The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering

Wilford could not forget Katy’s face, so full of reproach. It followed him continually, and was the magnet which turned his steps homeward before his business was quite done, and before the telegram had found him. Thus it was with no knowledge of existing circumstances that he reached New York just at the close of the day, and ordering a carriage, was driven rapidly towards home. All the shutters in the front part of the house were closed, and not a ray of light was to be seen in the parlors as he entered the hall, where the gas was burning dimly.

“Katy is at home,” he said, as he went into the library, where a shawl was thrown across a chair, as if some one had lately been there.

It was his mother’s shawl, and Wilford was wondering if she was there, when down the stairs came a man’s rapid step, and the next moment Dr. Grant came into the room, starting when he saw Wilford, who felt intuitively that something was wrong.

“Is Katy sick?” was his first question, which Morris answered in the affirmative, holding him back as he was starting for her room, and saying to him, “Let me send your mother to you first.”

What passed between Wilford and his mother was never known exactly, but at the close of the interview Mrs. Cameron was very pale, while Wilford’s face looked dark and anxious as he said, “You think he understands it then?”

“Yes, in part, but the world will be none the wiser for his knowledge. I knew Dr. Grant before you did, and there are few men living whom I respect as much, and no one whom I would trust as soon.”

Mrs. Cameron had paid a high compliment to Morris Grant, and Wilford bowed in assent, asking next how she managed Dr. Craig.

“That was easy, inasmuch as he believed it an insane freak of Katy’s to have no other physician than her cousin. It was quite natural, he said, adding that she was as safe with Dr. Grant as any one. And I was glad, for I could not have a stranger know of that affair. You will go up now,” Mrs. Cameron continued, and a moment after Wilford stood in the dimly-lighted room, where Katy was talking of Genevra and St. Mary’s, and was only kept upon her pillow by the strong arm of Morris, who stood over her when Wilford entered, trying in vain to quiet her.

She knew him, and writhing herself away from Morris’s arms, she said to him, “Genevra is not in that grave at St. Mary’s; she is living, and you are not my husband. So you can leave the house at once. Morris will settle the estate, and no bill shall be sent in for your board and lodging.”

In some moods Wilford would have smiled at being thus summarily dismissed from his own house; but he was too sore now, too sensitive to smile, and his voice was rather severe as he laid his hand on Katy’s and said,

“Don’t be foolish, Katy. Don’t you know me? I am Wilford, your husband.”

“That was, you mean,” Katy rejoined, drawing her hand quickly away. “Go find your first love, where bullets fall like hail, and where there is pain, and blood, and carnage. Genevra is there.”

She would not let him come near her, and grew so excited with his presence that he was forced either to leave the room or sit where she could not see him. He chose the latter, and from his seat by the door watched with a half jealous, angry heart, Morris Grant doing for his wife what he should have done.

With Morris Katy was gentle as a little child, talking still of Genevra, but talking quietly, and in a way which did not wear her out as fast as her excitement did.

“What God hath joined together let not man put asunder,” was the text from which she preached several short sermons as the night wore on, but just as the morning dawned she fell into the first quiet sleep she had had during the last twenty-four hours. And while she slept Wilford ventured near enough to see the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes which wrung a groan from him as he turned to Morris, and asked what he supposed was the immediate cause of her sudden illness?

“A terrible shock, the nature of which I understand, but you have nothing to fear from me,” Morris replied. “I accuse you to no man, but leave you to settle it with your conscience whether you did right to deceive her so long.”

Morris spoke as one having authority, and Wilford simply bowed his head, feeling no resentment towards one who had ventured to reprove him. Afterwards he might remember it differently, but now he was too anxious to keep Morris there to quarrel with him, and so he made no reply, but sat watching Katy as she slept, wondering if she would die, and feeling how terrible life would be without her. Suddenly Genevra’s warning words rang in his ear.

“God will not forgive you for the wrong you have done me.”

Was Genevra right? Had God remembered all this time, and overtaken him at last? It might be, and with a groan Wilford hid his face in his hands, believing that he repented of his sin, and not knowing that his fancied repentance arose merely from the fact that he had been detected. Could the last few days be blotted out, and Katy stand just where she did, with no suspicion of him, he would have cast his remorse to the winds, and as it is not such repentance God accepts, Wilford had only begun to sip the cup of retribution presented to his lips.

Worn out with watching and waiting, Mrs. Cameron, who would suffer neither Juno nor Bell to come near the house, waited uneasily for the arrival of the New Haven train, which she hoped would bring Helen to her aid. Under ordinary circumstances she would rather not have met her, for her presence would keep the letter so constantly in mind; but now anybody who could be trusted was welcome, and when at last there came a cautious ring, she went herself to the hall, starting back with undisguised vexation when she saw the timid-looking woman following close behind Helen, and whom the latter presented as “My mother, Mrs. Lennox.”

Convinced that Morris’s sudden journey to New York had something to do with Katy’s illness, and almost distracted with fears for her daughter’s life, Mrs. Lennox could not remain at home and wait for the tardy mail or careless telegraph. She must go to her child, and casting off her dread of Wilford’s displeasure, she had come with Helen, and was bowing meekly to Mrs. Cameron, who neither offered her hand nor gave any token of greeting except a distant bow and a simple “Good morning, madam.”

But Mrs. Lennox was too anxious to notice the lady’s haughty manner as she led them to the library and then went for her son. Wilford was not glad to see his mother-in-law, but he tried to be polite, answering her questions civilly, and when she asked if it were true that he had sent for Morris, assuring her that it was not. “Dr. Grant happened here very providentially, and I hope to keep him until the crisis is past, although he has just told me he must go back to-morrow.” It hurt Wilford’s pride that she, whom he considered greatly his inferior, should learn his secret; but it could not now be helped, and within an hour after her arrival she was looking curiously at him for an explanation of the strange things she heard from Katy’s lips.

“Was you a widower when you married my daughter?” she said to him, when at last Helen left the room and she was alone with him.

“Yes, madam,” he replied, “some would call me so, though I was divorced from my wife. As this was a matter which did not in any way concern your daughter, I deemed it best not to tell her. Latterly she has found it out, and it is having a very extraordinary effect upon her.”

And this was all Mrs. Lennox knew until alone with Helen, who told her the story as she had heard it from Morris. His sudden journey to New York was thus accounted for, and Helen explained it to her mother, advising her to say nothing of it, as it might be better for Wilford not to know that Katy had telegraphed for Morris. It seemed very necessary that Dr. Grant should return to Silverton, and the day following Helen’s arrival in New York, he made arrangements to do so.

“You have other physicians here,” he said to Wilford, who objected to his leaving. “Dr. Craig will do as well as I.”

Wilford admitted that he might, but it was with a sinking heart that he saw Morris depart, and then went to Katy, who began to grow very restless and uneasy, bidding him go away and send Dr. Morris back. It was in vain that they administered the medicine just as Morris directed. Katy grew constantly worse, until Mrs. Lennox asked that another doctor be called. But to this Wilford would not listen. Fear of exposure and censure was stronger than his fears for Katy’s life, which seemed balancing upon a thread as that long night and the next day went by. Three times Wilford telegraphed for Morris, and it was with unfeigned joy that he welcomed him back at last, and heard that he had so arranged his business as to stay with Katy while the danger lasted.

With a monotonous sameness the days now came and went, people still shunning the house as if the plague was there. Once, Bell Cameron came round to call on Helen, holding her breath as she passed through the hall, and never asking to go near Katy’s room. Two or three times, too, Mrs. Banker’s carriage stood at the door, and Mrs. Banker herself came in, appearing so cool and distant that Helen could scarcely keep back her tears as she guessed the cause. Mark, too, was in the city, having returned with the Seventh Regiment; but from Esther, Helen learned that he was about joining the army as captain of a company, composed of the finest men in the city. The next she heard was from Mrs. Banker, who, incidentally, remarked, “I shall be very lonely now that Mark is gone. He left me to-day for Washington.”

There were tears on the mother’s face, and her lip quivered as she tried to keep them back, by looking from the window into the street, instead of at her companion, who, overcome with the rush of feeling which swept over her, laid her face on the sofa arm and sobbed aloud.

“Why, Helen! Miss Lennox, I am surprised! I had supposed—I was not aware—I did not think you would care,” Mrs. Banker exclaimed, coming closer to Helen, who stammered out, “I beg you will excuse me, I cannot help it. I care for all our soldiers. It seems so terrible.”

At the words “I care for all the soldiers,” a shadow of disappointment flitted over Mrs. Banker’s face. She knew her son had offered himself and been refused, as she supposed; and she believed too that Helen had given publicity to the affair, fueling justly indignant at this breach of confidence and lack of delicacy in one whom she had liked so much, and whom she still liked, in spite of the wounded pride which had prompted her to appear so cold and distant.

“Perhaps it is all a mistake,” she thought, as she continued standing by Helen, “or it may be she has relented,” and for a moment she felt tempted to ask why her boy had been refused.

But Mark would not be pleased with her interference, she knew, and so the golden moment fled, and when she left the house, the misunderstanding between herself and Helen was just as wide as ever. Wearily after that the days passed with Helen until all thoughts of herself were forgotten in the terrible fear that death was really brooding over the pillow where Katy lay, insensible to all that was passing around her. The lips were silent now, and Wilford had nothing to fear from the tongue hitherto so busy. Juno, Bell, and father Cameron all came to see her, dropping tears upon the face looking so old and worn with suffering. Mrs. Cameron, too, was very sorry, very sad, but managed to find some consolation in mentally arranging a grand funeral, which would do honor to her son, and wondering if “those Barlows in Silverton would think they must attend.” And while she thus arranged, the mother who had given birth to Katy wrestled in earnest prayer that God would spare her child, or at least grant some space in which she might be told of the world to which she was hastening. What Wilford suffered none could guess. His face was very white, and its expression almost stern, as he sat by the young wife who had been his for little more than two brief years, and who, but for his sin, might not have been lying there, unconscious of the love and grief around her. With lip compressed, and brows firmly knit together, Morris, too, sat watching Katy, feeling for the pulse, and bending his ear to catch the faintest breath which came from her parted lips, while in his heart there was an earnest prayer for the safety of the soul, hovering so evenly between this world and the next. He did not ask that she might live, for if all were well hereafter he knew it was better for her to die in her young womanhood, than to live till the heart, now so sad and bleeding, had grown calloused with sorrow. And yet it was terrible to think of Katy dead; terrible to think of that face and form laid away beneath the turf of Greenwood, where those who loved her best could seldom go to weep.

And as they sat there thus, the night shadows stole into the room, and the hours crept on till from a city tower a clock struck ten, and Morris, motioning Helen to his side, bade her go with her mother to rest. “We do not need you here,” he said; “your presence can do no good. Should a change occur, you shall be told at once.”

Thus importuned, Helen and her mother withdrew, and only Morris and Wilford remained to watch that heavy slumber, so nearly resembling death.