CHAPTER IV.THE CONFESSION.
“Heloise,” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed, as she entered her daughter’s room. “What is the matter? You look as if you had been sick for years. Can it be you loved him so much?”
“Yes, mother; more than you can guess. I’ll tell you about it by and by; to-night, maybe, when I feel stronger. I can’t talk now.”
“Would you like me to tell you how well everything passed off at the grave, and how thoughtful Col. Schuyler was?” Mrs. Fordham continued, and Heloise replied:
“No, mother, not a word, now nor ever. I can’t bear it. I almost hate the Schuylers, and I wish I, too, was dead.”
It was not often that Heloise was thus moved, and her mother looked at her curiously, but she said no more of the Schuylers or Abelard, and busied herself with putting the cottage to rights and preparing a tempting little supper for her daughter. But Heloise could not eat, and after the supper was cleared away and her mother had taken her usual seat upon the back porch, she crept to her side, and putting her head in her lap, said entreatingly:
“Mother, I have something to tell you which will surprise and probably offend you. I ought to have told it before, but I was afraid and kept putting it off. It was wrong, I know, but it cannot now be helped. Abelard and I were married!”
“You married to Abelard Lyle!” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed, starting back as if a serpent had stung her.
She did not say, “I am glad then that he is dead,” but she thought it, and the thought must have communicated itself to Heloise, for she lifted up her head and looked reproachfully in her mother’s face, while her lip quivered in a grieved kind of way, but she did not cry, and her voice was steady as she said:
“Oh, mother, don’t speak so to me, as if marrying him was the most disgraceful thing I could do. I loved him so much, and he loved me. It was during the long voyage when I saw so much of him. You know you were sick most of the time, and that left me to him, and he was so kind, and before we reached New York I promised to be his wife some time, and meant to tell you.”
“Why didn’t you, then?”
The tone was harsh and unrelenting in which Mrs. Fordham put this question, and Heloise flushed a little and answered, hurriedly:
“It was wrong, I know, but you are, you were,—forgive me, mother,—you are prouder, more ambitious than I am. You think I might marry a nobleman, and I shrank from telling you for fear you would separate us and that time you went to Hoboken and stayed a week with your friend, Abelard persuaded me to be married. We could keep it a secret, he said, until he had something beforehand and was in a better position.”
“Umph! As if he could rise to a better position. Child, with your face and manner you might be the first lady in the land, instead of throwing yourself away on a poor carpenter.”
Mrs. Fordham spoke very bitterly, and her eyes had in them a hard, angry look, which roused all the temper there was in the young girl, who answered, hotly:
“Abelard’s profession was an honorable one. Joseph was a carpenter. Abelard was not to blame for being poor; one of his sisters married into as good a family as there is in Scotland, and had he lived he would have risen above poverty and obscurity. America has many avenues for such as he, and Ishould one day have been so proud of him. Oh, my darling, my husband!”
The temper was all gone now, and the girl’s voice was like a wailing sob as she uttered the name, “My husband,” but it did not touch the mother’s heart or make her one whit sorry for her child.
“Where was it? I mean who married you?” she asked; and Heloise replied:
“A Mr. Calvert, in New York.”
“A dissenter?” was the next question; and Heloise answered:
“Yes, I believe so; Abelard did not care who it was, so we were married, and he looked in the Directory and found the name of the Rev. Charles Calvert, and persuaded me to go there. I think he was not preaching anywhere, but he could marry us the same, and he did.”
“Without any reference or asking you any questions?” Mrs. Fordham said, and Heloise hesitated a little.
She did not like to tell that Abelard had represented her as alone in this country, and had given that as a reason for marrying so young; so she evaded the question, and answered:
“The minister was satisfied, only he said I seemed like a child; and one of the ladies present said so, too, and asked how old I was. Abelard told her, ‘older than I looked,’ and that was all they said.”
Heloise paused a moment, and then went on:
“I have heard since that Mr. Calvert was a half brother of Mrs. Schuyler, who was in the room when we were married, and had little Godfrey with her.”
“Mrs. Schuyler saw you married!” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed. “The matter grows worse and worse. Now that Abelard is dead, I hoped it might not be known. You have seen her since,—do you think she recognized you?”
“I know she did not. She could not have seen me distinctly that night in New York. She was sick, I think; at all events, she lay upon a couch, and did not get up at all. I know it was Mrs. Schuyler, because the other lady, Mrs. Calvert,called her Emily, and the little boy told Abelard his name was Godfrey Schuyler.”
“Have you a certificate of the marriage?” was Mrs. Fordham’s next question, and her daughter replied:
“I did have, and kept it in a box Abelard gave me, but I’ve lost it. I had it out the other day with some other papers, and thought I put it back, but must have burned it and substituted for it a receipt which looked like it. Oh, mother! will people think I never was married at all, when they know it?”
The girl was crouching at her mother’s feet in such an agony of shame and fear that at first she hardly heard what her mother was saying about there being no need for people to know of the marriage.
“Godfrey is too young to remember it, or he would have recognized Abelard,” Mrs. Fordham said; “and it is not likely the two ladies thought enough of you to keep you in mind a week. There is nothing but Abelard’s peculiar name to make any impression. They might remember that.”
“No, mother.” And Heloise lifted her head quickly. “His first name was James, and as he liked that the best, he called himself ‘James A. Lyle,’ and it was so written in the certificate.”
“Then it never need be known that you made this low marriage!” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed, in a tone of intense relief.
“Mother!”—and starting up from her crouching posture, Heloise’s eyes flashed indignantly as she said,—“do you think I am ashamed of my love for Abelard, or that I will consent to act a lie all my life, even if I could do so without detection, which I cannot, for, mother, I have not told you all; the dreadful part is to come. I—I—oh! I can’t speak it. Youmustknow what I mean.”
Heloise was at her mother’s feet again, her hands clasped together nervously, and her breath coming in quick, panting gasps, as she whispered the dreadful thing she had to tell, and then fell forward on her face, fainting entirely away.
For an instant Mrs. Fordham sat like one stunned by a heavy blow, powerless to move or speak; but her ever-active, far-seeingmind was busy, and before she stooped to raise her unconscious daughter, she had come to a decision.
All her hopes for the future should not be thus blasted. Her daughter should yet ride in the high places of the land, and should never be known to the world as the widow of a carpenter. She repeated the last words sneeringly, and then lifting up her child bore her to the window, where the cool evening air could blow upon her. It was not long ere Heloise came back to consciousness, but her face still wore the same white, frightened look it had put on when she whispered her secret. Ere long, however, the pallid hue changed to a scarlet flush as she listened to her mother’s plan, and her fixed purpose to carry it out. They were to leave Hampstead at once and go back to England, where in London they would for a time live in obscurity, unknown to any one save those with whom they were compelled to come in contact.
“Nobody here will believe in your marriage,” she said, as she saw Heloise about to speak, and guessed that it was to oppose her. “Your certificate is lost.”
“Yes, but Mr. Calvert must have a record; he would remember,” Heloise said, faintly; and her mother replied: “Possibly; but I do not care to have him remember. I do not wish your marriage known, and it shall not be. Hear me, Heloise, it shall not be, I say.”
“But I cannot live a lie,” the poor girl moaned, as she rocked to and fro, with her head bent down, and her whole attitude one of great mental distress.
“You forget that you have been living a lie these three months past. It is rather late now to make it a matter of conscience, and I shall not listen to such foolishness. So far as this you may be truthful. In England you may take his name. Lyle is better than Fordham, and for a time you must of course pass for a married woman; after that,—I have not decided.”
There was a hard, implacable expression in Mrs. Fordham’s face as she said this, and she looked at that moment as if capable of almost anything which would promote her own ends. Though kind and affectionate in the main she had always kepther daughter in a state of rigid obedience, if not subjection to her will, and she had no idea of being thwarted now. Heloise, who understood her so well and knew how useless it was to contend with so strong and fierce a spirit, felt herself powerless to oppose anything, and thus gave a tacit consent at least to her mother’s plans. For two or three days, however, she kept her room, and did not go down when Mrs. Schuyler came with little Godfrey, and asked for more of the “lovely roses.”
There was nothing said of Abelard. Lady Emily had forgotten him, and had no thought or care for the young girl watching her from the window as she flitted about the rosebush, in her dainty white morning dress, with its lace and fluted ruffles. She was not pretty at all, but her movements were very graceful, and she made a pleasant picture in the little yard, and Heloise half envied her as she thought how blessed she was in home, and husband, and children she was not ashamed to own. She was waiting now, it seemed, for the colonel, who was to take her for a drive, and who soon came down the road, and stopping before the gate asked Mrs. Fordham to come to him for a moment.
He intended raising a monument to the memory of Abelard Lyle, he said, and he would like to inquire his age, place of birth, and if he had another name than Abelard. Mrs. Fordham was sorry she could not give the desired information. Indeed, people were laboring under a misapprehension with regard to herself and the young man. He was a mere ship acquaintance, but she believed he had a mother and possibly a sister. She had never liked this country much, and was intending to return to England very soon, where she would find his friends or communicate with them in some way. Colonel Schuyler was very kind to be so much interested in the young man. She had liked him, too, so far as she knew him, but she had only done for him what she would do for any of her countrymen under similar circumstances.
Mrs. Fordham spoke loftily and decidedly, and Colonel Schuyler looked at her a little curiously as he said:
“Ah, indeed! I am sorry you don’t know his age, thoughit does not matter much. I wish you good-morning, madam.”
He lifted his hat and was turning away, when from the upper window there came a clear, ringing voice, which said:
“Colonel Schuyler, I can tell you what you wish to know. He was born in Alnwick, England; he was twenty-three last March, and his first name was James.”
“Thanks,” and Colonel Schuyler started in surprise, both at the voice and the beautiful young face, which looked so eagerly at him for an instant and then was withdrawn from sight.
“That was a most remarkable face, Emily. Do you know who the young girl is?” Colonel Schuyler asked, as he drove off with his wife.
Mrs. Schuyler believed it was the daughter of that woman, and she guessed she was rather pretty, though she did not notice her particularly.
“That class of people do sometimes produce very fine complexions and tolerably good features.”
That was the lady’s reply, and then she talked of something else, and forgot Heloise entirely. But that night, strangely enough, the colonel dreamed of that window in the cottage round which a honeysuckle was trained, and of a pale, sweet face framed in the net-work of green, and the clear, hazel eyes, which for a moment had looked at him. And, when he woke, he was conscious of a feeling of interest in the young girl, and resolved to make some inquiries concerning her. But the next day he went down to New York to order the monument for Abelard’s grave; and when, after an absence of two weeks, he returned to Hampstead, the cottage was shut up, and he learned that Mrs. Fordham had gone to England and taken her daughter with her.
Remembering what Mrs. Fordham had said to him when he went to make some inquiries concerning Abelard Lyle, he was not as much surprised as the villagers had been when they heard of Mrs. Fordham’s intention to give up her pretty cottage and return to her friends. She laid great stress upon her friends, and hinted broadly that the people of Hampstead were not toher taste. Nobody cared especially, though many wondered at her fickleness in changing her residence so soon. I was sorry, for I liked Heloise and hated to part with her. Remembering what she had said to me of the dreadful thing which might happen to her, and to which my championship was pledged, I felt disappointed not to have a chance of proving myself her friend, and I told her so when I went to say good-by, and found her in the little room where I had seen her on the day of the funeral. Her eyes were almost black, and there was a peculiar expression in them as she regarded me fixedly for a moment without speaking.
“Ettie,” she said at last, “I deceived you the other day. I told you Abelard was not my beau, and that—that was not quite the truth, for though he was not what you meant, he was—, I liked him, oh so much, and he liked me, and—and—oh, Ettie, I am very, very miserable.”
She was sobbing piteously, and I could only smooth her hair by way of comfort as I did not know what to say.
“Ettie,” she began again, when she had dried her eyes, “they say Colonel Schuyler is fixing up the grave and will put a grand monument there. I am thankful to him for that, but after a time he will forget all about it, and grass and weeds will grow where only flowers should be. Ettie, you like me, I think, and will you, for my sake, keep his grave up nice and pretty, and put fresh flowers there in the summer time? Put them in this vase; I give it to you for that; he bought it for me in New York.”
She placed in my hand a small vase of creamy white, with a band of gold around it, and on its side a bunch of blue forget-me-nots, in the centre of which were two hearts transfixed with a golden arrow.
“It will make me happy to know this is on his grave when I am so far away,” she added; “and, Ettie, don’t tell any one, but last night, when everybody was asleep, I went there and planted a little rosebush like that tree in the garden, you know. I am sure it will live, for it had a good root, and I want you to water it and nurse it to life, and when they put up thestone don’t let them trample it down. Will you do this for me?”
I promised that I would, and she went on:
“Some time when I am older and have money I shall come back to see his grave. You’ll have it nice for me, won’t you?”
I promised her again, and then, taking the scissors from the table, she cut from the back of her head one of her long, bright curls, and laying it in my hands bade me keep it as a remembrance of her.
“Mother is coming and you must go,” she said, with a little shiver, as we heard Mrs. Fordham’s voice below, and with a hurried kiss and the whispered words, “Remember about the grave, good-by, I shall see you again some time, and possibly write to you,” she pushed me toward the door, and when I saw her again she was waving her hand to me from the window of the car which took her away from Hampstead.