Chapter XXIX: The Revelation

Mrs. Arnold came into the room at this appeal; her white bed-dress sweeping the floor, and her sweet, old face shaded by the borders of her night-cap. The face was anxious; the eyes full of tender compassion. She stooped over Amy, and looked into her averted face, as the angels look when they pity us most.

“Amy, my poor child, has this news troubled you so much?” she said, stealing one arm across the young girl’s shoulders, and resting the head on her own motherly bosom.

Amy’s eyes were closed; but a gush of hot tears rained over her cheeks.

“I am sorry,—you can’t think how sorry. Indeed, Amy, we all had hoped otherwise; we loved you, and will always love you dearly. No stranger ever can seem so much like a daughter to me.”

Amy could only answer with convulsive sobs; but she lifted her arms and clung to Mrs. Arnold.

“Ah, this is terrible! I feared something, but not this entire heart-break,” said the gentle lady. “What can we do, Hagar? Is there no way of comforting her?”

Hagar stood looking at her mistress as if she wondered at the question. Then she took Amy from the arms that enfolded her, and laying her head on the pillow, beckoned Mrs. Arnold to follow her into the bedroom.

Amy was worn out with weeping, but her frightened eyes followed them wildly. She made a struggle to get up, but fell back again, and lay helpless, listening to the sound of Hagar’s voice in the next room, for terror had hushed the storm of her grief.

When Mrs. Arnold came forth again, her mild face had changed so that you would hardly have known it. She seemed like a criminal who had just listened to a sentence of death.

Hagar stayed in the bedroom muttering to herself, and denouncing the author of all this woe, in order to relieve her own feelings, while she smothered her words that they might not wound her mistress.

Mrs. Arnold went up to Amy, who saw by her face that another was made wretched as herself. Sorrow, commiseration, and horror struggled over those delicate features. She knelt down softly before the young girl and took her two hands.

“What can I do for you, Amy?” she said, in a heart-broken way. “I am but a weak woman, and he is my only son; but, God helping me, this marriage shall never take place!”

Amy gasped for breath. The first hope came suddenly like an arrow, and was sharp as pain.

“Bend down your head, my poor child. Tell me every thing, for, from this hour, I am your mother.”

Amy bent her head, but she had little to say. Arnold had judged well when he bound that delicate conscience with an oath. To have saved her own life, she would not have rendered him more criminal in the eyes of that gentle mother. So the unhappy lady rose up with a conviction that it was the old story—alas! so often told since; but in those days one from which the moral nature recoiled with a sort of terror. This vague feeling Mrs. Arnold could not altogether conquer. She did not caress Amy again. Something in the depths of her pure soul prevented that, but she was even humble in her kindness.

“I am his mother,” she said, mournfully; “and should have some influence with him. Little as my authority has ever availed, I will go as he has invited me, not to witness this marriage, but to prevent it.”

“Can you? Oh, can you?” cried Amy, with renewed life.

“God will help me, for I am doing right; so we will hope. Now, go with me up-stairs; we shall find a bed in the next chamber to mine. No one shall disturb you. Sleep quietly; for, after this, if you wish it, this house shall be your home so long as it is mine.”

Amy bent down her lips and timidly kissed the little hands that held her own. So the two went up-stairs together, Hagar delicately keeping out of the way. But all night long the sound of her discontent broke out in muttered denunciations of men in general, and of all French people, male or female, who traveled about, as she muttered even in her sleep, like roarin’ lions, seekin’ whom dey might devour wid der claws.

Mrs. Arnold did not leave Amy’s chamber till the poor girl sank into that dead, heavy sleep which follows great exhaustion. Then, as the night candle revealed the grief which had eaten all the bloom from that young face, her womanly soul began to yearn tenderly towards the helpless creature, spite of her faults, spite of the degradation which seemed inevitable, and in which her own household must share. Really good women are always charitable, always ready to seek for the good which lies under weakness and error, especially among sister women. She has no pleasure in dragging forth evil, and only stoops to it that she may ameliorate and reform it. Deprived of this heavenly privilege, she casts the vail of her own pure thoughts over the deformity of error, as God himself hides the nakedness of winter under robes of white snow and jewels of ice.

So it was with Mrs. Arnold. A less heavenly woman might have sought some excuse for her own child at the expense of this poor girl; but her heart was filled with but one wish, that of saving both from future sorrow. When Amy was quite unconscious, the mother kissed her forgivingly on her lips, that trembled even in sleep, and, with her heart full of compassion, went back to her own room.

She did not close her eyes till morning; but instead of dwelling bitterly on the evil that had befallen her house, lay devising means of extrication, hoping for the best; and, under all, was a sweet, yearning tenderness, vague, but inexpressibly delicate, which brought back memories of that year when her first-born son brought with him the heaven of her own maternal life. So when she thought of that son, in his arrogance and selfishness, it was as our Saviour regarded the downfall of Peter, with forgiveness and that increased love which the good are apt to bestow upon the weak. Weak! yes, that was the word! Mrs. Arnold could not bestow the term _wicked_ on the son whom she would now only think of as a noble infant smiling on her bosom. It was only Hagar who dealt with the young man according to his own plain, unvarnished iniquity; and even she would permit no other person to breathe a word to his discredit.

When Mr. Arnold awoke in the morning, he found his wife ready dressed and sitting on one side of the bed. It seemed to him that something like the flutter of rose-leaves across his lips had disturbed his slumbers, and he opened his eyes with a smile. He could smile then,—that long-suffering man,—for all the signs of his long degradation had passed away from his face, and from his life. He was, soul and body, a new creature, an earnest, honest man who, once resolved to act rightly, had grown strong and good.

Unlike some reformed inebriates, who are constantly parading past sins, as if there were something in them to gloat over and boast of, Arnold sought to ignore that portion of his life in which his manhood was so cruelly swamped, as if it had not been. He had sinned, repented, and been forgiven, both of God and man. There was something sublime in this, which a reckless parade of his past faults would have destroyed utterly. It is a coarse, morbid vanity, more than a wish to benefit others, that leads men to hold up even past follies to the world.

But the elder Arnold was not a man of this stamp. The story of his reformation was told plainly in the clear brightness of his eyes,—in those firm, compact features, and in a softness of tread which had self-respect and power in it. In all her life Mrs. Arnold had never been so proud of her husband. While he looked upon her in the morning with those dear loving eyes, she could not be altogether unhappy. But now, that she was about to bring new sorrow upon him, her eyes fell, and she was at a loss for words.

“What is it, wife? Something has gone wrong, I see by your face; troubled yet about your share of the donation? Is that it, foolish little woman?”

Poor lady! she had forgotten all about the donationparty which had been a trial; and now it seemed so far back, that she wondered how he could remember such a trifle. She shook her head, and a quiver came to her lips.

Arnold took the alarm. There was one point about which his fears always hovered.

“Benedict! Is it any thing about him?”

She could not answer him at once, but bent down and kissed his forehead, striving to tranquillize him beforehand with her gentle woman’s tact.

“Don’t, wife,” said the husband, with sharp apprehension in his voice; “where he is concerned, anxiety kills me. You look pale; your eyes are heavy. Speak out. If any thing is wrong I can bear it!”

“It is about him; but do not look so distressed. It is a great wrong; but there is time—there must be time—to set it right.”

“Speak out!”

“I cannot in a word even to you. It is hard to blacken one’s own son.”

“I know it. God help me, do I not understand that?”

“And a parent, especially a mother, should screen her child from the consequences, even if he has done wrong!”

“You think so? Well, I am glad of it. Your words take a load from my conscience; but you pain me; What is it?”

With a trembling voice and flushed cheek she told him all. When she had done, he was sitting up in bed stern as a rock. “As there is a God to aid me in a just act, this shall be set right,” he said, and the husband and wife parted.