Marian Grey

“Frederic,” said Alice, about six weeks before Marian’s arrival at Riverside, “who hired that Mrs. Merton to take care of you when you were sick at the hotel?”

“The proprietor, I suppose,” returned Frederic.

Alice continued:

“But who told him of her?”

“I don’t know,” said Frederic. “She was from the country, I believe.”

“Yes, yes,” returned Alice; “but some person must have recommended her, and if you can ascertain who that person was, you may find Mrs. Merton, and learn something of Marian.”

“I wonder I never thought of that before,” said Frederic, adding, “that if Alice had her sight he believed she would have discovered Marian ere this.”

“I know I should,” was her answer; and after a little further conversation, it was decided that Frederic should go to New York, and learn, if possible, who first suggested Mrs. Merton as a nurse.

This was not so easy a matter as he had imagined it to be, for though Frederic himself was well remembered at the hotel, where he was now a frequent guest, scarcely any one could recall Mrs. Merton distinctly, and no one seemed to know how she came there, until a servant, who had been in the house a long time, spoke of Martha Gibbs, and then the proprietor suddenly remembered that she had recommended Mrs. Merton as being a friend of hers.

“But who is Martha Gibbs, and where is she now?” Frederic asked; and the servant replied that

“Her home used to be in Woodstock, Conn.;” and with this item of information Frederic wrote to her friends, inquiring where she was.

To this letter there came ere long an answer, saying that Mrs. John Jennings lived in ——, a small town in the interior of Iowa. Accordingly the next mail westward from Yonkers carried a letter to said Mrs. Jennings, asking where the woman lived who had nursed Mr. Raymond through that dangerous fever. This being done, Frederic and Alice waited impatiently for a reply, which was long in coming, for Mr. Jennings’ log tenement was several miles from the post-office, where he seldom called, and it was more than a week ere the letter reached him. Even then it found him so engrossed in the arrival of his first-born son and heir, that for two or three days longer it lay unopened in the clock-case, ere he thought to look at it.

“I don’t know what it means, I’m sure,” he said, taking it to his wife, who, having never heard of the death of her old friend, replied, “Why, he wants to know where Mrs. Burt lives. Just write on a piece of paper: ‘East —— street, No. —, third story; turn to your right; door at the head of the stairs.’ I wonder if he’s never been there yet?”

John was not an elaborate correspondent, and he simply wrote down his better half’s direction, saying nothing whatever of Mrs. Burt herself, and thus conveying to Frederic no idea that Merton was not the real name.

“A letter from Iowa,” said Frederic to Alice, as he came in from the office, on the very night when Marian was walking slowly past what was once her home. “I have the street and number, and to-morrow I am going there.”

“And I am going, too,” cried Alice. “Won’t Marian be surprised to see us both. I hope she’ll come to the door herself; and Frederic, if she does, you’ll kiss her, won’t you, and act like you was glad, for if you don’t, maybe she won’t come back with us.”

“I will do right,” answered Frederic, adding in a low tone, “Perhaps she will not be there.”

“Yes, she will,” was Alice’s positive reply, “or if she’s not, somebody can tell us where she is. Only to think, we shall see her to-morrow. I do wish it would hurry, and I’m glad Miss Grey is not coming until the day after. It will be so nice to have them both here. Do you suppose they’ll like each other, Marian and Miss Grey?”

“I dare say they will,” returned Frederic, smiling at the little girl’s enthusiasm, and hoping she might not be disappointed.

Anon, a shadow clouded Alice’s face, and observing it, Frederic passed his hand over her hair, saying, “What is it, birdie?”

“Frederic,” said Alice, creeping closely to the side of the young man, “Isn’t Miss Grey very beautiful?”

“Mr. Gordon and Ben say so,” returned Frederic, and Alice continued:

“Don’t be angry with me, but you loved Isabel the best because she was the handsomest, and now you won’t love Miss Grey better than Marian, will you, and you’ll be Marian’s husband right off, won’t you?”

“When Marian comes here, it will be as my wife,” said Frederic, and with this answer Alice was satisfied.

“I wish it would grow dark faster,” she said, for she could tell when it was night; and Frederic, while listening to the many different ways she conjured up for them to meet Marian, became almost as impatient as herself for the morrow, when his renewed hopes might, perhaps, be realized.

The breakfast next morning was hurried through, for neither Alice nor Frederic could eat, and Mrs. Russell, when she saw how much was left untouched, congratulated herself upon its answering for the hired man’s dinner, and thus giving her a nice long time for sewing.

“It isn’t a bit likely Miss Grey will come to-day,” said Alice, as she followed Frederic to the carriage; and, confident of this, they gave Miss Grey no further thought, but went on their way in search of Marian. When they reached New York, Frederic, who had some business to transact, left Alice in the parlor at the Astor, where she sat with her face to the window, just as though she could see the passers-by; and, as she sat there, a party who were leaving glanced hastily in, all seeing the little figure by the window, and one thinking to herself, “She wears her hair combed back, as Alice used to do!”

Then the group passed on, while over the face of the blind girl there flitted for an instant a wondering, bewildering expression, for her quick ear had caught the sound of a voice which, it seemed to her, she had heard before—not there—not in New York—but far away, at Redstone Hall. What was it? Who was it? She bent her head to listen, hoping to hear it again, but it came no more, for Marian Grey had left the house, and was passing up Broadway. It was not long ere Frederic returned, and, taking Alice’s hand, he led her into the street, and entered a Third avenue car.

“We are on the right track, I think,” he said; “for it was this way she went with the man described by Sarah Green.”

Alice gave a sigh of relief, and, leaning against Frederic, rather enjoyed the pleasant motion of the car, although she wished it would go faster.

“Won’t we ever get there?” she asked, as they plodded slowly on, stopping often to take in a passenger, or set one down.

“Yes, by and by,” said Frederic, encouragingly. “I am not quite certain of the street, myself, but I shall know it when I see the name, of course;” and he looked anxiously out as they passed along. “Here it is!” he cried, at last; and, seizing Alice’s arm, he rather dragged than led her from the car, and out upon the crossing. “Why,” he exclaimed, gazing eagerly around him, “I have been here before—down this very street;” and his eye wandered involuntarily in the direction of the window where once the white fringed curtain hung.

It was gone now, as was the rose geranium. The kitten, too, was gone, and the small hand resting on it; while in their place appeared the heads of two or three dirty children, looking across the way, and making wry faces at similar dirty children in the window opposite. Frederic saw all this, and it affected him unpleasantly, causing him to feel as if he had parted from some old friend. But no; where was that? It must be in this locality; and he wondered how one accustomed to the luxuries of Redstone Hall could live in this place so long.

“I’ve found it!” he said, as his eye caught the number; and now, that he believed himself near to what he had sought so long, he was more impatient than Alice herself.

He could not wait for her uncertain footsteps, and pale with excitement, he caught her in his arms and hurried up the narrow stairs, which many a time had creaked to Marian’s tread. The third story was reached at last, and he stood panting by the door, where Mr. Jennings had said that he must stop. It was open, and the greasy, uncarpeted floor, of which he caught a glimpse, looked cheerless and uninviting, but it did not keep him back a moment, and he advanced into the room, which, by the three heads at the window, he knew was the same where the white curtain once had hung, and where now the glaring August sunlight came pouring in, unbroken and unsubdued.

At the sight of a stranger one of the heads turned toward him and a little voice said:

“Ma’s out washin’, she is, and won’t be home till night.”

There was a cold, heavy feeling of disappointment settling round Frederic’s heart, for nothing there seemed at all like what he remembered of the neat, tidy Mrs. Merton, but he nerved himself to ask:

“What is your mother’s name?”

“Bunce, and my pa is in the Tombs,” was the reply.

“How long have you lived here?” was the next question, asked with a colder, heavier heart.

“Next Christmas a year,” said the little girl, and catching Frederic’s arm, Alice whispered,

“Do let’s go out into the open air.”

But Frederic did not move—there was a spell upon him, and for several moments it kept him there in the very room where Marian had wept so many tears for him, and where, in her desolation, she had asked that she might die when the greatest sorrow she had ever known came upon her—the sorrow brought by Isabel’s cruel letter. There close to where he stood was the door of the little room where for weeks and months she had lain, tossing in her feverish pain, while over her Ben Burt kept his tireless watch, nor asked for greater reward than to know that she would live. And was there nothing to tell him of all this—nothing to whisper that the one he sought had been there once, but was waiting for him now in his own home! No, there was nothing but dark, cheerless poverty staring him in the face, and with a sigh he turned away, and knocking at other doors, asked for the former occupants of those front rooms. Nearly all the present tenants had moved there since Mrs. Burt’s death, and none knew aught of her save one rather decent-looking woman, who said “she remembered the folks well, though they held their heads above the likes of her. She’d seen them comin’ in and out and had peeked into their room, so she knew they was well to do.”

“Was their name Merton? and did a young girl live with, them?” asked Frederic; and the woman replied:

“Merton sounds some like it, though I’d sooner say ’twas Burton, or something like that. I never even so much as passed the time of day with ’em, for I tell you they felt above me; but the girl was a jewel—so trim and genteel like.”

“That was Marian,” whispered Alice; and Frederic continued:

“Where are they now?”

“Bless you,” returned the woman. “One on ’em is in Heaven, and the Lord only knows where t’other one went to.”

Alice’s hand, which lay in Frederic’s, was clutched with a painful grasp; and the perspiration gathered about the young man’s white lips as he stammered out:

“Which one is dead? Not the girl? You dare not tell me that?”

“I dare if it was so,” returned the woman; “but ’twant; ’twas the old one—the one I took to be the mother; though I have heard a story about the girl’s comin’ here long time ago, before I moved here. I was away when the woman died, and when I got back the rooms was empty, and the boy and girl was gone; nobody knows where; and I haint seen ’em since.”

Frederic was too much interested in Marian to hear anything else, and he paid no attention to her mention of a boy. Marian was all he wished to find, but it was in vain that he questioned and cross-questioned the woman. She had given all the information she could; and with an increased feeling of disappointment he left her, glancing once more into the room where he was sure Marian had lived. Alice, too, was willing to stop there now; and when Frederic told her of the geranium and the kitten he had once seen in the window, a smile mingled with her tears, and she wished she had them now, especially the kitten! She did not know that the matronly-looking cat, which, behind the broken stove, was purring sleepily, was the same Maltese kitten Marian had fondled so often. At the time of leaving she had given it to an acquaintance near by, but pussy preferred her old haunts, and returning to them, persisted in remaining there until the arrival of the new comers, who took her in, and she now daily shared the meagre fare of the three children by the window. Intuitively, as it were, she felt that Alice was a lover of her race, and she came towards her, purring loudly, and rubbing against her side.

“Lands sake,” exclaimed the woman. “Here’s the very cat the young girl used to tend so much. I know it by the white spot between its eyes. I found it mewing and making an awful noise by the door when I came back; and though I ain’t none of your cat women, I flung it a bone or two till them folks came, and the children kept it to torment, I ’spect, just as young ones will. I see one of ’em with a string round its neck t’other day a chokin’ it most to death.”

“Oh, Frederic,” and Alice’s face expressed what she wished to say, while she caught up the animal in her arms.

Frederic understood her, and speaking to the oldest of the children, he said, “Will you give me your cat?”

“No, no,” the three set up at once, and Alice whispered, “Buy her, Frederic, won’t you?”

“Will you let me have her for fifty cents?” he asked, showing the silver coin.

“No, no,” and the youngest began to cry.

“Give more,” said Alice, and Frederic continued, “Fifty cents a piece, then. You can buy a great many cakes and crackers with it”—

“And candy,” suggested Alice.

The youngest began to show signs of relenting, as did the second, but the third persisted in saying “No.” “Offer her more,” was whispered in a low voice, and glancing around the poorly furnished room, Frederic took out his purse and said, “You shall have a dollar a piece, but part of it must be saved for your mother,—besides that, this little girl is blind,” and he laid his hand on Alice’s head.

This last argument would have been sufficient without the dollar, for it touched a chord of pity in the heart of that child of poverty, and coming closer to Alice she looked at her curiously, saying, “Can’t you see a bit more’n I can with my eyes shut?” and she closed her own by way of experimenting.

“Not a bit,” returned Alice, “but I love kitty just the same, because she used to belong to a dear friend of mine. May I have her?”

“Ye-es,” came half reluctantly from the lips of the child, as she extended her hand for the money.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Alice when they were at a safe distance from the house. “I was afraid they’d take it back,” and she held fast to the kitten, which made no effort to escape, but lay in her arms, singing occasionally as if well pleased with the exchange.

This, however, Frederic knew would not continue until they reached home, and stepping into a shop which they were passing, he bought a covered basket, in which the cat was placed and the lid secured, a proceeding not altogether satisfactory to the prisoner. Alice, too, was equally distressed, and when she learned that Frederic could not go home until night, she insisted upon his getting her a room at the Astor, where she could let her treasure out without fear of its escaping. Frederic complied with her request, and in her delight with her new pet, she half forgot how disappointed she had been in the result of their visit. But not so with Frederic. He felt it keenly, for never had his hopes of finding Marian been raised to a higher pitch than that morning, and even now he could not give it up. Leaving Alice at the hotel he went back again to the street and made the most minute inquiries, but all to no purpose. He could not obtain the least clue to her, and he retraced his steps with a feeling that she was as really lost to him as if Sarah Green’s letter had been true and Marian resting in her grave.

“Why had that letter been written?” he asked himself again and again.

Somebody knew of Marian, and there was a mystery connected with it—a mystery of wrong it might be. Perhaps she could not come back, even though she wanted to, and his pulses quickened with painful rapidity as he thought of all the imaginary terrors which might surround the lost one. It was indeed a sad reflection, and his spirits were unusually depressed, when just before sunset he took Alice by one hand, the basket in the other, and started for home.

“I didn’t think we should come back alone,” said Alice, when at last they reached the depot at Yonkers, and she was lifted into the carriage waiting for them. “It’s dreadful we couldn’t find her, but I am so glad we’ve got the cat;” and she guarded the basket carefully, as if it had contained the diamonds of India.

Frederic did not care to talk, and folding his arms, he leaned moodily back in his carriage, evincing no interest in anything until as they drew near home, the driver said to Alice:

“Guess who’s come?”

“Oh, I don’t know—Dinah, may be,” was Alice’s reply, and then Frederic smiled at the preposterous idea.

“No; guess again,” said the driver. “Somebody as handsome as a doll.”

“Miss Grey!” cried Alice, almost upsetting her basket in her delight.

Eagerly she questioned John, and then replied, “I’m so glad, though I was going to fix her room so nice to-morrow—but no matter, it’s always pleasant up there. How lonesome she must have been all day with nothing but the garden, the books, and the piano.”

“She has been homesick, I guess,” said John, “for I seen her cryin’, I thought, out under a tree in the garden.”

“Poor thing!” sighed Alice. “She won’t be homesick any more when we get there; will she, Frederic? I wonder if she likes cats!” And as by this time they had stopped at their own gate, the little girl went running up the walk, shaking the basket prodigiously, and inciting its contents to such violent struggles that in the hall the lid came off, and bounding from its confinement, the cat ran into the parlor, where, trembling with fright, it crouched as for protection, at the feet of Marian Grey.