CHAPTER VIII.MARIAN.
Onward and onward—faster and faster flew the night Express, and the wishes of nearly all the passengers kept pace with the speed. One there was, however, a pale faced, blue-eyed girl, who dreaded the time when the cars would reach their destination, and she be in New York! How she had come thus far safely she scarce could tell. She only knew that every body had been kind to her, and asked her where she wished to go; until now the last dreadful change was made—the blue Hudson was crossed—Albany was far behind, and she was fast nearing New York. Night and day she had traveled, always with the same dull, dreary sense of pain—the same idea that to her the world would never be pleasant, the sunshine bright, or the flowers sweet again. Nervously she shrank from observation—and once, when a lady behind her, who saw that she was weeping, touched her shoulder and said, “What is the matter, little girl?” she started with fear, but did not answer until the question was repeated—then she replied, “Oh, I’m so tired and sick, and the cars make such a noise!”
“Have you come far?” the lady asked, and Marian answered, “Yes, very, very far,” adding, as she remembered with a shudder the din and confusion of the larger cities, “Is New York a heap noisier than Albany or Buffalo?”
“Why, yes,” returned the lady, smiling at the strange question. “Have you never been there?”
“Once, when a child,” said Marian, and the lady continued, “You seem a mere child now. Have you friends in the city?”
“Yes, all I have in the world, and that is only one,” sobbed Marian, her tears falling fast at words of sympathy.
The lady was greatly interested in the child, as she thought her, and had she been going to New York would have still befriended her, but she left at Newburgh, and Marian was again alone. She had heard much of New York, but she had no conception of it—and when at last she was there, and followed a group through the depot up to Broadway, her head grew dizzy and her brain whirled with the deafening roar. Cincinnati, Louisville, Buffalo and Albany combined were nothing to this, and in her confusion she would have fallen upon the pavement had not the crowd forced her along. Once, as a richly dressed young lady brushed past her, she raised her eyes meekly and asked where “Mrs. Daniel Burt lived?”
The question was too preposterous to be heeded, even if it were heard, and the lady moved on, leaving Marian as ignorant as ever of Mrs. Burt’s whereabouts. To two or three other ladies the same question was put, but Mrs. Daniel Burt was evidently not generally known in New York, for no one paid the slightest attention—except indeed to hold tighter their purse-strings, as if there were danger to be apprehended from the slender little figure which extended its ungloved hand so imploringly. After a time, a woman from the country, who had not yet been through the hardening process, listened to the question—and finding that Mrs. Daniel Burt was no way connected with the Burts of Yates county, nor the Blodgetts of Monroe, replied that she was a stranger in the city, and knew no such person—but pretty likely Marian would find it in the Directory—and as a regiment ofsoldiers just then attracted her attention, she turned aside, while Marian, discouraged and sick at heart, kept on her weary way, knowing nothing where she was going, and, if possible, caring less. When she came opposite to Trinity Church, she sank down upon the step, and drawing her vail over her face, half wished that she might die and be buried there in the enclosure where she saw the November sunshine falling on the graves. And then she wondered if the roar of the great city didn’t even penetrate to the ears of the sleeping dead, and, shudderingly, she said, “Oh, I would so much rather be buried by the river at home in dear old Kentucky. It’s all so still and quiet there.”
Gradually, as her weariness began to abate, she grew interested in watching the passers-by, wondering what every body was going down that street for, and why they came back so quick! Then she tried to count the omnibuses, thinking to herself, “Somebody’s dead up town, and this is the procession.” The deceased must have been a person of distinction, she fancied, for the funeral train seemed likely never to end. And, what was stranger than all, another was moving up while this was coming down! Poor Marian! she knew but little of the great Babylon to which she had so recently come, and she thought it made up of carts, hacks, omnibuses and people—all hurrying in every direction as fast as they could go. It made her feel dizzy and cross-eyed to look at them, and leaning back against the iron railing, she fell into a kind of conscious sleep, in which she never forgot for an instant the roar which troubled her so much, or lost the gnawing pain at her heart. In this way she sat for a long time, while hundreds and hundreds of people went by, some glancing sideways at her, and thinking she did not look like an ordinary beggar, while others did not notice her at all.
At last, as the confusion increased, she roused up, staring about her with a wild, startled gaze. Peoplewere going home, and she watched them as they struggled fiercely and ineffectually to stop some loaded omnibus, and then rushed higher up to a more favorable locality.
“The funeral was over,” she said. The omnibuses were most all returning, and though she had no idea of the lapse of time, she fancied that it might be coming night, and the dreadful thought stole over her—“What shall I do then? Maybe I’ll go in the church, though,” she added. “Nobody, I am sure, will hurt me there,” and she glanced confidingly at the massive walls which were to shield her from danger and darkness.
And while she sat there thus, the night shadows began to fall—the people walked faster and faster—the omnibus drivers swore louder and longer—the crowd became greater and greater—and over Marian there stole a horrid dread of the hour when the uproar would cease—when Wall street would be empty, the folks all gone, and she be there alone with the blear-eyed old woman who had seated herself near by, and seemed to be watching her.
“I will ask once more,” she thought. “Maybe some of these people know where she lives.” And, throwing back her vail, she half rose to her feet, when a tall, disagreeable looking fellow bent over her and said—“What can I do for you, my pretty lass?”
For an instant Marian’s heart stood still, for there was something in the rowdy’s appearance exceedingly repulsive, but when he repeated his question, she answered timidly, “I want to find Mrs. Daniel Burt.”
“Oh, yes, Mrs Daniel Burt. I know the old lady well—lives just round the corner. Come with me and I’ll show you the way,” and the great red, rough hand was about to touch the little slender white one resting on Marian’s lap, when a blow from a brawny fist sent the rascal reeling upon the pavement, while a round, good-humored face looked into Marian’s, and akindly voice said, “Did the villain insult you, little girl?”
“Yes—I reckon not—I don’t know,” answered Marian, trembling with fright, while her companion continued, “’Tis the first time he ever spoke civil to a woman then. I know the scamp well—but what are you sittin’ here alone for, when everybody else is goin’ hum?”
Marian felt intuitively thathecould be trusted, and she sobbed aloud, “I havn’t any home, nor friends, nor anything.”
“Great Moses!” said the young man, scanning her closely, “you ain’t a beggar—that’s as sure as my name is Ben Burt—and what be you sittin’ here for, any way?”
Marian did not heed his question, so eagerly did she catch at the name Ben Burt.
“Oh, sir,” she exclaimed, grasping his arm, “are you any way related to Mrs. Daniel Burt, who once lived with Colonel Raymond at Yonkers?”
“Wall, ra-ally now,” returned the honest-hearted Yankee, “if this don’t beat all. I wouldn’t wonder if I was some connected to Mrs. Daniel Burt, bein’ she brung me up from a little shaver, and has licked me mor’n a hundred times. She’s my mother, and if it’s her you’re looking for we may as well be travelin’, for she lives all of three miles from here.”
“Three miles!” repeated Marian, “that other man said just around the corner. What made him tell such a lie?”
“You tell,” answered Ben, with a knowing wink, which however failed to enlighten Marian, who was too glad with having found a protector to ask many questions, and unhesitatingly taking Ben’s offered arm she went with him up the street, until she found the car he wished to take.
When they were comfortably seated and she had leisure to examine him more closely, she found him to be a tall, athletic, good-natured looking young man,betraying but little refinement either in personal appearance or manner, but manifesting in all he did a kind, noble heart, which won her good opinion at once. Greatly he wondered who she was and whence she came, but he refrained asking her any questions, thinking he should know the whole if he waited. It seemed to Marian a long, long ride, and she was beginning to wonder if it would never end, when Ben touched her arm and signified that they were to alight.
“Come right down this street a rod or so and we’re there,” said he, and following whither he led, Marian was soon climbing a long, narrow stairway to the third story of what seemed to her a not very pleasant block of buildings.
But if it were dreary without, the sight of a cheerful blazing fire, which was disclosed to view as Ben opened a narrow door, raised her spirits at once, and taking in at a glance the rag carpet, the stuffed rocking chairs, the chintz-covered lounge, the neat-looking supper table spread for two, and the neater looking woman who was making the toast, she felt the pain at her heart give way a little, just a little, and bounding toward the woman, she cried, “You don’t know me, I suppose. I am Marian Lindsey, Colonel Raymond’s ward.”
Mrs. Burt, for it was she, came near dropping her plate of buttered toast in her surprise, and setting it down upon the hearth, she exclaimed, “The last person upon earth I expected to see. Where did you come from, and how happened you to run afoul of Ben?”
“I ran afoul of her,” answered Ben. “I found her a cryin’ on the pavement in front of Old Trinity, with that rascal of a Joe Black, makin’ b’lieve he was well acquainted with you, and that you lived jest round the corner.”
“Mercy me,” ejaculated Mrs. Burt, “but do tell a body what you’re here for—not but I’m glad to seeyou, but it seems so queer. How is the old Colonel, and that son I never see—Ferdinand, ain’t it—no Frederic, that’s what they call him?”
At the mention of Frederic, Marian gave a choking sob and replied: “Colonel Raymond is dead, and Frederic—oh, Mrs. Burt, please don’t ask me about him now, or I shall surely die.”
“There’s some bedivilment of some kind, I’ll warrant,” muttered Ben, who was a champion of all woman kind. “There’s been the old Harry to pay, or she wouldn’t be runnin’ off here, the villain,” and in fancy he dealt the unknown Frederic a far heavier blow than he had given the scapegrace Joe.
“Well, never mind now,” said Mrs. Burt, soothingly. “Take off your things and have some supper; you must be hungry, I’m sure. How long is it since you ate?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Marian, a deathlike paleness overspreading her face; “not since yesterday, I reckon. Where am I? Everything is so confused!” and overcome with hunger, exhaustion and her late fright, Marian fainted in her chair.
Taking her in his arms as if she had been an infant, Ben carried her to the spare room, which, in accordance with her New England habits, Mrs. Burt always kept for company, and there on the softest of all soft beds he laid her down; then, while his mother removed her bonnet and shawl, he ran for water and camphor, chafing with his own rough fingers her little clammy hands, and bathing her forehead until Marian came back to consciousness.
“There, swaller some cracker and tea, and you’ll feel better directly,” said Mrs. Burt; and, like a very child, Marian obeyed, feeling that there was something delicious in being thus cared for after the dreadful days she had passed. “You needn’t talk to us to-night. There will be time enough to-morrow,” continued Mrs. Burt, as she saw her about to speak; and fixing her comfortably in bed, she went back to Ben,to whom she told all that she knew concerning Marian and the family with whom she had lived.
“There’s something that ain’t just right, depend on’t,” said Ben, sitting down at the table. “That Frederic has served her some mean caper, and so she’s run away. But she hit the nail on the head when she came here.”
By the time supper was over, Marian’s soft, regular breathing told that she was asleep, and taking the lamp in his hand, the curious Ben stole to see her. Her face was white as marble, and even in her sleep the tears dropped from her long eye-lashes, affecting Ben so strangely that his coat sleeve was more than once called in requisition to perform the office of a handkerchief.
“Poor little baby! You’ve been misused the wust kind,” he whispered, as with his great hand he brushed her tears away, and then went noiselessly out, leaving her to her slumbers.
It was a deep, dreamless sleep which came to Marian that night, for her strength was utterly exhausted, and in the atmosphere of kindness surrounding her, there was something soothing to her irritated nerves. But when the morning broke and the roar of the waking city fell again upon her ear, she started up, and gazing about the room, thought, “where am I, and what is it that makes my heart ache so?”
Full soon she remembered what it was, and burying her face in the pillows, she wept again bitterly, wondering what they were doing far away at Redstone Hall, and if anybody but Alice was sorry she had gone. A moment after Mrs. Burt’s kind voice was heard asking how she was, and bidding her be still and rest. But this it was impossible for Marian to do. She could not lie there in that little room and listen to the din which began to produce upon her the same dizzy, bewildering effect it had done the previous day, when she sat on the pavement and saw the omnibuses go by. She must be up and tell the kindpeople her story, and then, if they said so, she would go away—go back to those graves she had seen yesterday, and lying down in some hollow, where that horrid man and blear-eyed woman could not find her she would die, and Frederic would surely never know what had become of her. She knew she could trust both Mrs. Burt and Ben, and when breakfast was over, she unhesitatingly told them everything, interrupted occasionally by Ben’s characteristic exclamations of surprise and his mother’s ejaculations of wonder.
Mrs. Burt’s first impulse was, that if she were Marian she would claim her property, though of course she would not live with Frederic. But Ben saidNo—“he’d work his fingernails off before she should go back.” His mother wanted some one with her when he was gone, and Marian was sent to them by Providence. “Any way,” said he, “she shall live with us a while, and we’ll see what turns up. Maybe this Fred’ll begin to like her now she’s gone. It’s nater to do so, and some day he’ll walk in here and claim her.”
This picture was not a displeasing one to Marian, who through her tears smiled gratefully upon Ben, mentally resolving that should she ever be mistress of Redstone Hall she should remember him. And thus it was arranged thatMarian Grey, as she chose to be called, should remain where she was, for a time at least, and if no husband came for her, she should stay there always as the daughter of Mrs. Burt, whose motherly heart already yearned toward the unfortunate orphan. Both Mrs. Burt and Ben were noble types of diamonds in the rough. Neither of them could boast of much education or refinement, but in all the great city there were few with warmer hearts or kindlier feelings than the widow and her son. Particularly was this true of Ben, who in his treatment of Marian only acted out the impulse of nature; if she had been aggrieved, he was the one to defend her, and if she bade him keep her secret, it was assafe with him as if it had never been breathed into his ear. Nearly all of Ben’s life had been passed in factories, and though now home on a visit, he was still connected with one in Ware, Mass. Very carefully he saved his weekly earnings, and once in three months carried or sent them to his mother, who, having spent many years in New York city, preferred it to the country. Here she lived very comfortably on her own earnings and those of Ben, whose occasional visits made the variety of her rather monotonous life. The other occupants of the block were not people with whom she cared to associate, and she passed many lonely hours. But with Marian for company it would be different, and she welcomed her as warmly as Ben himself had done.
“You shall be my little girl,” she said, laying her hand caressingly on the head of Marian, who began to think the world was not as cheerless as she had thought it was. Still the old dreary pain was in her heart—a desolate, homesick feeling, which kept her thoughts ever in one place and on one single object—the place, Redstone Hall, and the object, Frederic Raymond. And as the days went by, the feeling grew into an intense, longing desire to see her old home once more—to look into Frederic’s face—to listen to his voice, and know if he were sorry that she was gone. This feeling Mrs. Burt did not seek to discourage, for though she was learning fast to love the friendless girl, she knew it would be better for her to be reconciled to Mr. Raymond, and when one day, nearly four weeks after Marian’s arrival, the latter said to her, “I mean to write to Frederic and ask him to take me back,” she did not oppose the plan, for she saw how the great grief was wearing the young girl’s life away, making her haggard and pale, and writing lines of care upon her childish face.
That night there came to Marian a paper from Ben, who, having far outstayed his time, had returned the week before to Ware. Listlessly she tore open thewrapper, and glancing at the first page, was about throwing it aside, when a marked paragraph arrested her attention, and, with burning cheeks and fast-beating heart, she read that “Frederic Raymond would gladly receive any information of a young girl who had disappeared mysteriously from Redstone Hall.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet, “I am going home—back to Frederic. He’s sent for me—see!” and she pointed out to Mrs. Burt the advertisement. “CanI go to-night?” she continued. “Isthere a train? Oh, I am so glad.”
Mrs. Burt, however, was more moderate in her feelings. Mr. Raymond could scarcely do less than advertise, she thought, and to her this did not mean that he wished the fugitive to return for any love he bore her. Still, she would not dash Marian’s hopes at once, though she would save her from the cold reception she felt sure she would meet, should she return to Redstone Hall, unannounced. So, when the first excitement of Marian’s joy had abated, she said: “I should write to Mr. Raymond, just as I first thought of doing. Then he’ll know where you are, and he will come for you, if he wants you, of course.”
That “if he wants you” grated harshly on Marian’s ear; but, after her past experience, she did not care to thrust herself upon him, unless sure that he wished it, and concluded to follow Mrs. Burt’s advice. So she sat down and wrote to him a second letter, telling him where she was, and how she came there, and asking him in her childlike way, to let her come back again.
“Oh, I want to come home so much,” she wrote; “if you’ll only let me, you needn’t ever call me your wife, nor make believe I am—at least, not until you love me, and I get to be a lady. I’ll try so hard to learn. I’ll go away to school, and maybe, after a good many years are gone, you won’t be ashamed of me, though I shall never be as beautiful as Isabel. If you don’t want me back, Frederic, you must tell me so. Ican’t feel any worse than I did that day when I sat here in the street and wished I could die. I didn’t die then, maybe I shouldn’t now, and if youdohate me, I’ll stay away and never write again—never let you know whether I am alive, or not; and after seven years, Ben Burt says, you will be free to marry Isabel. She’ll wait for you, I know. She won’t be too old then, will she? I shall be almost twenty-three, but that is young, and the years will seem so long to me if you do not let me return. May I, Frederic? Write, and tell me Yes; but direct to Mrs. Daniel Burt, as I shall then be more sure to get it. I dare not hope you’ll come for me, but if you only would, and quick, too, for my heart aches so, and my head is tired and sick with the dreadful noise. Do say I may come home. God will bless you if you do, I am sure; and if you don’t, I’ll ask Him to bless you just the same.”
The letter closed with another assurance that she gave to him cheerfully all her fortune—that she neither blamed his father, nor himself, nor Isabel, nor anybody. All she asked was to come back!
Poor little Marian! The pain in her heart was not so intense, and the noise in the street easier to bear after sending that letter, for hope softened them both, and whispered to her, “he’ll let me come,” and in a thousand different ways she pictured the meeting between herself and Frederic. Occasionally the thought intruded itself upon her, “what if he bids me keep away,” and then she said, “I’ll do it if he does, and before seven years are gone, maybe I’ll be dead. I hope I shall, for I do not want to think of Isabel’s living there with him!”
She had great faith in the seven years, forBenhad said so, and Ben, who was very susceptible to female charms, believed it, too, and the thought of it was like a ray of sunshine in the dingy, noisome room where all day he worked, sometimes reckoning up how manymonthsthere were in seven years—then how manyweeks—then how manydays, and finally calling himselfafoolfor caring a thing about it. When the newspaper article came under his eye, the sunshine left the dirty room, and after he had sent the paper to Marian he cared but little how many months or weeks or days there were in seven years, and he felt angry at himself for havingsweatso hard in making the computation!
And so, while Marian in the city waits and watches for the message which will, perhaps, bid her come back, and Ben, in the noisy factory, waits also for a message which shall say she has gone, and his mother is again alone, the letter travels on, and one pleasant afternoon, when the clerk at Cincinnati makes up the mail for Frankfort, he puts that important missive with the rest and sends it on its way.