Kitabı oku: «A Hero of the Pen»

CHAPTER I.
Love And Death

The scene of our story is a town on the Mississippi, about midway in its course from Lake Itasca to the Gulf; the time is a cloudless January day of the year 1871. A score of years ago, this town consisted of only a dozen or so roughly built wooden houses; but emulating the marvellous growth of American cities, it has expanded into a populous, thriving business centre.

The dazzling, midday sunbeams enter the windows of a large, suburban mansion, situated upon a hill commanding an unequalled prospect. The elegance of its surroundings, the exquisite taste and richness of its appointments, its artistic and expensive construction, distinguish this residence of the millionaire, Forest, from all others far and near.

In the magnificent parlor, giving evidence of that superfluity of expensive comfort and luxury which to wealthy Americans seems an absolute necessity of life, sits a young lady, in an elaborate and costly home dress. She is a girl of some twenty summers, and sitting near the open fire, whose shifting gleams light up her face and form, with her head resting thoughtfully in her hand, she listens to the conversation of the man opposite her. The face a perfect oval, of a clear, colorless, brunette complexion, with large, brown eyes and perfectly regular features, is set in a frame of dark, luxuriant hair, and possesses undeniable claims to beauty. And yet there is something wanting in this exquisite face. It is that joyous, artless expression which so seldom fails in youth; that breath of timidity we look for in young maidenhood, and that look of gentleness a woman's face seldom entirely lacks, and never to its advantage. There is a chilling gravity in this young girl's whole appearance, a confident repose, an undeniable self-consciousness; and yet it does not seem as if heavy life-storms or premature sorrows can have brought to her the sad experiences of later years. For this her brow is all too smooth–her eyes too bright. Either inborn or inbred must be that seriousness through which her beauty gains so much in expression, although it loses infinitely in the tender grace and charm of both.

In a low arm chair, on the other side of the fireplace, sits a young man in faultless society-dress. There is marked similarity between these two. It lies not alone in hair and eyes of the same color, in the same clear, pale complexion. It is more in that expression of cold, dignified repose, and self-conscious pride peculiar to both. In the young girl this expression assumes the most decided form; in the young man it is partially hidden by a conventional polish and formality, which much detract from the manly beauty of his face, and the manly dignity of his bearing. He has for some time been engaged in an animated conversation with the young lady, and now continues a recital already begun:–

"My father thinks this European journey necessary for the completion of my mercantile education, and I readily yield to his wishes, as it promises so much of interest to me. I shall first pass a few months in New York, where the business affairs of our house demand my personal supervision, and from there I shall sail for Europe in March. A year will suffice me to gain some acquaintance with England, France and Germany, and for a short tour through Switzerland and Italy. The next spring I hope to return home."

The young lady had listened with evident approval to the plan of the proposed journey; now she raised her head and looked at the speaker.

"A rich, profitable year lies before you, Mr. Alison! My father will regret that his illness renders it impossible to see you before your departure."

"I also regret that Mr. Forest is too ill to receive my adieux, personally. May I beg you, Miss, to present them to him in my name?"

She bowed slightly. "Certainly! And meantime, accept my best wishes for a prosperous journey and a happy return."

With quiet friendliness she rose and reached him her hand. He took the cold, beautiful hand, and held it fast; but an unwonted expression flashed from the young man's eyes.

"Miss Forest, may I ask you a question?"

A momentary flush passed over the young girl's face, as she replied:

"Speak, Mr. Alison!"

He rose hastily, and still holding the hand fast, he stepped closer to her side.

"Perhaps the time for a declaration is ill-chosen; but I only too well know that Miss Forest is the object of so many solicitations that absence might be dangerous to my hopes. Therefore, pardon me, Miss Jane, if I at this moment venture to speak of an affection which, perhaps, is no secret to you. May I hope that my wishes may find fulfilment, and that, upon my return, I may be allowed to clasp this hand anew, and hold it fast for life?"

He had begun in a calm, almost business sort of way, but his voice grew warm, as if beneath this outward calm there lay an almost violently repressed emotion; and now, in consuming anxiety, his eyes hung upon hers, as if there he would read her answer.

Miss Forest had listened in silence. No flush of surprise, or maidenly embarrassment, not the slightest change in her features betrayed whether this proposal was welcome or unwelcome to her; the immobility of her face offered a striking contrast to his, and the reply came firm and distinct, without the least hesitation or concealment.

"My answer shall be frank as your question, Mr. Alison. I am aware of your affection for me; I reciprocate it, and upon your return, with the fullest confidence I will place my hand in yours for a united future."

A beam of joy broke through the icy repose of Alison's features, but the usual calmness at once came back, and he seemed almost ashamed of the momentary emotion.

"Miss Jane, you make me very happy," he said. "Can I not now speak with your father?"

"No, I would prefer to tell him myself," she replied hastily. "I have one condition to impose, and you must yield to it, Mr. Alison; I cannot become your betrothed at my father's death-bed; I cannot and will not deprive him of one of those hours the new relation might demand. Therefore let the words you have just spoken to me remain secret, at least to all but those immediately concerned. Until you return, demand from me none of the rights my answer gives you; I cannot and will not now grant them."

There lay little of a betrothed bride's submission in this decided, "I will not!" at the first moment of acceptance. Alison must have felt this, for a slight cloud shadowed his forehead.

"This is a hard condition, Jane! You will permit me to delay my departure, and remain by your side, if, as I fear, the inevitable stroke is close at hand?"

She shook her head. "I thank you, but I need no support. What is before me"–here for the first time during the interview the young girl's lips quivered–"I shall know how to bear, and I can bear it best alone. I would not have you delay your departure one hour, or hasten your return one week. In a year we shall meet again; until then my promise must content you, as yours does me."

She had risen, and now stood opposite him, with an air of such full determination that Alison at once saw the impossibility of opposing her will; he saw that indeed she needed no support, and he yielded unresistingly to the necessity imposed upon him.

"I will prove to you, Jane, that I know how to honor your wishes, even though it is difficult for me to do so. But if I may claim none of the rights of your betrothed husband, you at least will not deny me the first, and for the present, the only boon I ask."

Jane did not answer, but she made no resistance as Alison took her in his arms, and kissed her lips. There was again an impassioned gleam in his eyes, and for a moment he pressed her close to his heart; but as more ardently, more warmly, he sought to repeat the caress, she broke from him with a sudden movement.

"Enough Henry! We make parting unnecessarily difficult. In a year you will find your bride; until then–silence."

He stepped back somewhat offended at this hasty repulsion, and his features again assumed the cold, proud expression, which had not left hers for a moment. Mr. Alison evidently was not the man to beg for caresses which were not freely granted him.

An approaching step in the anteroom demanded that both should immediately resume their company manners; the young lady as before, sat in the arm chair, and Alison opposite her, when the person who had thus announced his coming, entered the parlor. He was a small, elderly man with gray hair and sharp, penetrating eyes from which gleamed an inconcealable irony, as he saw the young couple sitting there so much like strangers.

"The physician is about to drive away, Miss Jane. You wished to speak with him," he said.

Jane rose hastily. "Excuse me, Mr. Alison, I must go to my father. I will tell him of your visit, this evening."

She reached him her hand. A significant pressure, a glance of deep, calm, mutual understanding, then they parted with a hasty adieu, and Jane left the room.

As the door of the ante-room closed behind her, the last comer stepped up to Alison, and laid a hand upon his shoulder,

"I congratulate you!"

The young man turned quickly around. "For what?" he asked sharply.

"For your betrothal."

Alison frowned. "It appears, Mr. Atkins, that you have chosen to play the spy."

Atkins took this reproach very unconcernedly.

"Possibly! But you ought to know, Henry, that I do not belong to those disinterested persons from whom the affair is to be kept secret."

The young man's forehead cleared somewhat. "You certainly are an exception, and so–"

"And so, you accept my congratulations without further hesitation," added Atkins. "But you two got through the affair quickly enough. 'Will you have me? I will have you,'–all right. 'The wedding shall be a year from now!'–all short, smooth, clear, without much eloquence or sentimentalism, quite to Miss Jane's taste. But our deceased Mrs. Forest would have thought quite differently of such a betrothal."

Alison's lips curled in scorn. "If Miss Alison had resembled her mother, I should scarcely have sought her hand," he said.

"There you are right!" replied Atkins dryly. "She was not to my taste either, always ill, always inclined to tears and scenes, full of sentimentality and extravagances,–a real German woman, she died of homesickness at last. Happily the daughter has inherited none of this nonsense. She is just like her father."

"I know it! And no one will accuse Mr. Forest of an excess of sentimentality."

"No!" said Atkins gravely, "and yet it seems to me that he too, once possessed his proper share of such emotions; but fortunately, he was sensible enough to leave all sentiment and whatever else could not be of use to him here, over yonder. When Mr. Forest landed here twenty years ago, sentimentality would have been sadly out of place, for he brought with him a very healthy hatred against Germany and all connected with it. With a sort of morose energy, he flung from him every remembrance of the fatherland, and even Americanized his name–it was Forster there, you know–and when our colony grew, and the German settlers naturally clung together, he kept aloof from them and fraternized with the Americans. But this his wife could not endure; she could not accustom herself to the new life; there were endless quarrels and hard feelings between them, and as the child grew up, matters became still worse. The father wanted to educate her as an American, and he carried his point, as Miss Jane very soon most decidedly placed herself on his side. This quite broke the mother's heart. We had scenes enough, I tell you; there was no peace until Mrs. Forest died of homesickness at last. As things now stand, I fear the husband will not long survive her."

The voice of the speaker, at these last words, had involuntarily changed from a mocking to a serious tone; Alison, who had listened in silence, now took his hat from the table.

"You have heard all; I am not to delay my departure; in fact, urgent business calls me to New York. If the event happens, which we must soon expect, stand by Miss Forest's side. But if"–here Alison busied himself with buttoning his gloves–"if there should be difficulties in relation to the arrangement of the property, my father will stand ready to aid you to the full influence of his business knowledge and connections. It would seem especially desirable that the interests of his future daughter should not remain foreign to him, as my journey will prevent my becoming acquainted with them."

The old irony again gleamed from Atkins' eyes, as he sarcastically replied; "I thank you kindly for the proposal, but the property remains by testament in my hands, and consequently all will be found in perfect order. You and your father must wait patiently for a year until Miss Jane herself brings her dowry into your house. Meantime, I can give you this one satisfaction; Mr. Forest is very rich; richer indeed than generally supposed, of this the glance you desire into our business affairs would at once convince you."

Alison made a passionate gesture. "Mr. Atkins, you are sometimes most horribly inconsiderate," he said.

"Why so?" asked Atkins phlegmatically. "Do you mean this as a reproach? Or do you suppose I could seriously think you would commit the folly of marrying a young lady without fortune, now, when the immense development of your business house and the relations you will establish in Europe make capital doubly necessary to you? No, Henry, I cherish too high an opinion of you to think you capable of any such unpractical romance."

Alison turned and looked searchingly into Atkins face, "I have certainly, as partner and future chief of our house, been circumspect even in my choice of a wife, but I give you my word that if Miss Forest's fortune falls far short of my expectations, I still prefer her to any richer heiress."

Atkins laughed. "I believe that of you without oath, Henry! You are a great deal in love, and I wonder whether you will inspire a like sentiment in our beautiful, cold Miss Forest. Well, that will happen in time; in any event it is fortunate if the merchant and the lover do not come in conflict, and here each is quite sufficient to itself. Once more I congratulate you!"

After leaving these two, Jane had hastily passed through several rooms, and now entered a half-darkened, but richly and tastefully furnished sleeping-chamber. Gliding softly over the carpet, she approached the bed, and flung back its heavy curtains.

Now it was evident whence the young girl derived that strange expression of face which made her so unlike other girls of her own age, intense seriousness, cool determination, energetic pride; all these, unobliterated, unsoftened by the traces of illness, were repeated in the face of the man who lay here upon the pillow. He slowly turned his head towards the daughter who bent over him, saying:–

"They have just told me of the physician's visit. He was alone with you, and I wished to be present. Was this your command, my father?"

"Yes, my child! I wanted to hear an opinion from him which it would have been difficult to give freely in your presence. I now know that I have but a few days to live."

Jane had sunk on her knees at the bedside, and pressed her head into the pillows. She did not answer, but her whole form shook with the tearless sobs she energetically suppressed. The sick man gazed down upon her.

"Be calm, Jane, this opinion can surprise you as little as it does me, although we have both, perhaps, expected a longer respite. It must be, and you will not make the necessity of the separation more bitter through your tears."

"No!" She suddenly drew herself up, and gazed down upon her father; her sorrow was suppressed by the most absolute self-mastery; her lips scarce quivered. The sick man smiled, but there lay a sort of bitterness in that smile; perhaps he would rather have seen her not obey him so readily.

"I have to speak with you, my child, and I do not know how many quiet, painless hours may be granted me. Come nearer to me, and listen."

Jane took her place by her father's bedside, and waited silently.

"I can calmly leave you, for I know that despite your youth, you need no stay and no guardian. In outward emergencies, you have Atkins at your side; his sarcastic, eternally mocking nature has never been agreeable to me; but in an association of almost twenty years, I have proved his integrity and devotion. You know that he long since amassed a fortune of his own, but he preferred to let it remain in our house. He will be at your side, until you confide yourself to the protection of a husband, which will perhaps happen soon."

"Father," interrupted Jane, "I have something to tell you. You know that Mr. Alison has been here; he has asked for my hand."

The sick man drew himself up with an expression of lively interest.

"And you?"

"I have given him my promise."

"Ah?" Forest sank back upon his pillow, and was silent.

Jane bent over him in astonishment. "And are you not willing? I felt certain of your consent in advance."

"You know Jane, that I will neither restrict nor control you in your choice of a husband. It is your own future for which you have to decide, and I am convinced that you have not decided without serious deliberation."

"No; the proposal did not come unexpectedly to me. I have implicit confidence in Mr. Alison's character, and in his future; his family is one of the first in our city, his position is brilliant, and I am certain that his mercantile genius will in after years secure him an important place in the business world. Does this not appear sufficient to you, my father?"

"To me? certainly, if it is enough for you!"

With an expression of surprise, Jane fixed her dark eyes upon her father. "What more could be demanded from a marriage?" Forest again smiled with the same bitterness as before.

"You are right, Jane, quite right! I was only thinking of my own wooing, and of your mother's promise. But it is just as well. Mr. Alison indeed possesses all the advantages you have named, and in these respect you are more than his equal; you will be very content with each other."

"I hope so!" said Jane, and now began to tell her father the conditions she had imposed upon her betrothed, and the delay upon which she had insisted. Forest listened with eager attention.

"I like that! Without knowing it you met my wishes in this decision, for I, too, have a condition to impose upon you. What would you say if I demanded that you should pass this year of freedom in Germany with our relatives?"

With a movement of the most painful surprise, the young girl rose from her chair.–"In Germany? I?"

"Yes, do you not love Germany?"

"No," replied Jane coldly, "as little as you, my father. I do not love the country that blighted your youth, embittered your life, and at last thrust you out like a malefactor. I could not forgive my mother, that with a consciousness of all you had suffered there, she always clung to the fatherland, and made you and herself inexpressibly unhappy with that incurable homesickness."

"Be silent, Jane!" interrupted Forest passionately. "There are things which you do not understand, will never learn to understand! I met no consideration in your mother, that I confess; she indeed made me unhappy; and still, she gave me hours of happiness, such as you will never give your husband–never, Jane! But then Mr. Alison will have no need of them."

Jane was silent. She had become accustomed to find her father very irritable in his sickness, sometimes quite incomprehensible. With the consideration one gives the sick, she now bore this passionate outbreak, and quietly resumed her place at his bedside.

A few minutes after, Forest again turned to her. "Forgive me, child!" he said mildly, "I was unjust. You have become what I educated you to be, what I would have you be, and I do not now regret having given you this direction. You will better endure the life-conflict than your weak, sensitive mother. Let this rest; it was something different you were to hear from me. Do you know that you have a brother?"

Jane started up in terror, and in questioning expectation, fixed her eyes upon her father.

"As a child I sometimes heard a hint of this; but lately no one has ever spoken of him to me. Is he dead?"

A deep sigh rent Forest's breast. "Perhaps he is dead, perhaps not. We have never been able to learn with certainty. I at last forbade all mention of his name, because his remembrance threatened to kill your mother; but the silence was of little avail; she never forgot him for a single hour."

With eager intentness Jane bent down yet closer to her father. He took her hand and held it fast in his.

"You are not unacquainted with the recent history of your native country, my daughter; you are aware of the glowing enthusiasm which in the thirtieth year of the present century took possession of all Germany, and especially of its high schools. I was a student at that time, and, a youth of eighteen years, I was animated like so many of my comrades with visions of the freedom and greatness that might come to my fatherland under a new and more liberal order of things. We sought to carry out these revolutionary ideas, and for that crime the government repaid us with imprisonment, in many cases with sentence of death. I was doomed to die, but by especial favor, my sentence was commuted to thirty years' imprisonment. Seven of these years I endured; but as you have often enough heard the story, I will not repeat it now. Even these bitter years resulted in good to me; they ended for all time my youthful ideals and youthful illusions. When the amnesty at last came, under the iron pressure of the prison, in endless humiliations, in glowing hatred, had been ripened a man, who better than the twenty years' old dreamer knew how to bravely assume and patiently endure the struggle with life and misery."

Forest was silent for a moment, but the hard, savage bitterness which now lay in his features, and which was even more grimly reflected in Jane's face, showed that these remembrances were not foreign to her, and that the daughter had always been her father's confidant.

After a short pause the father continued: "Scarce was I free, when I committed the folly of marrying. It was madness in my position, but already, while at the university, I had become betrothed to your mother. She had waited long years for me, for my sake had renounced a brilliant position in life, and she now stood alone and forsaken, an orphan, dependent upon the favor and cold charity of relatives. This I could not bear; rather would I venture all. We were married, and a year after, your brother was born. He was not like you, Jane."–As he said these words, a lingering, almost painful glance swept the beautiful face of his daughter. "He was blonde and blue-eyed like his mother, but his possession was not unalloyed happiness to me. The first eight years of my marriage were the darkest of my life; more terrible, even, than those days in prison. There I suffered alone; here it was with wife and child that I must endure the conflict against misery and utter destitution which with all its horrors threatened them. My career was naturally ruined, my connections severed. Whatever I began, whatever I undertook, to the demagogue every door was closed; every means of support withdrawn. At that time I put forth my best strength, and did my utmost in a struggle for daily bread; and still, my most unremitting efforts did not always suffice to keep my family from want.

"We might perhaps have perished, but the year 1848 came, and showed that the old dreamer had not yet fully learned to renounce his ideals. He allowed himself again to be enticed; for the second time, he listened to the syren's song, only to be dashed anew against the rocks.–I took my wife and child to a secure place among relatives, and threw myself headlong into the tide of revolution. You know how it ended! Our parliament was dissolved, the conflict in Baden broke out. I was one of the leaders of the revolutionary army; we were beaten, annihilated. For the first time a propitious destiny protected me from the worst. Now I was free.

"I would not again, and this time perhaps forever, be shut up in prison; I would not give up my family to irretrievable ruin; therefore I decided upon flight to America. My brother-in-law offered me the necessary passage-money; perhaps from kindness of heart, but more probably it was to be rid of the accursed demagogue, the disgrace of the family. Great circumspection was needed, for from one end of Germany to the other, the minions of the law were already let loose upon our track.

"In disguise, and under an assumed name, I reached Hamburg, where my wife and children were awaiting me. You had been born during these last months. Poor child! It was in an evil hour I first pressed you to my heart. With the first kiss of your father, tears of glowing hatred, of bitter despair fell upon your infant face. I fear they have thrown a shadow over your life; I have never seen you carelessly merry like other children.

"On our way to the ship we separated so as not to attract attention. Your mother carried you in her arms, I followed at some distance, leading my boy by the hand. When half way up the ship's stairs, I recognized a face of evil omen. It was that of a spy. I knew him, he knew me; if he saw me, I was lost. Hastily forming my decision, I told the boy to follow his mother; he was old enough to understand, and she stood there in sight. I flung myself into the thickest of the throng at the harbor. An hour later, the spy had vanished, and I reached the ship unremarked. My wife, who had been prepared for possible delay on my part, hastened to meet me; her first inquiry was for the child. After a few words of terrible import, we understood the situation. He had not joined his mother; he must be on shore. In mortal apprehension, I rushed back regardless of the imminent danger to myself. I searched the whole harbor up and down, asking tidings of my boy of all I met. No one had seen him; none could give me information.

"The signal for departure was given. If I remained on shore I was lost, and my wife and child would sail, forsaken and friendless, on the wide ocean to a strange continent. The choice was a fearful one, but I was forced to make it. When I trod the ship's deck without my child; when I saw receding from me the shores where he was left alone, a prey to every danger,–that moment–when I broke loose from home and country forever, the persecutions and bitternesses of a whole lifetime all came back; that moment set the seal to our separation, and darkened every remembrance of the past to me.

"The first hour of our landing in New York, I wrote to my wife's brother; but weeks passed before he received my letter. Doctor Stephen, my brother-in-law, pursued the search with the warmest ardor and the fullest sympathy. He went to Hamburg himself, he did everything in his power; but it was all in vain. He did not find the slightest trace of your brother. The boy had vanished utterly; he remains so to this day."

Forest was silent. His breathing became difficult, but Jane bending forward, eager and intent, had not thought of preventing an excitement which might prove dangerous, perhaps fatal to him; such regardful tenderness did not lie in the relations between this father and daughter. She had a secret to hear, a last legacy to receive, and if he died in the effort, he must speak the words necessity demanded, and she must listen. After a short space for rest he began anew:

"With this last sacrifice, the evil fates that had pursued me were propitiated, our misfortunes ended. Success attended me from the first step I took on American soil. In New York, I met Atkins, who was there gaining a precarious livelihood from a secretaryship. He rescued me and my little all from a band of swindlers who already had me, the inexperienced foreigner, half in their net. Out of gratitude, I proposed that he should accompany me to the West. He had nothing to lose, and came with me to this place, then a vast, unpeopled solitude. Our plough was first to break up the prairie sod; the board cabin we reared with our own hands was the first dwelling erected here. Perhaps you remember when, in your earliest childhood, your father himself went out to the field with scythe or spade, while your mother did the work of a maid-servant in the house. But this did not last long.

"Our settlement made rapid strides. The soil, the location, were in the highest degree favorable; a town arose, a levee was built–lands which I had bought for a song rose to a hundred-fold their original value. Undertakings, to which I pledged myself with others, had an undreamed-of success. Participation in public life, and the position for which I had once so ardently longed, with social importance and consideration past my most sanguine hopes, became mine; and now, my daughter, I leave you in a position and in pecuniary circumstances, which make even our exclusive Mr. Alison consider it an honor to win your hand."

"I know it, my father!" The self-importance of Jane's manner at this moment was more noticeable even than before; but it did not seem like her usual haughtiness; her pride was evidently rooted in the consciousness of being her father's daughter.

With an effort so violent as to show that his strength was failing, Forest hastened to the end of his recital:

"I need not tell you, Jane, that I have never abandoned the search for your brother; that I have renewed it again and again, and that since means have been at my command, I have spared no outlay of money or of effort. The result has been only disappointment. Latterly, I have lost hope, and have found solace in you; but your mother's anguish at the loss of her child, was never assuaged. To the hour of her death, she clung to the hope that he was living, that he would sometime appear. This hope I had long since relinquished, and yet upon her death-bed she exacted from me a promise to go myself to Europe and make one last search in person. I promised this, as the last amnesty had lifted the bar which had hitherto prevented my visiting my native land; and I was just making preparations for a long absence, when illness prostrated me. But the last, ardent wish of your mother ought not to remain unfulfilled. Not that I have the slightest hope that a trace, which for twenty long years has eluded the most vigilant search, can now be found.