Marian Grey

The silver tea-set and damask cloth had been removed from Mrs. Gordon’s supper-table. The heavy curtains of brocatelle were dropped before the windows; a cheerful fire was burning in the grate, for Mrs. Gordon eschewed both furnaces and stoves; the gas burned brightly in the chandelier, casting a softened light throughout the room, and rendering more distinct the gay flowers on the carpet. The lady-mother, a fair type of a thrifty New England woman, had donned her spectacles, and from a huge pile of socks was selecting those which needed a near acquaintance with the needle, and lamenting over her son’s propensity at wearing out his toes!

The son, meantime, half lay, half sat upon the sofa, listlessly drumming with his fingers, and feeling glad that Ellen was not there, and wondering how he should begin to tell his mother what he so much wished her to know.

“I should suppose she might see it,” he thought—“might know how much I am in love with Marian, for I used to be always talking about her, and now I never mention her, it makes my heart thump so if I try to speak her name. Nell will make a fuss, perhaps, for she thinks so much of family: but Marian is family enough for me. Mary likes her, and I guess mother does. I mean to ask her.”

“Mother?”

“What, William?” and the good lady ran her hand into a sock with a shockingly large rent in the heel.

No woman can be very gracious with such an open prospect, and, as Will saw the scowl on his mother’s face, he regretted that he had spoken at this inauspicious moment.

“I’ll wait till she finds one not quite as dilapidated as that,” he thought, and when the question was repeated, “What, William?” he replied, “Is Nell coming home to-night?”

“I believe so. I wish she was here now to help me, for I shall never get these mended. What makes you wear out your socks so fast?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure, unless it’s beating time to Miss Grey’s lively music. Don’t she play like the mischief, though?”

Mrs. Gordon did not answer, and Will continued, “Let me help you mend. I used to in college and in Europe, too, and if I never marry,”—here Will’s voice trembled a little—“I shall need to know how. Thread me a darning needle, won’t you?”

Mrs. Gordon laughingly compiled with his request, and the fashionable Will Gordon was soon deep in the mysteries of sock-darning, an accomplishment in which he had before had some experience. Very rapidly his mother’s amiability increased, until at last he ventured to say, “Let me see, how old am I?”

“Thirty, last August, just twenty years younger than I am.”

“Then, when you were at my age you had a boy ten years old. I wonder how I should feel in a like predicament.”

“I’m afraid you’ll never know,” and Mrs. Gordon commenced on a fresh sock.

“Mother, how would you to have me marry and settle down?” Will continued, after a moment’s silence, and his mother replied, “Well enough, provided I liked your wife.”

“You don’t suppose I’d marry one you didn’t like, I hope. Just look, can you beat that?” and he held up what he fancied to be a neatly darned sock, which, spite of its bungling appearance, received so much praise, that he felt emboldened to proceed.

Taking Frederic’s letter from his pocket he passed it to his mother, asking her to read it, and give him her opinion.

“You know I never can make out Mr. Raymond’s writing,” said Mrs. Gordon, “so pray read it yourself.”

But this Will could not do, and he insisted until his mother took the letter and began to read, while he forgot to darn, so intent was he upon watching the expression of her face. At first it turned very red, then white, and then the great drops of perspiration stood upon her forehead, for she felt as every mother does, when they first learn that their only boy is about yielding to another the love they have claimed so long.

“Have you spoken to Marian?” she asked, giving him back the letter, but not resuming her work.

“No,” was his answer: and she continued, “Then I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?” he asked, in some alarm; and with a tremor in her voice, his mother replied, “I’ve nothing against Marian, but we are so happy together, and it would kill me to have you go away.”

“Is that all?” and in his delight Will ran the darning-needle under his thumb nail; “I needn’t go away. I can bring her home, and you won’t have to mend my socks any more. Those back chambers are seldom used, and—”

“Back chambers!” exclaimed Mrs. Gordon. “I guess if you bring a wife here, you’ll occupy the parlor chamber and bedroom. I was going to re-paper them in the Spring, and I think on the whole I’ll refurnish it entirely, for you might sometimes have calls up there.”

“You charming woman,” cried Will, kissing his mother, whose consent he understood to be fully won.

He knew she had always admired Miss Grey, but he expected more opposition than this, and in his delight he would have gone to see Marian at once, were it not that he had heard she was absent that evening. For an hour or more he talked with his mother of his plans, and when at last Ellen came in, she, too, was let into the secret. Of course, she rebelled at first, for her family pride was very strong, and the peddler Ben, was a serious objection. But when she saw how earnest her brother was, and that her mother, too, had espoused his cause, she condescended to say:

“I suppose you might do worse, though folks will wonder at your taste in marrying Mary’s governess.”

“Let them wonder, then,” said Will. “They dare not slight my wife, you know,” and then he drew a pleasing picture of the next Summer, when, with his mother, Marian and Ellen, he would visit the White Mountains and Montreal.

“Why not go to Europe?” suggested Ellen. “Mr. Sheldon talks of going in August, and if you must marry this girl, you may as well go, too.”

“Well spoken for yourself, little puss,” returned Will; “but it’s a grand idea, and I’ll make arrangements with Tom as soon as I have seen Marian. Maybe she’ll refuse me,” and Will turned pale at the very idea.

“No danger,” was Ellen’s comment, while her mother thought the same, for in her estimation no one in their right mind could refuse her noble boy.

It was a long night to Will, and the next day longer still, for joyful hope and harrowing fears tormented his mind, and when at last it was dark, and he had turned his face toward Mr. Sheldon’s, he half determined to go back. But he didn’t, and with his usual easy, off-hand manner, he entered his sister’s sitting-room. Though bound to secrecy, Ellen had told the news to Mrs. Sheldon, who, of course, had told her husband; and soon after Will’s arrival, the two found some excuse for leaving him alone with Marian Grey.

Marian liked William Gordon very much—partly because he was Frederic’s friend, and partly because she knew him to be a most affectionate brother and dutiful son—two rare qualities in a traveled and fashionable man. She was always pleased to see him, and she welcomed him now as usual, without observing his evident embarrassment when at last they were alone. There were no stockings to be darned, and he did not know how to commence, until he remembered Frederic’s letter. It had helped him with his mother—it might aid him now—and after fidgeting awhile in his chair, he said:

“I heard from Mr. Raymond yesterday.”

“Indeed!” and Marian’s voice betrayed more interest than the word would indicate.

“He wrote that you were engaged to him—”

“I engaged to Frederic Raymond!” and Marian started so suddenly that she pulled her needle out from the worsted garment she was knitting.

“Engaged to teach, I mean,” returned Will. “I’ll show you what he wrote when you pick up those stitches. What do you call that queer-shaped thing?”

“A Sontag, or Hug-me-tight,” said Marian, while Will involuntarily exclaimed, “Oh, I wish I could—see Fred, he’s such a good fellow,” he hastened to add, as he saw Marian’s wondering glance.

But the beginning and end of the sentence were too far apart to belong to each other, and there was a moment’s awkward silence, which was broken at last by Marian, who, resolving to take no notice of the strange speech, said:

“What did Mr. Raymond write of me?”

“I’ll show you just a little,” and Will pointed out the sentence commencing with “Give my respects to Miss Grey,” etc.

The sight of the well-remembered handwriting affected Marian sensibly; but when she came to the last part, and began to understand to what it all was tending, her head grew dizzy and her brain whirled for a moment. Then an intense pity for Will Gordon filled her soul, for looking upward she met the glance of his eyes, and saw therein how much she was beloved.

“No, no, Mr. Gordon!” she cried, putting her hands to her ears as he began to say: “Dear Marian.” “You must not call me so; it is wicked for you to do it—wicked for me to listen. I am not what I seem.”

And she burst into tears, weeping so bitterly that in his efforts to soothe her, Will well nigh carried out the wish which had been finished up with “seeing Frederic Raymond.”

Her not being what she seemed, he fancied might refer to something connected with her birth, and he hastened to assure her that no circumstance whatever could change his feelings, or prevent him from wishing her to be his wife.

“Won’t you, Marian?” he said, holding her in his arm so she could not escape. “I have never loved before. I always said I could not, until I saw you; and then everything was changed. I have told my mother, darling, and Ellen, too. They are ready to receive you, if you will go. Look at me, and say you will come to my home, which will never again be so bright to me without you. Won’t my darling answer me?” he continued, while she sobbed so violently as to render speaking impossible. “I am sorry if my words distressed you so,” he added, resting her head upon his bosom, and fondly smoothing her hair.

“I am distressed for you,” Marian at last found voice to say. “Oh, Mr. Gordon, I should be most wretched if I thought I had encouraged you in this! But I have not, I am sure. I like you very, very much, but I cannot be your wife!”

“Marian, are you in earnest?” And on Will Gordon’s manly face was a look never seen there before.

He did not know until now how much he loved the beautiful young girl he held so closely to his side. All the affections of his heart had centered themselves, as it were, upon her, and he could not give her up. She had been so kind to him—had welcomed him ever with her sweetest smile—had seemed sorry at his departure—and was not this encouragement? He had taken it as such, and ere she could reply to the question: “Are you in earnest?” he added:

“I have thought, from your manner, that I was not indifferent to you, else I had never told you of my love. Oh, Marian, if you desert me now, I shall wish that I could die!”

Marian struggled until she released herself from his embrace, and, standing before him, she replied:

“I never dreamed that you thought of me, save as a friend, and if I have encouraged you, it was because—you reminded me of another. Oh, Mr. Gordon, must I tell you that long before I came here, I had learned to love some other man—hopelessly, it is true, for he does not care for me; but that can make no difference. Had I never seen him—never known of him—I might—I would have been your wife, for I know that you are noble and good; but ’tis too late—too late!”

He did not need to ask her now if she were in earnest; for, looking up into her truthful, clear blue eyes, he knew there was no hope for him, and bowing his head upon the arm of the sofa, he groaned aloud, while the heaving of his chest showed how much he suffered, and how manfully he strove to keep his feelings down. Mournfully Marian gazed upon him, wishing she had never come there, if by coming she had brought this hour of anguish to him. Half timidly she laid her hand upon his head, for she wished to comfort him; and, as he felt the touch of her fingers, he started, while an expression of joy lighted up his face, only to pass away again as he saw the same unloving look in her eye.

“If I could comfort you,” she said, “I would gladly do it; but I cannot. You will forget me in time, Mr. Gordon, and be as happy as you were before you knew me.”

He shook his head despairingly. “No one could forget you; and the man who stands between us must be a monster not to requite your love. Who is he, Marian? or is it not for me to know?”

“I would rather you should not—it can do no good,” was Marian’s reply; and then Will Gordon pleaded with her to think again ere she told him so decidedly no. She might outlive that other love. She ought to, certainly, if ’twere a hopeless one; and if she only gave him half a heart, he would be content until he won the whole. They would go to Europe in Autumn; and beneath the sunny skies of Italy she would learn to love him, he knew. “Won’t you, Marian?” and in the tone of his voice there was a word of eager, fearful, yearning love.

“I can’t—I can’t; it is utterly impossible!” was the decided answer; and, without another word, Will Gordon rose and passed, with a breaking heart, from the room he had entered so full of hope and pleasing anticipations.

The fire burned just as brightly in the grate at home as it had done the night before; the gas-light fell as softly on the roses in the carpet, and on his mother’s face there was a placid, expectant look, as he came in. But it quickly vanished when she saw how he pale he was, and how he crouched down into his easy chair, as if he fain would hide from every one the pain gnawing at his heart. There had never been a secret between Mrs. Gordon and her son, for in some respects the man of thirty was as much a child as ever; and when his mother, coming to his side, parted the damp hair from his forehead, and looked into his eyes, saying:

“What is it, William? Has Marian Grey refused my boy?” he told her all. How Marian Grey had given her love to another, and that henceforth the world to him would be a dreary blank.

It was, indeed, a terrible disappointment, and as the days wore on, it told fearfully upon William’s health, until at last the mother sought an interview with Marian Grey, beseeching her to think again.

“You can be happy with William,” she said, “and I had prepared myself to love you as a daughter. Do, I beseech of you, give me some hope to carry back to my poor boy?”

“I cannot—I cannot!”

And, laying her head in the motherly lap of Mrs. Gordon, Marian wept bitterly—half tempted, more than once, to tell her the whole truth.

But this she did not do, and she wept on, while Mrs. Gordon’s tears kept company with her own.

“Don’t you like my William?” she asked, unconsciously playing with the bright hair resting on her lap.

“Yes—very, very much; but I loved another first.” And this was all the satisfaction Marian could give.

Mrs. Sheldon next tried her powers of persuasion, pleading for herself quite as much as for her brother, for she loved the young girl dearly, and would gladly have called her sister. But naught which she could say had the least effect, and Ellen determined to see what she could do. She had been very indignant at first, to think a poor teacher should refuse her brother, and something of this spirit manifested itself during her interview with Marian.

“I am astonished at you,” she said; “for, though we have ever treated you as our equal, you must know that in point of family you are not, and my brother has done what few young men in his standing would have done. Why, there never was a gentleman in Springfield whom the girls accounted a better match than William, unless it were Mr. Raymond from Kentucky, and they only gave him the preference because he lives South, and possibly has a wife somewhere. So they could not get him, if they wished to. Now, if you were in love with him, and he were not already married, I should not think so strangely of your conduct, for he may be Will’s superior in some respects; but I cannot conceive of your refusing him for any common man such as would be likely to address you.”

Marian did not think it necessary to reply in substance to this long speech, neither did she, by word or look, resent Ellen’s overbearing manner; but she answered, as she always did:

“I would marry your brother, if I could; but I cannot.”

“Then I trust you will have a pleasant time teaching all your days,” said Ellen, as she slammed the door behind her, and went to report her success.

All this trouble and excitement wore upon Marian, and after a time she became too ill to leave her room, where she kept her bed, sometimes fancying it all a dream—sometimes resolving to tell the people who she was, and always weeping over the grief she had brought to William Gordon, who, during her illness, showed how noble and good he was by caring for her as tenderly as if she had indeed been his promised bride. He did not see her, but he made his presence felt in a thousand different ways, and when they told him how her tears would drop upon the fresh bouquets he sent her from the green-house every morning, he would turn away to keep his own from falling.

One night, toward the last of March, as he sat with his mother in the same room where he first told her of his love for Marian Grey, the door bell rang, and a moment after, to his great surprise, Frederic Raymond walked into the room. William had forgotten what his friend had said about the possibility of his coming north earlier than usual, and he was so much astonished that for some moments he did not appear like himself.

“You know I wrote that business might bring me to Albany,” said Frederic, “and that if I came so far I should visit you.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” returned William, the color mounting to his forehead as he recalled the nature of the last letter written to Frederic, who, from his manner, guessed that something was wrong, and forbore questioning him until they retired to their room for the night.

“Fred,” said William, after they had talked awhile on indifferent subjects, “Fred,” and Will’s feet went up into a chair, for even a man who has been refused feels better, and can tell it better, with his heels a little elevated, “Fred, it’s all over with me, and it makes no difference now whether the sun rises in the east or in the west.”

“I suspected as much,” returned Frederic, “from your failing to write and from the length of your face. What is the matter? You didn’t coax hard enough, I reckon, and I shall have to undertake it for you. How would you like that? I dare say I should be more successful,” and Frederic’s smile was much like the Frederic of other days, when he and Will were college friends together.

“I said everything a man could say, but the chief difficulty is that she don’t love me and does love another,” returned Will, at the same time repeating to his companion as much of his experience as he thought proper.

“A discouraging beginning, I confess,” said Frederic; “but perhaps she will relent.”

“No she won’t,” returned Will; “she is just as decided now as she was that night. I have exhausted all my persuasion; mother has coaxed, so has Mary, so has Nell, and all to no purpose. Marian Grey can never be my wife. If it were not for this other love, though, I would not give it up.”

“Who is the favored one?” Frederic asked, and his friend replied, “Some rascal, I dare say, for she says it is a hopeless attachment on her part, and that makes it all the worse. Now if I knew the man was worthy of her, I should not feel so badly. If it were you, for instance, or somebody like you, I’d try to be satisfied, knowing she was quite as well off as she would be with me,” and Will’s feet went up to the top of the chair as he thought how magnanimous he would be were it Frederic Raymond who was beloved by Marian Grey.

“I am sorry for you,” said Frederic—“sorry that you, too, must walk under a cloud, as I am doing. We little thought, when we were boys, that we should both be called to bear a heavy burden; but thus has it proved. Mine came sooner than yours, and it seems to me ’tis the hardest of the two to bear.”

“Fred, you don’t know what you are saying. Your grief cannot be as great as mine, for I love Marian Grey as man never loved before, and when she told me ‘No,’ and I knew she meant it, I felt as if she were tearing out my very heartstrings. You acknowledge that you never loved your wife; but you married her for—I don’t know what you married for——

“For MONEY!” And the word dropped slowly from Frederic’s lips.

“For money?” repeated Will. “She had no money—this Marian Lindsey. She was a poor orphan, I always thought. Will you tell me what you mean?”

“I have never told a living being why I made that girl my wife,” said Frederic; “but I can trust you, I know, and I have sometimes thought I might feel better if some one shared my secret. Still, I would rather not explain to you how Marian was the heiress of Redstone Hall, for that concerns the dead; but heiress she was, not only of all that, but of all the lands and houses said to belong to the Raymond estate in Kentucky; not a cent of it was mine; and, rather than give it up, I married her without one particle of love—married her, too, when she did not know of her fortune, but supposed herself dependent upon me.”

“Oh, Frederic, did you thus wrong that girl? I never thought you capable of such an act. I knew you did not love her, but the rest——. It hurts me to think you did it, and that you still live on her money.”

“Hush, Will!” And Frederic bowed his head for very shame. “I deserve your censure, I know, but if my sin was great—great has been my punishment. Look at me, Will. I am not the lighthearted man you parted with six years ago upon the college green; for, since that dreadful night when I first knew poor Marian had fled, and thought she was in the river, I have not had a single moment of perfect peace or freedom from remorse. I have not spent more of her money either than I could help. Bad as I am, I shrink from that. Redstone Hall grew hateful to me—it was haunted with so many bitter memories of her, and was, besides, the place where I sinned against her a second time by daring to think of another—of Isabel. You remember her?”

“Fred Raymond!” and in his indignation, Will’s feet came down from the top of the chair, “you did not aggravate your guilt by talking of love to her?”

“No, no,” groaned Frederic, “I did not, though Heaven only knows the fierce struggle it cost me to see her there every day, and know I must not say one word to her of love. I left Redstone Hall at last, as you know. Left it because it was Marian’s and Riverside was my father’s, before Marian came to us; so it did not seem quite so much like spending her money, for I did try to be a man and earn my own living. They did not get on well without me in Kentucky. They needed me there a part of the time, at least; and when, at last, I began to feel differently toward Marian, I felt less delicacy about her fortune, and I have spent my winters at Redstone Hall, where the negroes and the neighbors around all suppose Marian dead, for I have never told them that she was with me in New York. Isabel knows it, but for some reason she has kept it to herself; and I am glad, for I would rather people should not talk of it until she is really found. I have sought for her so long and unsuccessfully that I’m growing discouraged now.”

“If you knew that she was dead, would you marry Isabel?” asked Will; and Frederic replied,

“Never!”

Then, in a reverent tone, as if speaking of one above him in purity and innocence, he told how the little blind girl had stood between him and temptation, holding up his hands when they were weakest, and keeping his feet from falling. “But that desire is over. I can look Isabel Huntington calm in the face and experience no sensation, save that of relief, to think I have escaped her. With the legacy left her by Mr. Rivers, and the little means her mother had, she has bought a small house near Riverside; so I shall have them for neighbors every Summer. But I do not care. I have no love now for Isabel. It all died out when I was sick, and centered itself upon that little sweet-faced girl, who, I know, was Marian, though I cannot find her. If I could, Will, I’d willingly part with every cent of money I call mine, and work for my daily bread. Labor would not seem a hardship, if I knew that when my toil was done, there was a darling wife waiting for me at home—a wife like what I hope my Marian is, and like what your Marian Grey may be.”

“Not mine, Frederic. There is in all the world no Marian for me,” said Will.

“Nor for me, perhaps,” was the sad response, and in the dim firelight, the two mournful faces looked wistfully at each other, as if asking the sympathy neither had to give.

And there they sat until the clock in the room below, struck the hour of midnight. Two weary heart-broken men, in the pride of their early manhood, sat talking each to the other, one of “My Marian,” and one of “Mine;” but never, never dreaming that the beautiful Marian Grey, so much beloved by William Gordon, was the lost Marian so greatly mourned by Frederic Raymond.