CHAPTER LXXII. — GOOD-BY.
The happy hours of Hope Wayne’s life were the visits of Lawrence Newt. The sound of his voice in the hall, of his step on the stair, gave her a sense of profound peace. Often, as she sat at table with Mrs. Simcoe, in her light morning-dress, and with the dew of sleep yet fresh upon her cheeks, she heard the sound, and her heart seemed to stop and listen. Often, as time wore on, and the interviews were longer and more delayed, she was conscious that the gaze of her old friend became curiously fixed upon her whenever Lawrence Newt came. Often, in the tranquil evenings, when they sat together in the pleasant room, Hope Wayne cheerfully chatting, or sewing, or reading aloud, Mrs. Simcoe looked at her so wistfully—so as if upon the point of telling some strange story—that Hope could not help saying, brightly, “Out with it, aunty!” But as the younger woman spoke, the resolution glimmered away in the eyes of her companion, and was succeeded by a yearning, tender pity.
Still Lawrence Newt came to the house, to consult, to inspect, to bring bills that he had paid, to hear of a new utensil for the kitchen, to see about coal, about wood, about iron, to look at a dipper, at a faucet—he knew every thing in the house by heart, and yet he did not know how or why. He wanted to come—he thought he came too often. What could he do?
Hope sang as she sat in her chamber, as she read in the parlor, as she went about the house, doing her nameless, innumerable household duties. Her voice was rich, and full, and womanly; and the singing was not the fragmentary, sparkling gush of good spirits, and the mere overflow of a happy temperament—it was a deep, sweet, inward music, as if a woman’s soul were intoning a woman’s thoughts, and as if the woman were at peace.
But the face of Mrs. Simcoe grew sadder and sadder as Hope’s singing was sweeter and sweeter, and significant of utter rest. The look in her eyes of something imminent, of something that even trembled on her tongue, grew more and more marked. Hope Wayne brightly said, “Out with it, aunty!” and sang on.
Amy Waring came often to the house. She was older than Hope, and it was natural that she should be a little graver. They had a hundred plans in concert for helping a hundred people. Amy and Hope were a charitable society.
“Fiddle diddle!” said Aunt Dagon, when she was speaking of his two friends to her nephew Lawrence. “Does this brace of angels think that virtue consists in making shirts for poor people?”
Lawrence looked at his aunt with the inscrutable eyes, and answered slowly,
“I don’t know that they do, Aunt Dagon; but I suppose they don’t think it consists in not making them.”
“Phew!” said Mrs. Dagon, tossing her cap-strings back pettishly. “I suppose they expect to make a kind of rope-ladder of all their charity garments, and climb up into heaven that way!”
“Perhaps they do,” replied Lawrence, in the same tone. “They have not made me their confidant. But I suppose that even if the ladder doesn’t reach, it’s better to go a little way up than not to start at all.”
“There! Lawrence, such a speech as that comes of your not going to church. If you would just try to be a little better man, and go to hear Dr. Maundy preach, say once a year,” said Mrs. Dagon, sarcastically, “you would learn that it isn’t good works that are the necessary thing.”
“I hope, Aunt Dagon,” returned Lawrence, laughing—“I do really hope that it’s good words, then, for your sake. My dear aunt, you ought to be satisfied with showing that you don’t believe in good works, and let other people enjoy their own faith. If charity be a sin, Miss Amy Waring and Miss Hope Wayne are dreadful sinners. But then, Aunt Dagon, what a saint you must be!”
Gradually Mrs. Simcoe was persuaded that she ought to speak plainly to Lawrence Newt upon a subject which profoundly troubled her. Having resolved to do it, she sat one morning waiting patiently for the door of the library—in which Lawrence Newt was sitting with Hope Wayne, discussing the details of her household—to open. There was a placid air of resolution in her sad and anxious face, as if she were only awaiting the moment when she should disburden her heart of the weight it had so long secretly carried. There was entire silence in the house. The rich curtains, the soft carpet, the sumptuous furniture—every object on which the eye fell, seemed made to steal the shock from noise; and the rattle of the street—the jarring of carts—the distant shriek of the belated milkman—the long, wavering, melancholy cry of the chimney-sweep—came hushed and indistinct into the parlor where the sad-eyed woman sat silently waiting.
At length the door opened and Lawrence Newt came out. He was going toward the front door, when Mrs. Simcoe rose and went into the hall, and said, “Stop a moment!”
He turned, half smiled, but saw her face, and his own settled into its armor.
Mrs. Simcoe beckoned him toward the parlor; and as he went in she stepped to the library door and said, to avoid interruption,
“Hope, Mr. Newt and I are talking together in the parlor.”
Hope bowed, and made no reply. Mrs. Simcoe entered the other room and closed the door.
“Mr. Newt,” she said, in a low voice, “you can not wonder that I am anxious.”
He looked at her, and did not answer.
“I know, perhaps, more than you know,” said she; “not, I am sure, more than you suspect.”
Lawrence Newt was a little troubled, but it was only evident in the quiet closing and unclosing of his hand.
They stood for a few moments without speaking. Then she opened the miniature, and when she saw that he observed it she said, very slowly,
“Is it quite fair, Mr. Newt?”
“Mrs. Simcoe,” he replied, inquiringly.
His firm, low voice reassured her.
“Why do you come here so often?” asked she.
“To help Miss Hope.”
“Is it necessary that you should come?”
“She wishes it.”
“Why?”
He paused a moment. Mrs. Simcoe continued:
“Lawrence Newt, at least let us be candid with each other. By the memory of the dead—by the common sorrow we have known, there should be no cloud between us about Hope Wayne. I use your own words. Tell me what you feel as frankly as you feel it.”
There was simple truth in the earnest face before him. While she was speaking she raised her hand involuntarily to her breast, and gasped as if she were suffocating. Her words were calm, and he answered,
“I waited, for I did not know how to answer—nor do I now.”
“And yet you have had some impression—some feeling—some conviction. Yon know whether it is necessary that you should come—whether she wants you for an hour’s chat, as an old friend—or—or”—she waited a moment, and added—“or as something else.”
As Lawrence Newt stood before her he remembered curiously his interview with Aunt Martha, but he could not say to Mrs. Simcoe what he had said to her.
“What can I say?” he asked at length, in a troubled voice.
“Lawrence Newt, say if you think she loves you, and tell me,” she said, drawing herself erect and back from him, as in the twilight of the old library at Pinewood, while her thin finger was pointed upward—“tell me, as you will be judged hereafter—me, to whom her mother gave her as she died, knowing that she loved you.”
Her voice died away, overpowered by emotion. She still looked at him, and suspicion, incredulity, and scorn were mingled in her look, while her uplifted finger still shook, as if appealing to Heaven. Then she asked abruptly, and fiercely,
“To which, in the name of God, are you false—the mother or the daughter?”
“Stop!” replied Lawrence Newt, in a tone so imperious that the hand of his companion fell at her side, and the scorn and suspicion faded from her eyes. “Mrs. Simcoe, there are things that even you must not say. You have lived alone with a great sorrow; you are too swift; you are unjust. Even if I had known what you ask about Miss Hope, I am not sure that I should have done differently. Certainly, while I did not know—while, at most, I could only suspect, I could do nothing else. I have feared rather than believed—nor that, until very lately. Would it have been kind, or wise, or right to have staid away altogether, when, as you know, I constantly meet her at our little Club? Was I to say, ‘Miss Hope, I see you love me, but I do not love you?’ And what right had I to hint the same thing by my actions, at the cost of utter misapprehension and pain to her? Mrs. Simcoe, I do love Hope Wayne too tenderly, and respect her too truly, not to try to protect her against the sting of her own womanly pride. And so I have not staid away. I have not avoided a woman in whom I must always have so deep and peculiar an interest, I have been friend and almost father, and never by a whisper even, by a look, by a possible hint, have I implied any thing more.”
His voice trembled as he spoke. He had no right to be silent any longer, and as he finished Mrs. Simcoe took his hand.
“Forgive me! I love her so dearly—and I too am a woman.”
She sank upon the sofa as she spoke, and covered her face for a little while. The tears stole quietly down her cheeks. Lawrence Newt stood by her sadly, for his mind was deeply perplexed. They both remained for some time without speaking, until Mrs. Simcoe asked,
“What can we do?”
Lawrence Newt shook his head doubtfully.
They were silent again. At length Mrs. Simcoe said:
“I will do it.”
“What?” asked Lawrence.
“What I have been meaning to do for a long, long time,” replied the other. “I will tell her the story.”
An indefinable expression settled upon Lawrence Newt’s face as she spoke.
“Has she never asked?” he inquired.
“Often; but I have always avoided telling.”
“It had better be done. It is the only way. But I hoped it would never be necessary. God bless us all!”
He moved toward the door when he had finished, but not until he had shaken her warmly by the hand.
“You will come as before?” she said.
“Of course, there will not be the slightest change on my part. And, Mrs. Simcoe, remember that next week, certainly, I shall meet Miss Hope at Miss Amy Waring’s. Our first meeting had better be there, so before then please—”
He bowed and went out. As he passed the library door he involuntarily looked in. There sat Hope Wayne, reading; but as she heard him she raised the head of golden hair, the dewy cheeks, the thoughtful brow, and as she bowed to him the clear blue eyes smiled the words her tongue uttered—
“Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!”
The words followed him out of the door and down the street. The air rang with them every where. The people he passed seemed to look at him as if they were repeating them. Distant echoes caught them up and whispered them. He heard no noise of carriages, no loud city hum; he only heard, fainter and fainter, softer and softer, sadder and sadder, and ever following on, “Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!”
CHAPTER LXXIII. — THE BELCH PLATFORM.
“My dear Newt, as a friend who has the highest respect for you, and the firmest faith in your future, I am sure you will allow me to say one thing.”
“Oh! certainly, my dear Belch; say two,” replied Abel, with the utmost suavity, as he sat at table with General Belch.
“I have no peculiar ability, I know,” continued the other, “but I have, perhaps, a little more experience than you. We old men, you know, always plume ourselves upon experience, which we make do duty for all the virtues and talents.”
“And it is trained for that service by being merely a synonym for a knowledge of all the sins and rascalities,” said Abel, smiling, as he blew rings of smoke and passed the decanter to General Belch.
“True,” replied the other; “very true. I see, my dear Newt, that you have had your eyes and your mind open. And since we are going to act together—since, in fact, we are interested in the same plans—”
“And principles,” interrupted Abel, laying his head back, and looking with half-closed eyes at the vanishing smoke.
“Oh yes, I was coming to that—in the same plans and principles, it is well that we should understand each other perfectly.”
General Belch paused, looked at Abel, and took snuff.
“I think we do already,” replied Abel.
“Still there are one or two points to which I would call your attention. One is, that you can not be too careful of what you say, in regard to its bearing upon the party; and the other is, a general rule that the Public is an ass, but you must never let it know you think so. If there is one thing which the party has practically proved, it is that the people have no will of their own, but are sheep in the hands of the shepherd.”
The General took snuff again.
“The Public, then, is an ass and a sheep?” inquired Abel.
“Yes,” said the General, “an ass in capacity, and in preference of a thistle diet; a sheep in gregarious and stupid following. You say ‘Ca, ca, ca,’ when you want a cow to follow you; and you say ‘Glorious old party,’ and ‘Intelligence of the people,’ and ‘Preference of truth to victory,’ and so forth, when you want the people to follow you.”
“An ass, a sheep, and a cow,” said Abel. “To what other departments of natural history do the people belong, General?”
“Adders,” returned Belch, sententiously.
“How so?” asked Abel, amused.
“Because they are so cold and ungrateful,” said the General.
“As when, for instance,” returned Abel, “the Honorable Watkins Bodley, having faithfully served his constituency, is turned adrift by—by—the people.”
He looked at Belch and laughed. The fat nose of the General glistened.
“No, no,” said he, “your illustration is at fault. He did not faithfully serve his constituency. He was not sound upon the great Grant question.”
The two gentlemen laughed together and filled their glasses.
“No, no,” resumed the General, “never forget that the great thing is drill—discipline. Keep the machinery well oiled, and your hand upon the crank, and all goes well.”
“Until somebody knocks off your hand,” said Abel.
“Yes, of course—of course; but that is the very point. The fight is never among the sheep, but only among the shepherds. Look at our splendid system, beginning with Tom, Jim, and Ned, and culminating in the President—the roots rather red and unsightly, but oh! such a pretty flower, all broadcloth, kid gloves, and affability—contemplate the superb machinery,” continued the General, warming, “the primaries, the ward committees, the—in fact, all the rest of it—see how gloriously it works—the great result of the working of the whole is—”
“To establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” interrupted Abel, who had been scanning the Constitution, and who delivered the words with a rhetorical pomp of manner.
General Belch smiled approvingly.
“That’s it—that’s the very tone. You’ll do. The great result is, who shall have his hand on the crank. And there are, therefore, always three parties in our beloved country.”
Abel looked inquiringly.
“First, the ins, who are in two parties—the clique that have, and the clique that haven’t. They fight like fury among themselves, but when they meet t’other great party they all fight together, because the hopes of the crank for each individual of each body lie in the party itself, and in their obedience to its discipline. These are two of the parties. Then there is the great party of the outs, who have a marvelous unanimity, and never break up into quarrelsome bodies until there is a fair chance of their ousting the ins. I say these things not because they are not pretty obvious, but because, as a man of fashion and society, you have probably not attended to such matters. It’s dirty work for a gentleman. But I suppose any of us would be willing to pick a gold eagle out of the mud, even if we did soil our fingers.”
“Of course,” replied Abel, in a tone that General Belch did not entirely comprehend—“of course no gentleman knows any thing of politics. Gentlemen are the natural governors of a country; and where they are not erected into a hereditary governing class, self-respect forbids them to mix with inferior men—so they keep aloof from public affairs. Good Heavens! what gentleman would be guilty of being an alderman in this town! Why, as you know, my dear Belch, nothing but my reduced circumstances induces me to go to Congress. By-the-by—”
“Well, what is it?” asked the General.
“I’m dreadfully hard up,” said Abel. “I have just the d——est luck you ever conceived, and I must raise some money.”
The fat nose glistened again, while the General sat silently pondering.
“I can lend you a thousand,” he said, at length.
“Thank you. It will oblige me very much.”
“Upon conditions,” added the General.
“Conditions?” asked Abel, surprised.
“I mean understandings,” said the General.
“Oh! certainly,” answered Abel.
“You pledge yourself to me and our friends that you will at the earliest moment move in the matter of the Grant; you engage to secure the votes somehow, relying upon the pecuniary aid of our friends who are interested; and you will repay me out of your first receipts. Ele will stand by you through thick and thin. We keep him there for that purpose.”
“My dear Belch, I promise any thing you require. I only want the money.”
“Give me your hand, Newt. From the bottom of my soul I do respect a man who has no scruples.”
They shook hands heartily, and filling their glasses they drank “Success!” The General then wrote a check and a little series of instructions, which he gave to Abel, while Abel himself scribbled an I.O.U., which the General laid in his pocket-book.
“You’ll have an eye on, Ele,” said the General, as he buttoned his coat.
“Certainly—two if you want,” answered Abel, lazily, repeating the joke.
“He’s a good fellow, Ele is,” said Belch; “but he’s largely interested, and he’ll probably try to chouse us out of something by affecting superior influence. You must patronize him to the other men. Keep him well under. I have a high respect for cellar stairs, but they mustn’t try to lead up to the roof. Good-by. Hail Newt! Senator that shall be!” laughed the General, as he shook hands and followed his fat nose out of the door.
Left to himself, Abel walked for some time up and down his room, with his hands buried in his pocket and a sneering smile upon his face. He suddenly drew one hand out, raised it, clenched it, and brought it down heavily in the air, as he muttered, contemptuously,
“What a stupid fool! I wonder if he never thinks, as he looks in the glass, that that fat nose of his is made to lead him by.”
For the sagacious and fat-nosed General had omitted to look at the little paper Newt handed to him, thinking it would be hardly polite to do so under the circumstances. But if he had looked he would have seen that the exact sum they had spoken of had been forgotten, and a very inconsiderable amount was specified.
It had flashed across Abel’s mind in a moment that if the General subsequently discovered it and were disposed to make trouble, the disclosure of the paper of instructions which he had written, and which Abel had in his possession, would ruin his hopes of political financiering. “And as for my election, why, I have my certificate in my pocket.”
CHAPTER LXXIV. — MIDNIGHT.
Gradually the sneer faded from Abel’s face, and he walked up and down the room, no longer carelessly, but fitfully; stopping sometimes—again starting more rapidly—then leaning against the mantle, on which the clock pointed to midnight—then throwing himself into a chair or upon a sofa; and so, rising again, walked on.
His head bent forward—his eyes grew rounder and harder, and seemed to be burnished with the black, bad light; his step imperceptibly grew stealthy—he looked about him carefully—he stood erect and breathless to listen—bit his nails, and walked on.
The clock upon the mantle pointed to half an hour after midnight. Abel Newt went into his chamber and put on his slippers. He lighted a candle, and looked carefully under the bed and in the closet. Then he drew the shades over the windows and went out into the other room, closing and locking the door behind him.
He glided noiselessly to the door that opened into the entry, and locked that softly and bolted it carefully. Then he turned the key so that the wards filled the keyhole, and taking out his handkerchief he hung it over the knob of the door, so that it fell across the keyhole, and no eye could by any chance have peered into the room.
He saw that the blinds of the windows were closed, the windows shut and locked, and the linen shades drawn over them. He also let fall the heavy damask curtains, so that the windows were obliterated from the room. He stood in the centre of the room and looked to every corner where, by any chance, a person might be concealed.
Then, moving upon tip-toe, he drew a key from his pocket and fitted it into the lid of a secretary. As he turned it in the lock the snap of the bolt made him start. He was haggard, even ghastly, as he stood, letting the lid back slowly, lest it should creak or jar. With another key he opened a little drawer, and involuntarily looking behind him as he did so, he took out a small piece of paper, which he concealed in his hand.
Seating himself at the secretary, he put the candle before him, and remained for a moment with his face slightly strained forward with a startling intentness of listening. There was no sound but the regular ticking of the clock upon the mantle. He had not observed it before, but now he could hear nothing else.
Tick, tick—tick, tick. It had a persistent, relentless, remorseless regularity. Tick, tick—tick, tick. Every moment it appeared to be louder and louder. His brow wrinkled and his head bent forward more deeply, while his eyes were set straight before him. Tick, tick—tick, tick. The solemn beat became human as he listened. He could not raise his head—he could not turn his eyes. He felt as if some awful shape stood over him with destroying eyes and inflexible tongue. But struggling, without moving, as a dreamer wrestles with the nightmare, he presently sprang bolt upright—his eyes wide and wild—the sweat oozing upon his ghastly forehead—his whole frame weak and quivering. With the same suddenness he turned defiantly, clenching his fists, in act to spring.
There was nothing there. He saw only the clock—the gilt pendulum regularly swinging—he heard only the regular tick, tick—tick, tick.
A sickly smile glimmered on his face as he stepped toward the mantle, still clutching the paper in his hand, but crouching as he came, and leering, as if to leap upon an enemy unawares. Suddenly he started as if struck—a stifled shriek of horror burst from his lips—he staggered back—his hand opened—the paper fell fluttering to the floor. Abel Newt had unexpectedly seen the reflection of his own face in the mirror that covered the chimney behind the clock.
He recovered himself, swore bitterly, and stooped to pick up the paper. Then with sullen bravado, still staring at his reflection in the glass, he took off the glass shade of the clock, touched the pendulum and stopped it; then turning his back, crept to his chair, and sat down again.
The silence was profound, not a sound was audible but the creaking of his clothes as he leaned heavily against the edge of the desk and drew his agitated breath. He raised the candle and bent his gloomy face over the paper which he held before him. It was a note of his late firm indorsed by Lawrence Newt & Co. He gazed at his uncle’s signature intently, studying every line, every dot—so intently that it seemed as if his eyes would burn it. Then putting down the candle and spreading the name before him, he drew a sheet of tissue paper from a drawer and placed it over it. The writing was perfectly legible—the finest stroke showed through the thin tissue. He filled a pen and carefully drew the lines of the signature upon the tissue paper—then raised it—the fac-simile was perfect.
Taking a thicker piece of paper, he laid the note before him, and slowly, carefully, copied the signature. The result was a resemblance, but nothing more. He held the paper in the flame of the candle until it was consumed. He tried again. He tried many times. Each trial was a greater success.
Tearing a check from his book he filled the blanks and wrote below the name of Lawrence Newt & Co., and found, upon comparison with the indorsement, that it was very like. Abel Newt grinned; his lips moved: he was muttering “Dear Uncle Lawrence.”
He stopped writing, and carefully burned, as before, the check and all the paper. Then covering his face with his hands as he sat, he said to himself, as the hot, hurried thoughts flickered through his mind,
“Yes, yes, Mrs. Lawrence Newt, I shall not be master of Pinewood, but I shall be of your husband, and he will be master of your property. Practice makes perfect. Dear Uncle Lawrence shall be my banker.”
His brain reeled and whirled as he sat. He remembered the words of his friend the General: “Abel Newt was not born to fail.”
“No, by God!” he shouted, springing up, and clenching his hands.
He staggered. The walls of the room, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture heaved and rolled before his eyes. In the wild tumult that overwhelmed his brain as if he were sinking in gurgling whirlpools—the peaceful lawn of Pinewood—the fight with Gabriel—the running horses—the “Farewell forever, Miss Wayne”—the shifting chances of his subsequent life—Grace Plumer blazing with diamonds—the figure of his father drumming with white fingers upon his office-desk—Lawrence and Gabriel pushing him out—they all swept before his consciousness in the moment during which he threw out his hands wildly, clutched at the air, and plunged headlong upon the floor, senseless.
CHAPTER LXXV. — REMINISCENCE.
On the very evening that General Belch and Abel Newt were sitting together, smoking, taking snuff, sipping wine, and discussing the great principles that should control the action of American legislators and statesmen, Hope Wayne and Mrs. Simcoe sat together in their pleasant drawing-room talking of old times. The fire crackled upon the hearth, and the bright flames flickering through the room brought out every object with fitful distinctness. The lamp was turned almost out—for they found it more agreeable to sit in a twilight as they spoke of the days which seemed to both of them to be full of subdued and melancholy light. They sat side by side; Hope leaning her cheek upon her hand, and gazing thoughtfully into the fire; Mrs. Simcoe turned partly toward her, and occasionally studying her face, as if peculiarly anxious to observe its expression.
It might have happened in many ways that they were speaking of the old times. The older woman may have intentionally led the conversation in that direction for some ulterior purpose she had in view. Or what is more likely than that the young woman should constantly draw her friend and guardian to speak of days and people connected with her own life, but passed before her memory had retained them?
After a long interval, as if, when she had once broken her reserve about her life, she must pour out all her experience, Mrs. Simcoe began:
“When I was twenty years old, living with my father, a poor farmer in the country, there came to pass the summer in the village a gentleman, a good deal older than I. He was handsome, graceful, elegant, fascinating. I saw him at church, but he did not see me. Then I met him sometimes upon the road, idly sauntering along, swinging a little cane, and looking as if village life were fatiguing. He seemed at length to observe me. One day he bowed. I said nothing, but hurried on. When I was a little beyond him I turned my head. He also was turning and looking at me.
“I was old enough to know why I turned. Yes, and so was he. How well I remember the peaceful western light that fell along the fields and touched the trees so kindly! Every thing was still. The birds dropped hurrying homeward notes, and the cows were coming in from the pasture. I was going after our cow, but I leaned a long time on the bars and looked at the new moon timidly showing herself in the west. Then I looked at my clumsy gown, and thick shoes, and large hands, and thought of the graceful, elegant man, who had not bowed to me insolently. I imagined that a gentleman used to city life must find our country ways tiresome. I pitied him, but what could I do?
“Once in the meadows I was following up the brook to find cardinal flowers. The brook wound through a little wood; and as I was passing, looking closely among the flags and pickerel-wood, I suddenly heard a voice close to me—‘The lobelia blossoms are further on, Miss Jane.’ I knew instantly who it was, and I was conscious of being more scarlet than the flowers I was seeking.
“Well, dear,” said Mrs. Simcoe, after pausing for a few moments, “I can not repeat every detail. The time came when I was not afraid to speak to him—when I cared to speak to no one else—when I thought of him all day and dreamed of him all night—when I wore the ribbons he praised, and the colors he loved, and the flowers he gave me; when he told me of the great life beyond the village, of lofty and beautiful women he had known, of wise men he had seen, of the foreign countries he had visited—when he twined my hair around his finger and said, ‘Jane, I love you!’”
Her eyes were excited, and her voice was hurried, but inexpressibly sad. Hope sat by, and the tears flowed from her eyes.
“A long, long time. Yet it was only a few months—it was only a summer. He came in May, and was gone again in November. But between his coming and going the roses in our garden blossomed and withered. So you see there was time enough. Time enough! Time enough! I was heavenly happy.
“One day he said that he must go. There was some frightful trouble in his eye. ‘Will you come back?’ I asked. I tremble to remember how sternly I asked it, and how cold and bloodless I felt. ‘So help me God!’ he answered, and left me. Left me! ‘So help me God!’ he murmured, as his tears fell upon my cheek and he kissed me. ‘So help me God!’—and he left me. Not a word, not a look, not a sign had he given me to suppose that he would not return; not a thought, not a wish had he breathed to me that you might not hear. His miniature hung in a locket around my neck, even as my whole heart and soul hung upon his love. ‘So help me God!’ he whispered, and left me.
“He did not come back. I thought my heart was frozen. My mother sighed as she went on with her hard, incessant work. My father tried to be cheerful. ‘Cry, girl, cry,’ my mother said; ‘only cry, and you’ll be better.’ I could not cry; I could not smile. I could do nothing but help her silently in the long, hard work, day after day, summer and winter. I read the books he had given me. I thought of the things he had said. I sat in my chamber when the floor was scrubbed, and the bread baked, and the dishes washed, and the flies buzzed in the hot, still kitchen. I can hear them now. And there I sat, looking out of my window, straining my eyes toward the horizon—sometimes sure that I heard him coming, clicking the gate, hurrying up the gravel, with his eager, handsome, melancholy face. I started up. My heart stood still. I was ready to fall upon his breast and say, ‘I believe ‘twas all right.’ He did not come. ‘So help me God!’ he said, and did not come.
“My father brought me to New York to change the scene. But God had brought me here to change my heart. I heard one Sunday good old Bishop Asbury, and he began the work that Summerfield sealed. My parents presently died. They left nothing, and I was the only child. I did what I could, and at last I became your grandfather’s housekeeper.”
As her story proceeded Mrs. Simcoe looked more and more anxiously at Hope, whose eyes were fixed upon her incessantly. The older woman paused at this point, and, taking Hope’s face between her hands, smoothed her hair, and kissed her.
“Your grandfather had a daughter Mary.”
“My mother,” said Hope, earnestly.
“Your mother, darling. She was as beautiful but as delicate as a flower. The doctors said a long salt voyage would strengthen her. So your grandfather sent her in the ship of one of his friends to India. In India she staid several weeks, and met a young man of her own age, clerk in a house there. Of course they were soon engaged. But he was young, not yet in business, and she knew the severity of your grandfather and his ambition for her. At length the ship returned, and your mother returned in it. Scarcely was she at home a month than your grandfather told me that he had a connection in view for his daughter, and wanted me to prepare her to receive the addresses of a gentleman a good deal older than she, but of the best family, and in every way a desirable husband. He was himself getting old, he said, and it was necessary that his daughter should marry. Your mother loved me dearly, as I did her. Gentle soul, with her soft, dark, appealing eyes, with her flower-like fragility and womanly dependence. Ah me! it was hard that your grandfather should have been her parent.
“She was stunned when I told her. I thought her grief was only natural, and I was surprised at the sudden change in her. She faded before our eyes. We could not cheer her. But she made no effort to resist. She did not refuse to see her suitor; she did not say that she loved any one else. I think she had a mortal fear of her father, and, dear soul! she could not do any thing that required resolution.
“One day your grandfather said at dinner, ‘To-morrow, Miss Mary, your new friend will be here.’
“All night she lay awake, trembling and tearful; and at morning she rose like a spectre. The stranger arrived. Mary kept her room until dinner-time. Then we both went down to see the new-comer. He was in the library with your grandfather, and was engaged in telling him some very amusing story when we came in, for your grandfather was laughing heartily. They both rose upon seeing us.
“‘Colonel Wayne, my daughter,’ said your grandfather, waving his hand toward her. He bowed—she sank, spectre-like, into a chair.
“‘Mrs. Simcoe, Colonel Wayne.’
“Our eyes met. It was my lover. He was too much amazed to bow. But in a moment he recovered himself, smiled courteously, and seated himself; for he saw at once what place I filled in the household. I said nothing. I remember that I sank into a chair and looked at him. He was older, but the same charm still hovered about his person. His voice had the same secret music, and his movement that careless grace which seemed to spring from the consciousness of power. I was conscious of only two things—that I loved him, and that he was unworthy the love of any woman.
“During dinner he made two or three observations to me. But I bowed and said nothing. I think I was morally stunned, and the whole scene seemed to me to be unreal. After a few days he made a formal offer of his hand to Mary Burt. Poor child! Poor child! She trembled, hesitated, fluttered, delayed. ‘You must; you shall!’ were the terrible words she heard from her parent. She dreaded to tell the truth, lest he should force a summary marriage. Hope, my child, you could have resisted—so could I; she could not. ‘Only, dear father,’ she said, ‘I am so young. Let me not be married for a year.’ Her father laughed and assented, and I think she instantly wrote to her lover in India.
“People came driving out to congratulate. ‘Such a reasonable connection!’ every body said; ‘a military man of fine old family. It is really delightful to have a union sometimes take place in which all the conditions are satisfactory.’
“All the time his miniature hung round my neck. Why? Because, in the bottom of my soul, I still believed him. I had heard him say, So help me God!’
“He went away, and sometimes returned for a week. I was comforted by seeing that he did not love your mother, and by the confidence I had that she would not marry him. I was sure that something would happen to prevent.
“The year was coming round. One night your mother appeared in my room in her night-dress; her face was radiant, and she held a note in her hand. It was from her lover. He had thrown himself upon a ship when her letter reached him, and here he was close at hand. Full of generous ardor, he proposed to marry her privately at once; there was no other way, he was sure.
“‘Will you help us?’ she said, after she had told me every thing.
“‘But you are two such children,’ I said.
“‘Then you will not help. You will make me marry Colonel Wayne.’
“I tried to see the matter calmly. I sought the succor of God. I do not say that I did just what I should have done, but I helped them. The heart is weak, and perhaps I was the more willing to help, because the fulfillment of her plan would prevent her becoming the wife of Colonel Wayne. The time was arranged when she was to go away. I was to accompany her, and she was to be married.
“The lover came. It was a June night; the moon was full. We went quietly along the avenue. The gate was opened. We were just passing through when your grandfather and Colonel Wayne suddenly stepped from the shadow of the wall and the trees.
“Your mother and her lover stood perfectly still. She gave a little cry. Your grandfather was furious.
“‘Go, Sir!’ he shrieked at the young man.
“‘If your daughter commands it,’ he replied.
“Your grandfather seized him involuntarily.
“‘Sir, my daughter is the betrothed wife of Colonel Wayne.’
“The young man looked with an incredulous smile at your mother, who had sunk senseless into my arms, and said, in a low voice,
“‘She was mine before she ever saw him.’
“Your grandfather actually hissed at him with contempt.
“‘Go—before I strike you!’
“The young man hesitated for a few moments, saw that it was useless to remain longer at that time, and went.
“The next day Mr. Burt sent for Dr. Peewee.
“The moment I knew what he intended to do I ran to your grandfather and told him that Colonel Wayne was not a fit husband for his daughter. But when I told him that the Colonel had deserted me, Mr. Burt laughed scornfully.
“‘You, Mrs. Simcoe? Why, you have lost your wits. Remember, Colonel Wayne is a gentleman of the oldest family, and you are—you were—’
“‘I was a poor country girl,’ said I, ‘and Colonel Wayne loved me, and I loved him, and here is the pledge and proof of it.’
“I drew out his miniature as I spoke, and held it before your grandfather’s eyes. He fairly staggered, and rang the bell violently.
“‘Call Colonel Wayne,’ he said, hastily, to the servant.
“In a moment the Colonel came in. I saw his color change as his eye fell upon me, holding the locket in my hand, and upon your grandfather’s flushed face.
“‘Colonel Wayne, have you ever seen Mrs. Simcoe before?’
“He was very pale, and there were sallow circles under his eyes as he spoke; but he said, calmly,
“‘Not to my knowledge.’
“Scorn made me icily calm.
“‘Who gave me that, Sir?’ said I, thrusting the miniature almost into his face.
“He took it in his hand and looked at it. I saw his lip work and his throat quiver with an involuntary spasm.
“‘I am sure I do not know.’
“I was speechless. Your grandfather was confounded. Colonel Wayne looked white, but resolute.
“‘God only is my witness,’ said I, slowly, as if the words came gasping from my heart. ‘So help me God, I loved him, and he loved me.’
“A quiver ran through his frame as I spoke, but he preserved the same placidity of face.
“‘There is some mistake, Mrs. Simcoe,’ said your grandfather, not unkindly, to me. ‘Go to your room.’
“I obeyed, for my duty was done.”
Mrs. Simcoe paused, and rocked silently to and fro. Hope took her hand and kissed it reverently. Presently the narration was quietly resumed:
“I told your mother my story. But she was stunned by her own grief, and I do not think she comprehended me. Dr. Peewee came, and she was married. Your mother did not say yes—for she could not utter a word—but the ceremony proceeded. I heard the words, ‘Whom God hath joined together,’ and I laughed aloud, and fell fainting.
“It was a few days after the marriage, when Colonel Wayne and his wife were absent, that your grandfather said to me,
“‘Mrs. Simcoe, your story seems to be true. But think a moment. A man like Colonel Wayne must have had many experiences. We all do. He has been rash, and foolish, and thoughtless, I have no doubt. He may even have trifled with your feelings. I am very sorry. If he has done so, I think he ought to have acknowledged it the other day. But I hope sincerely that we shall all let by-gones be by-gones, and live happily together. Ah! I see dinner is ready. Good-day, Mrs. Simcoe. Dr. Peewee, will you ask a blessing?’”
It was already midnight, and the two women sat before the fire. It was the moment when Abel Newt was stealing through his rooms, fastening doors and windows. Hope Wayne was pale and cold like a statue as she listened to the voice of Mrs. Simcoe, which had a wailing tone pitiful to hear. After a long silence she began again:
“What ought I to have done? Should I have gone away? That was the easiest course. But, Hope, the way of duty is not often the easiest way. I wrote a long letter to the good old Bishop Asbury, who seemed to me like a father, and after a while his answer came. He told me that I should seek the Lord’s leading, and if that bade me stay—if that told me that it would be for my soul’s blessing that my heart should break daily—then I had better remain, seeing that the end is not here—that here we have no continuing city, and that our proud hearts must be bruised by grief, even as our Saviour’s lowly forehead was pierced with thorns.
“So I staid. It was partly pity for your mother, who began to droop at once. It was partly that I might keep my wound bleeding for my soul’s salvation; and partly—I see it now, but I could not then—because I believed, as before God I do now believe, that in his secret heart I was the woman your father loved, and I could not give him up.
“Your mother’s lover wrote to me at once, I discovered afterward, but his letters were intercepted, for your grandfather was a shrewd, resolute man. Then he came to Pinewood, but he was not allowed to see your mother. The poor boy was frantic; but before he could effect any thing your mother was the wife of Colonel Wayne. Then, in the same ship in which he had come from India, he returned; and after he was gone all his letters were given to me. I wrote to him at once. I told him every thing about your mother, but there was not much to tell. She never mentioned his name after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding, and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the waving ivy to the oak.
“She did not cling long. She was just nineteen when she was married—she was not twenty when you were born—she was just twenty when they buried her. Oh! I did not think of myself only, but of her, when I heard the saintly youth breathe that plaintive prayer, ‘Draw them to thee, for they wearily labor: they are heavily laden, gracious Father! oh, give them rest!’