyes unnaturally bright
with the slow fever that burned in her veins.
St. Clare had called her to show a statuette that he had been
buying for her; but her appearance, as she came on, impressed
him suddenly and painfully. There is a kind of beauty so intense,
yet so fragile, that we cannot bear to look at it. Her father
folded her suddenly in his arms, and almost forgot what he was
going to tell her.
"Eva, dear, you are better now-a-days,--are you not?"
"Papa," said Eva, with sudden firmness "I've had things I
wanted to say to you, a great while. I want to say them
now, before I get weaker."
St. Clare trembled as Eva seated herself in his lap. She laid
her head on his bosom, and said,
"It's all no use, papa, to keep it to myself any longer.
The time is coming that I am going to leave you. I am going, and
never to come back!" and Eva sobbed.
"O, now, my dear little Eva!" said St. Clare, trembling as
he spoke, but speaking cheerfully, "you've got nervous and
low-spirited; you mustn't indulge such gloomy thoughts. See here,
I've bought a statuette for you!"
"No, papa," said Eva, putting it gently away, "don't deceive
yourself!--I am _not_ any better, I know it perfectly well,--and
I am going, before long. I am not nervous,--I am not low-spirited.
If it were not for you, papa, and my friends, I should be perfectly
happy. I want to go,--I long to go!"
"Why, dear child, what has made your poor little heart so sad?
You have had everything, to make you happy, that could be
given you."
"I had rather be in heaven; though, only for my friends'
sake, I would be willing to live. There are a great many things
here that make me sad, that seem dreadful to me; I had rather be
there; but I don't want to leave you,--it almost breaks my heart!"
"What makes you sad, and seems dreadful, Eva?"
"O, things that are done, and done all the time. I feel sad
for our poor people; they love me dearly, and they are all good
and kind to me. I wish, papa, they were all _free_."
"Why, Eva, child, don't you think they are well enough off now?"
"O, but, papa, if anything should happen to you, what would
become of them? There are very few men like you, papa. Uncle Alfred
isn't like you, and mamma isn't; and then, think of poor old Prue's
owners! What horrid things people do, and can do!" and Eva shuddered.
"My dear child, you are too sensitive. I'm sorry I ever
let you hear such stories."
"O, that's what troubles me, papa. You want me to live so
happy, and never to have any pain,--never suffer anything,--not
even hear a sad story, when other poor creatures have nothing but
pain and sorrow, an their lives;--it seems selfish. I ought to
know such things, I ought to feel about them! Such things always
sunk into my heart; they went down deep; I've thought and thought
about them. Papa, isn't there any way to have all slaves made free?"
"That's a difficult question, dearest. There's no doubt that
this way is a very bad one; a great many people think so; I
do myself I heartily wish that there were not a slave in the land;
but, then, I don't know what is to be done about it!"
"Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind,
and you always have a way of saying things that is so pleasant,
couldn't you go all round and try to persuade people to do right
about this? When I am dead, papa, then you will think of me, and
do it for my sake. I would do it, if I could."
"When you are dead, Eva," said St. Clare, passionately.
"O, child, don't talk to me so! You are all I have on earth."
"Poor old Prue's child was all that she had,--and yet she
had to hear it crying, and she couldn't help it! Papa, these poor
creatures love their children as much as you do me. O! do something
for them! There's poor Mammy loves her children; I've seen her cry
when she talked about them. And Tom loves his children; and it's
dreadful, papa, that such things are happening, all the time!"
"There, there, darling," said St. Clare, soothingly; "only don't
distress yourself, don't talk of dying, and I will do anything
you wish."
"And promise me, dear father, that Tom shall have his freedom
as soon as"--she stopped, and said, in a hesitating tone--"I
am gone!"
"Yes, dear, I will do anything in the world,--anything you
could ask me to."
"Dear papa," said the child, laying her burning cheek
against his, "how I wish we could go together!"
"Where, dearest?" said St. Clare.
"To our Saviour's home; it's so sweet and peaceful there--it
is all so loving there!" The child spoke unconsciously, as of a
place where she had often been. "Don't you want to go, papa?"
she said.
St. Clare drew her closer to him, but was silent.
"You will come to me," said the child, speaking in a voice
of calm certainty which she often used unconsciously.
"I shall come after you. I shall not forget you."
The shadows of the solemn evening closed round them deeper and
deeper, as St. Clare sat silently holding the little frail form
to his bosom. He saw no more the deep eyes, but the voice came
over him as a spirit voice, and, as in a sort of judgment vision,
his whole past life rose in a moment before his eyes: his mother's
prayers and hymns; his own early yearnings and aspirings for good;
and, between them and this hour, years of worldliness and scepticism,
and what man calls respectable living. We can think _much_, very
much, in a moment. St. Clare saw and felt many things, but spoke
nothing; and, as it grew darker, he took his child to her bed-room;
and, when she was prepared for rest; he sent away the attendants,
and rocked her in his arms, and sung to her till she was asleep. _
Read next: VOLUME II: CHAPTER XXV - The Little Evangelist
Read previous: VOLUME II: CHAPTER XXIII - Henrique
Table of content of Uncle Tom's Cabin
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
