THE PURITANS HAVE TRIUMPHED!
The early afternoon sun was streaming in the library windows. Miss Gastonguay's carved chair was placed in the full light of its rays. Her gray head and velvet jacket were resplendent, and her wrinkled face glowed with an unearthly lustre.
She was making her will. Captain Veevers sat at the big table in the centre of the room. He was reserved and taciturn as usual, yet he glanced at her occasionally with some anxiety. He had deep respect for her as an old friend and substantial patron, and he saw that he was going to lose her.
She dictated in a firm and collected voice, "First, I revoke all wills and codicils by me heretofore made."
He repeated the words after her, and a number of bequests to servants and friends followed. Captain Veevers was surprised at none of them, until he came to one in which the sum of twenty thousand dollars was ordered to be paid to Captain Micah White.
However, he took pains not to exhibit his surprise. The captain had probably been executing some commission for Miss Gastonguay.
But a greater surprise was to follow. "Now that I am about to die," continued Miss Gastonguay, "and, wishing to gratify my earnest wish that some of my own townspeople may reside under my roof, and raise up a Christian family to bless the State, I give and bequeath to my friend Justin Mercer my house, furniture, and estate of French Cross, together with the sum of—" and she paused, while the scratching of Captain Veevers's pen ceased.
She was making a calculation on a scrap of paper she held in her hand, and when she finished, he, to his astonishment, was directed to name an amount representing one-half the value of her entire property.
Self-possessed as he was, he could not suppress a slight sneer.
Her deep set eyes caught it. "What is it?" she asked, gently. "You would like to make an observation?"
His concentrated malice and implacability found expression in a murmured sentence, "So you too have found her out?"
"Who—Chelda?"
"Yes."
She waved her pencil at him with a melancholy smile, and continued dictating, "To my belovedniece, Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay, who has been my companion and solace since her childhood, I give and bequeath the remainder and residue of my real and personal estate, and direct and authorise my executors to collect the income derived therefrom, and pay said income in quarter-yearly payments to said Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay during her natural life. And it is further my will, and I do hereby authorise and empower the said Chelda Gertrude Gastonguay by her last will and testament duly executed by her, according to the laws of this State, to bequeath, limit, and appoint the said rest and residue of my estate in any way and for such objects as she may deem best."
Here she broke off. "Young man," she said, abruptly, "come with me."
She rose from her seat, and extended a hand to Captain Veevers, who left the table, and accompanied her into the adjoining music-room.
She pointed to a bevelled glass panel. "Look in there, will you?"
He looked in, and saw his sallow face disfigured by an expression of inexorable contempt.
"It grieves me," she said, simply. "You are angry with my niece."
"Not angry,—I despise her. I despise myself," he continued, in a low voice, "for letting you know."
His head hung down. He would fain have covered his wound, but it was too new, too painful.
"She has had you dangling about her for years," said Miss Gastonguay. "She has deceived you,—hurt your feelings."
"She has made a fool of me," he articulated. "When I marry,—if I marry,—I shall look for a stupid woman. I am tired of clever ones."
"This is not love," continued Miss Gastonguay, "it is self-esteem. Let me speak to you as if you were my son. I like you—I pity you. Thank Heaven that Chelda does discard you. Such a match would have been most unsuitable. Pay court to some gentle girl like Aurelia Sinclair, who will love and admire you. Chelda is, as you say, insincere and she loves another man. Dear young man," and she suddenly laid her hand on his shoulder, "let me say a last word to you. I am soon to shake off this world and its troubles. Already I feel myself in it but not of it. Nothing burdens me, nothing vexes me. I have had worries and trials. They have all rolled from me. With unspeakable longing I look forward to another existence. Let me have one more consolation before I depart. Let me plant a little seed of forgiveness in your heart."
Her face was transfigured. With something like awe the young man felt his own face clearing, and the cloud lifting from his mind.
"Forgive her, forgive her," she murmured, "as you wish to be forgiven. It is the great secret of life. No happiness without forgiveness. Alas! we are none of us perfect, but resentment is so trivial, so petty."
Captain Veevers moved back into the library. He was strangely uncomfortable. Miss Gastonguay's mind seemed wandering. "Shall we finish our business?" he said.
"Yes, yes," and like one in a dream, and yet with entire composure, she continued the work in hand, spoke a few words to the witnesses called in, and then after signing the will, and seeing it laid away in a safe place, rang the bell and requested her niece's presence.
"Chelda, my dear," she said, softly, "you have something to say to this young man."
The feverish flush on the young lady's face deepened. Her head was not held as high as formerly and her manner had become nervous and startled.
"Captain Veevers," she said, moving toward him in an automaton-like fashion, but keeping her eyes fixed on her aunt, "I wounded your feelings in an interview you sought last week. I deeply regret it."
"She wishes to curry favour with her aunt," the young man sneeringly reflected. Aloud he said, "The matter had better be left buried."
"If you knew how I have suffered!" said Chelda, with agitation. "How I have suffered!"
A quick gleam sprang to his eyes. Had she repented? If so, though he was very angry, he might possibly forgive.
She retreated from him, and drawing up her slender figure against the dark panelling of the wall, hastily ejaculated a few sentences divided between him and her mildly observing aunt.
"I did not think when I began—I only sought my own gratification. Then—then it was too late. The agonies of fear, of apprehension, of mortification, that I have undergone, I cannot describe. If you knew, you would not scorn but pity me. I have had no sleep—my food is like ashes. You think you suffer," and she bestowed a glance of mingled fear and aversion on the man, "you know nothing of it,—a little wounded vanity, that is all. I cannot describe what I endure—I cannot describe it," and she buried her face in her hands. "Such days of misery—such nights of pain!"
Her agitation was intense—almost too intense for the occasion. Captain Veevers looked at Miss Gastonguay, around whose lips a curious tremor was stealing. There was something tragic and overwrought in her niece's despair,—almost as if she were speaking of one thing and thinking of another.
Miss Gastonguay waved him to depart. With a last glance at Chelda, he obeyed her. That woman's sentiment was dead and buried. She only felt remorse. She had flirted with the clergyman; she had been playing with him. Both had found her out. His heart felt lighter. She was too much like a woman with a past. Possibly he had been favoured in being delivered from her.
"Chelda," said Miss Gastonguay, softly, "have you anything to tell me?"
"No, no," said her niece, in an unhappy, terrified voice, "nothing, nothing. I have behaved badly to Captain Veevers,—I am ashamed."
"I am going to take a walk in the wood," said Miss Gastonguay, in the same grave, kind way. "Possibly when I come back you will talk freely to me."
"Talk freely—" stammered her niece, raising her head, but her aunt was already gone. She hurried to the window. "Oh, if I dared—if I dared! She might forgive me. She is so changed now, but I cannot, I cannot," and hiding her face in the back of a chair she writhed in an agony of doubt and contrition. "If I were a child or a girl, but I am a woman. I should have known better. If I had only thought—if I had only thought!"
Miss Gastonguay went first to the cemetery. The newly made grave could not be seen. Every morning, long before the household was astir, Chelda left her bed, and her aunt sometimes secretly watched her as she went toiling from grave to greenhouse, her delicate hands bearing unaccustomed burdens. This grave was her special charge, the one spot at French Cross to be tenderly cared for and unceasingly beautified, and she ruthlessly stripped the most costly exotics and most precious of house flowers of blossom and leaf.
To Derrice, lying pale and languid ever since the night that made her an orphan, Miss Gastonguay daily bore a description of Chelda's latest designs in ornamentation. One day it was a huge white cross outlined in a bank of ferns; another, a white heart covered the rooting sod and gaping earth-seams.
To-day there was a carpet of variegated bloom scenting the air for yards around with a delicious perfume. With dry eyes, but with the same unearthly brightness of face, Miss Gastonguay stooped and passed her hand caressingly over a pillow of flowers laid at the head of the grave, then talking softly to herself she proceeded to the wood.
She had no pain, no distress. Soon—perhaps in the night, perhaps next day—would come the terrible anguish in her chest, the wild struggle for breath. She must not go far from the house, she would halt by the old playground where she had romped with her little brother, and barely entering the wood shesat down in the shade of some underbrush beside the pond.
How fair was this world! How transcendent must be the beauty of the other world to eclipse this! She leaned back against a tree and mused on deep and unutterable things until there was a soft footfall beside her.
"Dear pony," she said, and, with a new fondness added to her old fondness for all created things, she stroked the head dropped caressingly before her.
After a time she started to get up, but could not do so.
"Ah," she said, quietly, and she lay back against the tree.
A carpenter going home with his tools a few minutes later had occasion to pass the pond. He touched his hat when he saw her, and was greeted calmly and called to her side. "Can you give me a pencil and a piece of paper, Mr. Munro, and if you are not in a hurry would you be kind enough to go and sit yonder for a short time? If I do not speak at the end of ten minutes come to me. I want to send a message to my niece, and shall be obliged if you will leave it at the door as you go by."
The man cheerfully complied with her request. In common with the whole town, he had heard that she was not likely to live long, but she looked better to-day than he had ever seen her before. Her eyewas bright,—almost triumphant. Perhaps she had conquered her complaint.
Miss Gastonguay fingered the broad-pointed pencil. "Only ten minutes, perhaps less. I am not mistaken this time,—let me make haste," and, laying the paper on a flat stone beside her, she wrote firmly: "To Chelda, my beloved niece. The conversation will not take place, but I forgive, fully, freely. May God bless you. Forget the past,—forget, forget. Look steadily forward. Leave French Cross and be happy. My blessing always,—always. Never forget it. Nothing would change it, nothing you could say or do. No one has told me anything, but I suspected and know the truth."
She stopped for a few minutes. The pain was coming on. One look she cast up at the brave blue of the sky, then she went on, "Derrice Mercer, my dear friend. Good-bye, good-bye. Keep clean your sweet soul. Train wisely all who may come to you. Do not forget me. We shall meet again. Do not lose heart. Trust your husband; he will advise."
This time the pencil fell from her grasp, and an acute spasm of pain contracted her features. She pressed her hands to her throat, and gasped for breath. When it came, she seized the pencil and wrote, hurriedly, "I have offended some. I pray all to forgive me. In this last hour I think kindly, so kindly of all. Would that my poor death couldbring happiness to all I know. Good-bye, dear townspeople. On the whole, we have lived happily together. I beg you, I pray you, I beseech you to meet me in a better world. Would that I could comfort some sore hearts before I go.
"Chelda, once again,—do not grieve that I am alone. I thought to have you with me at the last, but it would have been hard for you. It is better so. Bury me beside the wanderer."
Here she broke off. The pencil rolled away. She hurriedly thrust the paper in the bosom of her coat, and fell on the ground in a paroxysm of pain.
The carpenter sitting by the pond with his back to her heard nothing. He had become absorbed in a newspaper that he had taken from his pocket. The pony uneasily touched the back of her head with his nose, and when she presently revealed her exhausted face he whinnied joyfully.
Her strength was all gone. She was reclining on the moss, her hands full of violet leaves that she had grasped in her excess of pain.
She drew herself to her old position against the tree, and straightened her clothing. Now she felt nothing but weariness, deadly weariness.
She drew one hand caressingly over the ground. "Good-bye, good-bye," she murmured, "dear old Pine Tree State.Dirigo—motto of staunch hearts. Pony, kiss me—" and she tried to upraise a feeble hand.
She could not. The pony rubbed his velvet nose over her forehead. "And this is death, no blackness of doubt and unbelief. All peace. The Puritans have triumphed!"
Her voice rose suddenly. The carpenter heard it, and threw down his paper. He ran to her, then retraced his steps to the pond and filled his hat with water.
He was too late. The old lady was dying. Her glazed eyes were fixed on the sky. She could not see him, but he caught her murmured words, "I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his Son—Dear Lord, open the gates of heaven and let a tired old child creep in."
There was a wistful pleading note in her voice. The carpenter, leaning over her, tried in vain to revive her. She fell back, and a smile of unutterable joy lighted up her face.