CHAPTER XVII.
"How gay Mrs. Hammond has grown lately!" said Mrs. Greyling, the fashionable critic of the —— House drawing-room. "Do you see that she is actually waltzing to-night? She moves well, too! That pearl-colored moire antique is handsome, and must have cost every cent of nine dollars a yard. She is partial to heavy silks, it seems. It gives an air of sameness to her dress; otherwise she shows very tolerable taste."
"I have heard it said that she was a regular dowdy before she was married," observed Mrs. Parton, who was also on the "committee of censure"—a self-appointed organization, which found ample employment in this crowded nest of pleasure-seekers. "Her husband is perpetually making her presents, and she dresses to please him."
"Humph! I distrust these pattern couples! 'My husband doesn't approve of my doing this—won't hear of my acting so!' are phrases easily learned, and sound so fine that one soon falls into the habit of using them. What a flirt Mrs. Benson is! That is the fifth young man she has danced with this evening. I pity her husband and baby!"
"He does not look inconsolable! I tell you what my notion is: he may love his wife—of course he does—but he admires her sister more. See how he watches her! Mrs. Tomes told me that she was standing near him the first time Mrs. Hammond waltzed, and that he seemed real worried. When the set was through, she came to look for a seat, and he got one for her. As she took it, he said something to her which Mrs. Tomes could not hear, but she laughed out in his face as saucy as could be, and said: 'Oh, I am learning when I am in Rome to do as Romans do! Doesn't my elder sister set the example?'"
"He could say nothing then," said Mrs. Greyling. "Those girls played their cards well. The Hunts have very little, if anything, besides the father's salary, and the family was very obscure."
Mrs. Greyling's paternal progenitor was an opulent soap-boiler, who was not ashamed, during her childhood, to drive an unsavory cart from one kitchen door to another. But he counted his thousands now by the hundred, and his children ranked, as a consequence, among the "upper ten."
She continued her charitable remarks: "Somehow the old lady contrived to keep up the appearance of wealth, and married both daughters off before their second season. Mr. Benson is reputed to be rich; but for that matter these Southern planters are all said to be rolling in money. Mr. Hammond is certainly making money. Mr. Greyling says he is a splendid business man."
"He sailed for Europe a week ago, you know."
"Yes; and since then madame has been the belle of the ball. The old story—'When the cat is away, the mice will play.'"
"Sarah," said Philip, an hour later, "will you walk on the balcony with me? You are heated, and the air is balmy as Georgian breezes. It will do you good."
"Are you going to scold me?" she asked, archly, before she would take his arm.
"No. I have no right to do it if I had the disposition."
There was no moon; but the sky was strewed thickly with stars, and the white foam of the surf caught and held tremulously the sparkles from the bright watchers above. Philip did not appear disposed to converse, and Sarah waited for him to begin. Meanwhile, they strolled on and on, until the murmur of the ocean was louder than the music of the saloon band. The sea moaned to the stars, as it had done to the sunless July heavens on that day so memorable in the history of one of the pair—the day of shipwreck stories and a real shipwreck—none the less disastrous, that the treasures and their loss were hidden from all but the bereaved one.
To many it is appointed to lead two lives; to think and feel as well as to act a double part; to separate, as inexorably as human will can decree, past hopes and joys—past sorrows, and, if practicable, past memories from the thoughts and emotions of the to-day in which they exist. Thousands keep up the barrier until death ends the need of watchfulness and labor; the coffin-lid covers the faithful mask that has smiled so patiently and so long above an aching heart. Yet dammed up passion is a dangerous thing. If hearts were so constituted that they could be drained like pestilential marshes, the flood conducted off in harmless and straight channels, then, indeed, might hypocrisy rejoice, and sleek decorum sit down at ease. As it is, genteel propriety and refined reticence are perpetually endangered by the unforeseen swell of some intermittent spring, or the thawing of some ice-bound stream, that is liable to overleap or tear away the dike—ingulfing in an instant the elaborate structures years of toil have cheaply purchased.
Such was the moment when, withdrawing her hand from Philip's arm, Sarah struck suddenly—fiercely—upon her breast, and cried: "Oh! why cannot I die and end this misery!"
"Sarah!"
"I say I can bear it no longer! Others do not suffer thus! If they do, they die, or lose their reason. I will not endure it, I tell you!"
"Sister!"
"Do not call me by that name, Philip Benson! You know better!"
She leaned forward on the balcony railing, her eyes fixed on the sea. Her deep, hurried breathing was like the pant of some worried animal, gathering strength, and, with it, courage for renewed conflict. To her last words the mysterious plaint of the sea lent meaning. Philip, too, remembered that barren shore, the tumbling breakers, the solitary sea-bird's labored flight landward. Was this his work? It was but a flicker of truth—dashed out the next second by a blow of indignant will.
"You may forbid me to address you by this title, Sarah; but you cannot hinder me from sympathizing with you in your sorrow, and trying to befriend you. If my companionship is unwelcome, allow me to conduct you to your room. I cannot leave you alone here, where there is continual passing."
"You are right. Regard for appearances is the one thing needful," she said, mockingly. "I must be a dull scholar if I have not learned that I am sane again now—fit to associate with other sane people. If you please, we will go to the ball-room instead of upstairs. I am not a candidate for solitary confinement yet!"
"Mrs. Hammond, I heard a gentleman inquiring anxiously for you just now!" called out a lady, in passing. "He said that you promised to dance with him."
"I did. Thank you for reminding me. A little faster, my good brother!"
She hurried him into the saloon, where they were met immediately by her would-be partner. Philip, bewildered and uneasy, watched her through the evolutions of the dance. She talked rapidly and animatedly, keeping her cavalier in a broad smile, and confirming her lately won reputation of a wit. Her eyes shone; her color was high; she was "really handsome"—as the "censure committee" had occasion to remember at a later day, when it was spoken of in a very different tone from that employed by a member of the distinguished sisterhood in addressing Mrs. Hunt on this night.
"You are a fortunate mother, my dear madam, to have two such brilliant daughters. They eclipse the girls entirely."
"I have nothing to complain of in my children, ma'am. I done—I did my best by them, and they have repaid me a thousandfold."
"Now, I am ready!" said Sarah, to her brother-in-law. "I release you, Mr. Burley!" waving her hand to her late attendant as a princess might to a courtier.
Vexed and disturbed by her unsettled manner and queer freaks, Philip gave her his arm, and conducted her through the throng.
"Lewis has had fair winds, and must now be nearing the end of his voyage," he remarked, as they sauntered along the piazza.
"Ah! he is on the sea to-night! How strange! I had not thought of that!"
"I see nothing wonderful in the idea, as he has not had time to cross the Atlantic since he left these shores," returned Philip, dryly. "The oddest thing I can think of at present is yourself, Sarah!"
"I am aware of that, Philip. Do not speak harshly to me! You may be sorry for it some day."
They were at her door. Her softened manner moved him, and as she offered her hand, he took it with fraternal warmth.
"Forgive me, if I was rough! I have not understood you this evening."
"It is not likely that you ever will. Time was—but it is folly to allude to that now! Think of me as kindly as you can—will you? You have wounded me sometimes, but never knowingly. I cannot say that of many others with whom I have had dealings. Good-night."
The little parlor was still. Mrs. Hammond never kept her maid up to assist in her disrobing, if she intended remaining out until a late hour. Nurse and child were quiet in the adjacent nursery. Closing the door of communication, Sarah stripped her hair and arms of their ornaments; took off her diamond pin, then her rings, and laid them away in her jewelry case; divested herself of her rich dress, and drew from her wardrobe a plain, dark wrapper, which she put on. Next she sat down at her writing-desk, selected a sheet of paper, and wrote a single line—when a thought struck her, and she stopped. A momentary irresolution ended in her tearing off a strip containing what she had penned, and holding it in the flame of the lamp until it was consumed. "Best not! best not!" she muttered. "Doubt may bring comfort to the one or two who will need it. Let them doubt! Save appearances if you can, my poor mother would say." A smile of unutterable scorn glimmered over her face. She pushed away the desk and walked to the window.
From the distant ball-room the throbbing waves of music still rolled past on the summer air, and blent with them was the solemn undertone of the surf. Did men call its mighty voice a monotone? To her it was eloquent of many and awful things—not frightful. What was there of terror in thoughts of rest, endless sleep, rocked for ages by the rising and falling tide, hushed into dreamless repose by the music of the billows? No more of a vain and wearisome life; no more baffled aspirations and crushed affections; no more disheartening attempts to find and reach the right—to follow in the steep, rugged path of duty, and shun the easy, alluring way to which heart and memory were ever pointing; no more of stern rebuke and sneering taunt; no more galled pride and outraged womanhood; no more lying gayety, smiles, and repartee, when the spirit was writhing in impotent agony, longing to shriek out its intensity of woe! Only sleep, rest, peace!
"Sleep! rest peace!" She gasped the words feverishly, as they seemed to come to her on the breeze. Might she not seek these now! now! Not yet! The grounds, the beach were still populous with groups of strollers. She would be seen—perhaps recognized—probably frustrated in her purpose. Leaning her head against the casement, she sat there an hour—not debating, still less wavering in her resolve, only waiting until flight would be safe—and thinking! thinking! thinking! until her brain whirled.
A thwarted, warped, disjointed existence had hers been from its beginning. Denied food suitable for the mental and spiritual need; denied sympathy, air, and expression of suffering; under the slow torture of this starvation, every avenue to goodness and liberty hedged up, and, for the future, temptation, repudiation, loneliness, perhaps a sullied name—who could dispute her right to try release by one brief pang she alone could feel? Who would miss her? Not the world that flattered her wealth and wit, her laces, silks, and diamonds; not the mother and sister who worshipped the gilded Juggernaut "Society;" not he who was that night sleeping soundly on the same sea that would embosom her in her sweeter, deeper slumber. Shocked he might be at an event so unexpected and uncommon. His next sensation would be a relief at his deliverance from a burden, at his freedom to come and go as he liked—no longer banished by her obstinacy and his own. He had loved her as most other men do their wives—a bond too weak to bear a heavy blow at their self-love. She had sinned beyond forgiveness in his eyes.
Of Philip she thought with a mingling of tenderness and resentment. His unthinking gallantry had been the root of her sorest trouble; but it was unthinking, not wilful wrong. Nor was she the only sufferer. His heart was well-nigh as hungry as hers. Within the past week she had seen this more clearly than ever before, and he had felt it! Lucy's narrow mind, her insipidity, her inordinate vanity, her selfish idolatry of pleasures that wearied him; her disrelish for intellectual and domestic enjoyments, displayed in its most objectionable form, in her indifference to his company, and her neglect of her child—these were working out their legitimate result in his alienation from her, and attraction towards the once slighted sister, whose large heart and mental gifts he now valued at their true worth. To repel him, as much as to drown her cares, Sarah had plunged into the vortex she had heretofore avoided. She had heard that there was temporary solace in this species of dissipation. The cup was, for her, sparkless and bitter, from surface to dregs.
She was saving him with herself by this final step! He would realize this truth, in the throe that would shake his soul when he found she was gone; perhaps, even in that anguished hour, would bless her for having showed to him, while she drove him back from, the abyss they were together approaching. It was no idle vaunt she had made to Lewis, that the principles inherited from her father would save her from overt sin. Thus, thus would she flee the temptation, when the heart had left the will to battle unaided.
Her father! the gray old man who was toiling through this summer's heat, in his deserted home, as he had through so many summers gone! he who had never given her an impatient or angry word—whose pride and joy she still was! The stroke would be severe upon him. Yet he would not refuse comfort. There were still left to him his boys—fine, manly fellows; Jeannie and his baby grandchild—his lost daughter's gift. Tears rushed into the hot, wild eyes with this last image, but she would not let them flow.
"Is it not better that I should leave her now, when the parting will give her no pain, when one little week will blot out my memory entirely from her mind, than to wait until she can recollect and miss me?"
The music had ceased. The revellers had dropped away faster than they had collected, when once the movement was made to retire. The murmur of the deep was the only sound abroad; the stars were the only sentinels. Sarah arose, threw a shawl over her head, and cautiously unlocked the door. A strong rush of air blew it from her hold, and as she caught it, to draw it after her, she trod upon some object lying on the floor. Mechanically she stooped to pick it up. It was an infant's shoe, a dainty little gaiter, that peeped, during the day, from beneath Baby Belle's white skirt. To Sarah's touch it seemed that the lining still retained the warmth of the child's foot.
Never, oh, never, was the patter of those baby feet to make glad music for the mother's ear! Others must guide and sustain her trial steps; others smooth her daily path; others direct the inexperience of the girl in the perilous passes where that mother had fallen and perished!
"Oh, may I not bless her before I leave her forever?" she cried to stern Resolution. And Conscience rejoined, with meaning severity: "Is it you who would breathe a blessing above her purity?"
"Suffer me, then, to take the farewell look I dared not grant myself before!"
And while Resolution faltered at the impassioned appeal, she opened the nursery door and stole to the side of the crib. The night-lamp shed a feeble halo over the table whereon it stood. The rest of the room was in darkness. Mary's light bedstead was close to the crib. Was hers that hard, short breathing, that sent a start and chill through the hearer? A touch to the lamp threw a blaze of light over nurse and child. A sharp cry rang through the chamber.
"Mary, Mary! get up!"
The girl sprang to the floor before she comprehended the meaning of the alarm. Mrs. Hammond had sunk into a chair beside the crib, from which she had snatched her infant. Baby Belle's head was strained back; her hands clenched; her limbs stiffened in a death-like spasm. The eyes were rolled out of sight under the lids; and the four little teeth—her "most precious pearls," the fond mother had called them—were hard-locked within the purple lips.
Terrified as she was, Mary had the presence of mind to run for assistance. Mrs. Hunt and a physician were soon on the spot, and every appliance of the healing art that promised relief to the sufferer was used, but with partial effect. Sarah saw nothing but the child; heard nothing but the doctor's calm orders.
"You do not try to help her!" she said, impatiently, as a convulsion, more fearful than any that had preceded it, seized the delicate frame.
"I could not do more, were it my own child, madam!"
He was an elderly man, whose charity for fashionable mothers was very scant, and, having seen Mrs. Hammond in the ball-room the evening before, he was not prepared for the solicitude she manifested.
"You had better let the nurse take her!" he said, more gently, as Sarah, with difficulty, held down the struggling hands that might do hurt to the head and face.
"No! I will have no one touch her but myself!"
The morning broke, the day heightened into noon, and the paroxysms only abated in violence as the babe's strength declined. Steadfast to her word, the mother had not once resigned her. She had herself immersed her in the warm baths, applied the poultices, and administered the medicines prescribed. Mrs. Hunt was compassionate and active; Mary sorrowful, and prompt with whatever service she could perform; Lucy frightened and idle.
Philip, who had often been in the outer room to make inquiries and offer aid, if any were required of him, was told, just before sunset, that he could go into the chamber. Mrs. Hunt invited him, and the information she added gave to his countenance a look of heartfelt sadness as he followed her. Sarah sat in the middle of the room, so altered that he could scarcely credit the fact of her identity with the being he had parted from the previous night. Her eyes were sunken, her features sharpened, and her complexion had the dead, grayish hue of an old woman's. In her arms lay the babe, and, as she crouched over it, her mien of defiant protection suggested to him the idea of a savage animal guarding her young. He could not say whether or not she was aware of his presence, until he knelt by the dying child and called it by name.
"Baby Belle, do you know Uncle Philip?"
The dark eyes, soft still through the gathering film, moved slightly, and Sarah said—
"Speak to her again!"
"Will Baby Belle come to uncle?"
This time there was no sign of consciousness. The wee hands clasped in the mother's grew colder and colder, and the breath fluttered slowly through the parted lips. The end was near, and Philip's pitying accent expressed his sense of this.
"Give her to me, dear Sarah! It is not right for you to keep her longer."
"She is mine!"
The glare that came to her eye with the three words revealed a desperation that would have done battle with the King of Terrors, had he appeared in visible shape to claim his victim.
More faintly, slowly, trembled the life over the sweet mouth, and the hands, like waxen shapes, lay pulseless in the mother's clasp; while through the silent room flowed the dirge of the sea. Shaken by the freshening breeze of evening, the shutters of the western window swung ajar, letting in a golden ray upon mother and child, and along that path of light the untarnished soul of Baby Belle was borne by its waiting angel—home!
CHAPTER XVIII.
Aunt Sarah sat in the wide porch at the back of her house, knitting in hand. It was a still, but not oppressive August afternoon. There was not a ruffle on the bright surface of the river, and the long meadow grass was as smoothly spread out in the yellow sunshine. From the poultry-yard on the left arose a pleasant murmur, and now and then a stray hen tiptoed around the end of the house, singing idly as she rambled. Charley lay on the green mound—his old reading-room—with a book before him, and to him Aunt Sarah's motherly eyes turned most frequently. Those kindly orbs were dimmer than they were two summers ago, and the gentle face was a thought more pensive. A glance into the sitting-room window, from where she sat, would have showed one Uncle Nathan's empty arm-chair in the chimney corner, and above it were suspended his cane and broad-brimmed hat, just as he had put them off when he took his departure for a country where neither shelter nor staff is needed. Aunt Sarah's cap had a widow's border now; and in her faithful heart there was a sadder void than the death of her children had created—loving parent though she was—and yet more plentiful springs of sympathy for others bereaved and suffering.
Her rocking-chair was set near the entrance of the hall that bisected the dwelling; and the front and back doors being open, she had a fair view of the public road, whenever she chose to look up the lane. The Shrewsbury stage met the boat at four o'clock, or soon after; and hearing a rumbling along the highway, which she knew presaged its transit through this end of the village, the old lady leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the trunks upon the roof; this being all she could distinguish with certainty above the fence.
"Why, it is stopping here!" she ejaculated, getting up to obtain a better look. "Who upon earth can it be?"
The coach rolled on, and the passenger for the farm-house came through the gate and down the lane. She was dressed in black, wore a crape veil, and carried a small hand-trunk. With a hospitable instinct, Aunt Sarah advanced to the front porch to meet her, still entirely in the dark as to who it could be.
"She has a different look from any of the neighbors; and there's nobody in York that would be likely to come to see me, except Betsy's people, and it can't be either of her girls!"
At this stage of her cogitations, the visitant reached the step on which the hostess stood, and put away the long veil from a face so worn and seamed with grief, so hollow-eyed and old, that the good aunt screamed outright in her distressed astonishment—
"Sarah, dear child! can this be you?"
"What I am now, Aunt Sarah. May I come in and stay with you a little while?"
"Stay with me, poor darling! As long as you like, and welcome! Come right in; you don't look fit to stand!"
She was not; for, now that the necessity for exertion was removed, she was faint and trembling. Aunt Sarah helped her upstairs to the room she had occupied at her former visit, undressed her, and put her to bed. Sarah submitted like a child, too much exhausted to resist being made an invalid of, or to offer any explanation of her singular apparition. She had not slept an hour at a time for many nights; yet when she had drunk a cup of tea, and tried to eat a bit of toast her aunt prepared and brought up to her, she fell into a profound slumber, which lasted until long after sunrise on the following morning. Unclosing her eyes then, they rested upon the dear face, shaded by the widow's cap, that watched at her bedside. A shadowy phantom of a smile flitted over her features at the recognition.
"It was not a dream, then?" she said languidly. "But I have dreamed of you often, of late—every night in which I have had any sleep. Aunt Sarah, I must tell you why I came to you!"
"Not now, dear," Aunt Sarah hastened to say, seeing the wild stare and the cloud return to her countenance. "Wait until you are stronger. I will bring up your breakfast, and when you have eaten it, you may try to dress, if you like. There will be time enough for your story, by-and-by. Charley is in a great fidget to see you."
Sarah submitted to the delay; but it was plain that she was not satisfied with it, and that her mind would be easier when once the tale was told. Aunt Sarah hindered her no longer a time than sufficed for her to take the much needed refreshment, to bathe and dress, and to see and exchange a few sentences with Charley, who supported her down to the sitting-room. There, resting among the pillows of the lounge, Aunt Sarah beside her, with the ubiquitous knitting-work in hand, lest too close observation should confuse her niece, the stricken one unfolded the whole of her sad history.
No more affecting proof could have been given of her prostrated mind and will than this unreserved recital. The secret she had sold conscience and liberty to preserve, she communicated now without a blush. Here—where she had formed the intimacy that had shadowed so darkly her after days—she detailed every step of the wrong course to which this weakness was a key; went over all—the stormy parting with her husband; her conviction of the mutual peril she and Philip were tempting in their daily communion; her resolve of self-destruction—as circumstantially as if she were relating the biography of another.
Aunt Sarah, horrified and pitiful by turns, struggled with indifferent success to maintain equal composure, and against growing doubts of the narrator's sanity. It was a striking and instructive contrast: the world-weary woman returning for consolation and advice to the simple-minded matron, to whom the artificial existence she now heard depicted—its gilded vices and giddy round of vanities; its trials and temptations—were a wonderful, a monstrous tale, as foreign to her sphere of principles and feelings as if they had transpired in another world. But when Sarah came to speak of her child, her manner changed, her voice was hoarse and uneven, and over the careworn visage there went such alterations of fierceness and heart-breaking sorrow that the listening mother, upon whose soul the shadow of her own children's graves still lay long and dark, could hear no more in silence.
"My poor girl!" she cried, falling on her knees, and throwing her arms around the reclining figure. "Dear child! Our Father in heaven pity and comfort you! There is no help in man for such trouble as yours!"
Sarah had not shed a tear in the course of her story. She said afterwards that she had not wept since they took her dead baby from her clasp; but at this burst of unfeigned sympathy, this gush of pure love and compassion, the burning rock was cleft, and a blessed flood streamed from it. For some minutes they wept together without restraint, and when the more quiet grief of the elder mourner was repressed, the other still clung, sobbing to her bosom.
Aunt Sarah held and soothed her as she would have done a sorrowful child; stroking away the hair from her forehead, drying and kissing the tear-stained cheeks, with many an epithet of fond reassurance.
"Let me finish! There is very little more!" resumed Sarah, keeping her aunt's hand fast in both of hers. "We went back to the city, and the next day we laid her in Greenwood. We stayed at father's—I would not return to the house that used to be mine. Father was very kind, and mother meant to be; but she tormented me with suggestions and consultations about my black clothes. Lucy was pining to get back to Newport. She said it was hot and dull in New York. Philip wanted to comfort me, but I shunned him, and I think he was hurt by my conduct; but it was best, was it not, Aunt Sarah?"
"Certainly, dear!"
"I had often imagined myself lonely before; but I never dreamed of such a horror of desolation as filled my soul during the two days that I remained there, after all was over. Twenty times each night I would start from a feverish doze, thinking that I heard my baby cry or moan as she did in the intervals of those awful convulsions; and then would come in upon me, as if I had never felt it until then, the truth that I could never see her again, and that my wicked, wicked intention of deserting her had brought this judgment upon me. I could not stay there, Aunt Sarah! I heard other voices besides my child's in the air, and saw strange, grinning faces in the darkness. But the worst was to see that, to every one but me, the world was the same that it had ever been. Father looked grave when I was in his sight; but the children could laugh and talk as if nothing had happened, and I have seen mother and Lucy chattering merrily in the room with the dressmaker over my new dresses, while they were criticizing the crape trimmings. And I had buried my last earthly hope in my baby's grave! Then I remembered you, and how you had talked to me of your lost children, and how you had assured me of a home in your heart and house whenever I chose to claim it, and I believed in you, Aunt Sarah! There are not many whom I do trust; but I was sure you never said what you did not mean. I would not tell them that I was coming for I feared they would prevent me. I slipped out of the house when none of them were at home, and went to the nearest hack-stand, where I got into a carriage and drove down to the boat."
"My dear, did you leave no letter to let them know where you had gone?"
"No, ma'am. I was afraid they would come or send for me, and I cannot go back."
"But your father—your mother! Did you not think how distressed they would be when they missed you? And your reputation? What will be said when it's known that you have left your father's house, and no one knows where you are? You are very weak and tired, dear; but you must sit up, right away, and write a note home. Tell them that I will take care of you as long as you like to stay with me, but don't lose a minute! You may be in time for the afternoon boat."
Sarah obeyed; and the careful old lady hurried Charley off to the boat, with directions to place the billet in the hands of the captain, who was a personal friend, and could be relied upon to post it directly he reached the city.
Mr. Hunt replied without delay. Sarah's absence had given rise to the most harrowing conjectures, made plausible by her extreme melancholy and fitful behavior since her infant's death. The police had been privately notified of her disappearance, and cautiously worded advertisements inserted in the papers. He regretted to add that Mr. Marlow, who, as Mr. Hammond's nearest friend, was informed of the distressing occurrence, had thought proper to communicate the intelligence to Mr. H. before Sarah's note arrived, and the steamer bearing the letter had sailed. Mr. Hunt expressed himself as entirely willing that his daughter should remain in her present retreat until her health of mind and body was re-established, but did not conceal his disapprobation of the manner of her leaving home.
Aunt Sarah looked concerned as she read this epistle, which her niece had passed over to her.
"I am sorry for your husband, my dear. This affliction, coming so close upon the other, will be a dreadful blow. It is a pity they did not wait awhile, until they knew something of your whereabouts, before writing to him.
"I am more sorry that the news must be contradicted," was the reply. "As we are now situated, the certainty of my death would be a relief to him. This was my reflection that night"—She left the sentence unfinished.
"My dear!" Aunt Sarah removed her spectacles, and surveyed her niece with her kind, serious eyes. "Have you made up your mind to live separate from your husband for the rest of your life?"
"What else should I do, aunt? He will never come back unless I promise to love him, and that cannot be."
"That doesn't alter the fact of your duty, as I look at it. You ought to make him an offer to do right, at any rate. It would have been easier and pleasanter to live with him, if you had felt for him as a woman should for the man she marries; but you are married to him, and in the sight of the Lord you ought to cleave to him, and him only. That is a solemn covenant, dear—'for richer, for poorer; for better, for worse!' 'Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!' It doesn't excuse people, who take these vows upon them when the right spirit is wanting, that they never thought how awful the engagement was. Their obligations are just the same, whether they love or not."
"The responsibility does not rest with me. I performed my duty while we were together. The separation was his act, and he must abide the consequences. I have erred greatly, Aunt Sarah; but ever since the night of our rupture, my conscience has been easy with respect to Mr. Hammond. I confessed that I had misled him, and begged his pardon. Could I do more?"
"Put the case to yourself, child! Do not be angry if I speak out my mind, and use against you some things you have told me. When you saw that Philip was growing to like you better and better, and that you felt nearer to him every day, why did you determine to die sooner than to have things go on so?"
"Because it would have been a crime for us to love each other—infamous treachery to my sister, to his wife, for us to name the word between us."
"And how would Lucy have felt, if you had come to an understanding and spoken out the true feeling of your hearts?"
"Hers is a careless, indolent nature, but this insult would have aroused her. She would never have forgiven him or me, had she suspected a warmer sentiment on either side than that of friendship."
"But an honorable, affectionate man like your husband, who thought his wife the most precious thing in the world, was to forget his disappointment, overlook your lack of love and truth towards him, only because you allowed that he had found out your real feelings at last, and all the excuse you could give was that you could not help them! You were the one in fault all the way through, from the day you engaged to marry him, up to the minute when you would not say the word he begged from you to keep him at home. It is right that all the advance should come from you."
High-spirited as Sarah was, she was not angered by this plain-speaking. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend;" and she felt that she had but this one. Aunt Sarah studied her thoughtful countenance before she renewed the argument.
"I am an old-fashioned woman, dear—born and bred in the country, where, thank God! I have spent all my life. But I've been thinking about your story of the way people act and feel up there in York, and maybe in all other great, fine, money-making cities, and my notion is just this. I look back of their pushing and straining after riches, and show, and worldly vanities; every man for himself, and the one that climbs highest, forgetting as soon as he gets there that he was ever any lower, and ready to kick over anybody that tries to get alongside of him; and I see that they have lost sight of the second great commandment—'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Then I look back of this too, and I see where the greatest sin is, and—dear, bear with me! I see where you have gone furthest astray. Here's a passage I was reading this morning that tells the whole story." She raised the Bible from the table, and laid it upon Sarah's lap, pointing as she did so to these words enclosed in brackets:
"Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips. In the day thou shalt make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow!"
Mrs. Hunt would have regarded as an insult any expressed doubt of her religious principles and practice. She had a desirable pew in the fashionable church which was nearest her residence, and, stormy Sabbaths excepted, it was generally full at morning service. When her children were presentable as to looks, very young babies being seldom pretty, they were offered in fine lawn and Valenciennes at the font for the rite of baptism; and not a confirmation had passed since her daughters were grown, that she did not fancy how interesting they would look, kneeling before the surpliced bishop, heads gracefully bowed, and the regards of the whole congregation fixed upon them. Sarah never could be brought to the performance of the commonest act of public worship, unless it was to rise with the rest, when a standing posture was prescribed by the prayer-book; and she shocked her mother by declaring that she only did this because she was tired of sitting! Lucy's serene grace of devoutness was beautiful, if not edifying to behold. Those who occupied adjacent pews involuntarily suppressed their responses as her mellow tones repeated, with melancholy sweetness—"Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners!" And as the melting cadences entranced their ears, the lovely penitent was speculating upon the probable cost of Miss Hauton's Parisian hat, or coveting Mrs. Beau Monde's sable cloak.
If Sarah had even heard of regeneration, it was as a technical phrase of the church articles and christening service. Of its practical meaning, its inward application, its absolute necessity to the safety of the soul, she had as vague a conception as a Parsee or New Zealand cannibal would have formed. She had read the Bible in connection with rhetorical lectures, and admired it as a noble specimen of Oriental literature. What other associations could she have with it? A handsome copy of the Holy Scriptures, surmounted by a book of common prayer, lay on a stand in Mrs. Hunt's third and rear parlor, and was dusted when a like attention was paid to the other ornaments of tables and etageres. An Oxford edition, russet antique, formed one of the wedding-gifts of each of the sisters, and in due time was laid in pious pomp on its purple pillow in the library corner. It was hardly strange, then, that the quotation, so apposite to the case in point, should fail to impress her very strongly. Aunt Sarah had gone out, deeming solitary reflection the best means of enforcing the lesson she had tried to inculcate, and, after re-reading the two verses, without further appropriation of their meaning, Sarah turned leaf after leaf of the volume, catching here and there a sentence of the large print, so grateful to the failing sight of her who was its daily student.
"David said unto his servants—'Is the child dead?' And they said, 'He is dead!'"
The smitten chord in the mother's heart sent out a ring of pain, and her listless hand paused upon the open page. It is a simple story—the royal parent's unavailing wrestle with the Chastener, the dread end of his suspense, and the affliction, made manifest in the calm resignation, the sanctified trust of the mourner. But when received as Sarah read it, with the vision of a similar death-scene intermixing itself with its unadorned details, the fresh blood still welling from the wound made by the tearing away of a portion of one's own life, every line is fraught with truth and pathos.
"Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me!"
"Go to her! Oh, if I could! My baby! my baby!"
To the low, sad cry succeeded a season of yearning and of tears. It was an echo of the wail of the heathen mother who, centuries ago, having seen her babes slain before her eyes, cried aloud, in unselfish agony, as the sword, reeking with their blood, was plunged into her own bosom—"Oh, my children! where are ye?"
Sleep on, in thy lowly bed upon the hillside, sweet Baby Belle! Like the pale buds that are fading with thee in thy narrow resting-place, thy mission on earth is accomplished. Joy, young freed spirit, if, stealing through the melodies of heaven, there comes to thee the whisper of that mother's call! Fair lamb! the love that folded thee in the Shepherd's arms designed likewise, in recalling thee, to lure the wandering parent home!
CHAPTER XIX.
"My Dear Lewis: Before you receive this letter, you will have had the explanation of my disappearance from New York. A merciful Providence directed me, in my partial derangement, to this peaceful retreat. Here I have found rest for body and soul—peace such as the world could never give the heart, even were it not bowed down by a sorrow like mine. Not that I forget past errors; nor that the review does not humble me in the dust. I confess, with shame and bitterness of spirit, my wasted years, my unsanctified affections, my evil passions. But for the assurance of the Father's pardon, the Saviour's loving pity, the black catalogue would strike me dead with horror and anguish. It is a fearful thing to be made to see one's self as she is; to scan in terrified solicitude the record of a life, and find there nothing better than pride, misanthropy, falsehood, hatred of men—rebellion against God. It is a sweet experience to taste, however tremblingly, the consolations of the Friend who invites the weary and heavy-laden to draw near and learn of Him. In His strength—not in that feebleness I once called power—have I resolved to lead a new life. Of the causes which have contributed to produce this change, we will speak more at length when we meet.
"'When we meet!' Lewis, will you, can you forget your manifold wrongs and come back to me? I do not plead, now, 'for the sake of our child.' Her sinless soul henceforth can know no pain or woe. God saw that I was not worthy of her, and He took her. In the earlier weeks of my selfish mourning, I had no thought of your bereavement. Latterly, I have longed to comfort you, for I know that your heart is riven by this stroke. She was your joy, as she was my angel of peace. Her loss is our common sorrow. Shall it not draw us together? Yet, as I have said, our estrangement cannot now affect her. Thoughtless of evil, she passed away. Had she lived, the Omniscient only knows what grief and mortification might have darkened her pathway. Nor do I desire a reconciliation as a shield from the world's sneer or ban. I hold its applause and its censure alike cheaply. In prosperity, its favors were painted, tasteless fruit; in adversity, it would have fed my starving heart with husks. But for my sake—by the thought of my late and sore repentance; by the remorse that must gnaw my spirit, when I remember your noble trust in me, your unswerving fidelity, your generous love and my base requital of it all; by the sorrow that never leaves me by day or by night—forgive me, and return to the home we have both forsaken! I will serve you very faithfully, my husband! I have gained other and higher views of the marriage relation within a short time past. However presumptuously I may have assumed its responsibilities, however unworthily I performed its duties in former days, I would enter upon our re-engagement with a solemn sense of what I owe to you and to Him who united us. You must have despised me at our parting, and since. Perhaps you have come to think of me with dislike as well as contempt. I will bear this—grievous though the burden will be—as a part of my righteous punishment. I will never murmur—never, even in thought, accuse you of unjust harshness, if you will grant me the opportunity to make what amends I can for all you have lost and suffered through my fault."
Sarah was still far from strong; and wearied as much by the intensity of her feelings as by the manual effort of writing, she laid the pen down, and leaned back in the cushioned chair. Her table stood in the parlor beneath the window overlooking the river. The room was prim and clean, as of yore, with its straight lines of chairs; its shining specks of mirrors; the grim black profiles above the mantel, and the green boughs in the fireplace. The outer scene was in its general features, that which the girl had surveyed, with pleased surprise, the July evening of her arrival here two years ago.
Only two years! The sufferings and life-lessons of twenty had been crowded into that brief space. The meadows were growing sere, as if scorching winds had swept over them, and the stream reflected truthfully, yet, one could have fancied, sadly, the changing foliage fringing its borders. But the sky, with its tender blue and its fleecy clouds, ever shifting, yet ever retaining their likeness to one another—the river's smooth, steady flow, were the same; fit emblems both of them of counsels which are mercy and truth through all their workings; of love that abideth forever!
The train of thought was replete with refreshing to the spirit that was striving, in prayer and watchfulness, to adhere to the right, to accept, with meek submission, all that her cup yet held of pungent or nauseous lees. There was no affectation in the humble tone of her letter. She would not begin it until she had mastered the stubborn remnant of her native pride. It should be nothing to her that her husband had wilfully separated himself from her, and refused her overtures of reconcilement. If this was unkindness it was all she could reproach him with in the course of time they had spent together. He had been a true friend, an honorable protector, and dimly still, but more justly than ever before, she perceived that into his love for her there had entered none of the merely prudential considerations, the cool calculations, wherewith she used to account for his choice of herself as a helpmeet. Where, in the world's heartless circles, could she point out another wife as much indulged, as much honored in public and in private, as she once was by him? Mournfully, if not lovingly, she dwelt upon the countless evidences of his cordial fulfillment, in letter and in spirit, of his part of their mutual engagement, with something of the sinking heart the alchemist may have felt when, after he had, by a mechanical and habitual fling of his arm, tossed the eagerly-sought philosopher's stone into the sea as a worthless pebble, he discovered that the divining steel he held had been changed to gold by its touch.
To whom of us has not an experience similar to this come? It may be that the eyes which once besought affection with dumb and disregarded eloquence are closed and rayless for all future time; the lips that told, with modest frankness, how dear we were to hearts we cared not then to win, are now but silent dust. Or, perchance, grieved by indifference, repelled by unkindness, those hearts have sought and found in other loves solace for the pain we, in our blindness inflicted. It matters little whether they be dead to all the world, or only to us. In either case, the longing and despair of our lonely lives are rendered the more unendurable from the flash of tardy truth that shows us, side by side with our actual poverty of heart riches, the tranquil beauty of the pictured "might have been."
Aunt Sarah had gone on a visit to a neighbor; the hired girl was in the distant wash-house; and Charley considered it his duty to linger within easy reach of his cousin, should she need him for any purpose. To guard her from all chance of intrusion, he stationed himself on the front porch steps, with his book on his knee. For an hour he read on uninterruptedly; then, glancing up as he turned a leaf, he saw a gentleman coming down the gravel walk. He looked thin and anxious, and his restless eye wandered from door to windows, as in expectation of seeing some one beside the boy. With a ready apprehension of his infirmity, only to be accounted for by some prior knowledge of the person he saluted, he took from his pocket a card, which he presented before he shook hands with the silent host. Charley's intelligent face was one beam of pleasure as he read, and his warm grasp showed his sympathy in the happiness he fancied was in store for his cousin. Inviting the guest by a gesture to follow him, he went softly to the parlor-door, tapped lightly—too lightly, indeed, to attract the notice of the musing occupant of the room, then drew back the bolt, admitted the stranger, and delicately withdrew.
Sarah heard the door open and Charley's retreating footsteps, and, supposing that he had peeped in to see that she was comfortable and wanted for nothing, she did not look around. The intruder stood still one step within the room, as if unable to advance or speak. The languid attitude of the figure before him, so unlike the self-poise and quiet energy of her former deportment, her black dress, even the wasted hands dropped so wearily upon her lap, told of the storm that had passed over her, the utter revolution in her life and nature. A struggling sigh he could not repress broke from the gazer's breast, and Sarah turned hastily towards him. She did not swoon, as he feared she would. A thrill, like an electric shock, shook her from head to foot; a wild inquiry looked from her eyes; a question or the reality of the appearance, succeeding so closely to—did it grow out of her revery?
Lewis put this imagination to flight.
"Sarah!" he said, pressing in his the hands she extended mutely. "They told me you were lost, and I hurried home to find you. I could not wait for your permission to come to you, when I learned in New York that I had a living wife! The loss of the child was heavy enough; but this"—He could say no more.
"I am thankful! I am glad that you are here!" A faint, beautiful smile shone over her wan features. "And our baby, Lewis! We must remember that she is an angel now!"
CHAPTER XX.
To no one except Aunt Sarah were the facts of the estrangement and reconciliation of her relatives ever revealed, and within her faithful bosom the secret was hidden as securely as in a tomb.
Great was the chagrin of gossips, male and female, when it was known that Mrs. Hammond's strange flight from her father's house, which had leaked out nobody knew how, and been variously construed into an elopement, a freak of derangement, and a deliberate intention of suicide, according to the degrees of charity possessed by the theorists, was a very innocent and unromantic journey to the country home of her favorite aunt and godmother, a lady of ample fortune and benevolent heart, who would, in all probability, make her namesake her heiress. Under her care, and for the benefit of the seclusion so congenial to one in her affliction, and the salt air so necessary for the restoration of her impaired health, Mrs. Hammond had remained until her husband's return from abroad.
Mrs. Hunt had told Mrs. A., who had told Mrs. B., who repeated it to Mrs. C., how he had not stopped in New York an hour after he stepped ashore from the "Adriatic." He hurried to the bank, and ascertained from Mr. Hunt that his wife was with her aunt, and that a boat which would land him near Shrewsbury was to leave in fifteen minutes. So he drove down post-haste, and jumped on board of her after the plank had been drawn and the wheels began to move. There never was a more devoted husband or a more attached pair, Mrs. Hunt affirmed.
"More than she could say for that flirting Mrs. Benson and her other half," agreed A., B. and C., unanimously.
"Her conduct at Newport was scandalous, and would have been outrageous if he had not watched her like a lynx!" said Mrs. Beau Monde, who had never been able to secure one-half as many admirers as had Lucy, and hated her as honestly as if they were a couple of Biddies pulling caps for Patrick or Murphy.
"I don't see why he should have felt jealous, I am sure. He wasn't dying of love for her! That could be seen with half an eye. They say he loved Mrs. Hammond before he addressed her sister, and married this one out of spite," rejoined Mrs. Townes, who had made beaux yeux at the distingue Southerner for three whole evenings, and won only the most indifferent glances in requital.
"Mrs. Hammond behaved very prudently!" pronounced Mrs. Greyling, "and dressed very well. I suppose Mr. Hammond brought her some elegant things from abroad. Pity she is in mourning, and must dress plainly at present! If I were in her place—as it was only a baby—I would not wear black more than six months, unless it was very becoming."
"She has become very religious, you know," said Mrs. Parton.
"Indeed! People are apt to, I think, when there has been death in the family," concluded Mrs. Greyling, pensively. "I remember, when my poor sister died, I used to look forward to church and Sunday with real pleasure. I could not go anywhere on week-days, you know, although there were piles of tickets lying in my card-receiver, and we had just taken a box at the opera that very winter! I declare, I should have lost the run of the fashions entirely, and forgotten people's faces, if I had not gone to church. I dare say, too, that she finds some comfort in religion—poor woman! if what the preachers and good books tell us be true."
Had Sarah found comfort?
Look we, for reply, to the chastened lustre of the eye, where once burned restless fires, like the sunward gaze of the imprisoned eagle; to the holy serenity struggling through and finally dispelling the clouds of memory and regret that, at times, would roll in between her soul and the bright, sustaining hope upon which Faith would have its regards forever fixed; to her daily life, sanctified by prayer, beneficent in good works, and by its unostentatious loveliness winning others, first to admire, then to imitate; to the wifely submission and loving kindness of her bearing to her husband, her grateful estimate of the affection he lavished upon her, the deep, true tenderness growing up in her heart for this fond and noble companion; look we, lastly, to the snowy marble guarding that tiny mound in Greenwood, where the mother once believed that hope and joy were buried to know no awakening.