CHAPTER XXXVIII.THE FAMILY BREAKFAST.
Catharine did not speak of her employment that morning. Some unaccountable restraint was upon her, and she could not force her tongue to ask the questions that were constantly forming themselves in her mind.
The old people were unusually quiet and gentle. Pleasant dreams, or, what is perhaps better, innocent thoughts, had filled their souls with sweet serenity. Since their daughter had returned, imperfect in temper and intellect as she was, their home had brightened into a Paradise around them. They called the poor woman by a thousand sweet terms of endearment, as if she had been still a child, and they indulging in the first bright joys of parental life.
It was beautiful to watch the holy workings of nature in those old hearts, as they sat by the breakfast-table that bright spring morning side by side, with their daughter, who was languidly reposing in an easy-chair on the opposite side of the table. In the wanderings of her intellect, she had retained exaggerated vestiges of a taste originally luxurious and imaginative. Now the dress, which had once beensplendid, became picturesque, and at times fantastic, but it was always arranged with a certain effect that bespoke great original refinement. She delighted in strong contrasts, rather than incongruities of color, and invariably rejected all fabrics that were not the most delicate and costly of their kind. In a store-room overhead she had found a wardrobe that had once been fashionable and costly, and the discovery had seemed to give her inexhaustible pleasure.
This morning she had arrayed herself with peculiar care. Her white muslin robe was elaborately embroidered down the front and over the bosom. She wore dainty slippers of crimson Russian leather, embossed with gold; and had tied a small lace handkerchief under her chin, which mingled softly with the profuse wealth of tresses, which she had been at great pains to train in long ringlets, evidently with some vague reminiscence of her childhood. There was nothing very fantastic in this, certainly, but the kerchief on her head, and the muslin of her robe, was of that pale yellow tinge, which nothing but time can give; and the gold upon her slippers was tarnished till it seemed like bronze.
Besides this, poor Elsie had made still more striking additions to her toilet. Over the muslin robe she wore an ample gown of crimson satin, lined with a lighter tinge of red, which was fastened at the waist with a belt of black morocco, united in front by an antique golden clasp.
There was something about this dress, and in the evident satisfaction with which Elsie exhibited herself in it, that touched some hidden memory in the old people. They looked at each other furtively, as if anxious to know what impression it was making; and at last the old lady’s eyes quietly filled with tears, while a flush stole over her husband’s forehead, as if old memories were carrying the blood hotly to his brain.
Catharine saw all this, and it added to the perplexity of her thoughts. But no one spoke. After a little, the oldman bent his head with a sort of start, as if the thought had just struck him, and asked a blessing on the food, a duty which had never been delayed before for many a long year by any worldly thought. Catharine remarked that his voice was indistinct, and the few words which fell from his lips came singly and at intervals, as with an effort of pain.
Elsie had not spoken all the morning. There she sat, in her easy-chair, eying her strange dress with a vague smile, as if wholly absorbed by it. She shook out the satin folds of her robe, tightened the golden clasp at her waist, and smoothed down the yellow and costly lace that fell over her hands, with dim self-complacency, smiling now and then on her parents, but uttering never a word. At length she seemed satisfied with her finery, and turned her eyes upon the window.
“Shall I open it?” said the dear old lady, still with tears in her eyes.
The daughter did not reply, but a soft smile came to her eyes, which still looked longingly through the sash. An old pear-tree was just in sight, clouded with white blossoms; and a pleasant wind sighed through a thicket of lilac-bushes and snow-balls, that grew nearer to the window, shaking their dew and perfume upon the air.
The smile upon Elsie’s lips grew brighter. She stood up, and looked earnestly through the window. A gleam of intelligence shot over her face.
“The beehives, the beehives—who has broken up my beehives?” she murmured, in a tone of vague displeasure. “What have they done with my beehives, mother?”
The old woman’s eyes glistened through their tears. It was the second time that Elsie had called her mother; and the very heart seemed blossoming afresh in her bosom, as she listened to the holy sound.
The beehives—Elsie’s beehives? Alas! they had been taken away from beneath the old pear-tree more than twentyyears ago. The bees had been left to plunder the adjoining thickets and clover-fields, year after year, while no one touched the honey; and thus they had hived in neglect, dispersed, and left their cells empty so long that the old people had almost forgotten that they ever existed.
“The bees! oh, Elsie! they have gone to the woods,” said the old man, in a voice of touching apology. “We did not kill them; we never gathered an ounce of their honey. You do not mind that they are gone, Elsie dear?”
“Oh,” answered Elsie, wearily, as if the effort to remember had exhausted her,—“gone, are they? what for? why did they go? How everything slides, slides, slides away, and I keep running after, forever and forever running after. Oh! I am tired.”
The old people looked at one another, and at Catharine, hopefully.
“Let her rest,” said Catharine, in a gentle whisper. “Perhaps it may end better than we think!”
“Yes,” said the old man, stealthily clasping the withered hand of his wife. “Let us watch. She may wander back to her youth again, and forget all that has passed.”
“It may be so—God help the poor child—it may be so,” murmured the old lady, casting looks of wistful tenderness across the table, while her daughter began to eat daintily, putting on airs like a child entrusted with a fork for the first time.
It was remarkable that the old lady never spoke of her daughter, though an elderly woman with waves of gray in her hair, except as “the child,” or “the dear young creature.” To her, those white hairs had no significance of age, but were the marks of a deep sorrow, over which the mother’s heart mourned perpetually.
The breakfast was finished in silence. Catharine, usually so attentive to every movement of her charge, sat preoccupied and thoughtful. The old people dropped back intotheir habitual calm, and Elsie still amused herself by arranging and re-arranging the folds of her robe, claiming admiration for the effect, by child-like glances at her mother. Perhaps they were right; the woman certainly did seem to be going back to her childishness again.