“I am writing to you for the last time as Fanny Hathern. When this reaches you I shall be on the sea,—going to Europe with Col. Errington as his wife!”
If some one had written to me that Fanny was dead, the shock would not have been so great, although different. Consciousness did not forsake me, but for a brief space hearing and seeing did, except that rings of fire danced before my eyes, and in my ears there was a roaring, far-off noise, as if some one were repeating over and over again “with Col. Errington as his wife.” I have been told that when one is near drowning, all the incidents of his life are unrolled before him. I was neither drowning, nor dying, but I seemed to see at a glance all Fan’s past as connected with Jack, and her present as connected with Col. Errington, and I scarcely needed to read her letter to know how it had happened. When sight and sound came back, I was conscious of a feeling of intense heat as if I was smothering. I must have air, and dragging myself to the window I opened it, and with the rain beating upon me, although I did not feel it, I read the letter through. It was written half in badinage, half in extenuation, and had in it a ring of pain which told me that there was enough of the old Fan left to torture the new one with remorse when she had time to realize what she had done, and to learn the difference between a heart which beat for her alone, and one which cared for her only as she ministered to its selfishness and pride.
“Don’t condemn me utterly,” she wrote, “until you read my letter and know how it has come about, if indeed I can tell you. I believe it has been coming ever since that day when Col. Errington came to The Elms with his sister and found us picking grapes. He says it began when he raided our house with his troops and I talked so saucily to him. I could have killed him then in my hatred of everything wearing the Federal uniform. I have at times almost wished I had done so, when I have felt his meshes closing round me until I had no power to resist. Do you remember the old geography we studied years ago, when Mr. Allen from the north was our teacher? There was in it a picture of the so-called Maelstrom on the coast of Norway, with a ship which had got into the whirl going down, the faces and hands of the ill-fated passengers upturned and imploring help, which could not reach them. That picture had a great fascination for me, especially after Mr. Allen explained it to us so vividly that I felt my hair prickle at the roots, and could see it all so distinctly. The pleasure boat full of giddy young people skirting around the edge of the whirlpool into whose circle they were being gradually drawn;—sailing pleasantly and smoothly round and round, each time swifter than before until at last the line was crossed over which there was no return. Human skill was of no avail. Human aid could not reach them, and they were drawn on and on, nearer and nearer to the roaring mass of angry waters into which they entered at last and went down to the depths below, where, according to his statement the sea floor is strewed with the wrecks of boats and white with human bones. This picture was bad enough, but it was worse still when he drew a moral lesson from it and told us how our little faults, if not overcome would grow until we could not control them and they would drag us on to the great Maelstrom of sin into which we would plunge, head first, I think he said, and go down, down, down,—not to the bottom of the sea,—but to hell,—and he emphasized the last word with a blow on the table with his big ruler which made me nearly jump out of my skin. I was scared almost to death, and began to think of all the bad things I had done, putting beech nuts in Charlie’s bed, and a little mud-turtle in the pocket of Phyllis’s Sunday gown, calling you a fool, and spitting at Jack, when he tried to kiss me. I could not sleep for thinking about it, and finally made Phyllis my confessor and told her of my fear of the Maelstrom of sin.
“‘Laws, honey,’ she said, stroking my hair, ‘don’t you worry. What’s you got to do any way with Moll Stroon’s sin? Let her take keer of it herself. You’se nothin’ to do with it. What was it any way? And who was Moll Stroon?’
“I laughed till I cried at her mistake, and called her an old idiot, and didn’t worry any more about Moll Stroon’s sin. I have since read that the Maelstrom, as we regarded it, is a myth, or at the most a very narrow strait on the coast of Norway through which the sea pours rapidly four times a day with the ebb and flow of the tide,—that when it meets a strong wind from the opposite direction, the water bubbles and boils and seethes like a cauldron, but nothing is ever drawn into it except foolish whales who are too big to turn round and go back. Why have I dwelt so long on this Maelstrom? I don’t know, unless it is to show you how, ever since I left home, I have been hanging on the verge of a moral whirlpool, sliding over one circular wave after another until I grew dizzy and have finally tumbled in. To use a slang phrase, ‘that is about the size of it.’ Col. Errington says that he never forgot me for a day after the first time he saw me, and I stood up so bravely and told him what I thought of him; that when he saw me the second time on the ladder with grape stains on my face and I as unconcerned about my personal appearance as if I had been a queen and he my subject, he registered a vow that if possible he would make me his wife. You know he did write, offering me his hand. I never answered his letter, and that cooled his ardor, until he came the third time and found us at The Plateau. The knowledge that I was engaged to Jack dampened him a little, but he did not despair, and when he succeeded in getting me to Washington and under his influence he felt tolerably sure of success, seeing as he did how fond I was of everything which riches can give. He has never said a word against Jack. That would have defeated his plan, but in a thousand ways I cannot describe he has made me feel how wholly unfitted I am to be the wife of a poor man, and how eminently fitted to shine in a society different from anything in Lovering. He has made me feel, too, that Jack is countrified and that after a while I should grow away from him and perhaps be ashamed of him,—a state of things which would make me wretched. I know there is more real goodness in Jack’s little finger than in the Colonel’s whole body and told him so. He only laughed and said he had no doubt of it, but he believed I would be happier with his whole body bad as it was than with Jack’s good little finger. If he has never said anything derogatory of Jack he has of Lovering, which seen with his eyes and my recent experience of something better seems to me the dullest place on earth, and one in which I couldn’t possibly live again. You don’t know anything about it Annie; you who have never been anywhere except to Boston. Then it was a funeral at which you could not be very gay. You only saw the usual sights of the city with Carl. You know nothing of grand hotels, with suites of rooms and obsequious waiters, who come at your nod, because you belong to the Errington party,—of fine turnouts with coachmen and footmen in livery, and people looking admiringly after you;—of elegant houses, such as there are in New York and Washington, and especially Col. Errington’s, where everything is the most expensive kind, with hosts of servants to do your bidding;—of splendid dresses and jewels such as ladies wear to dinners and receptions; boxes at the opera, and all the pleasant gossip, a knowledge of these things brings to those who are in the swim. This is society, and I like it and it has been offered me a good many times in return for myself, and a good many times I have refused it, but when I thought the matter settled the Colonel has changed his base of operations and commenced the siege again. His love-making has never been open and impetuous like Jack’s, but done persistently and in that delicate, persuasive way so hard to resist. Neither Miss Errington nor Katy have a suspicion of it. Indeed, his sister expects to go with him to New York to-morrow and see him off on Saturday, and she has asked Katy and me to accompany her. I declined, but I believe Katy intends to go. I hardly think she will, and I dread the scene in the morning when they must know the truth.
“I did not decide until this afternoon. I drove with the Colonel this morning far out into the country. We were gone two or three hours, and he improved his opportunity, urging every possible reason why I should not marry Jack and should marry him. In Lovering I would be a nonentity, darning my husband’s socks and looking after the kitchen to see things were not wasted. In Washington I would be a leader in society, quoted and admired, with every wish gratified, and the finest establishment in the city. He would build a house for me, he said, much handsomer than the one he now occupies, and he took me around to see the site on one of the pleasantest and most fashionable avenues. He would have two or three plans sent to us for approval in Europe, and it could be commenced at once. As soon as we had the measurements of the rooms I could, if I liked, order the carpets and rugs, together with the furniture. There were to be draperies from Paris, pictures and statuary from Rome and Florence, china and linen from Dresden and England, and bric-a-brac from everywhere. There was to be a cottage at Newport in the summer,—trips to Florida in the winter, where, if I liked, he would build a pretty villa near some one of the many lakes which abound in the southern part of the state. He knows a spot which will just suit me in Orange County. I think it was this villa, which he described so vividly, with its broad piazza,—vine covered and cool,—its palms and magnolias and orange trees and roses, and fanciful rowboat on the lake, which moved me the most. I can have you and Paul there. The place will suit you better than the gayeties of Washington, or Newport, and in imagination I have already filled the wide piazza of Palmetto Villa with chairs and stools, and a little round table for books or work, or afternoon tea, and I have put Paul into a hammock and you into an easy chair, and have with you looked across the road to Lake Hathern sparkling in the sunlight, and have inhaled the perfume of orange blossoms and the delicious Florida air, freighted with the odor of many flowers. And by and by carriages come out from Orlando, a pretty town close by, with people to call upon us, English and Americans, and our grounds are bright with the flutter of gay dresses, and the house is filled with the chatter of small talk,—admiration of the place, and implied compliments of the beautiful hostess,—that is I, who carries herself like a duchess, and says to herself, ‘This is life; I did well not to refuse it.’ Isn’t that a charming picture? I thought so and began to waver.
“On our return to the house the Colonel found a telegram from the White Star office, asking if he still wished them to reserve the staterooms he had looked at when in the city last week. If so, he must let them know at once, as another party wanted them. He had been so sure that I would go with him, he said, that he had partially engaged the rooms, and now I must decide.
“‘Give me an hour,’ I said, and after my lunch I went directly to my room, pleading a headache, which would keep me from going out with Miss Errington and Katy, who were to make some purchases for Lovering. I locked the door, took off my dress, put on a wrapper, let down my hair, unbuttoned my boots, looked in the glass, and then sat down to weigh the pro’s and con’s of the situation.
“Do you remember that queer little thing which I once recited at school, ‘The Philosopher’s Scales,’ which were not made to weigh sugar and tea, but qualities, feelings, thoughts and sense. The first thing he tried, we are told, was the head of Voltaire pitted against the prayer of the penitent thief, with the result that the head flew up and the prayer down. Then
Then at last,
“All this recurred to me so vividly this afternoon and keeps repeating itself over and over in my brain as I sit writing this to you. I am a little girl again in the old school-house at Lovering. It is Wednesday afternoon, and outside under the trees several horses are tied, with here and there a negro in attendance. Inside, the western sun comes through the windows and lies in great splashes of light on the floor. On his little perch of a platform Mr. Allen, of Maelstrom notoriety, sits calling the names of those who are to recite or declaim, his voice sounding like thunder when he says ‘Fanny Hathern: The Philosopher’s Scales.’ In her red merino gown and white apron Fanny Hathern walks from her seat to the platform, the distance seeming a mile, and her heart thumping like a trip-hammer, as she tries to remember whether it was the prayer of Voltaire and the skull of the thief, or vice versa. There is company in school that afternoon, the Trustees, of whom the girl’s father is one, and hence her anxiety to acquit herself creditably with her scales. You are there and Charlie, and Jack is in the corner just where the little girl can see him, as she curtsies straight down and begins, with her eyes fixed on him, for she knows his lips will try to form the words if she wavers. He has helped her learn the piece and heard her rehearse it many times, telling her how to manage her voice, for Jack is a natural orator. The little girl acquits herself very creditably and goes back to her seat, passing so near to Jack that she hears distinctly his whispered words, ‘You did it tip-top.’
“Dear old Jack, who always thought I did everything ‘tip-top,’ and who brought me the biggest apples he could find in the bin, who put so many sugar hearts and raisins into my desk, and carried me in his arms across the puddles of water, when I was afraid of spoiling my new shoes. What will he think of me now, I wonder? Believe me, Annie, my face is wet with tears as I recall those far-off days and think of Jack, who would never serve me as I am serving him. It is raining heavily to-night and the wind howls at my window with a sound in it like a human sob or moan,—like Jack’s voice calling to me through the storm, and saying it is not too late to draw back. There it comes again, the moan,—making me creep all over, there is something so uncanny in the sound at this hour of the night. It is not too late to draw back, and I’ll do it, too. If the Colonel is still up,—if there is a light over or under his door, I will knock and tell him I have changed my mind, that I cannot break Jack’s heart—I have been out into the hall and the whole length of it, treading very cautiously lest Miss Errington or Katy should hear me. There was no light over or under the Colonel’s door. He was fast asleep, snoring horribly at intervals, and it was these snores which I mistook for Jack’s moaning in the wind. I cannot draw back. It is too late. I believe I am half crazed and don’t know what I am writing, or have written. I remember I had reached the ‘Philosopher’s Scales’ when I digressed so widely, so I will return to that point and the time this afternoon when I sat down to weigh the pro’s and con’s,—the pro’s for my marrying the Colonel, and the con’s against it. Into the con I put Jack, young, handsome, true as steel, good every way, with no fault whatever except that he is poor, knows but little of fashionable society and cares less, wears old-fashioned coats and slouch hats, with his trousers in his boots when the roads are muddy. That was Jack, and of course the con went down with a whack as there was nothing to balance it. Then I took the Colonel, years older than I am, growing bald on the top of his head and a little deaf in one ear, with some grey in his hair and whiskers, and no power to thrill or quicken my pulse when he touches my hand, as Jack has. Good habits, distinguished looking, remarkably well preserved, polished manners, perfect knowledge of the world and every shade of etiquette, and always habited in the last style from his collar to his boots. That was the Colonel, and I put him into the pro scale, which was up in the air and swung and teetered, but did not make Jack, who was down, budge an inch. The con was ahead, and I was glad, but I meant to be fair, and took up Lovering next, asking what besides Jack and you and Paul it had to offer me in exchange for the world of society I liked so much. Two or three picnics in the summer when the people eat their lunch on the ground in the woods, with bugs and ants crawling over them, and pretend they like it. A few tea parties, where the talk is mostly of the good times before the war and the bad times since. Possibly a circus. (By the way, I hear Buffalo Bill is going to Richmond next spring. If he does, sell your best bonnet and go and see him and take Paul.) So much for summer dissipation. In the winter it is a little better. A singing school, amateur theatricals for the churches, or Y. M. C. A.’s, or W. C. T. U.’s, of which half the people approve and the other half disapprove. Occasionally a lecture and concert and travelling play actors, who are second class, or they would not come to Lovering. The negro revival, which is lively, and the Sewing Society or Guild once a month, with tea, one kind of cake, no napkins, and gossip. As Mrs. Jack Fullerton I might in time become President of the Guild and walk miles to find a place for it to meet; that would perhaps be some compensation for the dullness of the place, and relieve the ennui of living alone at The Plateau, with you at the other end of the town. Think how bored I should be after the novelty of counting my silver and dishes had worn off. There would be nothing left me to do but to hob-a-nob with the cook and watch for Jack, who would in time be as bored as I. That is Lovering life and I put it in the scale with Jack, expecting that, like the lord and the lady, he would go up at full sail. He only stirred a very little and looked at me so steadfastly with his honest, trusting eyes, that I still hoped he would win.
“I must, however, be fair to the Colonel, and I piled on top of him the trip to Europe, jewels and dresses and travel and a French maid. The new house and grounds in Washington, the cottage at Newport, Palmetto Villa in Florida, a box at the opera, horses and carriages, and all the money I want to spend, with nothing to do except to enjoy it. This settled the matter and the pro’s went down so fast and the con went up so swiftly, that Jack and Lovering were thrown out and vanished entirely. The die was cast, and without a moment’s hesitation I made myself presentable and went to the library, where I found the Colonel, calm and cool and polishing his thumb nail with one of those little brushes which come for that purpose: He has a full set. Rather effeminate, I think. I did not stop a minute lest my courage should fail, for something was tugging at my heart, which felt like a lump of ice.
“‘I am going with you to Europe,’ I said, the words half choking me.
“He stopped polishing his thumb nail, and drawing me to him——Well, no matter what he did, except that it was all very dignified and circumspect, and not at all like Jack, who nearly ate me up when I promised to marry him. Poor Jack! I have said that to myself many times since my interview with the Colonel, which did not last long. I was in a hurry to get away from him, his hands were so cold and clammy, not at all like Jack’s. But then he is a man of an entirely different temperament, and may be just as kind. He was very glad for my decision, he said, and he trusted I would never regret it; he should certainly try to make me happy. I didn’t tell him I was regretting it even then. Disengaging myself from him I went to my room and cried as if my heart would break. I heard him go out and knew that in a few moments there would flash across the electric wires to the White Star office in New York the message ‘Keep the staterooms, Nos. —— and —— for me. G. Errington.’ The deed was done, and when about five o’clock Miss Errington and Katy came in from their shopping I was lying on the couch in my room with a headache which was not feigned. Katy was full of purchases made for you and Paul and Phyllis and Jack, while Miss Errington had been busy collecting a few things for her brother’s comfort on the sea. You know she was intending to go with him to New York and take Katy with her, and my conscience smote me as I heard her talking about it and planning that I should not be lonely during her absence. The Colonel told me to have my trunk packed to-night, taking as little as possible. I was to say nothing to anyone, but leave it for him to tell his sister in the morning before I came down to breakfast. Ah me, how I dread the scorn in her eyes and the surprise in Katy’s when they know all. Miss Errington is a splendid woman; rather peculiar in some respects and nearly as determined as her brother when once her mind is made up. She has been most kind and generous to me and seems to like me very much. But Katy is her favorite. She has spoken of taking her abroad. If she is still of this mind, don’t oppose it, although it will leave you very lonely. Let Katy see the world. She is exceedingly beautiful, with a face and voice like an angel. She ought to make a brilliant match, and with Miss Errington to chaperone her, I think she will, and forget her foolishness about the stage. There is no one in Lovering for her, but with Miss Errington her chances are many. I suspect she has a fancy for Carl, but that will never amount to anything. He scatters too much. I hear of him here and there and everywhere, sipping sweets from many flowers and caring particularly for none.
“It is one o’clock in the morning. I have still my note to write to Jack, a harder task than writing to you, so I will leave this letter and finish it in New York after the deed is done and I can tell you of the manner with which the news was received by Miss Errington and Katy.
“I have on my traveling gown and jacket,—the tailor-made one, which is very becoming, with gilt buttons and braid. On the table is a fur lined cloak, with shawls and wraps enough to have warmed even Harry Gill, if anything could have thawed that chattering wretch. I feel some like him, for my hands and feet are icy cold. But I must finish my letter commenced in Washington and tell you of the row we had when it was known that I was to marry the Colonel. He told his sister in the library before breakfast, when she came in ready for the journey she expected to take. At first she refused to believe it, and I was sent for to confirm the news. I went with my knees shaking under me and in a condition more like Harry Gill than ever. She was white to her lips, and her eyes burned like coals of fire as she demanded if what she had heard was true.
“‘Answer her, Fanny. She does not believe me,’ the Colonel said.
“I was never afraid to speak before, but something in Miss Errington’s manner and attitude cowed me completely and I hesitated before stammering out that it was true, and I was going to marry her brother.
“‘If you will excuse me I will leave you to settle it between yourselves, as I have something to see to. But don’t be long, there is not much time to lose,’ the Colonel said, in his usual suave manner.
“Bowing politely he disappeared, while his sister stood clutching the back of a chair, tall and erect and confronting me like some dreadful Nemesis. I knew I deserved the worst that she could say or think of me, and cowered before her while she regarded me with unutterable disdain.
“‘Miss Hathern,’ she began, ‘If there were no reason why it should not be, I might be glad to receive you as my brother’s wife, but to break your engagement with another man so suddenly is monstrous. Have you weighed the subject well?’
“I thought of the Scales, but knew she would not understand that, or the Maelstrom either. She was matter of fact and I must answer her in the same spirit. As well as I could I tried to explain till she had a tolerably fair insight as to the real motives which actuated me.
“‘I see,’ she said, sarcastically. ‘Because the man is poor you are throwing him over and selling yourself for money and freedom. I pity you when you waken to know what you have done. My brother is dear to me, of course, but I know him, and he will not be a pleasant man for a woman of your spirit to live with. Everything in his power must bend to his will or break. He may not beat you, although he does his horses and dogs, when they disobey, but he will bend you until you have no free will of your own, and the time will come when you will long with inexpressible longing for the love and tenderness and consideration of the man you are discarding.’
“At this moment Katy came rushing in. She had heard the news from the Colonel, and throwing her arms around my neck sobbed hysterically, begging me to give it up for all our sakes,—Jack’s, your’s, Paul’s, Phyllis’s, father’s and Charlie’s, and I think she mentioned The Boy, but am not sure. It was a sin to Jack, she said, and a disgrace to our family, and would make me a by-word with every decent person in Lovering.
“Between Katy’s tears and Miss Errington’s scorn I was so limp and crushed that I might have given it up if the Colonel had not come to my rescue.
“‘There has been enough of this,’ he said, sternly, ‘come to breakfast, time is passing.’
“He put his arm around me and led me to the dining-room, where we breakfasted alone. Katy was upstairs crying and Miss Errington was ordering her valise to be taken to her room, as she would not need it now. Her brother, who had recovered his composure and was as quiet and calm and cool as ever, suggested that she still go with us and take Katy. But she declined. Katy, I think, wished to go, and clung to me at parting in a way which wholly upset me.
“‘Remember Jack,’ she whispered to me, ‘have pity on him and give it up. It is not too late, and will not be till the very last.’
“Was there ever a girl more wretched on her wedding day than I was, I wonder? Of the journey to New York I can recall very little, except that the Colonel was unremitting in his care for my comfort, and that once when he spread his rug across my lap I smiled on him and said ‘You are very kind.’ Aside from that I hardly spoke, but sat leaning back in my chair with my eyes closed, sometimes asleep, for I was perfectly exhausted, and sometimes thinking, always the same thought, ‘It is not too late yet.’ The words were whispered into my ears continually by something which seemed to be sitting on my shoulder and croaking, until I was nearly mad. There was, however, a comfort in knowing that I could still draw back, and I counted how many hours probation were left me before it would be too late. Jack will hardly suffer more than I did during that rapid journey, when to everything else, was added homesickness for The Elms, and you and the dear old life I was throwing away. It was a kind of nightmare, I think, and by the time our train was nearing Jersey City I had made up my mind to jump from the car the moment we stopped and lose myself in the crowd; in short, to run away! The bustle and excitement at the station and the hurrying to the boat revived me. The thing on my shoulder stopped its croaking, and the Colonel had my arm in his and held my hand tightly as if he divined my thoughts. So the newspapers lost an exciting paragraph headed ‘Strange disappearance of a bride on her wedding day.’
“When we reached the hotel and were ushered into the suite of rooms the Colonel had ordered for us I felt better, and when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, friends of the Colonel, who board at the hotel and whom I had met when I stopped there with Miss Errington, came in to see me and made much of me as the future Mrs. Errington, I was quite myself, and all through dinner, which they took with us and which was served in our private parlor, I was in high spirits, too high, I fear, as I saw them look curiously at me once or twice, as if wondering whether I were quite sane. After dinner the three conferred in low tones, while I stood with my back to them looking into the busy street below and vaguely wondering if it would break one’s neck to jump from the second story to the sidewalk, and if one could so manage as not to land on the head of some pedestrian. I heard the Colonel say, ‘As soon as possible now. I have dispatched a messenger boy.’ I knew what he meant and grew hot and cold again in a minute, while the creature on my shoulder began its warning cry, ‘Not too late yet,’ and pressed so close to my ears that I fancied it touched my hair with its wings. In the car I had thought of Poe’s raven, but now I said to myself, ‘It is a bat.’ I have a mortal terror of bats and put up my hand to brush it away. But it stayed and clamored louder and louder, while I kept trying to brush it off, until Mrs. Darcy came to me and said, ‘There is a lock of hair loose on your neck. I think that is what annoys you. Let me fix it.’
“She took out a hairpin and fastened the refractory lock, while I wondered if she would see the thing on my shoulder. She didn’t, and I began to fear I was losing my mind, and made a great effort to pull myself together. There was a knock at the door and the Rev. Mr. Gillson came in, book in hand, ready for business. I was presented to him, and the Colonel explained as a reason for this seemingly sudden marriage that I could not decide to brave the ocean in the winter until the night before. The clergyman bowed and looked very searchingly at me as I stood in the corner with a face white as a corpse. If Mr. and Mrs. Darcy had not been his parishioners he might have questioned me, thinking me an unwilling bride. But they were my vouchers and Col. Errington was well known to him by reputation. It was all right and the ceremony began, while the bat, if bat it were, shrieked and fluttered and flapped, until it seemed to me they must all hear it. But when the Colonel took the ring, it gave one despairing cry, ‘Too late, too late!’ and flew away, leaving me calm and quiet, with a strange hallucination of the brain. It was Jack putting the ring on my finger,—Jack’s voice, which said, ‘With this ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ I smiled as I thought how few were his worldly goods, compared to what might have been mine, but I was glad that the nightmare was over, the horrid dream passed, and I awake again in the old spare room at home with Jack at my side. I was very much awake when Mr. and Mrs. Darcy kissed me and called me ‘Mrs. Errington,’ while somebody, who was not Jack, kissed me and called me his wife. The room at The Elms resolved itself into the parlor at the hotel, and Jack was lost to me forever by my own act, and I felt like a block of stone as I received the congratulations of the clergyman and felt that the Colonel’s eyes were upon me.
“I have read somewhere that in the great crises of one’s life the most ridiculous thoughts will sometimes intrude, and there came to me a saying I have heard father use so often when I was fretting over some disaster, ‘Never cry for spilled milk!’ It helped me wonderfully. I had spilled all mine,—a brimming pail, and drowned my heart in doing it. I could never undo what I had done, but I could make the best of it, and I mean to. I have written you thus fully because I wanted you to know that I am not altogether callous, and that I did struggle against my fate. A stronger will than mine conquered me. I am Col. Errington’s wife and shall be faithful to him, and however my heart may ache for the might have been, no one, not even you, shall know it. My husband——. I have written the word, and feel better,—is very kind and generous. He knows I did not marry him for love, and I think he means me to have my price,—all the money I want. His wedding present is $10,000, to do with as I please. Half of it I shall send to you, as I know how low our finances are. He does not object. He thought I would do it, he said, and has made arrangements to send it before we sail. He has bought me a lovely fur cloak for the voyage, and given me two one hundred dollar bills for pin money. More than I ever had in all my life. One of the bills I am sending to Jack in payment for what he sent me on the pretense of buying Black Beauty. I bought the tailor-made gown with it, my wedding gown, which I am wearing now, and which I can not bear to think was bought with Jack’s money. Make him take it. Tell him it is to buy Black Beauty back, and don’t let him hate me. Tell him I did love him dearly and am afraid I do now when to do so is a sin. I am another man’s wife, and my husband has come in and says I have but little more time, as he wishes to get settled in our staterooms before the ship sails. I wonder if I shall throw myself into the sea. Perhaps. If you hear of an ‘accidental drowning of the lovely young bride of the Hon. George W. Errington,’—that’s the way they will word it,—you will know it was not accidental, but keep it to yourself.
“I have not time to read what I have written. If I had I probably should not send it. I think I have told you everything in a wild, disconnected and perhaps contradictory way, and I have felt disconnected and wild as I told it. You may show this letter to Miss Errington, who still intends going to The Elms with Katy. Perhaps she will feel less hard towards me. You may also tell Jack some things that are in it and which I could not write to him. Oh, Jack, oh Annie! Good-bye, Good-bye! I put my arms around your necks and kiss you both. God bless you. Write to me and tell me about Jack. The Colonel will cable from Queenstown. He is getting impatient and to save time has directed the envelope for me. Good-bye, again.
Chapter X.—Annie’s Story Continued.
THE EFFECT.
Fanny’s handwriting was never very legible, and now it was worse than usual, while her letter was so long and my eyes so blurred with tears that it took me a long time to read it, and after it was read I leaned back in my chair shaking from head to foot, with a sense of loss and shame and pity for us all who must bear the disgrace, for such I felt Fan’s conduct to be. I pitied her, but not as I did Jack, who was so full of anticipations of the morrow and so little prepared for the blow awaiting him. I heard him come whistling up the stairs, two at a time, and involuntarily put up my hands to ward him off,—to keep him a little longer from what I knew would be worse than death.
“Hallo!” he said, as he came in. “I didn’t expect to be gone so long, but those stupid men didn’t seem to understand the range at all, and I’ll be hanged if I know much more than they do. Mother always used a fireplace, you know. But I reckon we have got it into shipshape. If not, Norah can fix it when she comes. Why, Annie, Annie!” he exclaimed suddenly, struck by my attitude and the expression of my face, “Are you ill? What has happened? You are as white as a ghost, and the rain beating in upon you, too.”
He shut the window and continued, as the letter in my lap rustled a little. “You have had bad news. Is it Carl? Is he ill? Is he dead?”
I shook my head, and he went on: “What is it then? What has happened?”
As he stepped back his eye fell upon the note directed to him, which lay upon the table. He recognized his name, and the handwriting, and catching it up, he said, “From Fanny; how did it get here? Did it come in that letter from New York, which you said was from Col. Errington?”
I nodded and managed to gasp, “Oh Jack, oh Jack! How will you bear it!”
“Bear what?” he asked. “Tell me; the suspense is torture to me. Has anything happened to Fanny? She isn’t dead or she could not write to me.”
Summoning all my strength, I answered. “No, Jack, Fanny is not dead. It is worse than that. She is married to Col. Errington and gone with him to Europe.”
I have heard Jack tell with a shudder of men at his side in battle dropping instantly when a ball struck them, but surely no man in the fiercest battle which ever raged could have fallen more suddenly than Jack did into the chair nearest to him, where he sat huddled together like an old man, his mouth open and his glazed eyes looking at me in dumb despair.
“N-n-no, Annie,” he began at last, with quivering lips and chin and in a voice I would never have known as his. “N-n-no, Annie. Say it again. I didn’t hear you right. There’s a roaring in my ears. Fanny—isn’t—married! My—Fanny, who was to have this room, and watch for me. N-n-no, Annie, N-no.”
There was a huskiness in his voice which frightened me, and a moan like one in mortal pain, which made me forget myself in my desire to comfort him.
“Don’t Jack,” I said, going up to him and rubbing his cold hands and face, which was not pale but of a greenish hue. “Don’t take it so hard. She is my sister, but if she were ten times that I should say she is not worth the anguish you are enduring. She has sold herself for money. She was married Friday evening in New York and sailed in the Celtic Saturday afternoon. She had a hard struggle before she decided to do what she has done. I think she loves you still.”
As I talked the greenish hue left his face and was succeeded by a deathly pallor, as, reaching out his hand, he said, “Give me her letter.”
“Yours, you mean,” I said, offering him the note addressed to him.
“No,—yours. I have a right to know all she can say,” he answered, and his voice was not like the Jack of an hour ago. There was a ring in it like one who would be obeyed. “I don’t care what she has written to me; to you she would tell the truth. Give me her letter,” he continued.
I gave it to him and then watched him as he read it rapidly in the waning light of that dreary November afternoon, with the rain beating against the windows, and the wind which was beginning to rise howling around the house, as Fanny said it howled the night she wrote the letter. It was curious to watch the different expressions of Jack’s face as his eyes went over the pages. Sometimes his breath came heavily, his teeth shut tightly together and there were great ridges in his forehead between his eyes. Again his face softened and his lips quivered and I knew he was reading the parts where Fan spoke of him. I knew, too, when he reached the Scales and the weighing process by the throwing up of his head and the flaring of his nostrils like one under strong excitement. Once he brought his hand down heavily upon the arm of his chair, and if I had ever heard him swear I should have suspected that something like an oath escaped him. Then he read on until he came to the marriage scene in the hotel, when his whole aspect changed. The hardness was gone and he shook like one in a chill, although he asked me to open the window again, saying he could not breathe.
“Oh, Fanny; Fanny, how could you do this to me, who loved and trusted you so!” he said, and letting the letter drop to the floor and covering his face with his hands he rocked to and fro and cried as I had never seen any one cry before, and pray I never may again. And yet he shed no tears, but sobbed and moaned so pitifully that I went to him again and laying my arm across his shoulder drew his hot head down upon it as I would if he had been my brother.
There was then no thought of the love I had borne him so long; it was only intense pity for the man whose heart I knew was breaking, and whom I tried to comfort.
“Don’t, Jack; don’t,” I said, brushing back his hair, which was wet with the great drops of sweat which stood under it and upon his forehead. “I wish I could comfort you. Oh, I wish I could, but only God can do that.”
Then he started, and looking at me fiercely exclaimed, “Don’t speak to me of God. I have lost all faith in everything. Didn’t I trust Him, and wasn’t my heart so full of gratitude this morning for all the good I thought He had given me! And didn’t I make resolutions for a better life? Tell me that. And what has come of it? When I was on my knees thanking Him for Fanny and asking that I might be worthy, she was another man’s wife, and He gave me no sign, but let me go on in my fool’s paradise. How could God do that? How could Fanny do it? Oh, Fanny, Fanny! If you were lying dead here in what was to have been our bridal chamber it would be happiness compared to this. Don’t speak to me, Annie. Don’t touch me,” and he pushed me from him. “It seems to bring Fanny near to me, and I can’t bear it now, when my love for her is dying so hard. Shut the window, please. I am shivering again.”
I closed the window and then stood looking at him writhing in pain, as if he were indeed enduring the throes of death. It was growing late and I roused him at last, pointing to the darkness outside and telling him that Paul and Phyllis would be waiting anxiously for us.
“Can you get your horse, or shall I?” I asked.
“I’ll go,” he said, getting up and tottering as if he were an old man.
On the table where he had lain it without reading was Fanny’s note to him, and I put it in my purse with the bill which had been in my letter and which I had not given him. I heard the buggy at the door, and going out got in beside him and we started down the hill. It was raining fast and had grown very dark. If the horse had not been perfectly gentle and known every turn of the road, we might have met with some disaster, for the reins hung loosely in Jack’s hands and he seemed to notice nothing. Once we met a carriage which passed so close to us that the wheels grazed each other, but Jack paid no attention. Then I took the lines from him and drove myself, while he sat with his head bent so low that his chin must have rested upon his chest. Once I spoke to him, but he did not answer, and when we reached the town I called to a boy on the walk bidding him to go for a physician and tell him to come at once to The Elms, adding that Mr. Fullerton had been taken suddenly ill. I had no intention of having Jack in his present condition go to his boardinghouse that night. He would be better at The Elms, and after speaking to the boy I drove rapidly home. There was a bright light in the dining-room and Paul’s face was pressed against the window pane watching for me. At the sound of wheels Phyllis hurried to the door, peering out into the darkness and shading her eyes with her hand.
“For de Lord’s sake, Miss Annie and Mas’r Jack,” she began. “Whar has you been, and what has happened you? De muffins is all fell flat, an’ de coffee biled till it’s spiled.”
“Sh-sh,” I said warningly. “Bring a light, and come and help me; Mr. Fullerton is ill,—very ill, I am afraid.”
She had a candle at the door in a minute and was at my side, as I sprang to the ground after giving Jack a vigorous shake which roused him a little.
“Yes. Where are we? At home? All right. I’ll see you to-morrow before she comes,” he said, putting out his hand and feeling for the lines.
“Jack, you are to stay at The Elms with me,” I said, wondering how I was to make him get out if he were disposed not to do so.
Just then I heard the tramp of horses’ feet in the avenue and the doctor came riding up rapidly. He was just starting to visit a patient in the country when he received my message and came at once to know what had happened. Between him and Phyllis Jack was gotten into the house, his weakness and silence so alarming that I was relieved when, as he felt the warmth of the dining-room, he stretched his hands toward the light-wood fire and said, “Ah-h, that feels good. I think I must have taken cold. I am so chilly. I wish somebody would cover up Robin,” referring to his horse, of which he was very fond. Sinking into the chair which Phyllis drew close to the hearth, he gave a long sigh, leaned his head back and closed his eyes, while the doctor looked curiously at him and then at me.
“He is in a high fever,” he said, “although he seems so cold. How did the attack come on and what caused it?”
I could not explain then, and answered evasively. “He must stay here to-night, in father’s room, and the sooner you get him in there the better,” I said, telling Phyllis to kindle a fire and get the bed ready. I knew the condition of things better than the doctor, who, for a time, acted under my orders. At first Jack resisted, saying he must go home as his landlady would not like it if he kept supper waiting. Then he began to talk of Scales and Maelstroms, and Fanny, who was coming to-morrow. We got him quiet at last and into bed where he lay perfectly still, with his hands folded, his eyes closed and his face white as the pillow it rested upon.
“I can’t make it out,” the doctor said. “It is not often a young and strong man like him comes down so suddenly and so fast. Why, there is no more life in him than in a piece of paper. Looks to me as if he had received some great mental shock. Can’t account for it in any other way.”
Reflecting that on the morrow when Miss Errington and Katy came without Fanny the truth must be told, I replied, “He has had a shock. You know he was to have been married on Christmas day.”
The doctor nodded, and I went on slowly, with a feeling that my tongue was very thick.
“This evening I had a letter from Fanny, who has married Col. Errington and gone to Europe with him.”
The doctor dropped into the chair nearest him almost as quickly as Jack had dropped when I told the news to him. But he did not speak, for Fanny was my sister and he would not say what was in his mind. I, however, relieved him from all embarrassment by saying, “It has quite unnerved me. It came like a thunderclap. I had no suspicion of it. I think it a cruel, wicked act.”
“Yes, yes, all of that,” he answered, “and may have serious results. There are symptoms about Mr. Fullerton which I do not like. He is strong in everything pertaining to his manhood, but in his nature gentle and tender and trustful as a woman. The blow has struck him hard. See that he has his medicine regularly. I will be here early in the morning. Now, I must go, as I have a patient waiting for me three miles in the country.”
He went out and I followed him, meeting in the hall with Phyllis, who was eager in her inquiries for Mas’r Jack and what had “done took him so suddently.” I told her the truth, and if a negro can turn pale she certainly did. Throwing up her hands and dropping the cup of milk she was taking to Paul, who was clamoring for his supper, she staggered against the door, exclaiming, “Lor’ a ’mighty! What for has Miss Fanny gone done dat ar mean trick to Mas’r Jack, an’ a disgracin’ de whole of us. No weddin’,—no nothin’,—an’ sich gossip in de town. Gone to Europe has she in de big ship?” I nodded and she continued, “May de Lord s——.” She was going to say “sink de ship,” but changed her mind and added, “may he make her so sick she’ll heave up Jonah an’ that Cunnel too. I ’members him well fust time he was here, orderin’ dem soldiers roun’ as if dey was dirt. Jess so he’ll done order Miss Fanny, and sarve her right.”
A moan from Jack and an imperative call from Paul brought the interview to an end, and while Phyllis went to the one I hastened to the other, who was talking rather wildly. This did not greatly surprise me as I remembered having heard his mother say that whenever anything ailed him, if it were only the earache, to which as a boy he was subject, it made him delirious. It was more than earache now, and I tried to quiet him as he talked disconnectedly of several things, but mostly of Fanny and the house on The Plateau, and our room, wondering if she would like it, and the medallion on the bedstead which looked so much like her.
“I love her so! I love her so! How can I give her up!” he suddenly exclaimed, throwing his arms down with great force upon the spread, while the perspiration rolled down his face, and his eyes glared at me questioningly and then wandered swiftly around the room.
He wanted to go home, he said; this was no place for him, and Fanny coming to-morrow. Once he tried to get up, but I kept him back, telling him to wait till to-morrow, when I hoped he would be better.
“What little dark-faced woman are you, I’d like to know, trying to boss me?” he said, looking curiously at me, as I kept my arm across his chest. “You can’t hold a candle to Fanny. Where is she? You go away and send her here.”
I knew he was not conscious of what he was saying, but in my nervous condition his words hurt me, and my voice shook as I replied, “Fanny has not come yet. You didn’t expect her till to-morrow. I am Annie. Don’t you know me Jack?”
Something in my voice arrested his attention, and looking fixedly at me he said, “You want to cry, don’t you? Put your head down here and have it out.” With one hand he drew my head down upon his other hand and kept it there, while I cried like a child. It was his part to comfort me now, and he tried to do so, asking why I cried and what had happened.
“Something has, I know; but I can’t remember what it is,” he said. “But never mind. We’ll meet it bravely together, little Annie-mother, and Fanny will be here to-morrow.”
That thought comforted him, and many times during the night as I sat by him he asked if it were to-morrow yet.
“The to-morrow, you know, when she is coming,” he would add, and to this I could truthfully answer no, even when it was the dawn of the to-morrow he had anticipated so much and the grey morning was looking in at the windows.
At an early hour Phyllis came to relieve me, and shivering in every limb and with my head aching as if it would burst, I crept up to my bed, where I fell at once into a heavy sleep which lasted for hours. When I awoke both Phyllis and the doctor were with me. The latter held a telegram from Katy, saying that she and Miss Errington would come that day as they had arranged. My first inquiry was for Jack.
“I am afraid he is in for brain fever,” the doctor said. “He has been working very hard lately, and this, with the wetting he got last night and the terrible blow have proved more than he can bear. He is apt to be flighty from pain anyway and is crazy as a loon this morning and is asking first if it is to-morrow, then for Fanny and then for Annie-mother. That I reckon is you, but you are better where you are for a day or so, or I shall have two on my hands, and I fancy Jack will be about as much as I can manage.”
“Oh, I must get up,” I said, trying to rise, when a sharp pain in the back of my head pulled me back.
“I told you so,” the doctor said. “You’ve got neuralgia in your neck. You never changed your wet clothes at all last night, Phyllis says, and if you don’t look out you’ll have pneumonia and the Lord knows what else. You must keep quiet.”
I had no choice but to obey, the pain in my neck was so severe, and were I to try I could not narrate what came with and followed that to-morrow of which Jack had talked so much and which was ushered in so sadly. This task devolves upon another.