Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland

Retta Babcock

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• Publié par: showyug
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 190
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Clemence, by Retta Babcock This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Clemence The Schoolmistress of Waveland Author: Retta Babcock Release Date: March 4, 2006 [EBook #17913] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLEMENCE *** Produced by Curtis Weyant, Sigal Alon and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.) CLEMENCE, THE Schoolmistress of Waveland, BY RETTA B. BABCOCK, AUTHOR OF "GRAHAM LODGE; OR, LAURA CLIFFORD'S LIFE ROMANCE." Not many friends my life has made; Few have I loved, and few are they Who in my hand their hearts have laid; And these are women. I am gray, But never have I been betrayed. J. G. H OLLAND. CLEVELAND, OHIO: PRINTED BY THE LEADER PRINTING COMPANY, NO. 142 SUPERIOR STREET. 1870. PREFACE. The favor with which a generous public received a former volume of the writer's, induced her, after a lapse of nearly two years, to essay another effort of a similar nature. In the present work, facts were chosen for a basis, as calculated to interest, where the wildest dream of the novelist would pall upon the satiated mind. It has been remarked, in a homely phrase by another, that "what comes from the heart, reaches the heart," and if the present fruits of long and unremitting mental labor, sustained often amid such trial and discouragements, as seldom fall to the lot of mortal to bear, should find sympathy and appreciation with the mass of readers, the aim of the writer will have been fully accomplished. CLEMENCE, THE [5] SCHOOLMISTRESS OF WAVELAND. CHAPTER I. "Dearest mother, do not grieve for me, it breaks my heart." The sweet, sad voice of the speaker quivered with unshed tears, as she knelt before the grief-bowed figure on the sofa, and took one of the little, shrunken, tear-wet hands in both her own, with the devotion of a lover. "Have you not often told me of the sin of distrusting the All-wise Being, who has cared for us all our lives thus far? Let us put our trust in Him, and He will 'never leave nor forsake us.' Can you not trust Him, precious mother?" "My child, I could bear it for myself; but you, my all of earth, my heart's dearest treasure, to be exposed to poverty and toil for your daily bread—who have been so delicately reared that the winds of heaven have not been permitted to blow too roughly upon you! My poor, fatherless darling, how can you bear it?" "'God is our father.' We are not friendless, nor alone. 'He who tempereth the [6] wind to the shorn lamb,' will guide and guard me. Let us commit ourselves to His care." She knelt down, and the sunshine, stealing in at the window that May afternoon, circled her young head like a glory. Faint and tremulous rose the sweet voice in prayer, and little widow Graystone's sobs ceased, and a kind of awe stole over her as she listened. And a sweet peace filled her soul, for "angels came and ministered unto her." Up from the mother's heart went a pleading cry. "God keep my darling from harm!" and as she gazed fondly upon the beautiful face before her, with its exalted look of wrapt devotion, a fierce pain struggled at her heart, for she thought of the time in the not distant future, when her only one would be motherless. One little year ago she had been the imperious woman of fashion, and Clemence had seemed little more than a child, in spite of the seventeen summers that had smiled upon her young head. Indeed, she had often experienced a feeling akin to contempt at the unworldliness of her daughter, and sighed in secret to see Clemence just as agreeable to Carl Alwyn, the poor but talented artist, as she was to young Reginald Germaine, the heir to half a million. "Just like your father, my dear," she would say, scornfully, "and nobody knows what I have suffered from his low notions. Just to think of his always insisting upon my inviting those frightful Dinsmore's to my exclusive entertainments, because, years before you were born, Mr. Dinsmore's father did him some [7] service. Why can't he pay them for it, and have an end of it? It is perfectly shocking! The idea of bringing me, a Leveridge of Leveridge, into contact with such vulgar people." "Mamma!" and Clemence's fine eyes glow with generous indignation, "how can you speak thus of one of the noblest traits of my father's character? I love and honor him for it, and I ask God daily to make me worthy to be the child of such a parent." "Well, my dear," cooly replies mamma, "if it will afford you any satisfaction to hear it, you resemble him in every respect. In fact, I see more plainly every day, there is not a trait of the Leveridge's about you, deeply as I deplore it. I had hoped to have a daughter after my own heart. I sometimes think you do not wish to please me in anything." "Oh!" cried Clemence, "how greatly you misunderstand me. You do not know how much I love you. I have often wished that we were poor, so I could have you all to myself, to show, by a lifetime of devotion, what is in my heart." The delicate lady, splendid in misty lace and jewels, gave a little nervous shudder at the bare thought of poverty. "What strange fancies you have, child, and how little you know of the realities of life." But gazing into the pure face, with a vague dread for that future, and knowing that One alone knew whether it might contain happiness or misery for her darling, she said, with visible emotion, "You are a good girl, Clemence, and whatever may be in the future, remember that I always sought your welfare as [8] the one great object of my existence. Always remember that, Clemence." "I will, my own dearest mother," the girl answered brokenly; and neither could see the other through a mist of tears. Was it a presentiment of their coming fate? Clemence thought often, amid the gloom that followed, that it was; and many times in her dream-haunted slumbers, murmured, "Always remember that, Clemence; always remember that." If the stylish Mrs. Graystone, who could boast of the most aristocratic descent, and whose haughty family had considered it quite a condescension when she married the self-made merchant—if the little lady had sinned very deeply in wishing to secure for her only child a husband in every way suitable, in her opinion, to a descendant of the Leveridges of Leveridge, she was destined to a full expiation of her wrong, and her towering pride to a fall so great that those who had envied her her life-long prosperity, would say with ill-concealed delight—"served them right! what will become of their lofty ambition and refined sensibilities now, I wonder?"—"I knew it would not last forever."—"It's a long lane that never turns;" with many more remarks to the same effect. "Between you and me and the four walls of this room," said one Mrs. Crane to her neighbor, "I don't pity them Graystones as much as I should, if they hadn't always carried their heads so high above everybody else, who was just as good as themselves, if they couldn't trace back their descent to the landin' of the [9] Pilgrims." "This is a free and glorious republic, where every man can follow the bent of his own inclinations, provided he don't intrude upon his neighbor's rights. Who gave their blood and sinew to the putting down of them are southern secessionists that threatened the dissolution of our Union? Who, indeed, but P. Crandall Crane! and I'm proud to say that I'm the wife of that patriotic man. True, he could not go to war himself, on account of me and the children; but, I dare say, if he could have prevailed upon me to give him up to the cause of liberty, he'd have clomb rapidly to the highest pinnacle of earthly glory, and to-day I'd have been Mrs. General Crane, a leader of the brilliant society at Washington, with my name in the papers as 'the wife of our distinguished General Crane,' or the 'stately and dignified lady of the brave General;'" &c., &c. "But, no, P. Crandall was a husband and father; so when he was drafted, I fell upon his neck and wept. 'How can I give you up?' was all I could utter through my tears. Touched by my grief, my husband refused to be torn from me, and magnanimously renounced all the honors that crowded thick and fast upon his unwilling brow. 'Enough,' he answered, 'Isabella, I will stay by your side. Duty never points two ways, and my duty is to stay with my family. I will give up all for your sake, and though I may never realize the happiness my fond fancy painted; though I may never enter the crowded ball-room, with my proud and happy wife leaning confidingly upon my arm, while a band, concealed amid [10] flowers, plays in a spirited manner, 'See, the conquering hero comes,'—though I see the flattering ovations, the substantial dinners, the moonlight serenades, the waiting crowd shouting my name impatiently: 'Crane! Crane! let us have a speech from the gallant General P. Crandall!'—yes, even though the aristocratic brown-stone mansion, which was to have been a testimonial of esteem from admiring friends; though all these fade before me like the beautiful mirage that proves only an illusion of the senses, yet I am equal to this act of self-denial, and submit to pass my life in obscurity, unknown and unappreciated.'" "Overcome by such magnanimity, I fainted upon his bosom. After that my dreams were haunted by gory battle-fields, in which P. Crandall figured in every imaginable scene of suffering and danger. My delicate nerves had received a severe shock, and yet I did not mean to be weak, in the hour of trial, for it is the duty of a faithful wife, such as I sought to be, to sustain her partner in the hour of adversity." "My companion, meanwhile, was not inactive. He sou