Kitabı oku: «Cynthia Wakeham's Money», sayfa 6
XI.
LOVE
Frank's next business was to read the packet of letters which had been found in old Mrs. Wakeham's bed. The box abstracted by Huckins had been examined during his absence and found to contain securities, which, together with the ready money and papers taken from the clock, amounted to so many thousands that it had become quite a serious matter to find the heir. Huckins still clung to the house, but he gave no trouble. He was satisfied, he said, to abide by the second will, being convinced that if he were patient he would yet inherit through it. His sister Harriet was without doubt dead, and he professed great willingness to give any aid possible in verifying the fact. But as he could adduce no proofs nor suggest any clue to the discovery of this sister's whereabouts if living, or of her grave if dead, his offers were disregarded, and he was allowed to hermitize in the old house undisturbed.
Meantime, false clues came in and false claims were raised by various needy adventurers. To follow up these clues and sift these claims took much of Frank Etheridge's time, and when he was not engaged upon this active work he employed himself in reading those letters to which I have already alluded.
They were of old date and were from various sources. But they conveyed little that was likely to be of assistance to him. Of the twenty he finally read, only one was signed Harriet, and while that was very interesting to him, as giving some glimpses into the early history of this woman, it did not give him any facts upon which either he or the police could work. I will transcribe the letter here:
"My Dear Cynthia:
"You are the only one of the family to whom I dare write. I have displeased father too much to ever hope for his forgiveness, while mother will never go against his wishes, even if the grief of it should make me die. I am very unhappy, I can tell you that, more unhappy than even they could wish, but they must never know it, never. I have still enough pride to wish to keep my misery to myself, and it would be just the one thing that would make my burden unbearable, to have them know I regretted the marriage on account of which I have been turned away from their hearts and home forever. But I do regret it, Cynthia, from the bottom of my heart. He is not kind, and he is not a gentleman, and I made a terrible mistake, as you can see. But I do not think I was to blame. He seemed so devoted, and used to make me such beautiful speeches that I never thought to ask if he were a good man; and when father and mother opposed him so bitterly that we had to meet by stealth, he was always so considerate, and yet so determined, that he seemed to me like an angel till we were married, and then it was too late to do anything but accept my fate. I think he expected father to forgive us and take us home, and when he found these expectations false he became both ugly and sullen, and so my life is nothing but a burden to me, and I almost wish I was dead. But I am very strong, and so is he, and so we are likely to live on, pulling away at the chain that binds us, till both are old and gray.
"Pretty talk for a young girl's reading, is it not? But it relieves me to pour out my heart to some one that loves me, and I know that you do. But I shall never talk like this to you again or ever write you another letter. You are my father's darling, and I want you to remain so, and if you think too much of me, or spend your time in writing to me, he will find it out, and that will help neither of us. So good-by, little Cynthia, and do not be angry that I put a false address at the top of the page, or refuse to tell you where I live, or where I am going. From this hour Harriet is dead to you, and nothing shall ever induce me to break the silence which should remain between us but my meeting you in another world, where all the follies of this will be forgotten in the love that has survived both life and death.
"Your sorrowing but true sister,"Harriet."
The date was forty years back, and the address was New York City – an address which she acknowledged to be false. The letter was without envelope.
The only other allusion to this sister found in the letters was in a short note written by a person called Mary, and it ran thus:
"Do you know whom I have seen? Your sister Harriet. It was in the depot at New Haven. She was getting off the train and I was getting on, but I knew her at once for all the change which ten years make in the most of us, and catching her by the arm, I cried, 'Harriet, Harriet, where are you living?' How she blushed and what a start she gave! but as soon as she saw who it was she answered readily enough, 'In Marston,' and disappeared in the crowd before I could say another word. Wasn't it a happy chance, and isn't it a relief to know she is alive and well. As for her looks, they were quite lively, and she wore nice clothing like one in very good circumstances. So you see her marriage did not turn out as badly as some thought."
This was of old date also, and gave no clue to the sender, save such as was conveyed by the signature Mary. Mary what? Mr. Huckins was the only person who was likely to know.
Frank, who had but little confidence in this man and none in his desire to be of use in finding the legal heir, still thought it best to ask him if there was any old friend of the family whose first name was Mary. So he went to Flatbush one afternoon, and finding the old miser in his house, put to him this question and waited for his reply.
It came just as he expected, with a great show of willingness that yet was without any positive result.
"Mary? Mary?" he repeated, "we have known a dozen Marys. Do you mean any one belonging to this town?"
"I mean some one with whom your sister was intimate thirty years ago. Some one who knew your other sister, the one who married Smith; some one who would simply sign her first name in writing to Mrs. Wakeham, and who in speaking of Mrs. Smith would call her Harriet."
"Ah!" ejaculated the cautious Huckins, dropping his eyes for fear they would convey more than his tongue might deem fit. "I'm afraid I was too young in those days to know much about my sister's friends. Can you tell me where she lived, or give me any information beyond her first name by which I could identify her?"
"No," was the lawyer's quick retort; "if I could I should not need to consult you; I could find the woman myself."
"Ah, I see, I see, and I wish I could help you, but I really don't know whom you mean, I don't indeed, sir. May I ask where you got the name, and why you want to find the woman?"
"Yes, for it involves your prospects. This Mary, whoever she may have been, was the one to tell Mrs. Wakeham that Harriet Smith lived in Marston. Doesn't that jog your memory, Huckins? You know you cannot inherit the property till it is proved that Harriet is dead and left no heirs."
"I know," he whined, and looked quite disconsolate, but he gave the lawyer no information, and Frank left at last with the feeling that he had reached the end of his rope.
As a natural result, his thoughts turned to Marston – were they ever far away from there? "I will go and ease my heart of some of its burden," thought he; "perhaps my head may be clearer then, and my mind freer for work." Accordingly he took the train that day, and just as the dew of evening began to fall, he rode into Marston and stopped at Miss Cavanagh's door.
He found Hermione sitting at an old harp. She did not seem to have been playing but musing, and her hands hung somewhat listlessly upon the strings. As she rose the instrument gave out a thrilling wail that woke an echo in his sensibilities for which he was not prepared. He had considered himself in a hopeful frame of mind, and behold, he was laboring instead under a morbid fear that his errand would be in vain. Emma was not present, but another lady was, whose aspect of gentle old age was so sweet and winning that he involuntarily bent his head in reverence to her, before Hermione could utter the introduction which was trembling on her tongue.
"My father's sister," said she, "and our very dear aunt. She is quite deaf, so she would not hear you speak if you attempted it, but she reads faces wonderfully, and you see she is smiling at you as she does not smile at every one. You may consider yourself introduced."
Frank, who had a tender heart for all misfortune, surveyed the old lady wistfully. How placid she looked, how at home with her thoughts! It was peacefulness to the spirit to meet her eye. Bowing again, he turned towards Hermione and remarked:
"What a very lovely face! She looks as if she had never known anything but the pleasures of life."
"On the contrary," returned Hermione, "she has never known much but its disappointments. But they have left no trace on her face, or in her nature, I think. She is an embodiment of trust, and in the great silence there is about her, she hears sounds and sees visions which are denied to others. But when did you come to Marston?"
He told her he had just arrived, and, satisfied with the slight look of confusion which mantled her face at this acknowledgment, launched into talk all tending to one end, his love for her. But he did not reach that end immediately; for if the old lady could not hear, she could see, and Frank, for all his impetuosity, possessed sufficient restraint upon himself not to subject himself or Hermione to the criticism of even this most benignant relative. Not till Mrs. Lovell left the room, as she did after a while, – being a very wise old lady as well as mild, – did he allow himself to say:
"There can be but one reason now for my coming to Marston – to see you, Miss Cavanagh; I have no other business here."
"I thought," she began, with some confusion, – evidently she had been taken by surprise, – "that you were looking for some one, a Harriet Smith, I think, whom you had reason to believe once lived here."
"I did come to Marston originally on that errand, but I have so far failed in finding any trace of her in this place that I begin to think we were mistaken in our inferences that she had ever lived here."
"Yet you had reason for thinking that she did," Hermione went on, with the anxiety of one desirous to put off the declaration she probably saw coming.
"Yes; we had reasons, but they prove to have been unfounded."
"Was – was your motive for finding her an important one?" she asked, with some hesitation, and a look of curiosity in her fine eyes.
"Quite; a fortune of some thousands is involved in her discovery. She is heiress to at least a hundred thousand dollars from a sister she has not seen since they were girls together."
"Indeed!" and Hermione's eyes opened in some surprise, then fell before the burning light in his.
"But do not let us talk of a matter that for me is now of secondary interest," cried he, letting the full stream of his ardor find its way. "You are all I can think of now; you, you, whom I have loved since I caught the first glimpse of your face one night through the window yonder. Though I have known you but a little while, and though I cannot hope to have awakened a kindred feeling in you, you have so filled my mind and heart during the few short weeks since I learned your name, that I find it impossible to keep back the words which the sight of your face calls forth. I love you, and I want to guard you from loneliness forever. Will you give me that sweet right?"
"But," she cried, starting to her feet in an excitement that made her face radiantly beautiful, "you do not seem to think of my misfortune, my – "
"Do you mean this scar?" he whispered softly, gliding swiftly to her side. "It is no misfortune in my eyes; on the contrary, I think it endears you to me all the more. I love it, Hermione, because it is a part of you. See how I feel towards it!" and he bent his head with a quick movement, and imprinted a kiss upon the mark she had probably never touched herself but with shrinking.
"Oh!" went up from her lips in a low cry, and she covered her face with her hands in a rush of feeling that was not entirely connected with that moment.
"Did you think I would let that stand in my way?" he asked, with a proud tenderness with which no sensitive woman could fail to be impressed. "It is one reason more for a man to love your beautiful face, your noble manners, your soft white hand. I think half the pleasure would be gone from the prospect of loving you if I did not hope to make you forget what you have perhaps too often remembered."
She dropped her hands, and he saw her eyes fixed upon him with a strange look.
"O how wicked I have been!" she murmured. "And what good men there are in the world!"
He shook his head.
"It is not goodness," he began, but she stopped him with a wave of her hand.
A strange elation seemed to have taken hold of her, and she walked the floor with lifted head and sparkling eye.
"It restores my belief in love," she exclaimed, "and in mankind." And she seemed content just to brood upon that thought.
But he was not; naturally he wished for some assurance from her; so he stepped in her path as she was crossing the room, and, taking her by the hands, said, smilingly:
"Do you know how you can testify your appreciation in a way to make me perfectly happy?"
She shook her head, and tried to draw her hands away.
"By taking a walk, the least walk in the world, beyond that wooden gate."
She shuddered and her hands fell from his.
"You do not know what you ask," said she; then after a moment, "it was that I meant and not the scar, when I spoke of my misfortune. I cannot go outside the garden wall, and I was wrong to listen to your words for a moment, knowing what a barrier this fact raises up between us."
"Hermione, – " he was very serious now, and she gathered up all her strength to meet the questions she knew were coming, – "why cannot you go beyond the garden gate? Cannot you tell me? Or do you hesitate because you are afraid I shall smile at your reasons for this determined seclusion?"
"I am not afraid of your smiling, but I cannot give my reasons. That I consider them good must answer for us both."
"Very well, then, we will let them answer. You need not take the walk I ask, but give me instead another pleasure – your promise to be my wife."
"Your wife?"
"Yes, Hermione."
"With such a secret between us?"
"It will not be a secret long."
"Mr. Etheridge," she cried with emotion, "you do not know the woman you thus honor. If it had been Emma – "
"It is you I love."
"It would have been safe," she went on as if she had not heard him. "She is lovely, and amiable, and constant, and in her memory there is no dark scar as there is in mine, a scar deeper than this," she said, laying her finger on her cheek, "and fully as ineffaceable."
"Some day you will take me into your confidence," he averred, "and then that scar will gradually disappear."
"What confidence you have in me?" she cried. "What have you seen, what can you see in me to make you trust me so in face of my own words?"
"I think it is the look in your eyes. There is purity there, Hermione, and a deep sadness which is too near like sorrow to be the result of an evil action."
"What do you call evil?" she cried. Then suddenly, "I once did a great wrong – in a fit of temper – and I can never undo it, never, yet its consequences are lasting. Would you give your heart to a woman who could so forget herself, and who is capable of forgetting herself again if her passions are roused as they were then?"
"Perhaps not," he acknowledged, "but my heart is already given and I do not know how to take it back."
"Yet you must," said she. "No man with a career before him should marry a recluse, and I am that, whatever else I may or may not be. I would be doing a second ineffaceable wrong if I took advantage of your generous impulse and bound you to a fate that in less than two months would be intolerably irksome to one of your temperament."
"Now you do not know me," he protested.
But she heeded neither his words nor his pleading look.
"I know human nature," she avowed, "and if I do not mingle much with the world I know the passions that sway it. I can never be the wife of any man, Mr. Etheridge, much less of one so generous and so self-forgetting as yourself."
"Do you – are you certain?" he asked.
"Certain."
"Then I have not succeeded in raising one throb of interest in your breast?"
She opened her lips and his heart stood still for her answer, but she closed them again and remained standing so long with her hands locked together and her face downcast, that his hopes revived again, and he was about to put in another plea for her hand when she looked up and said firmly:
"I think you ought to know that my heart does not respond to your suit. It may make any disappointment which you feel less lasting."
He uttered a low exclamation and stepped back.
"I beg your pardon," said he, "I ought not to have annoyed you. You will forget my folly, I hope."
"Do you forget it!" cried she; but her lips trembled and he saw it.
"Hermione! Hermione!" he murmured, and was down at her feet before she could prevent it. "Oh, how I love you!" he breathed, and kissed her hand wildly, passionately.
XII.
HOW MUCH DID IT MEAN?
Frank Etheridge left the presence of Hermione Cavanagh, carrying with him an indelible impression of her slender, white-robed figure and pallid, passion-drawn face. There was such tragedy in the latter, that he shuddered at its memory, and stopped before he reached the gate to ask himself if the feeling she displayed was for him or another. If for another, then was that other Dr. Sellick, and as the name formed itself in his thoughts, he felt the dark cloud of jealousy creep over his mind, obscuring the past and making dangerous the future.
"How can I know," thought he, "how can I know?" and just as the second repetition passed his lips, he heard a soft step near him, and, looking up, saw the gentle Emma watering her flowers.
To gain her side was his first impulse. To obtain her confidence the second. Taking the heavy watering-pot from her hand, he poured its contents on the rose-bush she was tending, and then setting it down, said quietly:
"I have just made your sister very unhappy, Miss Cavanagh."
She started and her soft eyes showed the shadow of an alarm.
"I thought you were her friend," she said.
He drew her around the corner of the house towards the poplar trees. "Had I been only that," he avowed, "I might have spared her pain, but I am more than that, Miss Cavanagh, I am her lover."
The hesitating step at his side paused, and though no great change came into her face, she seemed to have received a shock.
"I can understand," said she, "that you hurt her."
"Is she so wedded to the past, then?" he cried. "Was there some one, is there some one whom she – she – "
He could not finish, but the candid-eyed girl beside him did not profess to misunderstand him. A pitiful smile crossed her lips, and she looked for a minute whiter than her sister had done, but she answered firmly:
"You could easily overcome any mere memory, but the decision she has made never to leave the house, I fear you cannot overcome."
"Does it spring – forgive me if I go beyond the bounds of discretion, but this mystery is driving me mad – does it spring from that past attachment you have almost acknowledged?"
She drooped her head and his heart misgave him. Why should he hurt both these women when his whole feeling towards them was one of kindness and love?
"Pardon me," he pleaded. "I withdraw the question; I had no right to put it."
"Thank you," said she, and looked away from him towards the distant prospect of hill and valley lying before them.
He stood revolving the matter in his disturbed mind.
"I should have been glad to have been the means of happiness to your sister and yourself. Such seclusion as you have imposed upon yourselves seems unnecessary, but if it must be, and this garden wall is destined to be the boundary of your world, it would have been a great pleasure to me to have brought into it some freshness from the life which lies beyond it. But it is destined not to be."
The sad expression in her face changed into one of wistfulness.
"Then you are not coming any more?" said she.
He caught his breath. There was disappointment in her tones and this could mean nothing but regret, and regret meant the loss of something which might have been hope. She felt, then, that he might have won her sister if he had been more patient.
"Do you think it will do for me to come here after your sister has told me that it was useless for me to aspire to her hand?"
She gave him for the first time a glance that had the element of mirthfulness in it.
"Come as my friend," she suggested; then in a more serious mood added: "It is her only chance of happiness, but I do not know that I would be doing right in influencing you to pursue a suit which may not be for yours. You know, or will know after reflection (and I advise you to reflect well), whether an alliance with women situated as we are would be conducive to your welfare. If you decide yes, think that a woman taken by surprise, as my sister undoubtedly was, may not in the first hurried moment of decision know her own mind, but also remember that no woman who has taken such a decision as she has, is cast in the common mould, and that you may but add to your regrets by a persistency she may never fully reward."
Astonished at her manner and still more astonished at the intimation conveyed in her last words, he looked at her as one who would say:
"But you also share her fate and the resolve that made it."
She seemed to understand him.
"Free Hermione," she whispered, "from the shackles she has wound about herself and you will free me."
"Miss Emma," he began, but she put her finger on her lips.
"Hush!" she entreated; "let us not talk any more about it. I have already said what I never meant should pass my lips; but the affection I bear my sister made me forget myself; she does so need to love and be loved."
"And you think I – "
"Ah, sir, you must be the judge of your own chances. You have heard her refusal and must best know just how much it means."
"How much it means!" Long did Frank muse over that phrase, after he had left the sweet girl who had uttered it. As he sat with Edgar at supper, his abstracted countenance showed that he was still revolving the question, though he endeavored to seem at home with his friend and interested in the last serious case which had occupied the attention of the newly settled doctor. How much it means! Not much, he was beginning to say to himself, and insensibly his face began to brighten and his manner to grow less restrained, when Edgar, who had been watching him furtively, broke out:
"Now you are more like yourself. Business responsibilities are as hard to shake off as a critical case in medicine."
"Yes," was the muttered reply, as Frank rose from the table, and took the cigar his friend offered him. "And business with me just now is particularly perplexing. I cannot get any clue to Harriet Smith or her heirs, nor can the police or the presumably sharp detective I have put upon the search."
"That must please Huckins."
"Yes, confound him! such a villain as he is! I sometimes wonder if he killed his sister."
"That you can certainly find out."
"No, for she had a mortal complaint, and that satisfies the physicians. But there are ways of hastening a death, and those I dare avow he would not be above using. The greed in his eyes would do anything; it even suffices to make him my very good friend, now that he sees that he might lose everything by opposing me."
"I am glad you see through his friendship."
"See through a sieve?"
"He plays his part badly, then?"
"He cannot help it, with that face of his; and then he gave himself away in the beginning. No attitude he could take now would make me forget the sneak I saw in him then."
This topic was interesting, but Edgar knew it was no matter of business which had caused the fitful changes he had been observing in Frank's tell-tale countenance. Yet he did not broach any other theme, and it was Frank who finally remarked:
"I suppose you think me a fool to fix my heart on a woman with a secret."
"Fool is a strong word," answered Edgar, somewhat bitterly, "but that you were unfortunate to have been attracted by Hermione Cavanagh, I think any man would acknowledge. You would acknowledge it yourself, if you stopped to weigh the consequences of indulging a passion for a woman so eccentric."
"Perhaps I should, if my interest would allow me to stop. But it won't, Edgar; it has got too strong a hold upon me; everything else sinks in importance before it. I love her, and am willing to sacrifice something for her sake."
"Something, perhaps; but in this case it would be everything."
"I do not think so."
"You do not think so now; but you would soon."
"Perhaps I should, but it is hard to realize it. Besides, she would drop her eccentricities if her affections once became engaged."
"Oh, if you have assurance of that."
"Do I need assurance? Doesn't it stand to reason? A woman loved is so different from a woman – " scorned, he was going to say, but, remembering himself, added softly, "from a woman who has no one to think of but herself."
"This woman has a sister," observed Edgar.
Frank faltered. "Yes, and that sister is involved in her fate," thought he, but he said, quietly: "Emma Cavanagh does not complain of Hermione; on the contrary, she expresses the greatest affection for her."
"They are both mysteries," exclaimed Edgar, and dropped the subject, though it was not half talked out.
Frank was quite willing to accept his silence, for he was out of sorts with his friend and with himself. He knew his passion was a mad one, and yet he felt that it had made giant strides that day, and had really been augmented instead of diminished by the refusal he had received from Hermione, and the encouragement to persistence which he had received from her usually shy sister. As the evening wore on and the night approached, his thoughts not only grew in intensity, but deepened into tenderness. It was undoubtedly a passion that had smitten him, but that passion was hallowed by the unselfish feelings of a profound affection. He did not want her to engage herself to him if it would not be for her happiness. That it would be, every throb of his heart assured him, but he might be mistaken, and if so, better her dreams of the past than a future he could not make bright. He was so moved at the turmoil which his thoughts made in his usually quiet breast, that he could not think of sleep, but sat in his room for hours indulging in dreams which his practical nature would have greatly scorned a few short weeks before. He saw her again in fancy in every attitude in which his eyes had ever beheld her, and sanctified thus by distance, her beauty seemed both wonderful and touching. And that was not all. Some chord between them seemed to have been struck, and he felt himself drawn towards her as if (it was a strange fancy) she stood by that garden gate, and was looking in his direction with rapt, appealing eyes. So strong became that fancy at last, that he actually rose to his feet and went to the window which opened towards the south.
"Hermione! Hermione!" broke in longing from his lips, and then annoyed at what he could not but consider a display of weakness on his part, he withdrew himself from the window, determined to forget for the moment that there lived for him such a cause for love and sorrow. But what man can forget by a mere effort of will, or what lover shut his eyes to the haunting vision which projects itself upon the inner consciousness. In fancy he saw her still, and this time she seemed to be pacing up and down the poplar walk, wringing her hands and wildly calling his name. It was more than he could bear. He must know if this was only an hallucination, and in a feverish impulse he rushed from his room with the intention of going to her at once.
But he no sooner stood in the hall than he realized he was not alone in the house, and that he should have to pass Edgar's door. He naturally felt some hesitation at this and was inclined to give up his purpose. But the fever urging him on said no; so stealing warily down the hall he stepped softly by the threshold of his friend's room, when to his surprise he perceived that the door was ajar.
Pushing it gently open he found the room brilliant with moonlight but empty. Greatly relieved and considering that the doctor had been sent for by some suffering patient, he passed at once out of the house.
He went directly to that of Hermione, walking where the shadows were thickest as if he were afraid of being recognized. But no one was in the streets, and when he reached the point where the tall poplar-trees made a wall against the moonbeams, he slid into the deep obscurity he found there with a feeling of relief such as the heart experiences when it is suddenly released from some great strain.
Was she in the poplar walk? He did not mean to accost her if she were, nor to show himself or pass beyond the boundary of the wall, but he must know if her restless spirit drove her to pace these moonlit walks, and if it were true or not that she was murmuring his name.
The gate which opened in the wall at the side of the house was in a direct line with the window he had long ago fixed upon as hers. He accordingly took up his station at that spot and as he did so he was sure that he saw the flitting of some dark form amid the alternate bands of moonlight and shadow that lay across the weird pathway before him. Holding his breath he listened. Oh, the stillness of the night! How awesome and yet how sweet it was! But is there no break in the universal silence? Above his head the ever restless leaves make a low murmuring, and far away in the dim distances rises a faint sound that he cannot mistake; it is the light footfall of a dainty woman.
He can see her now. She is coming towards him, her shadow gliding before her. Seeing it he quails. From the rush of emotion seizing him, he knows that he should not be upon this spot, and panting with the effort, he turns and flees just as the sudden sound of a lifted window comes from the house.
