Doubly false

When once in her own room, Cora Lander read Seymour’s letter again, pondered over it darkly for a time, then threw it on her desk with a burst of sudden animation.

“I have it—I have it,” she said, aloud. “We must have no quarrelling, no reproaches—that pleasure I must forego. It will rack me, but a love like his is not to be trifled with. This man, if I turn upon him, may prove dangerous; despair is always powerful. The strong man who has nothing to lose becomes a giant.”

She sat down and began to write, taking a letter from her desk and laying it before her, which she examined carefully from time to time as she proceeded. This was what the letter said:

“My Own:—I am afraid to leave home just yet, for reasons which I will explain when we meet. About five miles from this, on a cross road leading from the river, is a long stone building, which you will recognize by the sign as a country inn. You will know it by a grove of maples, through which the highway leads a mile or so after you leave the river. It may be dangerous and difficult, but I will certainly meet you at this place to-morrow evening.”

Here Cora made an effort to give something of her old passionate tenderness to the note, but her hand refused the task, and she added:

“I dare not use the language this heart prompts, lest it fall into hands that might make an evil use of it; but in all things believe me unchanged and unchangeable as when we met so often at the log cabin. Do not, I pray you, venture there again, it is dangerous.

Cora compared this note carefully with the open letter she had laid on the desk, and which seemed to have been written long ago, for it bore a foreign post-mark and was worn about the edges. The handwriting was that of Virginia Lander, and that of the note was almost a fac simile.

This note Cora locked in her desk, hastily writing another in her own natural chirography, which she placed in an envelope and left without address.

When all this was done, she put the note in her pocket and opened the door of her chamber, knowing that Ellen must pass by it on her way to Virginia’s apartments.

She had not long to wait; Ellen came along the hall, walking quickly, and apparently much excited. The moment she was gone, Cora went down stairs and gave her note to Brian, who was looking out of the window in order to conceal the traces of tears that stained his face.

“My cousin desires me to say that she wishes you to be careful of this. Upon my word she has forgotten the address, but no matter, you will know how to deliver it, I suppose.”

Brian took the letter from Cora’s hand. For a moment he stood irresolute, looking wistfully in her face.

“Ellen is my sister,” he said. “Thank you very much for being so kind to her.”

Cora smiled blandly.

“Ellen is a good girl; one deserves no credit for being kind to her,” she said.

“She will ask a great favor of you before long, lady—a very great favor. Do not refuse her—it will break a kind heart if you should.”

“She need not fear that I shall refuse any reasonable request.”

“But it may seem unreasonable.”

“Well, even then you may be sure that it will be kindly considered.”

Brian looked into her face; brightening with hope, he took her hand and touched it reverently with his lips.

“Lady, I thank you!”

That moment a railroad whistle seemed shrieking for Brian to be in haste. He snatched his cap and was gone in an instant.

“If it were another cause and for another person, I would give the money he asks, if it were only to see his face light up so pleasantly. How that man makes everybody love him! How I loved him once!—No, no, that was not love; but such delusions take the bloom off a woman’s life. I almost wish it could have lasted.”

Cora smiled in calm scorn of her own thoughts as they turned to Clarence Brooks, with his grand presence and self-centred manliness. She asked herself if the same woman could have loved two men so opposite—one so inferior. Yet this one was her husband. All at once she remembered that Ellen would be opening her heart to Virginia just then, and it was important that she should know exactly what passed between them. Ten minutes after, she was in the passage between Virginia’s parlor and the room that had been Amos Lander’s sleeping chamber.

Ellen Nolan was seated at the desk, which, as I have said, stood across the door. She was busy gathering together the sheets of manuscript that lay upon the desk and had fallen over the carpet.

Cora remembered that a pile of books lay on the desk in front of the keyhole, and fearlessly pushed back the porcelain shield which guarded it, thus letting in every word that could be uttered in the room. She could hear Ellen’s quick breath distinctly as it came in eager gasps from her lips while the manuscript rustled like dead leaves in her hand.

Then she heard Virginia’s voice; she had just entered the room from an inner chamber, and, seeing her favorite with a red flush about her eyes, handling her papers with such eager haste, came up to the desk and began to question her.

“What is the matter, Ellen? What are you doing?”

“Counting the pages, dear lady; thinking how I had best head the chapters. It is almost done, and I want to sell it at once.”

“But you have no great need of money just yet, Ellen.”

“Oh! yes, I have the greatest possible need. Do you remember, Miss Lander—”

“Call me Virginia, Ellen.”

“I will! I will! But you remember, I told you of a brother—an elder brother—whom my father loved so dearly and suffered for.”

“Yes, Ellen, I remember everything about him.”

“Well, Virginia, that brother is in New York; you have seen him.”

“What, I?”

“That splendid man—so handsome, so elegant—Miss Cora spoke to him in the hall. You remember it?”

“Yes, I remember him; he was very handsome in a certain way.”

Virginia was thinking of Clarence Brooks, and rather resented the idea of any other man being considered preeminently handsome by a person who had seen him.

“In every way—at any rate Cora Lander thought so. He was the one who took compassion on my younger brother. You remember Brian?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Well, this man is my brother; I have a message for him from my father given to me on the deck of that steamer when the flames were all around us. That message will be his salvation, I am sure of it. He has fallen into error and great difficulty again, and is breaking his heart over it. Oh! Miss Lander—Virginia—I do so want money! They talk about the misery of slaves, but I would sell myself on a plantation—yes, I would—to pick cotton for three thousand dollars!”

“Three thousand dollars, Ellen!”

“Yes, that is the exact sum I want. Some writers get thousands on thousands for a novel. Do you think the men who buy them would give me three thousand dollars out and out for mine? You shake your head—you don’t know anything about it. But I read the papers, and they tell of such prices. After all, Miss Virginia, three thousand dollars isn’t so very much for one’s soul—for that is really what a book means when it is worth anything. Dear me, how many tears I have shed, how angry I have been, how sad and mournful. If people want to buy your thoughts and your feelings, why—why—oh! Miss Virginia, do you think any one will buy this book and let me redeem my poor brother? My father loved him so—my father loved him so!”

Ellen’s head fell forward upon the arms which she threw over the desk, and her excitement burst into a passion of tears that shook her little frame like a storm.

“Ellen, dear, dear child!”

Ellen lifted her head and pushed back that splendid hair from her tearful face.

“You think they will not buy it? Perhaps you think it good for nothing?”

“No, no, Ellen dear, I think nothing of the sort. But the sale of a book, however good, takes time.”

“I know it, I know it, and he needs the money at once. What can I do? what can I do?”

“This is what I was thinking of, dear child. I have those pearls and some diamonds, with the other jewelry that was my mother’s. We will sell them, raise money on them or something.”

Ellen lifted her head suddenly.

“But those jewels are all you have when we go away from this house.”

“I know it; but we shall not want them. Oh! Ellen, I am provided for so richly! so richly!”

Virginia’s face was scarlet with innocent shame as the fullness of her joy broke into words.

“In a few days we shall be married.”

Ellen’s tearful eyes opened wide, and her lips parted with sudden surprise.

“Are you not glad, Ellen, that it is to be directly?”

One great throe of pain set that generous heart free.

“Glad? yes, I am glad.”

That little frame was shivering all over. The wild eyes filled with a light so deep and holy that Virginia unconsciously dropped to her knees, and, drawing down that broad forehead, kissed it almost reverently, she could not for her life have told why.

“In a few days, you said,” Ellen whispered, holding that fresh young face between her two shivering hands, looking into it tenderly, and smiling as noble women alone can smile when their hearts are breaking up.

“Yes, he will not wait longer. This very day he is coming to tell my cousin and my aunt. You see how little need I shall have for money.”

“But they were your mother’s jewels.”

“She is an angel now, and knows what I am doing.”

Ellen looked wistfully at her manuscript. She so thirsted to redeem this fallen brother with her own work! It would be a consecration of the genius which burned within her.

“You shall do it,” she said, with a heavy sigh.

Virginia understood the feeling of disappointment, which another might have mistaken for ingratitude.

“It shall be you, after all,” she said. “We will not sell my mother’s jewels outright, but raise money on them. Such things are done, and we will find out the way.”

“Then, after my book is published, I can get them back again. Oh! lady, that mother you love so is not more of an angel than you are!”

The sound of a soft kiss checking the next words was all the answer that reached the woman listening so intently close by them.

“We will consult him, Ellen.”

“Oh! no—no, that would be to expose my brother!”

“Forgive me, I did not think of that. We must manage this business alone.”

“Yes, all alone!”

“Still I must see him before we go to the city.”

“And will you go?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“To him—will you go with me to comfort him?”

“I will go with you anywhere in so holy a cause.”

“I cannot thank you, lady; my heart aches to express its gratitude. But the words—the words!”

“Hush, dear, it is a great mercy that the means are left to us. But for you, these jewels would have been swept away with all the rest.”

“That thought was an inspiration from God, I do believe, lady. He knew that a soul was to be saved, and gave you the means—making three people happy at once.”

“Oh! if I could make all the world as happy as I am!” said Virginia.

“Shall we go in the morning?” questioned Ellen.

“Yes, in the morning. This terrible storm will not keep him away; I will send him a note this evening, after he has seen them, saying that I must go to the city for a day or two. Mr. Stone will help us. I think he is a good man, Ellen.”

“Oh! lady,” cried Ellen, with a sudden outburst of gratitude “I really believe the world is made of good people.”

Cora had heard enough and stole back to her chamber, resolved on two things, not to see Clarence Brooks that day, rain or shine, and to search Virginia’s rooms thoroughly for the jewels which were to wrest Seymour from the fatal power she held over him. With the knowledge she had just gained to work upon, Cora fell to reweaving the crafty details of a plot which had been forming in her mind, as the web of a spider grows thread by thread.

Before noon, Clarence Brooks called, and was refused. Mrs. Lander was ill, the servant said, and Miss Lander was so anxious that she did not like to leave her aunt’s room.

Brooks was half tempted to ask for Virginia, but remembering her position in the house, forbore until he should have obtained a right to see her when and where he pleased. Cora saw him from her window as he walked down the carriage drive in the rain, with the wind sweeping over him and almost wrenching the umbrella from his hold.

“Let him struggle!” she said, bitterly. “He will have a harder contest than that before the week is over.”

That evening Virginia sent her note to Clarence Brooks, informing him of her intended absence. It was a delicate, modest little note, full of shyly-worded regrets, and such hints of love were more expressive to a refined man than any passionate protest could have been.

The difficulty was about obtaining a messenger. In a household of servants devoted to her cousin, Virginia did not know whom she could trust. Ellen would have gone, but it was raining harder than ever, and Virginia would not permit the exposure.

“I will manage it—let me have the note, I will find a safe messenger,” said Ellen, thinking of Joshua Hurd. She threw a heavy shawl over her head, slipped her feet into a pair of overshoes, and ran down to the stables. A light over the carriage-house guided her to Joshua’s room. She found her way up the narrow staircase and knocked at his door.