CHAPTER XIII.

THE MOTHER'S CURSE.

"There, Agnes, you may go now. How do you like my looks? Will I do to appear before the the strange gentleman?"

"Look, Miss Lily? Why you look like the buful cloud I seed lyin' so soft and still in de sunshine, honey. But I like the white dress more, for den you look just like de angels, waiting for de wings."

"That will do. You have imagination sufficient for a poet, Agnes, but you may go now."

She smiled as she waved her hand towards the door with a delicate movement, and she was alone. Only a moment, however, for the faithful servant had just disappeared when the door reopened and Mrs. Belmont entered the apartment. She was still graceful and queenly in her bearing, and her long black dress swept the rich carpet with an imperious air. Time had been very gentle with that fair face, touching lightly her brow with his unwelcome traces, neither quenching the fire in her dark eyes nor dulling the lustre of her glossy hair. Yet her regal head had a habit of drooping, as if weary of its weight of thought, and her lips became more and more compressed as their color faded and lines of anxious care grew deeper as the years rolled by.

"I came to tell you that there was to be company at dinner."

"Not before? I understood Tezzie to say there would be a stranger here at lunch."

"It may be so; Charles is to bring home a college friend, I believe."

This would have been very unsatisfactory under some circumstances, but Lillian was not curious. As her mother entered the room she discovered that strange, wild light in her eyes which she had seen there many times before, and well knew that beneath it a hidden fire was raging. Mrs. Belmont had not once looked into the face of her daughter, but had seated herself by the open window, her elbow on the heavy frame-work, while her head rested wearily upon her hand. A soft, warm breeze came softly and caressed her with its perfumed wings, fanning her heated brow, and whispering all the time the sweetest words of purity and peace through the interwoven branches of the luxurious vine outside. In her heart, however, were discordant notes to which she was listening, having no ear for other sounds, were they ever so melodious.

"Lillian," she said, at last, "did you reject George St. Clair this morning?"

"I did, Mother."

"You did?"

"Yes, I did."

The daughter spoke quietly and calmly, but Mrs. Belmont arose hurriedly from the chair and stood before her.

Lillian did not quail before the burning look which was fixed upon her, but returned it with a determined gaze, out of which pity and filial affection beamed their gentle rays.

"Child! child! this must not--cannot be! I command you to recall him. It is not too late. He loves you, and would, without doubt, overlook this unparalleled freak of foolishness in which you have been so unaccountably indulging. Recall him, Lillian; your whole future happiness depends upon it."

"You are mistaken, Mother; I never could have been happy had I accepted that true, noble heart, and given in exchange my poor broken and divided one, and certainly he never could have taken me into his great love after knowing me as I am, which he surely must have done, or I, at least, would have been eternally wretched."

"You did not tell him?" was the quick inquiry.

"I told him that _I was a wife_. That my heart was forever bound up in those matrimonial vows still unsevered, and that I loved him as a brother, and no more."

"You are mad! a fool! You know not what you do," and trembling with excitement she sank back on the chair from which she had risen.

Lillian did not speak or move, but tears came welling up through the freshly opened wounds in her poor heart, and filled her large pensive eyes with their bitter moisture.

Again the mother spoke.

"I feel disposed, just now, to enlighten you a little in regard to your future prospects if you persist in this silly sentimental mood, which you seem to think so becoming! I have striven hard to keep it from you and your brother for many years, and to surround you with every luxury your inherited station really demanded. More than this, I have planned, wrought, and guided with true maternal skill and instinct the fortunes of you both in such a manner that you might, if you would, ever retain your enviable position in the social world, for which I have exerted myself to fit you."

"I do not understand you, Mother. Be merciful and enlighten me, as you offered to do."

"Yes, I will; but you will not find much mercy in it. Know, then, that we are not owners of this beautiful estate. On the contrary, it was mortgaged to the father of George St. Clair by your own father some time before his death. Think, if you can, of the long years of toil I have experienced since that time, and ask if you are right in pulling down about our heads the whole structure of prosperity and affluence that I have been so long in building."

"I discern your intricate plans, my Mother, and pity you."

"Pity me? Do you then persist in your folly? I have proven to you then that it is in your power to avert this ruin! Mr. St. Clair told me not long since that Rosedale would eventually belong to his son, and he was happy to feel quite sure that my daughter would share it with him. I cannot much longer keep the Gorgon from devouring us! All we can then call our own will be the negroes, and these, without doubt, will depreciate much in value if the anticipated war of the North really comes upon us! Decide Lillian! Tell me that you will accede to my wishes in recalling George St. Clair! That northern mud-sill has, without doubt, long before this returned to his native element. He is dead to you--as wholly, truly so as though you had never been guilty of so great an indiscretion!" Lillian started to her feet.

"Mother, one question! Did you not receive a letter from my aunt in Philadelphia not many months ago saying that my husband had risen high in the estimation of the people and was true to his early vows? Has that information ever been contradicted? I read in the pallor of your face that it has not! His heart beats as truly for me to-day as it did sixteen years ago--and I am _his wife_! He is the father of my sweet Lily-bud, and this bond can never be severed! No, no! I cannot, I _will not_, wed another!"

"_The curse of the heart-broken then rest upon you!_" She had moved away with rapid steps while speaking, and although Lillian reached out her hand imploringly the stately figure disappeared through the open door. O the speechless agony of the next hour! O the suffering in that lonely, sad, luxurious chamber! All the misery of her eventful life came rushing over her! Spectral thoughts, that she had supposed were long since banished forever, haunted her brain! How vivid and real they now appeared in this new darkness. Then the future! Where was the black hand of destiny to lead her? Even now she could see it reaching out its bony fingers from among the mysteries that enveloped her hidden path! The thick folds of an interminable gloom seemed to have fallen about her, and everywhere she beheld that "mother's curse" written in letters of fire! A rap was heard on the door and she arose mechanically and turned the key. Soon the sound of a heavy tread was heard along the hall--then down the winding staircase and lost in the distance. It was Tezzie, and she was alone again! By and by the echoes of music and laughter came floating up through the open window and mingled harshly with the dreariness which pervaded that silent chamber! There was a merry group in the spacious drawing-room before the dinner hour arrived. Where was the wretched mother? Could it be that those rigid features which disappointment, consternation and rage had blanched with their inhuman concoctions was covered with a mask of conviviality and pleasure? Lillian wept! It was well that tears came at last or the poor brain would have become parched with the fever of its wild despair! The sunshine at last departed from the window and night let down its black, silken curtains around a weary tumultuous world. O, how many hearts sink helplessly beneath their weight of woe, crushing under it the joy from the outside world with its wealth of pomp and gaiety! Yet there are those who, when the day departs, throw aside the sackcloth with which they hide their misery and come with all their sorrows to the feet of Him whose smiles alone have the power to dispel their gloom. Lillian did not know how to pray! In all her years of perplexity and doubt she had not reached out her hand to the only one who could have led her safely out of it all. Now her heart called for something it had not yet divined, but the perplexed soul was wistfully gazing upward through the thick clouds that drooped so closely about her, and a feeble wail issued from beneath the sombre darkness. Another low tap was heard on the door which again aroused her. There had been many during the hours of her self-imprisonment, but she had not heeded them. However, a low, sweet voice penetrated her solitude and fell with soothing cadence upon her ear.

"It's Auntie, honey--open the door, poor lamb"; and Lillian's quick step revealed the willingness with which she complied. The faithful old slave came in and the door was relocked.

"What fo' you killin' yo'self here all alone, honey? I know'd dar was trouble all day and I just been askin' de good Lord to take care of you; but I did want to come and see if he'd done it--poo' lamb!" Aunt Vina had drawn her chair close to the side of Lillian, and the weary head with its heavy weight of sorrow had fallen upon the shoulder of her faithful friend. "Dar--bress you honey--cry all yo' trouble out. Dat's de way de bressed Lord helps us to get rid on 'em. By an' by sweet lamb He'll wipe 'em all away; den ye'll hab no mo' sorrow, honey, bress de Lord!"

"But I have now more than I can bear! You don't know what a terrible load I am being crushed beneath!"

"I know a good deal, chile. Missus told me to-day dat you wouldn't marry Massa St. Clair, and she 'spects you was pinin' at somethin' she said! I axed her if I might come and see you and she didn't care, but wanted I should make you ''bey yo' mudder'; now de Lord knows better dan she do."

"Did she tell you that she cursed me? O--Auntie! I could bear all the rest, even the miserable future she has pictured to me; but it is dreadful to carry through life the terrible burden of a mother's curse."

"Neber you min', honey; de Lord'll pay no 'tention to such cussin', an' it won't hurt ye a bit, if ye don't keep thinkin' on it. Why can't ye tell Him all about it, poor chile, den t'row it all away? He'll take good care ob it, sure, and it won't hurt you."

"Do you believe, Aunt Vina, that God cares anything about me? Would He listen if I should ask Him to take my cause into His hands?"

"Sartin He would, honey. He lubs you ten times mo' dan Old Auntie, and wouldn't she take ebery bit ob it if she could?"

The rough hand of the slave woman touched with soft caress the tear-stained cheek that was resting so near her own, and the cheering words fell into her aching heart with a soothing influence.

"Pray for me, Auntie, and I will try to do as you have bidden. The road is very dark and gloomy where my faltering feet are standing, but it may be as you say, that God will drive it all away."

"O bress de Lord, bress de Lord! Auntie knows ye'll fin' it. Never mind nothin', go tell Him eberythin', and see how de dark will all go 'way. Dar, honey; old Vina'll go and get ye a good cup o' tea, and bring in de lamp and make it more cheery like. De good Lord'll take care ob de lamb!"

"Where is Grace?" was the plaintive query.

"O Miss Grace, she's 'most crazy 'bout you. I seed her alone in de little arbor cryin' dreadful awhile ago; but den she puts 'em 'way quick, and her pretty face looks all happy agin. She was singin' at de pianner when I come up."

"Tell her, Auntie, not to come to me until to-morrow. I wish to be left alone to-night. You may bring me a cup of tea, then tell Agnes that I shall not want her," was the pleading wail of the sorrowing heart as the slave woman disappeared on her errand of love and tenderness.

Fold thy wings lovingly over the bowed form of the humble suppliant, O angel of pity, for the Father hears the cry of his suffering children; not one ever pleaded in vain, and Lillian prayed!