University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
FORESHADOWINGS.

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 ws 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 does n'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 have n't sensitive feelings, in this
world. I am sure I wish I did n'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, was n'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 was n'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 must n'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 is n't like you, and mamma is n'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, all 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,
is n'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,
could n'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 could n'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, and 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.