The Monikins. Джеймс Фенимор Купер
Читать онлайн книгу.
was but the commencement of a speculation, and to die was to determine the general balance of profit and loss. A man who had so rarely meditated on the grave changes of mortality, therefore, was consequently so much the less prepared to gaze upon the visible solemnities of a death-bed. Although he had never truly loved my mother, for love was a sentiment much too pure and elevated for one whose imagination dwelt habitually on the beauties of the stock-books, he had ever been kind to her, and of late he was even much disposed, as has already been stated, to contribute as much to her temporal comforts as comported with his pursuits and habits. On the other hand, the quiet temperament of my mother required some more exciting cause than the affections of her husband, to quicken those germs of deep, placid, womanly love, that certainly lay dormant in her heart, like seed withering with the ungenial cold of winter. The last meeting of such a pair was not likely to be attended with any violent outpourings of grief.
My ancestor, notwithstanding, was deeply struck with the physical changes in the appearance of his wife.
“Thou art much emaciated, Betsey,” he said, taking her hand kindly, after a long and solemn pause; “much more so than I had thought, or could have believed! Dost nurse give thee comforting soups and generous nourishment?”
My mother smiled the ghastly smile of death; but waved her hand, with loathing, at his suggestion.
“All this is now too late, Mr. Goldencalf,” she answered, speaking with a distinctness and an energy for which she had long been reserving her strength. “Food and raiment are no longer among my wants.”
“Well, well, Betsey, one that is in want of neither food nor raiment, cannot be said to be in great suffering, after all; and I am glad that thou art so much at ease. Dr. Etherington tells me thou art far from being well bodily, however, and I am come expressly to see if I can order anything that will help to make thee more easy.”
“Mr. Goldencalf, you can. My wants for this life are nearly over; a short hour or two will remove me beyond the world, its cares, its vanities, its—” My poor mother probably meant to add, its heartlessness or its selfishness; but she rebuked herself, and paused: “By the mercy of our blessed Redeemer, and through the benevolent agency of this excellent man,” she resumed, glancing her eye upwards at first with holy reverence, and then at the divine with meek gratitude, “I quit you without alarm, and were it not for one thing, I might say without care.”
“And what is there to distress thee, in particular, Betsey?” asked my father, blowing his nose, and speaking with unusual tenderness; “if it be in my power to set thy heart at ease on this, or on any other point, name it, and I will give orders to have it immediately performed. Thou hast been a good pious woman, and canst have little to reproach thyself with.”
My mother looked earnestly and wistfully at her husband. Never before had he betrayed so strong an interest in her happiness, and had it not, alas! been too late, this glimmering of kindness might have lighted the matrimonial torch into a brighter flame than had ever yet glowed upon the past.
“Mr. Goldencalf, we have an only son—”
“We have, Betsey, and it may gladden thee to hear that the physician thinks the boy more likely to live than either of his poor brothers and sisters.”
I cannot explain the holy and mysterious principle of maternal nature that caused my mother to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven, and, while a gleam flitted athwart her glassy eyes and wan cheeks, to murmur her thanks to God for the boon. She was herself hastening away to the eternal bliss of the pure of mind and the redeemed, and her imagination, quiet and simple as it was, had drawn pictures in which she and her departed babes were standing before the throne of the Most High, chanting his glory, and shining amid the stars—and yet was she now rejoicing that the last and the most cherished of all her offsprings was likely to be left exposed to the evils, the vices, nay, to the enormities, of the state of being that she herself so willingly resigned.
“It is of our boy that I wish now to speak, Mr. Goldencalf,” replied my mother, when her secret devotion was ended. “The child will have need of instruction and care; in short, of both mother and father.”
“Betsey, thou forgettest that he will still have the latter.”
“You are much wrapped up in your business, Mr. Goldencalf, and are not, in other respects, qualified to educate a boy born to the curse and to the temptations of immense riches.”
My excellent ancestor looked as if he thought his dying consort had in sooth finally taken leave of her senses.
“There are public schools, Betsey; I promise thee the child shall not be forgotten: I will have him well taught, though it cost me a thousand a year!”
His wife reached forth her emaciated hand to that of my father, and pressed the latter with as much force as a dying mother could use. For a fleet moment she even appeared to have gotten rid of her latest care. But the knowledge of character that had been acquired by the hard experience of thirty years, was not to be unsettled by the gratitude of a moment.
“I wish, Mr. Goldencalf,” she anxiously resumed, “to receive your solemn promise to commit the education of our boy to Dr. Etherington—you know his worth, and must have full confidence in such a man.”
“Nothing would give me greater satisfaction, my dear Betsey; and if Dr. Etherington will consent to receive him, I will send Jack to his house this very evening; for, to own the truth, I am but little qualified to take charge of a child under a year old. A hundred a year, more or less, shall not spoil so good a bargain.”
The divine was a gentleman, and he looked grave at this speech, though, meeting the anxious eyes of my mother, his own lost their displeasure in a glance of reassurance and pity.
“The charges of his education will be easily settled, Mr. Goldencalf,” added my mother; “but the Doctor has consented with difficulty to take the responsibility of my poor babe, and that only under two conditions.”
The stock-dealer required an explanation with his eyes.
“One is, that the child shall be left solely to his own care, after he has reached his fourth year; and the other is, that you make an endowment for the support of two poor scholars, at one of the principal schools.”
As my mother got out the last words, she fell back on her pillow, whence her interest in the subject had enabled her to lift her head a little, and she fairly gasped for breath, in the intensity of her anxiety to hear the answer. My ancestor contracted his brow, like one who saw it was a subject that required reflection.
“Thou dost not know perhaps, Betsey, that these endowments swallow up a great deal of money—a great deal—and often very uselessly.”
“Ten thousand pounds is the sum that has been agreed upon between Mrs. Goldencalf and me,” steadily remarked the Doctor, who, in my soul, I believe had hoped that his condition would be rejected, having yielded to the importunities of a dying woman, rather than to his own sense of that which might be either very desirable or very useful.
“Ten thousand pounds!”
My mother could not speak, though she succeeded in making an imploring sign of assent.
“Ten thousand pounds is a great deal of money, my dear Betsey—a very great deal!”
The color of my mother changed to the hue of death, and by her breathing she appeared to be in the agony.
“Well, well, Betsey,” said my father a little hastily, for he was frightened at her pallid countenance and extreme distress, “have it thine own way—the money, yes, yes—it shall be given as thou wishest—now set thy kind heart at rest.”
The revulsion of feeling was too great for one whose system had been wound up to a state of excitement like that which had sustained my mother, who, an hour before, had seemed scarcely able to speak. She extended her hand toward her husband, smiled benignantly in his face, whispered the word “Thanks,” and then, losing all her powers of body, sank into the last sleep, as tranquilly as the infant drops