CHAPTER XXII.NATURAL RESULTS.
On a bright September morning, just eighteen years after Mildred was left at Judge Howell’s door, there was a quiet wedding at Beechwood, but Oliver was not there. Since his return from Dresden he had never left his room, and on the day of the wedding he lay with his face buried in the pillows, praying for strength to bear this as he had borne all the rest. He would rather not see Mildred until he had become accustomed to thinking of her as another’s. So on the occasion of her last visit to him he told her not to come to him on her bridal day, and then laying his hand upon her hair, prayed: “Will the Good Father go with Mildred wherever she goes. Will He grant her every possible good, and make her to her husband what she has been to me, my light, my life, my all.”
Then kissing her forehead, he bade her go, and not come to him again until she had been some weeks ahappy wife. Often during her bridal tour did Mildred’s thoughts turn back to that sick-room, and after her return, her first question was for Oliver.
“Clubs is on his last legs,” was the characteristic answer of the Judge, while Richard added: “He has asked for you often, and been so much afraid you would not be here till he was dead.”
“Is he so bad?” said Mildred; and calling Lawrence, who was tossing Edith in the air, she asked him to go with her to the gable-roof.
At the sight of them a deep flush spread itself over the sick man’s cheek, and Mildred cried:
“You are better than they told me. You will live yet many years.”
“No, darling,” he answered; “I am almost home, and now that I have seen you again, I have no wish it should be otherwise. But, Milly, you must let me have your husband to-night. There is something I wish to tell him, and I can do it better when it is dark around me. Shall it be so, Milly?”
“Yes, Olly,” was Mildred’s ready answer.
And so that night, while she lay sleeping with Edith in her arms, Lawrence sat by Oliver listening to his story.
“My secret should have died with me,” said Oliver, “did I not know that there is some merit in confession, and I hope thus to atone for my sin, if sin it can be, to love as I have loved.”
“You, Oliver?” asked Lawrence, in some surprise; and Oliver replied:
“Yes, Lawrence, I have loved as few have ever loved, and for that love I am dying long before my time. It began years and years ago, when I was a little boy, and in looking over my past life, I can scarcely recall a single hour which was not associated with some thought of the brown-haired girl who crept each day more and more into my heart, until she became a part of my very being.”
Lawrence started, and grasping the hand lying outside the counterpane, said:
“My Mildred, Oliver! I never dreamed of this.”
“Yes, your wife,” Oliver whispered, faintly. “Forgive me, Lawrence, for I couldn’t help it, when I saw her so bright, so beautiful, so like a dancing sunbeam. She was a merry little creature, and even the sound of her voice stirred my very heartstrings when I was a boy. Then, when we both were older, and I awoke to the nature of my feelings toward her, I many a time laid down upon the grass in the woods out yonder, and prayed that I might die, for I knew how worse than hopeless was my love. Oh, how I loathed myself!—how I hated my deformity, sickening at the thought of starry-eyed Mildred wasting her regal beauty on such as me. At last there came a day when I saw a shadow on her brow, and with her head in my lap, she told me of her love for you, while I compelledmyself to hear, though every word burned into my soul. You know the events which followed, but you do not know the fierce struggle it has cost me to keep from her a knowledge of my love. But I succeeded, and she has never suspected how often my heart has been wrung with anguish when in her artless way she talked to me of you, and wishedIcould love somebody, so as to know, just what it was. Oh, Lawrence! that was the bitterest drop of all in the cup I had to drain. Love somebody!—ah me, never human being worshipped another as I have worshipped Mildred Howell; and after I’m dead, you may tell her how the cripple loved her, but not till then, for Lawrence, when I die, it must be with my head on Mildred’s shoulder. Hers must be the last face I look upon, the last voice I listen to. Shall it be so? May she come? Tell me yes, for I have given my life for her.”
“Yes, yes,” answered Lawrence, “she shall surely come,” and he pressed the poor hands of him who was indeed dying for Mildred Howell.
Twenty-four hours had passed, and again the October moon looked into the chamber where Oliver lay dying. All in vain the cool night wind moved his light-brown hair, or fanned his feverish brow where the perspiration was standing so thickly. All in vain were Hepsy’s groans and the Judge’s whispered words, “Pity, pity, and he soyoung.” All in vain the deep concern of Richard Howell and Lawrence, for nothing had power to save him, not even the beautiful creature who had pillowed his head upon her arm and who often bent down to kiss the lips, which smiled a happy smile and whispered:
“Dear, dear Mildred.”
“Let my head sink lower,” he said at last; “so I can look into your eyes.”
Very carefully Lawrence Thornton adjusted the weary head, laying it more upon the lap of his young bride, and whispering to Oliver:
“Can you see her now?”
“Yes,” was the faint reply, and for a moment there was silence, while the eyes of the dying man fixed themselves upon the face above them, as if they fain would take a semblance of those loved features up to heaven.
Then in tones almost inaudible he told her how happy she had made his short life, and blessed her as he had often done before.
“Mildred, Mildred, dear, dear Mildred,” he kept repeating, “in the better land you will know, perhaps, how much I love you, dear, darling Mildred.”
The words were a whisper now, and no one heard them save Mildred and Lawrence, who, passed his arm around his bride and thus encouraged her to sit there while the pulse grew each moment fainter and the blue eyes dimmer with the films of coming death.
“Haven’t you a word for me?” asked Hepsy, hobbling to his side, but his ear was deaf to her and his eyes saw nothing save the starry orbs on which they were so intently fastened.
“Mildred, Mildred, on the banks of the beautiful river I shall find again the little girl who made my boyhood so happy, and it will not be wicked to tell how much I love her,—Milly, Milly, Milly.”
They were the last words he ever spoke, and when Lawrence Thornton lifted the bright head which had bent over the thin, wasted face, Richard Howell, said to those around him:
“Oliver is dead.”
Yes, he was dead, and all the next day the villagers came in to look at him and to steal a glance at Mildred, who could not be persuaded to leave him until the sun went down, when she was taken away by Lawrence and her father.
Poor Milly, her bridal robes, were exchanged for the mourning garb, for she would have it so, and when the third day came she sat with Hepsy close to the narrow coffin, where slept the one she had loved with all a sister’s fondness. She it was who had arranged him for the grave, taking care that none save herself and Lawrence should see the poor twisted feet which during later years he had kept carefully hidden from view. Hers were the last lips which touched his,—hers the last tears which droppedupon his face before they closed the coffin and shut him out from the sunlight and the air.
It was a lovely, secluded spot which they chose for Oliver’s grave, and when the first sunset light was falling upon it Lawrence Thornton told his wife how the dead man had loved her with more than a brother’s love, and how the night before he died he had confessed the whole by way of an atonement.
“Poor, poor Olly!” sobbed Mildred. “I never dreamed of that,” and her tears fell like rain upon the damp, moist earth above him.
Very tenderly Lawrence led her away, and taking her home endeavored to soothe her grief, as did the entire household, even to little Edith, who, climbing into her lap, told her “not to ty, for Oller was in heaven with mamma and the baby, and his feet were all straight now.”
Gradually the caresses and endearments lavished upon her by every one had their effect, and Mildred became again like her former self, though she could never forget the patient, generous boy, who had shared her every joy and sorrow, and often in her sleep Lawrence heard her murmur: “Poor dear Oliver. He died for me.”