第 三十二 章 · MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE

. MRS. BELDEN’S NARRATIVE

“Cursed, destructive Avarice,

Thou everlasting foe to Love and Honor.”

Trap’s Abram.

“----Mischief never thrives

Without the help of Woman.”

The Same.

It will be a year next July since I first saw Mary Leavenworth. I

was living at that time a most monotonous existence. Loving what

was beautiful, hating what was sordid, drawn by nature towards

all that was romantic and uncommon, but doomed by my straitened

position and the loneliness of my widowhood to spend my days in the

weary round of plain sewing, I had begun to think that the shadow

of a humdrum old age was settling down upon me, when one morning,

in the full tide of my dissatisfaction, Mary Leavenworth stepped

across the threshold of my door and, with one smile, changed the

whole tenor of my life.

This may seem exaggeration to you, especially when I say that her

errand was simply one of business, she having heard I was handy

with my needle; but if you could have seen her as she appeared that

day, marked the look with which she approached me, and the smile

with which she left, you would pardon the folly of a romantic old

woman, who beheld a fairy queen in this lovely young lady. The

fact is, I was dazzled by her beauty and her charms. And when, a

few days after, she came again, and crouching down on the stool at

my feet, said she was so tired of the gossip and tumult down at

the hotel, that it was a relief to run away and hide with some one

who would let her act like the child she was, I experienced for

the moment, I believe, the truest happiness of my life. Meeting

her advances with all the warmth her manner invited, I found her

ere long listening eagerly while I told her, almost without my own

volition, the story of my past life, in the form of an amusing

allegory.

The next day saw her in the same place; and the next; always with

the eager, laughing eyes, and the fluttering, uneasy hands, that

grasped everything they touched, and broke everything they grasped.

But the fourth day she was not there, nor the fifth, nor the

sixth, and I was beginning to feel the old shadow settling back

upon me, when one night, just as the dusk of twilight was merging

into evening gloom, she came stealing in at the front door, and,

creeping up to my side, put her hands over my eyes with such a low,

ringing laugh, that I started.

“You don’t know what to make of me!” she cried, throwing aside

her cloak, and revealing herself in the full splendor of evening

attire. “I don’t know what to make of myself. Though it seems

folly, I felt that I must run away and tell some one that a certain

pair of eyes have been looking into mine, and that for the first

time in my life I feel myself a woman as well as a queen.” And with

a glance in which coyness struggled with pride, she gathered up her

cloak around her, and laughingly cried:

“Have you had a visit from a flying sprite? Has one little ray of

moonlight found its way into your prison for a wee moment, with

Mary’s laugh and Mary’s snowy silk and flashing diamonds? Say!” and

she patted my cheek, and smiled so bewilderingly, that even now,

with all the dull horror of these after-events crowding upon me,

I cannot but feel something like tears spring to my eyes at the

thought of it.

“And so the Prince has come for you?” I whispered, alluding to a

story I had told her the last time she had visited me; a story in

which a girl, who had waited all her life in rags and degradation

for the lordly knight who was to raise her from a hovel to a

throne, died just as her one lover, an honest peasant-lad whom she

had discarded in her pride, arrived at her door with the fortune he

had spent all his days in amassing for her sake.

But at this she flushed, and drew back towards the door. “I don’t

know; I am afraid not. I--I don’t think anything about that.

Princes are not so easily won,” she murmured.

“What! are you going?” I said, “and alone? Let me accompany you.”

But she only shook her fairy head, and replied: “No, no; that

would be spoiling the romance, indeed. I have come upon you like

a sprite, and like a sprite I will go.” And, flashing like the

moonbeam she was, she glided out into the night, and floated away

down the street.

When she next came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner,

which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in

our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover’s

attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in

a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy

way, with kisses and marriage, “I shall never marry!” finishing the

exclamation with a long-drawn sigh, that somehow emboldened me to

say, perhaps because I knew she had no mother:

“And why? What reason can there be for such rosy lips saying their

possessor will never marry?”

She gave me one quick look, and then dropped her eyes. I feared I

had offended her, and was feeling very humble, when she suddenly

replied, in an even but low tone, “I said I should never marry,

because the one man who pleases me can never be my husband.”

All the hidden romance in my nature started at once into life. “Why

not? What do you mean? Tell me.”

“There is nothing to tell,” said she; “only I have been so

weak as to”--she would not say, fall in love, she was a proud

woman--“admire a man whom my uncle will never allow me to marry.”

And she rose as if to go; but I drew her back. “Whom your uncle

will not allow you to marry!” I repeated. “Why? because he is poor?”

“No; uncle loves money, but not to such an extent as that. Besides,

Mr. Clavering is not poor. He is the owner of a beautiful place in

his own country----”

“Own country?” I interrupted. “Is he not an American?”

“No,” she returned; “he is an Englishman.”

I did not see why she need say that in just the way she did, but,

supposing she was aggravated by some secret memory, went on to

inquire: “Then what difficulty can there be? Isn’t he--” I was

going to say steady, but refrained.

“He is an Englishman,” she emphasized in the same bitter tone as

before. “In saying that, I say it all. Uncle will never let me

marry an Englishman.”

I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had

never entered my mind.

“He has an absolute mania on the subject,” resumed she. “I might as

well ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman.”

A woman of truer judgment than myself would have said: “Then,

if that is so, why not discard from your breast all thought of

him? Why dance with him, and talk to him, and let your admiration

develop into love?” But I was all romance then, and, angry at a

prejudice I could neither understand nor appreciate, I said:

“But that is mere tyranny! Why should he hate the English so? And

why, if he does, should you feel yourself obliged to gratify him in

a whim so unreasonable?”

“Why? Shall I tell you, auntie?” she said, flushing and looking

away.

“Yes,” I returned; “tell me everything.”

“Well, then, if you want to know the worst of me, as you

already know the best, I hate to incur my uncle’s displeasure,

because--because--I have always been brought up to regard myself

as his heiress, and I know that if I were to marry contrary to his

wishes, he would instantly change his mind, and leave me penniless.”

“But,” I cried, my romance a little dampened by this admission,

“you tell me Mr. Clavering has enough to live upon, so you would

not want; and if you love--”

Her violet eyes fairly flashed in her amazement.

“You don’t understand,” she said; “Mr. Clavering is not poor; but

uncle is rich. I shall be a queen--” There she paused, trembling,

and falling on my breast. “Oh, it sounds mercenary, I know, but

it is the fault of my bringing up. I have been taught to worship

money. I would be utterly lost without it. And yet”--her whole face

softening with the light of another emotion, “I cannot say to Henry

Clavering, ‘Go! my prospects are dearer to me than you!’ I cannot,

oh, I cannot!”

“You love him, then?” said I, determined to get at the truth of the

matter if possible.

She rose restlessly. “Isn’t that a proof of love? If you knew me,

you would say it was.” And, turning, she took her stand before a

picture that hung on the wall of my sitting-room.

“That looks like me,” she said.

It was one of a pair of good photographs I possessed.

“Yes,” I remarked, “that is why I prize it.”

She did not seem to hear me; she was absorbed in gazing at the

exquisite face before her. “That is a winning face,” I heard her

say. “Sweeter than mine. I wonder if she would ever hesitate

between love and money. I do not believe she would,” her own

countenance growing gloomy and sad as she said so; “she would think

only of the happiness she would confer; she is not hard like me.

Eleanore herself would love this girl.”

I think she had forgotten my presence, for at the mention of her

cousin’s name she turned quickly round with a half suspicious look,

saying lightly:

“My dear old Mamma Hubbard looks horrified. She did not know she

had such a very unromantic little wretch for a listener, when she

was telling all those wonderful stories of Love slaying dragons,

and living in caves, and walking over burning ploughshares as if

they were tufts of spring grass?”

“No,” I said, taking her with an irresistible impulse of admiring

affection into my arms; “but if I had, it would have made no

difference. I should still have talked about love, and of all it

can do to make this weary workaday world sweet and delightful.”

“Would you? Then you do not think me such a wretch?”

What could I say? I thought her the winsomest being in the world,

and frankly told her so. Instantly she brightened into her very

gayest self. Not that I thought then, much less do I think now,

she partially cared for my good opinion; but her nature demanded

admiration, and unconsciously blossomed under it, as a flower under

the sunshine.

“And you will still let me come and tell you how bad I am,--that

is, if I go on being bad, as I doubtless shall to the end of the

chapter? You will not turn me off?”

“I will never turn you off.”

“Not if I should do a dreadful thing? Not if I should run away

with my lover some fine night, and leave uncle to discover how his

affectionate partiality had been requited?”

It was lightly said, and lightly meant, for she did not even wait

for my reply. But its seed sank deep into our two hearts for all

that. And for the next few days I spent my time in planning how

I should manage, if it should ever fall to my lot to conduct

to a successful issue so enthralling a piece of business as an

elopement. You may imagine, then, how delighted I was, when one

evening Hannah, this unhappy girl who is now lying dead under my

roof, and who was occupying the position of lady’s maid to Miss

Mary Leavenworth at that time, came to my door with a note from her

mistress, running thus:

“Have the loveliest story of the season ready for me

to-morrow; and let the prince be as handsome as--as some

one you have heard of, and the princess as foolish as your

little yielding pet,

“MARY.”

Which short note could only mean that she was engaged. But the

next day did not bring me my Mary, nor the next, nor the next; and

beyond hearing that Mr. Leavenworth had returned from his trip I

received neither word nor token. Two more days dragged by, when,

just as twilight set in, she came. It had been a week since I had

seen her, but it might have been a year from the change I observed

in her countenance and expression. I could scarcely greet her with

any show of pleasure, she was so unlike her former self.

“You are disappointed, are you not?” said she, looking at me. “You

expected revelations, whispered hopes, and all manner of sweet

confidences; and you see, instead, a cold, bitter woman, who for

the first time in your presence feels inclined to be reserved and

uncommunicative.”

“That is because you have had more to trouble than encourage you

in your love,” I returned, though not without a certain shrinking,

caused more by her manner than words.

She did not reply to this, but rose and paced the floor, coldly

at first, but afterwards with a certain degree of excitement that

proved to be the prelude to a change in her manner; for, suddenly

pausing, she turned to me and said: “Mr. Clavering has left R----,

Mrs. Belden.”

“Left!”

“Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed.”

The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment.

“Ah! then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?”

“Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore

told him.”

“Then _she_ knew?”

“Yes,” with a half sigh. “She could hardly help it. I was foolish

enough to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness.

I did not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is

so conscientious.”

“I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another’s secrets,” I

returned.

“That is because you are not Eleanore.”

Not having a reply for this, I said, “And so your uncle did not

regard your engagement with favor?”

“Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an

Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried.”

“And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have

his way?”

She was walking off to look again at that picture which had

attracted her attention the time before, but at this word gave me

one little sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive.

“I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean.”

“And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of

honor to be his wife?”

“Why not, when I found I could not keep my word.”

“Then you have decided not to marry him?”

She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the

picture.

“My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly

by his wishes!” she responded at last with what I felt was

self-scornful bitterness.

Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. “Oh, Mary!” I cried, “Oh,

Mary!” and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her

first name.

But she did not appear to notice.

“Have you any complaint to make?” she asked. “Is it not my manifest

duty to be governed by my uncle’s wishes? Has he not brought me up

from childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am,

even to the love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with

every gift he has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped

into my ear, since I was old enough to know what riches meant?

Is it for me now to turn my back upon fostering care so wise,

beneficent, and free, just because a man whom I have known some two

weeks chances to offer me in exchange what he pleases to call his

love?”

“But,” I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm

in which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of

thinking after all, “if in two weeks you have learned to love this

man more than everything else, even the riches which make your

uncle’s favor a thing of such moment--”

“Well,” said she, “what then?”

“Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of

your choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your

influence over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can

persistently deny.”

You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her

face at that. “Would it not be better,” she asked, creeping to my

arms, and laying her head on my shoulder, “would it not be better

for me to make sure of that uncle’s favor first, before undertaking

the hazardous experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?”

Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was

one amused smile.

“Oh, my darling,” said I, “you have not, then dismissed Mr.

Clavering?”

“I have sent him away,” she whispered demurely.

“But not without hope?”

She burst into a ringing laugh.

“Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to

be sure! You appear as much interested as if you were the lover

yourself.”

“But tell me,” I urged.

In a moment her serious mood returned. “He will wait for me,” said

she.

* * * * *

The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her

clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both

to assume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke

conjecture than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The

plan pleased her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign

being used on the envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine,

was at once adopted.

And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all

this trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use

as she would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what

was left me of judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her

scheming, planning, devoted slave; now copying the letters which

she brought me, and enclosing them to the false name we had agreed

upon, and now busying myself in devising ways to forward to her

those which I received from him, without risk of discovery. Hannah

was the medium we employed, as Mary felt it would not be wise for

her to come too often to my house. To this girl’s charge, then, I

gave such notes as I could not forward in any other way, secure in

the reticence of her nature, as well as in her inability to read,

that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would arrive at

their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they always

did. At all events, no difficulty that I ever heard of arose out of

the use of this girl as a go-between.

But a change was at hand. Mr. Clavering, who had left an invalid

mother in England, was suddenly summoned home. He prepared to

go, but, flushed with love, distracted by doubts, smitten with

the fear that, once withdrawn from the neighborhood of a woman

so universally courted as Mary, he would stand small chance of

retaining his position in her regard, he wrote to her, telling his

fears and asking her to marry him before he went.

“Make me your husband, and I will follow your wishes in all

things,” he wrote. “The certainty that you are mine will make

parting possible; without it, I cannot go; no, not if my mother

should die without the comfort of saying good-bye to her only

child.”

By some chance she was in my house when I brought this letter from

the post-office, and I shall never forget how she started when she

read it. But, from looking as if she had received an insult, she

speedily settled down into a calm consideration of the subject,

writing and delivering into my charge for copying a few lines in

which she promised to accede to his request, if he would agree to

leave the public declaration of the marriage to her discretion, and

consent to bid her farewell at the door of the church or wherever

the ceremony of marriage should take place, never to come into her

presence again till such declaration had been made. Of course this

brought in a couple of days the sure response: “Anything, so you

will be mine.”

And Amy Belden’s wits and powers of planning were all summoned

into requisition for the second time, to devise how this matter

could be arranged without subjecting the parties to the chance of

detection. I found the thing very difficult. In the first place,

it was essential that the marriage should come off within three

days, Mr. Clavering having, upon the receipt of her letter, secured

his passage upon a steamer that sailed on the following Saturday;

and, next, both he and Miss Leavenworth were too conspicuous in

their personal appearance to make it at all possible for them to be

secretly married anywhere within gossiping distance of this place.

And yet it was desirable that the scene of the ceremony should not

be too far away, or the time occupied in effecting the journey to

and from the place would necessitate an absence from the hotel on

the part of Miss Leavenworth long enough to arouse the suspicions

of Eleanore; something which Mary felt it wiser to avoid. Her

uncle, I have forgotten to say, was not here--having gone away

again shortly after the apparent dismissal of Mr. Clavering.

F----, then, was the only town I could think of which combined the

two advantages of distance and accessibility. Although upon the

railroad, it was an insignificant place, and had, what was better

yet, a very obscure man for its clergyman, living, which was best

of all, not ten rods from the depot. If they could meet there?

Making inquiries, I found that it could be done, and, all alive to

the romance of the occasion, proceeded to plan the details.

And now I am coming to what might have caused the overthrow of the

whole scheme: I allude to the detection on the part of Eleanore

of the correspondence between Mary and Mr. Clavering. It happened

thus. Hannah, who, in her frequent visits to my house, had grown

very fond of my society, had come in to sit with me for a while

one evening. She had not been in the house, however, more than ten

minutes, before there came a knock at the front door; and going

to it I saw Mary, as I supposed, from the long cloak she wore,

standing before me. Thinking she had come with a letter for Mr.

Clavering, I grasped her arm and drew her into the hall, saying,

“Have you got it? I must post it to-night, or he will not receive

it in time.”

There I paused, for, the panting creature I had by the arm turning

upon me, I saw myself confronted by a stranger.

“You have made a mistake,” she cried. “I am Eleanore Leavenworth,

and I have come for my girl Hannah. Is she here?”

I could only raise my hand in apprehension, and point to the girl

sitting in the corner of the room before her. Miss Leavenworth

immediately turned back.

“Hannah, I want you,” said she, and would have left the house

without another word, but I caught her by the arm.

“Oh, miss--” I began, but she gave me such a look, I dropped her

arm.

“I have nothing to say to you!” she cried in a low, thrilling

voice. “Do not detain me.” And, with a glance to see if Hannah were

following her, she went out.

For an hour I sat crouched on the stair just where she had left me.

Then I went to bed, but I did not sleep a wink that night. You can

imagine, then, my wonder when, with the first glow of the early

morning light, Mary, looking more beautiful than ever, came running

up the steps and into the room where I was, with the letter for Mr.

Clavering trembling in her hand.

“Oh!” I cried in my joy and relief, “didn’t she understand me,

then?”

The gay look on Mary’s face turned to one of reckless scorn. “If

you mean Eleanore, yes. She is duly initiated, Mamma Hubbard. Knows

that I love Mr. Clavering and write to him. I couldn’t keep it

secret after the mistake you made last evening; so I did the next

best thing, told her the truth.”

“Not that you were about to be married?”

“Certainly not. I don’t believe in unnecessary communications.”

“And you did not find her as angry as you expected?”

“I will not say that; she was angry enough. And yet,” continued

Mary, with a burst of self-scornful penitence, “I will not call

Eleanore’s lofty indignation anger. She was grieved, Mamma Hubbard,

grieved.” And with a laugh which I believe was rather the result of

her own relief than of any wish to reflect on her cousin, she threw

her head on one side and eyed me with a look which seemed to say,

“Do I plague you so very much, you dear old Mamma Hubbard?”

She did plague me, and I could not conceal it. “And will she not

tell her uncle?” I gasped.

The naive expression on Mary’s face quickly changed. “No,” said she.

I felt a heavy hand, hot with fever, lifted from my heart. “And we

can still go on?”

She held out the letter for reply.

The plan agreed upon between us for the carrying out of our

intentions was this. At the time appointed, Mary was to excuse

herself to her cousin upon the plea that she had promised to

take me to see a friend in the next town. She was then to enter

a buggy previously ordered, and drive here, where I was to join

her. We were then to proceed immediately to the minister’s house

in F----, where we had reason to believe we should find everything

prepared for us. But in this plan, simple as it was, one thing was

forgotten, and that was the character of Eleanore’s love for her

cousin. That her suspicions would be aroused we did not doubt; but

that she would actually follow Mary up and demand an explanation

of her conduct, was what neither she, who knew her so well, nor

I, who knew her so little, ever imagined possible. And yet that

was just what occurred. But let me explain. Mary, who had followed

out the programme to the point of leaving a little note of excuse

on Eleanore’s dressing-table, had come to my house, and was just

taking off her long cloak to show me her dress, when there came

a commanding knock at the front door. Hastily pulling her cloak

about her I ran to open it, intending, you may be sure, to dismiss

my visitor with short ceremony, when I heard a voice behind me

say, “Good heavens, it is Eleanore!” and, glancing back, saw Mary

looking through the window-blind upon the porch without.

“What shall we do?” I cried, in very natural dismay.

“Do? why, open the door and let her in; I am not afraid of

Eleanore.”

I immediately did so, and Eleanore Leavenworth, very pale, but with

a resolute countenance, walked into the house and into this room,

confronting Mary in very nearly the same spot where you are now

sitting. “I have come,” said she, lifting a face whose expression

of mingled sweetness and power I could not but admire, even in

that moment of apprehension, “to ask you without any excuse for my

request, if you will allow me to accompany you upon your drive this

morning?”

Mary, who had drawn herself up to meet some word of accusation or

appeal, turned carelessly away to the glass. “I am very sorry,”

she said, “but the buggy holds only two, and I shall be obliged to

refuse.”

“I will order a carriage.”

“But I do not wish your company, Eleanore. We are off on a pleasure

trip, and desire to have our fun by ourselves.”

“And you will not allow me to accompany you?”

“I cannot prevent your going in another carriage.”

Eleanore’s face grew yet more earnest in its expression. “Mary,”

said she, “we have been brought up together. I am your sister in

affection if not in blood, and I cannot see you start upon this

adventure with no other companion than this woman. Then tell me,

shall I go with you, as a sister, or on the road behind you as the

enforced guardian of your honor against your will?”

“My honor?”

“You are going to meet Mr. Clavering.”

“Well?”

“Twenty miles from home.”

“Well?”

“Now is it discreet or honorable in you to do this?”

Mary’s haughty lip took an ominous curve. “The same hand that

raised you has raised me,” she cried bitterly.

“This is no time to speak of that,” returned Eleanore.

Mary’s countenance flushed. All the antagonism of her nature was

aroused. She looked absolutely Juno-like in her wrath and reckless

menace. “Eleanore,” she cried, “I am going to F---- to marry Mr.

Clavering! _Now_ do you wish to accompany me?”

“I do.”

Mary’s whole manner changed. Leaping forward, she grasped her

cousin’s arm and shook it. “For what reason?” she cried. “What do

you intend to do?”

“To witness the marriage, if it be a true one; to step between you

and shame if any element of falsehood should come in to affect its

legality.”

Mary’s hand fell from her cousin’s arm. “I do not understand

you,” said she. “I thought you never gave countenance to what you

considered wrong.”

“Nor do I. Any one who knows me will understand that I do not give

my approval to this marriage just because I attend its ceremonial

in the capacity of an unwilling witness.”

“Then why go?”

“Because I value your honor above my own peace. Because I love our

common benefactor, and know that he would never pardon me if I let

his darling be married, however contrary her union might be to his

wishes, without lending the support of my presence to make the

transaction at least a respectable one.”

“But in so doing you will be involved in a world of

deception--which you hate.”

“Any more so than now?”

“Mr. Clavering does not return with me, Eleanore.”

“No, I supposed not.”

“I leave him immediately after the ceremony.”

Eleanore bowed her head.

“He goes to Europe.” A pause.

“And I return home.”

“There to wait for what, Mary?”

Mary’s face crimsoned, and she turned slowly away.

“What every other girl does under such circumstances, I suppose.

The development of more reasonable feelings in an obdurate parent’s

heart.”

Eleanore sighed, and a short silence ensued, broken by Eleanore’s

suddenly falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin’s hand.

“Oh, Mary,” she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush

of wild entreaty, “consider what you are doing! Think, before it

is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as

this. Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness.

Love--but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have

dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the

fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops

to subterfuge like this. And you,” she continued, rising and

turning toward me in a sort of forlorn hope very touching to see,

“can you see this young motherless girl, driven by caprice, and

acknowledging no moral restraint, enter upon the dark and crooked

path she is planning for herself, without uttering one word of

warning and appeal? Tell me, mother of children dead and buried,

what excuse you will have for your own part in this day’s work,

when she, with her face marred by the sorrows which must follow

this deception, comes to you----”

“The same excuse, probably,” Mary’s voice broke in, chill and

strained, “which you will have when uncle inquires how you came to

allow such an act of disobedience to be perpetrated in his absence:

that she could not help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait,

and every one around must accommodate themselves to it.”

It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated

up to fever point. Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing

back, pale and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark:

“Then nothing can move you?”

The curling of Mary’s lips was her only reply.

Mr. Raymond, I do not wish to weary you with my feelings, but the

first great distrust I ever felt of my wisdom in pushing this

matter so far came with that curl of Mary’s lip. More plainly

than Eleanore’s words it showed me the temper with which she was

entering upon this undertaking; and, struck with momentary dismay,

I advanced to speak when Mary stopped me.

“There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don’t you go and acknowledge that you

are frightened, for I won’t hear it. I have promised to marry Henry

Clavering to-day, and I am going to keep my word--if I don’t love

him,” she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a

way which caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was

going to her bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was

doing this, with very trembling fingers, she said, looking straight

at Eleanore:

“You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any

reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the

way to F----, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to

dream upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon

me such dreadful consequences?”

“If I go with you to F----,” Eleanore returned, “it is as a

witness, no more. My sisterly duty is done.”

“Very well, then,” Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; “I

suppose I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am

so sorry to disappoint you, but the buggy _won’t_ hold three. If

you are good you shall be the first to congratulate me when I come

home to-night.” And, almost before I knew it, the two had taken

their seats in the buggy that was waiting at the door. “Good-by,”

cried Mary, waving her hand from the back; “wish me much joy--of my

ride.”

I tried to do so, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only wave my

hand in response, and rush sobbing into the house.

Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I

cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when,

seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the

token of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the

shape of Mary herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her

beautiful face aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house

just as I was beginning to despair.

A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having

a dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my

fancy that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her

cloak, she displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned

with snowy roses.

“Oh, Mary!” I cried, bursting into tears; “you are then----”

“Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I’m a bride, Auntie.”

“Without a bridal,” I murmured, taking her passionately into my

embrace.

She was not insensible to my emotion. Nestling close to me, she

gave herself up for one wild moment to a genuine burst of tears,

saying between her sobs all manner of tender things; telling me

how she loved me, and how I was the only one in all the world to

whom she dared come on this, her wedding night, for comfort or

congratulation, and of how frightened she felt now it was all over,

as if with her name she had parted with something of inestimable

value.

“And does not the thought of having made some one the proudest of

men solace you?” I asked, more than dismayed at this failure of

mine to make these lovers happy.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “What satisfaction can it be for him

to feel himself tied for life to a girl who, sooner than lose a

prospective fortune, subjected him to such a parting?”

“Tell me about it,” said I.

But she was not in the mood at that moment. The excitement of the

day had been too much for her. A thousand fears seemed to beset

her mind. Crouching down on the stool at my feet, she sat with her

hands folded and a glare on her face that lent an aspect of strange

unreality to her brilliant attire. “How shall I keep it secret! The

thought haunts me every moment; how can I keep it secret!”

“Why, is there any danger of its being known?” I inquired. “Were

you seen or followed?”

“No,” she murmured. “It all went off well, but----”

“Where is the danger, then?”

“I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be

laid; they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known

whether we will or not. I did not think of this before. I was

mad, reckless, what you will. But ever since the night has come,

I have felt it crushing upon me like a pall that smothers life

and youth and love out of my heart. While the sunlight remained I

could endure it; but now--oh, Auntie, I have done something that

will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself to a living

apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness.”

I was too aghast to speak.

“For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal

white, and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if

they were wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the

compliments bestowed upon me--and they are only too numerous--were

just so many congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use;

Eleanore knew it was no use. She has gone to her room to pray,

while I--I have come here for the first time, perhaps for the last,

to fall at some one’s feet and cry,--‘God have mercy upon me!’”

I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. “Oh, Mary, have I only

succeeded, then, in making you miserable?”

She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of

roses which had fallen from her hair to the floor.

“If I had not been taught to love money so!” she said at length.

“If, like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been

ours from childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped

at the call of duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and

elegant belongings were not so much to me; or love, friendship,

and domestic happiness more! If only I could walk a step without

dragging the chain of a thousand luxurious longings after me.

Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in her beautiful womanhood,

haughty as she can be when the delicate quick of her personality is

touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the hour in a low,

chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a dirty child

on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old woman

whom no one else would consent to touch. Oh, oh! they talk about

repentance and a change of heart! If some one or something would

only change mine! But there is no hope of that! no hope of my ever

being anything else than what I am: a selfish, wilful, mercenary

girl.”

Nor was this mood a mere transitory one. That same night she made

a discovery which increased her apprehension almost to terror.

This was nothing less than the fact that Eleanore had been keeping

a diary of the last few weeks. “Oh,” she cried in relating this

to me the next day, “what security shall I ever feel as long as

this diary of hers remains to confront me every time I go into her

room? And she will not consent to destroy it, though I have done my

best to show her that it is a betrayal of the trust I reposed in

her. She says it is all she has to show in the way of defence, if

uncle should ever accuse her of treachery to him and his happiness.

She promises to keep it locked up; but what good will that do! A

thousand accidents might happen, any of them sufficient to throw it

into uncle’s hands. I shall never feel safe for a moment while it

exists.”

I endeavored to calm her by saying that if Eleanore was without

malice, such fears were groundless. But she would not be comforted,

and seeing her so wrought up, I suggested that Eleanore should be

asked to trust it into my keeping till such time as she should feel

the necessity of using it. The idea struck Mary favorably. “O yes,”

she cried; “and I will put my certificate with it, and so get rid

of all my care at once.” And before the afternoon was over, she had

seen Eleanore and made her request.

It was acceded to with this proviso, that I was neither to destroy

nor give up all or any of the papers except upon their united

demand. A small tin box was accordingly procured, into which

were put all the proofs of Mary’s marriage then existing, viz.:

the certificate, Mr. Clavering’s letters, and such leaves from

Eleanore’s diary as referred to this matter. It was then handed

over to me with the stipulation I have already mentioned, and I

stowed it away in a certain closet up-stairs, where it has lain

undisturbed till last night.

* * * * *

Here Mrs. Belden paused, and, blushing painfully, raised her eyes

to mine with a look in which anxiety and entreaty were curiously

blended.

“I don’t know what you will say,” she began, “but, led away by my

fears, I took that box out of its hiding-place last evening and,

notwithstanding your advice, carried it from the house, and it is

now----”

“In my possession,” I quietly finished.

I don’t think I ever saw her look more astounded, not even when I

told her of Hannah’s death. “Impossible!” she exclaimed. “I left it

last night in the old barn that was burned down. I merely meant to

hide it for the present, and could think of no better place in my

hurry; for the barn is said to be haunted--a man hung himself there

once--and no one ever goes there. I--I--you cannot have it!” she

cried, “unless----”

“Unless I found and brought it away before the barn was destroyed,”

I suggested.

Her face flushed deeper. “Then you followed me?”

“Yes,” said I. Then, as I felt my own countenance redden, hastened

to add: “We have been playing strange and unaccustomed parts, you

and I. Some time, when all these dreadful events shall be a mere

dream of the past, we will ask each other’s pardon. But never mind

all this now. The box is safe, and I am anxious to hear the rest of

your story.”

This seemed to compose her, and after a minute she continued:

* * * * *

Mary seemed more like herself after this. And though, on account

of Mr. Leavenworth’s return and their subsequent preparations for

departure, I saw but little more of her, what I did see was enough

to make me fear that, with the locking up of the proofs of her

marriage, she was indulging the idea that the marriage itself had

become void. But I may have wronged her in this.

The story of those few weeks is almost finished. On the eve of the

day before she left, Mary came to my house to bid me good-by. She

had a present in her hand the value of which I will not state, as I

did not take it, though she coaxed me with all her prettiest wiles.

But she said something that night that I have never been able to

forget. It was this. I had been speaking of my hope that before two

months had elapsed she would find herself in a position to send

for Mr. Clavering, and that when that day came I should wish to be

advised of it; when she suddenly interrupted me by saying:

“Uncle will never be won upon, as you call it, while he lives. If

I was convinced of it before, I am sure of it now. Nothing but his

death will ever make it possible for me to send for Mr. Clavering.”

Then, seeing me look aghast at the long period of separation which

this seemed to betoken, blushed a little and whispered: “The

prospect looks somewhat dubious, doesn’t it? But if Mr. Clavering

loves me, he can wait.”

“But,” said I, “your uncle is only little past the prime of life

and appears to be in robust health; it will be years of waiting,

Mary.”

“I don’t know,” she muttered, “I think not. Uncle is not as strong

as he looks and--” She did not say any more, horrified perhaps at

the turn the conversation was taking. But there was an expression

on her countenance that set me thinking at the time, and has kept

me thinking ever since.

Not that any actual dread of such an occurrence as has since

happened came to oppress my solitude during the long months which

now intervened. I was as yet too much under the spell of her charm

to allow anything calculated to throw a shadow over her image

to remain long in my thoughts. But when, some time in the fall,

a letter came to me personally from Mr. Clavering, filled with

a vivid appeal to tell him something of the woman who, in spite

of her vows, doomed him to a suspense so cruel, and when, on the

evening of the same day, a friend of mine who had just returned

from New York spoke of meeting Mary Leavenworth at some gathering,

surrounded by manifest admirers, I began to realize the alarming

features of the affair, and, sitting down, I wrote her a letter.

Not in the strain in which I had been accustomed to talk to her,--I

had not her pleading eyes and trembling, caressing hands ever

before me to beguile my judgment from its proper exercise,--but

honestly and earnestly, telling her how Mr. Clavering felt, and

what a risk she ran in keeping so ardent a lover from his rights.

The reply she sent rather startled me.

“I have put Mr. Robbins out of my calculations for the present, and

advise you to do the same. As for the gentleman himself, I have

told him that when I could receive him I would be careful to notify

him. That day has not yet come.

“But do not let him be discouraged,” she added in a postscript.

“When he does receive his happiness, it will be a satisfying one.”

_When_, I thought. Ah, it is that _when_ which is likely to ruin

all! But, intent only upon fulfilling her will, I sat down and

wrote a letter to Mr. Clavering, in which I stated what she had

said, and begged him to have patience, adding that I would surely

let him know if any change took place in Mary or her circumstances.

And, having despatched it to his address in London, awaited the

development of events.

They were not slow in transpiring. In two weeks I heard of the

sudden death of Mr. Stebbins, the minister who had married them;

and while yet laboring under the agitation produced by this shock,

was further startled by seeing in a New York paper the name of Mr.

Clavering among the list of arrivals at the Hoffman House; showing

that my letter to him had failed in its intended effect, and that

the patience Mary had calculated upon so blindly was verging to its

end. I was consequently far from being surprised when, in a couple

of weeks or so afterwards, a letter came from him to my address,

which, owing to the careless omission of the private mark upon

the envelope, I opened, and read enough to learn that, driven to

desperation by the constant failures which he had experienced in

all his endeavors to gain access to her in public or private, a

failure which he was not backward in ascribing to her indisposition

to see him, he had made up his mind to risk everything, even

her displeasure; and, by making an appeal to her uncle, end the

suspense under which he was laboring, definitely and at once.

“I want you,” he wrote; “dowered or dowerless, it makes little

difference to me. If you will not come of yourself, then I must

follow the example of the brave knights, my ancestors; storm the

castle that holds you, and carry you off by force of arms.”

Neither can I say I was much surprised, knowing Mary as I did,

when, in a few days from this, she forwarded to me for copying,

this reply: “If Mr. Robbins ever expects to be happy with Amy

Belden, let him reconsider the determination of which he speaks.

Not only would he by such an action succeed in destroying the

happiness of her he professes to love, but run the greater risk of

effectually annulling the affection which makes the tie between

them endurable.”

To this there was neither date nor signature. It was the cry of

warning which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when

brought to bay. It made even me recoil, though I had known from the

first that her pretty wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating

above the soundless depths of cold resolve and most deliberate

purpose.

What its real effect was upon him and her fate I can only

conjecture. All I know is that in two weeks thereafter Mr.

Leavenworth was found murdered in his room, and Hannah Chester,

coming direct to my door from the scene of violence, begged me to

take her in and secrete her from public inquiry, as I loved and

desired to serve Mary Leavenworth.