CHAPTER XIII.IN AMERICA
“The shipl’Europecame slowly up New York harbor one pleasant summer morning, and among the eager crowd gathered on its deck, none were more eager and expectant, ay, and nervous too, than our friends Madame Verwest and Anna. The latter had been sick all the voyage, and kept her state-room, tormented with a thousand groundless fears as to what her infuriated husband might do. He was capable of anything, she knew, and felt that he would follow her to America, and try to get her again in his power. It was Fred who thoughtlessly suggested that he might telegraph to New York for officers to be ready to arrest his runaway wife as a lunatic, and after that idea once lodged in her brain, Anna never rested a moment, night or day; and when at last New York was in sight, and she was forced to dress herself and go on deck, she looked more like a ghost than the blooming girl who had sailed downthat very harbor not quite two years before. Madame Verwest had been very silent during the entire voyage, and had never given the slightest reason why she had left the chateau. Nor did Anna care to question her. She was satisfied to have her with her and clung to her as to a mother.
“‘Do you think he has telegraphed, and what shall we do if he has? You will never let them have me,’ she said, as the ship was nearing the wharf, and she gazed in terror at the promiscuous crowd waiting there, and mistaking the custom-house officers for the police come to arrest.
“Madame Verwest herself had thought it possible that Haverleigh might telegraph, but she did not admit it. She only said:
“‘They will take both of us, if either. I shall not leave you and your friends will soon know of it.’
“Thus reassured, Anna grew more calm, and waited till the ship was fast at the landing and the passengers free to leave. There was no officer there, no telegram, and our party took the first train which left next morning on the Harlem Road for Millfield. A telegram, however, had preceded them,and the whole town was in a state of wild excitement when it was known that Anna was coming back, and why. Up to this time but little had been said of Fred’s departure for Europe, and though there were surmises of something wrong, nothing definite was known until the telegram was received, when the story came out and set the town on fire. Everybody told everybody else, so that long before the train was due the history of Anna’s life in France had been told a thousand times, and had Ernest Haverleigh then appeared in the streets he would assuredly have been torn in pieces by the crowd which surged toward the depot long before the train was due. Everybody was there; those who had known Anna in her girlhood and those who had not, the new-comers who only knew her story and waited for a glimpse of her. Oh, how white, and frightened, and wild she looked when at last she came and stepped upon the platform. Fred’s arm was around her, and behind her came Madame Verwest, carrying the child, which slept soundly all through the exciting scene.
“‘Mother—where’s mother?’ the pallid lips asked as Anna’s feet touched the ground, and thenher mother’s arms were round her, and the tired head dropped on the maternal bosom with a low pitiful cry, and it was whispered in the crowd that she had fainted.
They took her home to the low red house, and laid her in the little room she used to occupy, and which she once had so despised. It seemed like heaven to her now, as she sank down among the snowy pillows, and felt the sweet breath of the summer air, laden with the perfume of the new-mown hay, and the lilies of which she had talked so much to Madame Verwest.
“‘Oh, mother, Mary, I am so glad,’ she said, as she saw them bending over her, and felt that she was safe. ‘No one can get me here. You’ll never let me go, for he will come after me; he is coming now,’ and with a shudder she drew the sheet over her face as if to hide herself from the dreaded husband coming to take her away.
“After that Anna knew no more of what was passing about her for days, and even weeks. Nature had borne all it could, and she lay almost motionless, and utterly unconscious of everything. But never sure was queen tended with more carethan she for whom everybody cared, and whose room was filled with tokens of remembrance, flowers and fruit, and such masses of white lilies, for these had been her favorites, and every school-boy in town considered it an honor to wade into the pond, knee-deep, and even imperil his life to secure the fragrant blossoms.
“From the first Madame Verwest was a puzzle to all, and a very little in the way. It is true she was the nurse who took the entire charge of the baby, and who, more than any one else, seemed to understand and know what to do for Anna. But still she was in the way—a stranger, who had not been expected, but whose only fault seemed to be that she stared too much at Mrs. Strong and at the people in Millfield, especially the older inhabitants, and asked too many questions about them. It was a little strange, too, how fond she was of roaming about the town, and exploring it in all its parts. Sometimes, with the baby in her arms, she would leave the house in the morning, and not return again until dinner time, and Mrs. Strong had heard of her more than once in the graveyard, studying the old head-stones; and again down near the boat-houseby the river, sitting apparently in deep thought upon the grass, with Anna’s baby sleeping on her lap. At first Mrs. Strong felt some natural anxiety for the safety of the child, but when she saw how it clung to Madame Verwest, and how devoted she seemed to be to its every movement, she came to trust her fully, and to forget all else in her great concern for her own child, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until to those who watched her so closely there seemed little hope that she could ever rally from the death-like stupor into which she had fallen. Nothing roused her to the least degree of consciousness or motion, except, indeed the mention of her husband’s name. As an experiment Madame Verwest bent over her and said:
“‘Ma petite, do you remember Monsieur Haverleigh of Chateau d’Or?’
“Then there was a quivering of the lids, and a shiver ran through Anna’s form, and she whispered faintly:
“‘Yes, yes, and he is coming; he is almost here, but don’t let him get me.’
“And four days after he came, on the six o’clock train, from which he stepped like a prince of theroyal blood, and confronting the first man he met upon the platform, haughtily demanded if he knew ‘whether Mrs. Ernest Haverleigh, formerly Miss Anna Strong, were in town.’
“All the town was watching for Haverleigh, and threatening him with dire vengeance should he attempt the removal of his wife by force. As it chanced, the person addressed was a burly truckman, and who, with his whip in his hand, looked a rather formidable personage, as, in answer to Haverleigh’s question, he replied:
“‘Yes,sir, the lady you mean is in town, sick to death, they say, and if you are that contemptible dog who shut her up and called her crazy, and told them infernal lies, the quicker you leave these parts the healthier for you, if you don’t want to be ducked in the mill-pond.’
“Haverleigh was too much astonished to speak at first. That he, the proud Englishman, should be thus addressed by a low, ignorant, working Yankee was more than flesh and blood like his could bear, and his face was purple with rage, and his eyes gleamed savagely as he replied:
“‘Who are you that dares speak to me in this manner, and do you know who I am?’
“‘Yes,sir-ee, I know darned well who you are,’ the man replied, nothing intimidated by Haverleigh’s threatening manner, but strengthened by the crowd gathering so fast around him.
“It had circulated rapidly that Haverleigh had come, and was ‘sassing’ Ben Rogers, and the idlers gathered near at once, eager to hear and ready to defend, if necessary, their comrade, who continued:
“You are the confoundedest, meanest, contemptiblist animal that the Lord ever suffered to live, and I am Benjamin Franklin Rogers, at your service, and if you open your dirty mouth again I’ll give you a taste of this horse-whip; so, if you want to save your British hide, skedaddle quick for the Widder Strong’s, as I s’pose you must go there, but, mark my words, me and these chaps, my friends’—sweeping his arm toward the crowd—‘will go with you to see you do no harm, and if the widder saysduck you, we’ll do it, or tar you and ride you on a rail, or any other honor such as we can give yougrattisfor nothin’.’
“Whether Haverleigh was intimidated, or tooproud to speak, I do not know. He made no reply except to glare like a madman upon the speaker and the crowd, which made way for him to pass, and then followed at a little distance as he moved rapidly in the direction of Mrs. Strong’s. The news of his arrival had preceded him, and with a face white with terror Mrs. Strong was waiting for him, and so was Madame Verwest.Shewas neither pale nor frightened. She had carried the baby to Anna’s room, and bidding Mary watch it, had left the apartment, and locking the door after her joined Mrs. Strong in the parlor below, where they sat together until the sound of the coming rabble drew them both to the door.
“Very proudly and erect Haverleigh moved on, never once glancing back at the crowd behind him. But he knew that it was there, and heard the muttered menaces as he opened the gate and walked to the door. It was Madame Verwest who met him and asked: ‘Ernest Haverleigh, why are you here?’
“‘Why?’ he repeated, and his voice was like a savage growl. ‘Why am I here? I am here for my wife and my son, and I intend to have them, too. I’dlike to see the law that can keep them from me, so lead the way quickly, for I shall be off in the next train.’
“‘Never with Anna and the baby. Never, while I have the power to prevent it, as I have,’ Madame Verwest replied, and then all the pent-up fury of the terrible man burst out, and there were flecks of white foam about his lips as he cursed the woman who boldly kept him at bay, with the most horrible of curses, calling her at last by the vilest name a woman can be called, and asking for her wedding ring and the certificate of her marriage.
‘Ernest Haverleigh, hush; nor dare speak to me,your mother, like that again.’
“The voice which said these words was very steady and low, but Haverleigh heard it distinctly, and grasping the back of the chair near which he was standing, repeated: ‘My mother; you, who were only my nurse. You call yourself my mother!’
“‘Yes, and before Heaven I am your mother; listen while I tell you what you should have known before, but for a promise to the dead.’
“He was still staring at her, with that same corpse-like pallor on his face, and the look of a wildbeast in his eyes, but he did not speak, for some thing in the woman before him kept him silent while she went on:
“‘I am your mother, and I thought I was your father’s wife, until after you were born, when there came a day of horrid awakening, and I found I was betrayed by the man I loved, and for whom I had left my home, for I was young and innocent once, and pretty, too, they said; but I was poor and hated poverty, and when this rich man came with honeyed words and fair promises, I believed and trusted him to my ruin, and went with him over the sea—for I am American born, and not English, as you suppose. We staid in lodgings in London till you were born, and by that time a face fairer than mine had come between me and your father, a woman he meant to marry, and so he told me the truth of his villainy, and when I found I was not a wife, I think I went mad for a time, and when I came to myself I was in poorer lodgings in an obscure part of London, where I passed for Mr. Haverleigh’s housekeeper, who had served him so faithfully that he would not cast me off in my trouble. That was the lie he told, and they believed him and were kind tome for the sake of the money he paid them, You were at Grasmere then with your father, whom in spite of everything I loved, and to whom I went, begging him to let me have the care of my child if nothing more. To this he consented, the more readily because he was about to marry my rival, and you might be in the way. He loved you, I do believe, and he trusted me, but made me swear not to divulge my real relation to you. I was your nurse, your foster-mother, nothing more. There might be no children of the marriage, he said, and if so, he should make you his heir, and did not wish you to know the stain upon your birth. Therewereno children, and as if to punish him for his sin to me, his wife died within the year, and he was left alone and made you his heir, so that when he died all he had was left to you, except a thousand pounds given to me, whom he designated as the foster-mother of his child.
“‘You, as you grew up, believed the woman who died at Grasmere was your mother, and that I was only your nurse; but that was false; I was your mother, else I had never followed your fortunes as I have, and clung to you through all as only a mother can cling to the son whose wickednessshe knows, and whom she cannot forsake. You thought me in your power, because you fancied I had been indiscreet in my youth, and that your threats to expose me kept me quiet to do your bidding. There you were mistaken. It was the mother loving you through everything which made me the same as a prisoner at Chateau d’Or, where I was really happier than when following you about. Because it suited you I consented to be Madame Verwest, a Frenchwoman, and for you I have lived a life of deceit, which, thank Heaven, is over now. I meant to release Anna myself sometime, on the plea ofyourinsanity, if by no other, for there is madness in your father’s family, and you are mad at times. But others planned the escape, and I gladly followed to America, my native land, and to Millfield, my old home, for I am Milly Gardner, step-sister to Anna’s father, and the one you told me went to the bad, and was the only blot on the family.’
“Up to this time there had been a listener to Madame Verwest’s story—Mrs. Strong, who, terrified at the appearance of Haverleigh, had fled to the adjoining room, where she sank into a chair faintand helpless, and thus heard all that was said by Madame Verwest. At the mention of Milly Gardner, however, she sprang to her feet and ran to the woman’s side, exclaiming:
“Oh, Milly, Milly! I have heard so much of you from my husband, and from him learned to love you even while believing the story I know now to be false. It is all so strange that you should be here when we thought you dead years ago. Andyouarehismother,” she continued, pointing to Haverleigh. ‘Send him away, if you have any power over him; he must not see my child.’
“The sound of Mrs. Strong’s voice speaking of Anna roused Haverleigh from his stupor, or rather state of bewilderment, and with a savage oath he started forward, exclaiming:
“‘Ishallsee your child, and take her, too, for she is mine. Stand aside, woman—hag—beldame—who dares to call herself my mother,’ he continued, as Madame Verwest laid both her hands upon his arm. ‘It is a lie you have told me. My mother was she who lived and died at Grasmere, and you—you—are——’
“He did not finish the sentence, for his excitementand passion had been increasing every moment, while his face grew more and more swollen and purple, until the flecks of foam gathered more thickly about his lips, which gave forth a bubbling sound as he fell across the chair in a fit.
“Then the mother woke again in Madame Verwest, and kneeling by the side of her tossing, struggling son, she lifted up his head, and cared for him as tenderly as when he was a new-born baby and first lay upon her bosom. The terrible convulsions ceased at last, and the natural color came back to his face; but the eyes, which fastened themselves upon her with such a look of hate, were the eyes of a madman, who had in his heart intense hatred and even murderous designs toward the woman who still held his head upon her lap, and dropped her tears upon his face.
“‘Woman—fiend—liar—I’ll have your life!’ he screamed, as he sprang to his feet, and with clenched fists darted toward his mother, who stepped aside to avoid the blow, and thus made way for the men outside upon the walk, who, attracted by the loud, angry tones, had come nearer and nearer to the door, which they reached just asHaverleigh rose to his feet and sprang toward his mother.
“‘Hold, villain—stop that!’ the foremost of them cried; and Haverleigh was caught by both arms, and held as in a vise by two men, who yet had hard work to keep him from breaking loose from their grasp.
“A moment sufficed to convince them that it was no sane man they held, and then arose a call for ropes with which to bind him. I think the whole town knew by this time what was going on, and the street in front of Mrs. Strong’s was densely packed with an excited throng, but only a few entered the house, and these the more intimate acquaintance of the family. That Haverleigh was raving mad was a fact no one doubted, and to secure his person was a step which seemed imperative, but was hard of accomplishment, for he was naturally strong, and his excitement lent to him a double strength. But he was mastered at last, and carried bodily to the village hall, where he was to be kept securely until some decision was reached as to what should be done with him. That decision was reached before the close of the next day, for he grewmore and more furious and uncontrollable, until the asylum seemed the only alternative, and thither they carried him at last, and placed him in the strong room, as it was called, where, struggle as he might, he could not get free or burst the bars and bolts which held him.
“Meanwhile, in Millfield, Madame Verwest, as we will still call her, had told her story more fully to Mrs. Strong, while Anna, too, when she was better and could bear it, heard that the woman who from the first had been so kind to her in Chateau d’Or, was in reality her mother-in-law, and the grandmother of the little boy Arthur. Like poor Agatha Wynde she had been lured from her place in Boston, where she was employed in a straw shop. The man, who gave his name to her as Stevens, was an Englishman, and rich, and she went with him trustingly and honorably, as she believed, until the dreadful day when she found how she had been deceived. Even then she loved him and clung to her child, whom she was allowed to care for on condition that she passed as his nurse or foster-mother, and to this promise she held for many years, during which time Haverleigh died and left by will all hisfortune to his son, except a thousand pounds bequeathed to the wretched woman who stood by him when he died; and when, selfish to the last, he said: ‘Don’t let the boy know the story of his birth. Let him think that Mabel was his mother,’ she answered him, ‘I will,’ and bore her secret bravely, and cared for the boy, and was a very slave to do his wishes, because of the love she bore him.
“Whatever opinion he might have had of her, her influence over him was great, and he really seemed to have a genuine affection for her as the only mother he had ever known, and would never suffer her to leave his service, as he called it. He paid her well, told her most of his plans, counseled with her often, and at times evinced for her a liking and respect very dear to the woman who longed so much to fall upon his neck and claim him as her son. She had been with him in Scotland, and London, and Paris, and at last, six years before his marriage with Anna, had gone with him to Chateau d’Or, which he had just bought, and where for weeks he held a high carnival with his wild, dissipated friends. The quiet and seclusion of the place just suited his mother, who at his request hadbefore leaving Paris, taken the name of Madame Verwest.
“Up to that time she had been Mrs. Stevens, for she clung to the name she once believed to be her own, but it pleased her son to have her Madame Verwest, and a Frenchwoman, so a Frenchwoman she was; and because she liked the chateau so much he permitted her to stay there in charge of his servants, who held her in great esteem. The isolated position of the chateau was just suited to some of Haverleigh’s nefarious schemes, and poor Agatha Wynde was not the first young girl who had been immured in its walls. A fair-haired German from Munich, and a dark-eyed Italian from Verona had been hidden there for months until the search for them by their grief-stricken friends was over. When poor Agatha came there she had been so fair, so sweet, and so confiding, that Madame Verwest had taken the erring, repentant girl into her heart, and loved her like a mother.
“‘We don’t think quite the same,’ Agatha had said to her during a lucid interval a day or two before she died. ‘We are not the same religion. You Protestant, ICatholique; but you love Jesus,you ask him to forgive, and so do I; Him and Mary, too; and He will, and you will come to Heaven after poor Agatha some day. I sure you will, for there be now and then some Protestant there.’
“This was quite a concession for one so devout as Agatha, and Madame Verwest had smiled faintly when it was made, but she kissed the pallid lips and brow where death had already set its seal, and when at last all was over she placed a golden crucifix in the white hands folded so meekly over the heart which would never know pain again. She telegraphed to Haverleigh, who was dining with Eugenie when he received the message, and who read the telegram without a word of comment, and then, lest the jealous eyes watching him so closely should see it, he lighted a match, and applying it to the paper saw it burn to ashes. But he could not seem quite natural, and as soon as dinner was over he excused himself, and started directly for the station, leaving Eugenie to speculate upon the nature of the telegram which had so plainly affected his spirits, and taken him from her earlier than his wont. Alas, she little guessed the truth, or dreamedof the beautiful girl lying so cold and still in her coffin, and on whose white face even Haverleigh’s tears fell when he looked upon her dead, and remembered what she was when he first saw her, a lovely peasant-girl in Normandy, singing by her father’s door. They buried her quietly, and then Haverleigh returned to Paris and Eugenie, while over the lonely grave Madame Verwest vowed that no other maiden should ever come there as Agatha had come; and so, when she first heard of Anna, she determined upon something desperate, until told that Anna was a wife in very deed, and that no stain was on her name. Then, when she learned who she was, and whence she came, her heart went out to the desolate creature with a great throb of love, which strengthened every day, and was such as a real mother feels for a suffering, ill-used child. Many times, when listening to Anna’s talk of her New England home, she had been tempted to tell her who she was, but had refrained from doing so, hoping always that the day was not far distant when she could disclose everything, and be her real self again. That day had come at last, and with no fear of the dreadful man who had ruled her for somany years, she told her story, and waited the verdict of her wondering listeners.
“Anna was the first to speak. Motioning Madame Verwest to her bedside, she wound her arms around her neck, and said:
“‘I loved you as a mother at Chateau d’Or, and am so glad to find you are my mother truly, and the grandmother of little Arthur.’
“Neither were Mrs. Strong and Mary backward in their demonstrations of friendship and esteem for the woman who had suffered so much since the day, years and years before, when she had left her home in Millfield and returned no more. Could the inmates of the red house have blotted from their minds the memory of the poor lunatic who, not many miles away, was chafing and raging like a newly-caged animal, they would have been very happy these last summer days; and, to a certain degree, they were happy, though, in her low, nervous state Anna could never quite put from her mind the fear lest her dreaded husband should by some means escape from his confinement and come to do her harm. But the bolts and bars were very strong which held him, else he might perhaps haveescaped, for he seemed endowed with superhuman strength, and clutched savagely at the iron gratings of his cell, shaking them at times as if they were but dried twigs in his hands.
“He was terrible in his insanity, and only his keeper and physician ever ventured near him. At them he sprang and snapped viciously, like a dog chained to a post, while he filled the room with the most horrid oaths, cursing Madame Verwest, who had dared to call him her child.
“‘He who was highly born, the son of a gentleman, the child of a servant, a nurse, a Yankee, and illegitimate at that; curse her! curse her! she lies! she lies! she played me false, and I hate her!’ he would scream, when his mother was the subject of his thoughts.
“Again, when it was Eugenie, he grew, if possible, more desperate than before, and would utter such oaths that even his keeper, hardened as he was by similar scenes, fled from the hearing of the blasphemous words.
“Of Anna and Agatha he never spoke until toward the last, when, as if he had worn his fierce nature out, he grew more quiet, and would sit forhours perfectly still, with his head bowed upon his hands, intently brooding over something in the past. Was he thinking of Agatha, and the cottage far away in Normandy, where he first saw her singing in the sunshine, with the sweet, shy look of innocence in her soft eyes, or did she come up before him as he last looked upon her, cold, white, and dead in her coffin, ruined by him, who had used every act in his power to lure her into the snare. It would seem that she came to him in both phases, for at times he would smile faintly and whisper, very soft and low:
“‘Ma petite, ma cherie. Venez avec moi a Paris. Je vous aime bien.’
“To her he always spoke in French and with the utmost tenderness, saying to her, as he thought himself bending over her coffin:
“‘I am sorry, Aggie, I am so sorry, and I wish I had left you in your home as innocent as I found you, poor little Aggie, so white and cold; don’t look at me with those mournful eyes; don’t touch me with those death-like hands; don’t you know you are dead,dead, and dead folks lie still? Don’t touch me, I say;’ and cries of fear would echo throughthe hall as the terror-stricken man fancied himself embraced and held fast by the arms which for so long had been at rest beneath the sod in southern France.
“‘It’s the French girl after him now,’ the keeper would say, as he heard the cries and pleadings for some one ‘to lie still and take their cold hands off.’ ‘It’s the French girl after him now,death hug, you know. He’ll be quieter when it’s t’other one;’ the ‘t’other one’ referring to Anna, who was often present to the disordered mind of the man, but who never excited him like Agatha.
“He was not afraid of Anna, but would hold long conversations with her, trying sometimes to convince her of her insanity, and again telling her that he loved her and always had, notwithstanding what he had heard her say of him in New York. It was in the spring following the summer when Anna arrived at Millfield that this softer, quieter mood came upon him, and with it a debility, and loss of strength and appetite, and gradual wasting away, which told that his days were numbered. Years of dissipation had undermined his naturally strong constitution, and he had no surplus vitality onwhich to draw, so that the decay, once commenced, was very rapid, and just a year from the day Anna came back to Millfield, he was dead.
“Madame Verwest was with him when he died for though he never asked for her or for any one, the mother love was too strong to keep her from him, and she went to him unbidden when she heard how sick he was. Whether her presence was any gratification to him or not, she never knew, for he expressed nothing, either by word or look. Once, when she spoke to him of Anna and his boy, there came a faint flush upon his face, and he repeated the names:
“‘Anna—Arthur.’
“Again, when she said to him:
“‘Ernest, you have much money, and land in your possession. If you die, where do you wish it to go?’
“For a moment he regarded her intently, and then replied:
“‘Anna, Arthur—mother.’
“The last word was spoken softly, kindly, and brought a rain of tears from the poor woman, who had clung to him so many years, and never heardthat name from him before. Two days after that he died, and went to the God who deals justly with all His creatures. They bought him an elegant coffin, and dressed him in the finest of broadcloth, and brought him up to Millfield and buried him in the quiet graveyard behind the church, where he sleeps till the resurrection morning. Anna did not see him. She could not, but she suffered Madame Verwest to take Arthur with her to the grave, and so the mother and the son stood together while the coffin was lowered to the earth, and the solemn words were uttered, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
“To the little boy the weeping woman said:
“‘That’s your father, Arthur; your father they are burying;’ but Arthur was thinking more of the sunshine, and birds, and flowers than of the ceremonial which had no meaning for him, and releasing himself from his grandmother, started in pursuit of a butterfly, and his loud baby laugh mingled with the sound of the dirt rattling down upon the coffin which contained what had been his father.”
Here Hal Morton paused, and pointed toward a half-closed shutter through which the early morning was breaking. We had sat up all night, he tellingand I listening to this strange story, which I felt was not finished yet, for I must know more of Anna, and if anything had ever been heard from Eugenie, who, however bad she might seem, had shown herself in some respects a noble woman, with many noble instincts and kindly feelings; so I said to my companion:
“Never mind the daylight, Hal. We will order a tip-top breakfast by and by, and meantime you finish the story and tell me more of Anna and Eugenie. Did they ever hear from her, and did Anna and the child get Haverleigh’s money?”
“Yes, they got Haverleigh’s money,” Hal replied. “Anna and Arthur between them. It was theirs lawfully, you know, and there was a million in all. Think of Anna Strong a millionaire. But it did not hurt her one whit, or change her in the least from the sweet, modest, half-frightened woman who came back to Millfield in place of the gay Anna we had known. She did not wear mourning for her husband; she could not with that consciousness in her heart of relief because he was dead; but she always wore black or white, relieved perhaps with a knot of ribbon or a flower, and never was there a fairersight than was she in this sober attire as she went about our village seeking the sick and suffering, and giving to the poor of the wealth that God had given her. She built her mother a handsome house on an elevation just out of the town, and a wing was added for Madame Verwest, who was so much one of the family that she could not leave them.
“And so the working in the shoe-shop was at an end, with the smell of wax and leather, and the horrors of Chateau d’Or were past, and there were people foolish enough to say that it paid after all to marry a madman when the end had brought such peace. To Eugenie, Anna had often written, and when all was over she wrote again telling of the death. Then the French inconsistency of character showed itself, and the woman to whom Haverleigh had always been kind and indulgent, wept and refused to be comforted, partly for her loss, and more, I think, because no provision had been made for her.
“‘Mon dieu!’ she wrote to Anna, ‘to think no little legaceepour moi, who have given everything for him. Not so much as one, what you say, one dollar, and I so poor, too. Not so much to buy onepair of gloves, and they so cheap atAu Bon Marche, trois francs et demi, and so good. Shall I send you a box of black—bah,non, ma cherie. You not wear that for he, butme, I must wearcrepe, and bombasin, one leetle month, for my heart all French, allcrepe, all ache,douleur, for the bad monsieur, who once love Eugenie. He have account at bank and I draw check at will, and have draw till only one thousand franc left, which you make two hundred dollars. Then what I must do? I grow old and want no more monsieur—bah! I hate him all. I look in my glass and see Eugenie most forty, with some gray hairs, some wrinkles, which paste will not cover. No monsieur want me for wife: I want no monsieur. So I must work; must hang out the sign, ‘Robes et Costumes. Madame Eugenie,’ and tie to it some bonnets and caps. Oh, but it will go hard after all the ease, to have so many girls round, and I must scold them all the time; perhaps I act again, but it I hate so much; it brings meles messieursagain, and I won’t have it. For you, you so happy withbeaucoup de l’argent, no more nasty shop, no more wax, no more leather, no more smell-bad; but for me leather, and wax, and smell-bad,toujours, toujours.Mon Dieu, ’tis quite hard, and I give all to him, all, and if he not die, what you call him, crazy, he remember Eugenie in his—his little last testament, you call it, or some book like that. Oh, me, I starve, I die. I have the many girls around me with the bad to sew, and you have the silk, the satin, the opera, and the lunch atTrois Freres—bien—’tis right, but hard, and it takes so few money to set me up, quite.Me comprenez vous?’
“Anna did understand the hint, and sent to the Frenchwoman, who had done her great service, ten thousand dollars, which Eugenie acknowledged with rapture.
“‘Enough, withprudencyandsave, to keep me lady all my life. No need for the girls now to sewles robes; no leather, no wax, no smell-bad, forevermore, but highly respectable woman, who let rooms toles Americainsand bring themcafein the morning.’
“This was Eugenie’s reply, and after that Anna heard no more from her, but supposed her happy as a highly respectable woman and keeper of lodgers.”
The mention of Eugenie’scafewas too much forHal and myself in our exhausted condition, and, ringing the bell, we orderedcafefor two in our apartments, and while we were sipping the delicious beverage, I said to my companion:
“Hal, you have told a splendid story, but I must hear a little more. You were in love with Anna Strong before she married Haverleigh. Did the love come back after he was dead?”
Hal made no answer for a moment, then he said:
“I will not tell you another word to-day; nor have I time. We must see a little of Marseilles, and to-night be off for Nice.”
“And not stop at Cannes?” I asked, and he replied:
“No, not stop at Cannes—a stupid place, full of English. Nice is the spot in all the world for me.”
So we went straight to Nice, and were quartered at the Grand Hotel, and our rooms opened upon the spacious garden, where, looking from my window in the morning, I saw several groups of people, one of which attracted my attention at once. A beautiful boy of three years old was running up and down a graveled walk, followed by a smart-looking French maid, who always brought himback to two ladies sitting on a bench under the trees.
One lady was old and draped in black, but the other was young, and oh, so fair in her morning-dress of white, with a blue ribbon in her wavy hair. There were diamonds and costly gems sparkling on her hands, and everything about her betokened the lady of wealth and culture.
“Who is she, I wonder?” I was saying to myself, when I saw Hal enter the garden and walk straight up to her, while a shout from the little boy showed that he was no stranger.
Stranger! I should say not, by thekisshe gave that girl or woman, with me looking on, and saying aloud:
“That’s Anna, sure!”
Yes, it was Anna come abroad with Madame Verwest and her child, and her former maid, Celine, whom she had found at Chateau d’Or, where they had stopped for a few days. And an hour after I was introduced to Mrs. Haverleigh, and sat opposite her at the breakfast we had in her parlor, and studied her closely, and decided that Hal had not overrated her charms.
She was beautiful, with that soft, refined, unconscious beauty that one rarely sees in a really handsome face. There was nothing of the doll about her. She was a thorough woman, graceful, pure, and lovely, with a look in her blue eyes which told of Chateau d’Or and the dreamy day and night watches there. But those were over now. Chateau d’Or was rented for a series of years, at a price merely nominal, and so that was off her hands, and the greatest care she had was the care of her immense fortune. Of course Hal had offered to relieve her of this care, and she had accepted his offer, and given him herself as a retaining fee.
We kept with her after that, or Hal did, and I kept at a distance, and talked with Madame Verwest, and romped with Arthur until we reached Venice, and there, one moonlight night, Hal and Anna were married, and we made the tour of the Grand Canal for a wedding trip, and the canopy over the bride was of pure white satin, and in the soft, silvery moonlight we sang the “Star-Spangled Banner,” our two boatmen joining in the chorus with their sweet Italian voices.
That was long ago, and Hal Morton has a boyof his own now, and a blue-eyed baby daughter, too, and he lives in one of the finest places on the Connecticut river, and goes to Europe every year, and Madame Verwest lives with him; and Fred has been through college, and is on the Continent now; and Mary is married to a Methodist minister, and Mrs. Strong is dead; and Eugenie—well, when the Commune swept over Paris, Eugenie herself went into the street and cared for the wounded and dying, and hurled a stone at a Frenchman who was attacking an American, and kept him at bay, and got the young man into her own house, and bandaged up his head, and called him “Sharles,” and asked him if he remembered her.
Fred did remember her then, and staid with her till the fierce storm was over and he was free to leave beleaguered and desecrated Paris and go on his way to Scotland, where he found Hal Morton and Anna in their beautiful home among the Highlands, not very far from Loch Katrine, and so I finish this story of Chateau d’Or.
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.