 | III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
3. III.
As often as I met the ever busy and good natured Mrs. Widdleton,
she had much to say about poor Mrs. Hevelyn. Her
husband went away, she said, the very day he brought her there
and right among strangers so, it seemed as if the poor thing
would cry her eyes out. “Often of evenings,” said Mrs. Widdleton,
“I go up into her room to have a cheerful chat. You
know a body must talk or they won't say anything—and I find
her lying on the bed, her face all smothered in the pillow, and
her heart ready to break.” She informed me further, that Mr.
Hevelyn had written only once, and then barely a few lines,
since he went away.
Two or three days went by, when, at nightfall, I observed an
unusual stir about Mr. Widdleton's house; lights moved busily
from cellar to chamber; a strange woman, in a high white cap,
appeared from time to time; and presently the two little
girls came over to pass the evening, saying their mother
had given them leave to stay all night if they wished to.
The next morning the chamber-windows were closed, and
Mrs. Widdleton herself came in soon after breakfast to take
her children home, and informed them that somebody had
brought Mrs. Hevelyn “the sweetest little baby!” Tidings
were despatched to the absent husband, and day after day
the young mother exerted herself beyond her ability to make
her little darling look pretty, that the heart of the expected
father might be rejoiced the more; and day after day the
coach went by, and the sun went down, and he did not
come. At length, one day, in answer to Mrs. Widdleton's
urgent entreaties, and with a hope of giving the poor lady some
comfort, I went in to sit for an hour with her, taking my sewing.
I found her a sweet and lovable creature, indeed—not possessed
and amiable. She had put back her curls in motherly
fashion, and her cheek was thin and pale; but she was beautiful,
and her large eyes had in them a pathos and power which
drew one toward her, as if by a spell. She seemed pleased
with my praise of the child; said she had named him John, for
his father; and added, “He wants to see the darling so much!
and nothing but the most pressing necessity keeps him away—
poor John!” It was a new illustration of the difficulty of dispossessing
a faithful heart of its confidence: she would be the
last to learn how little that father merited her affection.
“Do you think my little beauty is going to have red hair?”
she said, pressing her lips against his head. Her own was a
deep auburn. She looked at me, as if she wanted me to say
no; but I could not, conscientiously, and so replied evasively,
“Why, do n't you like that color?”
“I do n't care,” she said; “it would be pretty to me, no
matter what color it was; but John thinks red hair so ugly.”
“Perhaps it will be the color of yours, and that will please
him.”
“He used to call mine pretty,” she said; and, taking it down,
laid it on the baby's head, and compared it, with the greatest
apparent interest. While thus engaged, the coach drew up at
the gate. “Oh, it is he!—it is he!” she cried; and, placing
the baby in my arms, wound back her long hair, and flew to
meet him, as though the heavens were opening before her.
“Why, Nell,” I heard him say, as he assisted her up stairs,
“you have grown old and ugly since I left.”
The tone was playful, but she replied, “Oh, John!” in a
reproachful accent that indicated a deeply felt meaning.
“And where did you learn this style of arranging your hair?
Is it by good mother Widdleton's suggestion? Really, it is not
becoming—it is positively shocking; and red hair requires the
most careful dressing to make it endurable.”
She tried to laugh as she entered the room, and said to me,
“Do n't you think John is finding fault with me already! but,
never mind, I'll find fault with him one of these days.”
“I dare say, my dear, you will have cause,” he answered,
half seriously, half laughingly; and, putting her arms about his
neck, she kissed him as fondly as though he had said she was
looking young and beautiful. “Oh, the baby!” she suddenly
exclaimed. “Why, John, you have n't seen him!”
“Do n't, my dear, make yourself ridiculous,” he whispered,
“but introduce the lady, and then go and arrange your hair:
there is time enough to see the baby.”
I rose to go, as I would have done sooner but for my little
charge; but the Hevelyns insisted so much on my remaining,
that I was forced to sit down. The mother kept smiling, but
tears seemed ready to fall; and I placed the child in the father's
arms, and said, “See, how like you he is!”
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, turning away his eyes, “you
do n't mean to say I look like this thing!”
“No, not quite,” I said, laughing; “not so well.”
“And you call this boy mine, do you?” he said to his wife;
“red hair, and blue eyes, and ugly in every way. Why, his
hand is as big as a wood-chopper's.” And he held up his own,
which was delicate and beautiful.
“Now, John, dear, he does look like you, and Mrs. Widdleton,
too, says he does.” And to prove the resemblance she brought a
picture of her husband, saying I might trace the resemblance
more readily from that.
“Ah, Nelly,” he said, putting it aside, “that never looked
like me.” And to me he added, “You see it was painted when
I found that I had to marry Nell; and no wonder I looked woebegone!”
I took up a book of engravings, and, laying down the child he
turned over the leaves for me.
“I am so faint!” said the wife, putting her hand to her forehead.
“What shall I do, John?”
“Oh, I do n't know,” he answered, without looking toward
her; “get some water, or lie down, or something.”
I gave her some water, and, seating her in the arm-chair, returned
to the book, that I might not appear to notice her emotion.
She turned her back toward us with a pretence of rocking the
saw it, his conscience smote him, and, stooping over her, he
kissed her forehead, and smoothed her hair, saying, with real or
affected fondness, “You know, dear, I was only jesting.” And
she was pacified, and smiled again. The next morning the
strange gentleman took the coach; he could not stay longer, the
wife said; and other lonesome days came and went.
One wild March morning, when the snow blew blindingly
against the windows, little Peter Widdleton came running in with
great haste. Mrs. Hevelyn's baby was very sick, and she wanted
me to come. I found, on arriving at her room, that it had not
seemed well for several days, and that the previous night it had
grown seriously worse, and that then the most alarming symptoms
were visible. She had written every day to her husband,
she told me, and as he neither came nor wrote, she was terrified
on his account, though it was possible her letters might have
been miscarried. Dear, credulous soul! The morning coach
went by, and the evening coach went by, and he came not; and
all the while the child grew worse. Mrs. Widdleton's skill was
baffled; and as the mother rocked the little sufferer on her
bosom, and said, “What shall I do! oh, what shall I do!” I
forgot all the words of comfort I had ever known.
Poor baby! its little hands clinging tightly to the mother's, it
lay all day; but at nightfall it sunk into slumber, and, though
its mother kissed it a thousand times, it did not wake any more.
It was piteous to see her grief when we put it down in the snow,
and left it with the March winds making its lullaby.
After the burial, Mrs. Hevelyn lost the little energy that had
kept her up before, and sat without speaking all the day. She
seemed to have lost every interest in life.
We were sitting around the fire one night, eight or ten days
after the baby died, when Mrs. Widdleton came bustling in to
tell us that Mrs. Hevelyn was gone; that her husband had
written her to join him without a moment's delay; that he had
not sent her one cent of money, nor in any way made provision
for her to go. “But for all that,” said our neighbor, “she was
nearly crazy to go, and the letter really made her a deal better
I suppose—for you see she had no money—all but her wedding-dress;
that, she said, she should need before long;” and the kind
woman, taking up one of the cats, hugged it close by way of
keeping down her emotion. Ah well,” she added, presently,
“she has n't much to care to live for, I am afraid.”
| III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |