CHAPTER VI.READING THE LETTER.
Oh, how still it was in that room, and the click of the key as it turned the slender bolt echoed through the silent apartment, causing Marian to start as if a living presence had been near. The drawer was opened, and she held the letter in her hand, while unseen voices seemed whispering to her, “Oh, Marian, Marian—leave the letter still untouched. Do not seek to know the secret it contains, but go back to the man who is your husband, and by those gentle acts which seldom fail in their effect, win his love. It will be far more precious to you than all the wealth of which you are the unsuspecting heiress.”
But Marian did not understand—nor know why it was she trembled so. She only knew she had the letter in her hand—her letter—the one left by her guardian. It bore no superscription, but it was for her, of course, and fixing herself in a comfortable position, she broke the seal and read:
“My Dear Child:”
There was nothing in those three words suggestive of a mistake—and Marian read on till, with a quick, nervous start, she glanced forward, then backward—and then read on and on, until at last not even the fear of death itself could have stopped her from that reading. That letter was never intended for her eye—she knew that now, but had the cold hand of her guardian been interposed to wrest it from her, she would haveheld it fast until she learned the whole. Like coals of living fire, the words burned into her soul, scorching, blistering as they burned—and when the letter was finished she fell upon her face with a cry so full of agony and horror that Frederic in the parlor heard the wail of human anguish, and started to his feet, wondering whence it came.
With the setting of the sun the November wind had risen, and as the young man listened it swept moaning past the window, seeming not unlike the sound he had first heard. “It was the wind,” he said, and he resumed his seat, while, in that little room, not very far away, poor Marian came back to consciousness, and crouching on the floor, prayed that she might die. She understood it now—how she had been deceived, betrayed, and cruelly wronged. She knew, too, that she was the heiress of untold wealth, and for a single moment her heart beat with a gratified pride, but the surprise was too great to be realized at once, and the feeling was soon absorbed in the reason why Frederic Raymond had made her his wife. It was not herself he had married, but her fortune—her money—Redstone Hall. She was merely a necessary incumbrance, which he would rather should have been omitted in the bargain. The thought was maddening, and, stretching out her arms, she asked again that she might die.
“Oh, why didn’t he come to me?” she cried, “and tell me? I would gladly have given him half my fortune—yes, all—all—rather than be the wretched thing I am, and he would have been free to love and marry this—”
She could not at first speak the name of her rival—but she said it at last, and the sound of it wrung her heart with a new and torturing pain. She had never heard of Isabel Huntington before, and as she thought how beautiful and grand she was, she whispered to herself, “Why didn’t he go back to her, and leave me, the red-headed fright, alone? Yes, that was what hewrote to his father. Let me look at it again,” and the tone of her voice was bitter and the expression of her face hard and stony, as taking up the letter she read for the second time that “she was uncouth, uneducated and ugly,” and if his father did not give up that foolish fancy, Frederic would positively “hate the red-headed fright.” Her guardian had not given up the foolish fancy, consequently there was but one inference to be drawn.
In her excitement she did not consider that Frederic had probably written of her harsher things than he really meant. She only thought, “He loathes me—he despises me—he wishes I was dead—and I dared to kiss him too,” she added. “How he hated me for that, but ’twas the first, and it shall be the last, for I will go away forever and leave him Redstone Hall, the bride he married a few hours ago,” and laying her face upon the chair Marian thought long and earnestly of the future. She had come into that room a happy, simple-hearted, confiding child, but she had lived years since, and she sat there now a crushed but self-reliant woman, ready to go out and contend with the world alone. Gradually her thoughts and purposes took a definite form. She was ignorant of the knotty points of law, and she did not know but Frederic could get her a divorce, but from this publicity she shrank. She could not be pointed at as a discarded wife. She would rather go away where Frederic would never see nor hear of her again, and she fancied that by so doing he would after a time at least be free to marry Isabel. She had not wept before, for her tears seemed scorched with pain, but at the thought of another coming there to take the place she had hoped to fill, they rained in torrents over her white face, and clasping her little hands convulsively together, she cried—“How can I give him up when I love him so much—so much?”
Gradually there stole over her the noble, unselfish thought, that because she loved him so much, shewould willingly sacrifice herself and all she had for the sake of making him happy—and then she grew calm again and began to decide where she would go. Instinctively her mind turned toward New York city as the great hiding place from the world. Mrs. Burt, the woman who had lived with them in Yonkers, and who had always been so kind to her, was in New York she knew, for she had written to Colonel Raymond not long before his death, asking if there was anything in Kentucky for her son Ben to do. This letter her guardian had answered and then destroyed with many others, which he said were of no consequence, and only lumbered up his drawer. Consequently there was no possibility that this letter would suggest Mrs. Burt to Frederic, who had never seen her, she having come and gone while he was away at school, and thus far the project was a safe one. But her name—she might some time be recognized by that, and remembering that her mother’s maiden name wasMary Grey, and that Frederic, even if he had ever known it, which was doubtful, had probably forgotten it, she resolved upon being henceforthMarian Grey, and she repeated it aloud, feeling the while that the change was well—for she was no longer the same girl she used to know as Marian Lindsey. Once she said softly to herself, “Marian Raymond,” but the sound grated harshly, for she felt that she had no right to bear that name.
This settled, she turned her thoughts upon the means by which New York was to be reached, and she was glad that she had not bought the dress, for now she had ample funds with which to meet the expense, and she would go that very night, before her resolution failed her. Redstone Hall was only two miles from the station, and as the evening train passed at half-past nine, there would be time to reach it, and write a farewell letter, too, to Frederic, for she must tell him how, though it broke her heart to do it, she willingly gave him everything, and hoped he would be happy when she was gone forever. Marian wasbeautiful then in her desolation, and so Frederic Raymond would have said, could he have seen her with the light of her noble sacrifice of self shining in her eyes, and the new-born, womanly expression on her face. The first fearful burst was over, and calmly she sat down to her task—but the storm rose high again as she essayed to write that good-by, which would seem to him who read it a cry of despair wrung from a fainting heart.
“Frederic—dear Frederic,” she began, “can I—may I saymy husbandonce—just once—and I’ll never insult you with that name again?
“I am going away forever, Frederic, and when you are reading this I shall not be at Redstone Hall, nor anywhere around it. Do not try to find me. It is better you should not. Your father’s letter, which was intended for you, and by mistake has come to me, will tell you why I go. I forgive your father, Frederic—fully, freely forgive him—butyou—oh, Frederic, if I loved you less I should blame you for deceiving me so cruelly. If you had told me all I would gladly have shared my fortune with you. I would have given you more than half, and when you brought that beautiful Isabel home I would have loved her as a sister.
“Why didn’t you, Frederic? What made you treat me so? What made you break my heart when you could have helped it? It aches so hard now as I write, and the hardest pain of all is the loss of faith in you. I thought you so noble, so good, and I may confess to you here on paper, I loved you so much—how much you will never know, for I shall never come back to tell you.
“And I kissed you, too. Forgive me for that, Frederic. I didn’t know then how you hated me.—Wash the stain from your forehead, can’t you?—and don’t lay it up against me. If I thought I could make you love me, I would stay. I would endure torture for years if I knew the light was shining beyond, butit cannot be. The sight of me would make you hate me more. So I give everything I have to you and Isabel. You’ll marry her at a suitable time, and when you see how well she becomes your home, you will be glad I went away. If you must tell her of me, and I suppose you must, speak kindly of me, won’t you?—You needn’t talk of me often, but sometimes, when you are all alone, and you are sure she will not know, think of poor little Marian, who gave her life away, that one she loved the best in all the world might have wealth and happiness.
“Farewell, Frederic, farewell. Death itself cannot be harder than bidding you good-by, and knowing it is for ever.”
And well might Marian say this, for it seemed to her that she dipped her pen in her very heart’s blood, when she wrote that last adieu. She folded up the letter and directed it to Frederic—then taking another sheet she wrote to the blind girl:
“Dearest Alice—Precious little Alice. If my heart was not already broken, it would break at leaving you. Don’t mourn for me much, darling. Tell Dinah and Hetty, and the other blacks, not to cry—and if I’ve ever been cross to them, they must forget it now that I am gone. God bless you all. Good by—good by.”
The letters finished, she left them upon the desk, where they could not help being seen by the first one who should enter—then stealing up the stairs to the closet at the extremity of the hall, she put on her bonnet, vail and shawl, and started for her purse, which was in the chamber where Alice slept. Careful, very careful were her footsteps now, lest she should waken the child, who, having cried herself to sleep, was resting quietly. The purse was obtained, as was also a daguerreotype of her guardian which lay in the same drawer—and then for a moment she stood gazing at the little blind girl, and longing to give her one more kiss; but she dared not, and glancinghurriedly around the room which had been hers so long, she hastened down the stairs and out upon the piazza. She could see the light from the parlor window streaming out into the darkness, and drawing near she looked through blinding tears upon the solitary man, who, sitting there alone, little dreamed of the whispered blessings breathed for him but a few yards away. It seemed to Marian in that moment of agony that her very life was going out, and she leaned against a pillar to keep herself from falling.
“Oh, can I leave him?” she thought. “Can I go away forever, and never see his face again or listen to his voice?” and looking up into the sky she prayed that if in heaven they should meet again, he might know and love her there for what she suffered here.
On the withered grass and leaves near by there was a rustling sound as if some one was coming, and Marian drew back for fear of being seen, but it was only Bruno, the large watch dog. He had just been released from his kennel, and he came tearing up the walk, and with a low savage growl sprang toward the spot where Marian was hiding.
“Bruno, good Bruno,” she whispered, and in an instant the fierce mastiff crouched at her feet and licked her hand with a whining sound, as if he suspected something wrong.
One more yearning glance at Frederic—one more tearful look at her old home, and Marian walked rapidly down the avenue, followed by Bruno, who could neither be coaxed nor driven back. It was all in vain that Marian stamped her little foot, wound her arms round his shaggy neck, bidding him return; he only answered with a faint whine quite as expressive of obstinacy as words could have been. He knew Marian had no business to be abroad at that hour of the night, and, with the faithfulness of his race, was determined to follow. At length, as she was beginning to despair of getting rid of him, she remembered how pertinaciously he would guard any article which heknew belonged to the family—and on the bridge which crossed the Elkhorn, she purposely dropped her glove and handkerchief, the latter of which bore her name in full. The ruse was successful, for after vainly attempting to make her know that she had lost something, the dog turned back, and, with a loud, mournful howl, which Marian accepted as his farewell, he laid himself down by the handkerchief and glove, turning his head occasionally in the direction Marian had gone, and uttering low plaintive howls when he saw she did not return.
Meantime Marian kept on her way, striking out into the fields so as not to be observed—and at last, just as the cars sounded in the distance, she came up to a clump of trees growing a little to the left, and on the opposite side of the road from that on which the depot stood. By getting in here no one would see her at the station, and when the train stopped she came out from her concealment, and bounding lightly upon the platform of the rear car, entered unobserved. As the passengers were sitting with their backs toward her, but one or two noticed her when she came in, and these scarce gave her a thought, as she sank into the seat nearest to the door, and drawing her vail over her face trembled violently lest she should be recognized, or at least noted and remembered. But her fears were vain, for no one there had ever seen or heard of her—and in a moment more the train was moving on, and she, heart-broken and alone, was taking her bridal tour!