CHAPTER XI.THE LETTER RECEIVED.
It was baking-day at Mrs. Burt’s, and the good lady bustled in and out—her cap strings pinned over her head, her sleeves tucked up above her shoulders, and her face, hands and apron covered with flour. Occasionally as she rolled out the short pie crust, or sliced the juicy apple, she glanced at the rain-drops pattering against the window, and said encouragingly, “I don’t care for the rain, for I’ve get a big umbrella and the best kind of overshoes;” and as often as she related the cheering words, they brought a smile to the thin, white face of the young girl who sat in the large, stuffed easy chair, and did not offer to share the labors of her aunt, as she called her.
Marian was sick. Strong excitement had worn her strength away, and since she had sent the letter to Frederic, her restless anxiety for the answer had made her so weak that she kept her bed nearly all the time, counting the days which must elapse ere she could possibly hope to hear, and then, when the full time was out, bidding Mrs. Burt wait one more day before she went to the office, so as to be sure and get it. She had made due allowance for delays, and now she was certain that it had come. She would sit up that day, she said, for she felt almost well; and if Frederic told her to come home, she should start to-morrow and get there Saturday night, and she fancied how people would stare at her, and be glad to see her, too, on Sunday, when she first went into church, for she “shouldgo, any way.” Alice, too, would be delighted, and kiss her so many times; and then she wondered if Frederic wouldn’t kiss her, too—she thought he might just once, she’d been so long away, and she said to herself that “she would draw back a little, and let him know she wasn’t so very anxious.”
Poor Marian, how little was she prepared for the cruel blow awaiting her! The pies were made at last, as was the gingerbread and crispy snaps; the apple dumplings, Marian’s favorite dessert, were steaming on the stove; the litter was cleared away, the carpet swept, the oil-cloth washed, the chairs set back; and then exchanging her work dress for a more respectable delaine, Mrs. Burt put over the kettle to boil, “for after her wet walk, she should want a cup of tea,” she said, and, leaving Marian to watch the pie baking in the oven, she started on her errand.
“I mean to have the table ready when she gets back,” said Marian—“for if I don’t make her think I’m well, she won’t let me start so soon;” and, exerting all strength, she set the table for dinner in the neatest possible manner, even venturing upon the extravagance of bringing out the best white dishes, which Mrs. Burt only used on great occasions. “When I get some, I’ll send her a new set with gilt bands,” the little girl said, as she arranged the cups, and then stepped back to witness the effect. “Oh! I wish she’d come,” she continued, glancing at the clock; but it was not time yet, and, resuming her rocking-chair, she tried to wait patiently.
But it seemed very long and very tiresome, sitting there alone, listening to the rain and the ticking of the clock. It is strange how the most trivial circumstance will sometimes stamp itself indelibly upon the memory. The steam from the dumplings, which Marian thought she should enjoy so much, filled the room with a sweet, sickly odor, and for many, many years she remembered how faint it made her feel. But ’twas a pleasant faintness now; everything was pleasant, forwasn’t she going home, back to Redstone Hall—back to Frederic, who, if he didn’t love her now, would learn to love her, for Mrs. Burt said so; Mrs. Burt, who knew almost as much as Dinah, and who, even while she thought of her, was coming up the narrow stairs. Marian heard her put her dripping umbrella beside the door, but for her life she could not move. If she should be disappointed after all, she said, and she tried to see how many she could count before she knew for certain.
“A letter—oh, have you a letter for me?” she attempted to say, when Mrs. Burt came in, but she could not articulate a word, and the good lady, wishing to tease her a little, leisurely took off her overshoes, hung up her shawl, wiped her damp bonnet with a handkerchief, and looked at the dumplings and then said, as indifferently as if the happiness of a young life was not to be crushed by what she had in her pocket, “it rains awfully down street!”
“I know—but the letter—was there a letter?” and Marian’s blue eyes looked dark with excitement. “Yes, child, there was, but where it was mailed I don’t know. ’Tis directed to me, and is from Kentucky, but I can’t make out the post-mark mor’n the dead. It’s some kind of Forks, but the postmaster will never set the Hudson on fire with his writing.”
“Forks of Elkhorn,” cried Marian, snatching at the letter. “It’s Frederic’s superscription, too, and dated ever so many days ago. Dear Frederic, he didn’t wait a minute before he wrote,” and she pressed to her lips the handwriting of Isabel Huntington!
The envelope was torn open—the enclosed sheet was withdrawn, but about it there was a strangely familiar look. Was there a film before Marian’s eyes? Was she growing blind, or did she recognize her own letter—the one she had sent to Redstone Hall? It was the same—for it said “Dear Frederic” at the top, and “Marian” at the bottom! And he had returned it to her unanswered—not a word—not a line—nothingbut silence, as cold, as hard and as terrible as the feeling settling down on Marian’s heart. But yes—there was one line—only one, and it read—oh, horror, could it be that he would mock her thus—that he would tear out her bleeding heart and trample it beneath his feet, by offering her this cruel insult.
“Isabel Huntington is now the mistress of Redstone Hall.”
This was the drop in the brimming bucket, and if she had suffered death when the great sorrow came upon her once before, she suffered more now a hundred fold. In her ignorance she fancied they were married, for how else could Isabel be mistress there, and she comprehended at once the shame—the disgrace such a proceeding would bring to Frederic, and the wrong, the dishonor, the insult it brought to her. There was a look of anguish in her eye and a painful contraction of the muscles about her mouth. There were purple spots upon her flesh, which seemed wasting away while she sat there, and a note of agony, rarely heard by human ear, was in her voice, as she cried, “No, no, no—it is too soon—too soon—anything but that,” and the little Marian who, half an hour before, had heard the ticking of the clock and listened to the rain, lay in the arms of Mrs. Burt, a white, motionless thing, unconscious of pain, unconscious of everything. She had suffered all she could suffer, and henceforth no sorrow which could come to her would eat into her heart’s core as this last one had done.
Mrs. Burt thought she was dead, as did those who came at her loud call, but the old physician said there was life, adding, as he looked at the blue pinched lips and shrunken face: “The more’s the pity, for she has had some awful blow, and if she lives she’ll probably be a raving maniac.”
Poor Marian! As time passed on the physician’s words seemed likely to be verified. For days she lay in the same deathlike stupor, and when at last she roused from it, ’twas only to tear her hair and rave inwild delirium. At first, Mrs. Burt, who had examined the letter, thought of writing to Frederic and telling him the result of his cruel message, the truth of which she did not believe; but she seldom acted without advice, so she wrote first to Ben, who came quickly, crying like a very child, and wringing his great rough hands when he saw the swaying, tossing form upon the bed and knew that it was Marian.
“No, mother,” he said, “we won’t write. It’s a lie the villain told her, but we will let him be till she’s dead. God will find him fast enough, the rascal!” and Ben struck his fist upon the bureau as if he would like to take the management of Frederic into his own hands.
It was a long and terrible sickness which came to Marian, and when the delirium was on, the very elements of her nature seemed changed. For her hair she conceived an intense loathing; and clutching at her long tresses, she would tear them from her head and shake them from her fingers, whispering scornfully:
“Go, you vile red things! He hates you, and so do I.”
“Better shave the hull concern and not let her yank it out like that,” said Ben; and when she became more and more ungovernable, he passed his arms around her and held fast her little hands, while her head was shorn of the locks once so displeasing to Frederic Raymond.
Ben’s taste, however, was different, and putting them reverently together, he dropped great tears upon them, and then laid them carefully away, thinking: “’Twill be something to look at when she’s gone. Poor little picked bird,” he would say as he watched by her side and listened to her moaning cries for home, “you’ll be out of your misery afore long, and go to a’nough sight better hum than Red stun Hall; but I hev my doubts ’bout meetin’ him there. Poor little girl if you hadn’t been born a lady and I hadn’t been born a fool, and we’d been brung up together, mabbyyou wouldn’t be a lyin’ here a biting your tongue and wringin’ your hands, with your head shaved slick and clean,” and the sweat dropped from Ben’s face, as he thought of what under widely different circumstances might have been. “But it can’t be now,” he said, “for even if she wan’t jined to this villain she loves so much, she’s as far above Ben Burt as the stars in Heaven.”
This, however, did not lessen Ben’s attentions in the least, or stay his tears when he thought that she would die. “She should be buried in Greenwood,” he said; “he’d got more’n two hundred dollars in the bank at Ware, all arnt honest, with hard work; and if there was such a thing as a stun forty feet high she should have it, and he’d get som o’ them that scribbled for a living to write a piece; there should be a big funeral, too—he could hire carriages as well as the best of ’em—and he’d have a procession so long that folks would stop and stare, and Frederic Raymond wouldn’t be ashamed on’t either, thescalliwag—he hoped when he and Isabel came to die they’d be pitched into thecanalwhere the water was considerable kind o’ dirty, too!”
This long speech relieved Ben somewhat, and fully determined to carry out his promise, he staid patiently by Marian, nor experienced one feeling of regret when he heard that, owing to his prolonged absence, his place in Ware had been given to another.
“Nobody cares,” he said, “I can find something to do if it’s nothin’ but sawin’ wood.”
So he remained at home through all the winter days, and watched by the sick girl, who talked piteously of her home, of Alice, andthat manwho hated her so. She never spoke his name, but she sometimes begged of him to come and take her away where it didn’t thunder all the time. The roar of the city disturbed her, and she frequently besought Ben to go and stop it so that she could sleep and be better in the morning; and Ben, had it been in his power,would have stayed the busy life around them, and let the weary, worn-out sufferer sleep. But this could not be, and so, day after day the heavy, incessant roar came through the curtained window into the darkened room, where Marian lay moaning in her pain. Once in her unconsciousness she folded meekly her thin hands and prayed, “Will God stop that noise and let me sleep just once?” then with an expression of childish trust upon her face, she said to those around her, “Hewillstop it to-morrow, I reckon.”
And when the winter snows all were fallen, and the early March sun shone upon the kitchen walls, theto-morrowso much longed for came, and Marian woke at last to consciousness. She was out of danger, the physician said, though it might be long ere her health was fully restored. To Marian, this announcement brought but little joy. “She had hoped to die,” she said, “and thus be out of the way,” and then she spoke of Redstone Hall, asking if any tidings had come from there since the dreadful message she had received. There was none, for Isabel Huntington guarded her secret well, and Frederic Raymond knew nothing of the white, emaciated wreck which prayed each day that he might be happy with the companion he had chosen.
“If he had only waited,” she said to Mrs. Burt and Ben, one day when she was able to be bolstered up in bed, “if he had waited and not taken her so soon, I shouldn’t care so much, but it’s awful to think of his living with her after I wrote that letter.”
“Marian,” said Ben, a little impatiently, “I’m naturally a fool, so every body says, but I’ve sense enough to know that Mr. Raymond never went and married that woman so quick after you came away; ’taint reasonable at all. Why, they’d mob him—tar and feather him—for you ain’t dead, and he’s no business with two wives.”
Marian’s, face was whiter than ever when Ben finished speaking, and a bright red spot burned on hercheek as she gasped, “You didn’t,—you can’t believe she’s there and not his wife. That would be worse than everything else.”
“Of course I don’t,” returned Ben. “My ’pinion is that she ain’t there at all, and he only writ that to make a clean finish of you, or ’tany rate, so’t you wouldn’t be coming back to bother him. He calkerlates to have her bimeby. I presume—say in seven years.”
“Oh, I wish I knew,” said Marian, and Ben replied, “Would you rest any easier nights if you did?”
“Yes, a heap,” was the answer, and the great, blue eyes looked wistfully at Ben, as if anxious that he should clear up the mystery.
“You might write,” suggested Mrs. Burt; but Marian shook her head, saying, “I wrote once, and you know my success.”
“You certainly wouldn’t go back,” continued Mrs. Burt; and Marian answered indignantly, “Never! I am sure he hates me now, and I shall not trouble him again. Perhaps he thinks me mean because I read the letter intended for him, and so found it all out. But I thought it was mine until I read a ways, and then Icould notstop. My eyes wouldn’t leave the paper. Was it wrong in me, do you think?”
“It is what anybody would have done,” answered Mrs. Burt, and, changing the subject entirely, Marian rejoined, “Oh, I do wish I knew about this Isabel.”
For a time Ben sat thinking; then striking his hands together, he exclaimed, “I’ve got it, and it’s jest the thing, too. I don’t want no better fun than that. I’ve lost my place to Ware, and though I might get another, I’ve a notion to turnpeddler. I allus thought I should like travellin’ and seein’ the world. I’ll buy up a lot of jimcracks and take a bee line for Redstun Hall, and learn just how the matter stands. I can put on a little more of the Down East Yankee, if you think I hain’t got enough, and I’ll pull the wool over their eyes. What do you say, wee one?”
“Oh, I wish you would,” said Marian, adding in the same breath, “what will you do, if you find him the husband of Isabel?”
“Do!” he repeated. “String ’em both up by the neck on one string. What do you ’spect I’d do? Honest, though,” he continued, as he saw her look of alarm; “if sheishis wife, which ain’t at all likely, ’tis because he s’posed you’re dead, but he knows better now, and I shall tell the neighbors that you’re alive and breathin’, and they can do with him what they choose—and if they ain’t married, nor ain’t nothin’, I’ll just do what you say.”
“Come back, and don’t tell Frederic you ever saw or heard of me,” said Marian. “I shall not live a great while, and even if I do, I’d rather not trouble him. It would only make him hate me worse, and that I couldn’t bear. He knows now where I am, and if he ever wants me, he will come. Don’t tell him, nor any one, a word of me, Ben, but do go, for I long to hear from home.”
To Mrs. Burt this project seemed a wild and foolish one, but she rarely opposed her son, and when she saw that he was determined, she said nothing, but helped him all she could.
“You’ll be wantin’ to send some jimcrack to that, blind gal, I guess,” he said to Marian one day, and she replied, “I wish I could, but I havn’t anything, and besides you mustn’t tell her of me.”
“Don’t you worry,” answered Ben. “I’ve passed my word, and I never broke it yet. I can manage to give her somethin’ and make it seem natural. What do you say to makin’ her a bracelet out o’ them curls of yourn that we shaved off?”
“That red hair! Frederic would know it at once,” and Marian shook her head ruefully, but Ben persisted. “’Twould look real pretty, just like gingerbread when ’twas braided tight,” and bringing out the curls, he selected the longest one, and hurried off.
The result proved his words correct, for when a fewdays after he brought home the little bracelet, which was fastened with a neat golden clasp, Marian exclaimed with delight at the soft beauty of her hair:
“Darling Alice,” she cried, kissing the tiny ornament, “I wish she could know that my lips have touched it—that it once grew on my head—but it wouldn’t be best. She couldn’t keep the secret, and you mustn’t tell.”
“Don’t worry, I say,” returned Ben. “I’ve got an idee in my brains for a wonder, and I’m jest as ’fraid of tellin’ as you be. So cheer up a bit and grow fat, while I’m gone, for I want you to be well when I come back, so as to go to school and get to be a great scholar, that Mr. Raymond won’t be ashamed on when the right time comes,” and Ben spoke as cheerfully as if within his heart there was no grave where during the weary nights when he watched with Marian he buried his love for her, and vowed to think of her only as a cherished sister.
Marian smiled pleasantly upon him, watching him with interest as he made up his pack, consisting of laces, ribbons, muslin, handkerchiefs, combs and jewelry, a little real, and a good deal brass, “for the niggers,” he said. Many were the charges she gave him concerning the blacks, telling him which ones to notice particularly, so as to report to her.
“Jehoshaphat!” he exclaimed at last, “how many is there? I shall never remember in the world,” and taking out a piece of paper, he wrote upon it, “Dinah, Hetty, Lid, Victory, Uncle Phil, Josh, and the big dog. There!” said he, reading over the list, “if I don’t bring you news of every one, my name ain’t Ben Burt. I’ll wiggle myself inter their good feelin’s and get ’em to talkin’ of you, see if I don’t.”
Marian had the utmost confidence in Ben’s success, and though she knew she should be lonely when he was gone, she was glad when, at last, the morning came for him to leave them. Ben, too, was equally delighted,for the novelty lent a double charm to the project; and, bidding his mother and Marian good-by, he gathered up his large boxes, and whistling a lively tune, by way of keeping up his spirits, started for Kentucky.