The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/The Step-Mother

by Anna Cora Mowatt

The Step-Mother.

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tep-mother! Unmusically jars the word upon the ear! A sense of something harsh and chilling strikes against the heart at the sound. The vision of a place usurped, of children thrust from their father's knee, of old and pleasant ways put aside, and all things rendered strange and new in the familiar home, is conjured up by its utterance.

Let that not be! thou who hast borne a step-mother's title with such wondrous grace that it becomes ennobled in thy person. Give it melody, caught from the music of thy accordant life! Stand forth in the purple light of my thoughts, draped with the sweet and sacred memories which cling about thy lovely presence, that I may paint thee fitly. If the lines be but true, the tinting faithful, the portrait thine, it will wipe away the long reproach from the name of "step-dame," and embalm it in the fragrant aroma of gratitude and reverence and most tender love.

The waves of twenty years, or more, have melted at thy feet upon the shores of time, since first with pleading eyes and timid mien, thou tookest the place a sainted mother left unfilled. Her children, not ungraciously—it may be with forbearing kindness—made room for thee beside the crowded hearth; but could they welcome, even the best of earth, to that dear seat which she of heaven had sanctified? No voice could call thee "mother;" the tender epithet seemed sacrilege upon her children's lips. The stranger was respected as their father's choice; for his sake valued, not beloved and honored for her own.

Was not thy gentle spirit sad and ill at ease, sitting among those half-averted faces, sons and daughters of one whose holy footprints thou hadst come to press out with thy faltering feet? They asked not, knew not; the hand of him whose wisdom none dared question, placed thee in their midst; the inevitable was accepted as the endurable.

How mild and meek thou wert, how doubtful of thyself, how all unconscious of thy own surpassing virtues! So unassuming that thou could'st not think the noblest act of thine was better than the common deeds of others. Ever blushing at thyself, the very wit, that flashed upon thy lips, because the bubbling fount within, could not repress its sparkling gush, was uttered in a tone that might escape the ear. Thus, shrinkingly, in thy new orbit didst thou move, thy life with unpretentious goodness rounded.

Soon, very soon, the holy magnetism that ensphered thy soul, was felt within that home. One face turned lovingly thy way, one heart expanded wide to let thee in, one little hand was placed confidingly in thine, one guileless head pillowed itself upon thy breast, and sought a mother's lost caresses there. Childhood's pure instinct, that has quicker knowledge of the good and true than older and more dull perceptions, found out maternal throbs in the "step-mother's" heart and proclaimed them with responsive tenderness. The youngest darling of the house, she who had been lifted up to sit upon a mother's death-bed, who had received upon her sinless brow the glorifying halo of a mother's dying smile; (oh! precious and mysterious benison that has illumined and enriched her life with manifold blessings from that hour to this!) 'Twas she, that little child, who knew and loved thee first! Quickly another and another face turned towards thee; another and another heart unclosed to let thee in; another and another hand grasped thine with warm and trusting clasp, and formed a sacred compact never to be broken.

What was the talisman that drew those alien hearts until they moved around thine own, harmonious as the stars about their sun? When sickness stretched some frail one, of that group, upon the couch of pain, thine was the cooling hand upon the throbbing brow; thine the voice that fell in soothing cadence on the ear; thine the patient ministering that brought relief and peace. When sorrow bowed another to the earth, thou wert the first to stoop and lift the fallen head upon thy knees, and bind with skill the bleeding wounds, and kindle up thy smile of hope, until it melted and rolled back the mists from off the clouded spirit.

O rare combination of high attributes, that formed the setting of that puissant magnet-jewel worn within thy breast! A forbearing spirit, lenient eye, kindly judgment, quiet dignity, bending humility, life-pervading sweetness of Christian charity! Simple, womanly, unconscious, but unfailing magic!

Ere long there came an hour to test the strength of thy dear witchery, to break the spell, or make it stronger. A baby-daughter came to lift her wailing voice and plead for infant suffrages; to stretch her feeble arms, demanding her full share of the kind father's love; to look up, wondering, into all those faces gathered round her cradle-bed, and claim them as brothers and sisters. Then was the newly-made mother's triumph perfected; then was the bond, her gentle hands had woven, tried and cemented. The tiny being that was rocked by throbs of such tumultuous gladness, as it lay upon her breast, was welcomed as no half sister in her step-children's love, but taken wholly, gladly to their unsealed hearts.

And when another, and another, and another cherub girl was sent to swell the band of sisters, each little hand soon forged a new and shining link, in that long, golden chain, and made it dearer, as it made its circle wider. And lips that could not frame the hallowed word, when thou didst cross that threshold, called thee "mother" now, and felt it was no wrong to her in heaven!