Part 9 (2/2)
She looked at him intently, and the expression of her eye began to change.
”The children want to see you so much, Rhoda! Emily and Effie, and Agnes and little Grace.” He mentioned each name slowly and distinctly, and then spoke of his wife and the other children, and mentioned scenes and incidents connected with his home. Her eye still looked with an earnest gaze into his; her brow contracted, as if she was trying to recall some long forgotten thing; until at length, with the helplessness of an infant, she stretched her arms towards Mr. Wharton, and exclaimed, piteously:
”Oh, take me away!--take me to my home!”
”You shall go with me, Rhoda; I will not leave you here,” said Mr.
Wharton; and beckoning to Dr. Masten, he left the room. As he reached the door, he heard a cry of agony, and turning, he saw Miss Edwards at the front of her cage, with both arms extended towards him through the bars, and the most agonized, imploring expression upon her face.
Stepping back to her, he said:
”Rhoda, I _will not_ leave you. Be quiet, and I will come back very soon to take you with me. Did I ever deceive you, Rhoda?”
”Oh!” said she, putting her hand to her head, ”they have all deceived me. Richard deceived me! _He_ deceived me!--oh, so cruelly! Who can I trust? They all desert me. I am _all, all_ alone!” And she sat down; and dropping her head upon her knees, she wept very bitterly.
When Mr. Wharton had again called the doctor from the room, he said to him:
”Doctor, this does not seem to me such a hopeless case. How any sane person could retain his senses in that awful scene, I cannot imagine; I am sure I should soon go crazy myself. But could I once remove Miss Edwards from these terrible a.s.sociations, and place her in one of our Eastern asylums, where she might have cheerful companions.h.i.+ps, and pleasant occupation for her mind and fingers, I doubt not she might be completely restored.”
The doctor thought it possible, but was not so sanguine on the subject as Mr. Wharton, who, he said, had only seen the young lady in one of her calmer moods. Still he by all means advised the trial. ”We have no hope of _cure_” said he, ”in placing these lunatics in the County House; the only object is to keep them from injuring themselves or others. They are all of them from the families of the poor, who cannot afford to send them to an Eastern asylum. This young lady was a stranger, and without means, and so violent, at times, that restraint was absolutely necessary; so that the only thing we could do with her was to place her here till I could write to you.”
”You did the very best that could be done under the circ.u.mstances, my dear sir,” answered Mr. Wharton; ”but I sincerely hope the day is not far distant when your State will possess a more comfortable home than this for those afflicted as these poor creatures are. But I feel as if I could not lose a moment in removing my young friend from this place; and if you, doctor, will be so kind as to take the journey with me, and aid me in the care of her, you shall be well rewarded for your loss of time.”
It was with no great difficulty that this undertaking was accomplished; and in less than a fortnight from the time when Mr. Wharton found Miss Edwards, caged like a wild beast in the County House at----, she was placed at an asylum where every comfort surrounded her. It was not long before she seemed quite at home amid these new scenes, and began to interest herself in books and work; and though her mind never fully regained its tone, she yet seemed tranquil and happy. But the scenes of trial through which she had pa.s.sed had done their work upon her const.i.tution, and she sank rapidly, until, in a little less than a year from the time of her entering the asylum, Mr. Wharton was summoned to her death-bed. He arrived but a short time before she breathed her last, and had the satisfaction to find that she knew him, to hear from her own lips the a.s.surance that her faith in her Redeemer was firm and unshaken, and to bear her last kind messages to all the dear ones at Brook Farm.
And then the poor sad heart was still--the mind was bright and clear again--for the shattered strings were tuned anew in heaven.
In a quiet nook at Brook Farm, where the willow bends, and the brook murmurs, is a spot marked out for a burying-place, and the first stone planted there bears on it the name of ”Rhoda Edwards.”
IX.
Emily's Trials.
”And dost thou ask what secret woe I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know A pang, even thou must fail to soothe?”--BYRON.
In the meantime the education of Master Lewie was going on as best it might, and in a manner most agreeable to that young gentleman's inclinations. When he chose to do so, he studied, and then no child could make more rapid advancement than he, but as he was brought up without any habits of regular application, study soon became distasteful to him, and at the first puzzling sentence he threw aside his books in disgust, and started off for play. The only thing he really loved, was music, and in his devotion to this delightful accomplishment he was indefatigable, and his proficiency at that tender age was remarkable.
But being now nine or ten years old, his mother, urged to this course by some pretty strong hints from Mr. Wharton, began to determine upon some systematic plan of education for him. And, acting upon Mr.
Wharton's advice, she was so happy as to secure the services of Mr.
Malcolm, the young clergyman at the village, as a tutor for Lewie, upon the condition on his part, that unlimited authority, in no case to be interfered with, should be given to him in his government of the hitherto untrained and petted child.
And so it was settled, that Mr. Malcolm should ride over from the village every morning at a certain hour, and attend to the education of little Lewie Elwyn. It was soon observed, that as the young clergyman rode from the Hemlocks back to the village, it seemed a difficult matter for him to pa.s.s Mr. Wharton's lane, but he often, and then oftener, and at length every day, turned his horse's head up the lane, and stopped to make a call. And the children (than whom there are no quicker observers in matters of this kind) soon made up their minds that the object of Mr. Malcolm's frequent and prolonged visits was sweet cousin Emily. And they thought too, judging by the bright blush that came up in cousin Emily's usually pale cheek when he was announced, and by the look of interest with which she listened to his conversations with her uncle, or replied to him when he addressed a remark to herself, that cousin Emily was by no means indifferent to the young minister.
Having drawn their own conclusions from these premises, and watching with much interest, as children always do the progress of a love affair, they were surprised and disappointed when they found that as Mr.
Malcolm's attentions increased and became more pointed, cousin Emily gradually withdrew from his society, and often declined altogether to come into the sitting room when he was there. Yet they were certain she liked him, for they often found her watching from her window his retreating figure; and sometimes before she knew that she was observed, she would be seen to wipe away the tears which were stealing unbidden down her cheek.
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