CHAPTER XXVI.THE CRISIS.
During all this summer, so fraught with wretchedness for Clara, Susie was working with untiring energy, extending her arrangements for the future. As an experiment, she set out, in an unused part of Mrs. Buzzell’s kitchen-garden, a hundred young shade-trees of new and rare varieties, among them the broad-leaved, rapidly-growingPaulonia imperialis. She wisely foresaw that the taste for ornamental trees would increase with the growth of Oakdale and surrounding towns; and then in her thoughts she often saw Clara, her bright hopes wrecked, and weary of life, returning to be helped and blessed by the very one who owed her so much. Then Susie would lose herself in dreams of a vast, successful business, built up all by their own hands, out of which there would come health, and work, and interest in life, independent of the cheating intoxication of love. It was in the midst of reveries like this, that she received the following letter from Clara, dated at North Conway, New Hampshire:
“My Dear Friend: Do you remember what you once told me about the fable of the lion and the mouse? Oh, child! you are no longer the mouse as compared to me, for you are strong while I am weak. Your wounds arehealed, but mine will never heal, for in my madness I am always tearing them open afresh.
“I write you, dear Susie, because there is no one else on earth before whom I can cast off all pride, except my father, and I would spare him a little longer at least, because from my last letters he thinks matters are improving. Judge for yourself. We are still here, though many of the visitors are gone, because Albert and his friend are perfectly happy, and I cannot possibly care whether I go or stay. I keep in my room much of the day, while they ride, or walk, or dance, or play games, all the day and evening, their bliss only marred by the sight of my thin, pale face. Do you know the very hardest thing I have to bear is Albert’s telling me that he has not changed, but loves me just as fondly as ever? There is something like murder in my heart when he does this, essaying by argument to show that it cannot be otherwise. Oh, Susie! how well a woman knows that love needs no logic to prove its existence. Long ago he reproached me for saying ‘where there is doubt of love, there must be cause for doubt.’ When love is perfect, we can no more doubt its existence than we can the presence of the sun at noonday.
“My old friend and teacher, Miss Marston, passed through here with some friends, and stopped several days. I begged Albert to let me play while she was here, the rôle of the happy wife. I think he regrets the change in him, though he cannot resist the power that is leading him from me. He seemed impressed by my stony, tearless face. In answer to Miss Marston’s anxiety about my changed looks, I said I had been quite ill, which, heaven knows, is true enough. I manœuvred in everyway to prevent her seeing the state of things. We actually rode and walked several times without Ella. This made her pout and flirt with Colonel Murdock, one of her admirers, which so alarmed Albert that he completely unmasked all my beautiful acting. Miss Marston soon penetrated beneath the surface. ‘Who is this Miss Wills?’ she asked. I told her the ward of Mr. Delano, and an old and dear friend of my husband. ‘Is it possible’ she asked, ‘that you do not see the nature of the attachment between your husband and her?’ Still I played my part. I was the proud, happy wife, confident of my husband’s affection. I know I made a pitiful figure. Miss Marston divined the truth, and I expected every moment she would burst out upon me, as she used to do upon her pupils, when guilty of deceiving—an unpardonable offence in her eyes; but I think something in my face alarmed her, and kept her silent. She was very tender to me, and it was good to have her here. She was struck with the beauty of Albert. He impresses every one the same way. His lithe, fine form, his handsome, regular face, and long, dark moustaches, make him greatly admired by women.”
Under a later date, Clara wrote in the same letter: “This morning Albert received a telegram from Boston, demanding his presence immediately, for his father is again very ill. I wished to go with him. There was not time for Ella to get her half dozen ‘Saratogas’ ready. That was the secret cause of his objection. She would not like him to take his wife and not her! I cannot tell you how keenly I felt his willingness to leave me behind—me, his once adored Clara, whose absence he could not endure.
“Sometimes I think I am selfish, to burden you withmy sufferings, but I know you would have me do so, and you are right in saying it lightens them to have them shared by sympathetic hearts. I have so much to bear! Long since I have given up the idea of making Albert understand that my trials are greater than I can bear. I gave it up when he came to me and told me of Ella’sunhappinessbecause of my coldness to her. Think of it! I, with my breaking heart, must comfort the rosy, happy Ella, when her little finger aches! I must do this or Albert is afflicted. I did not do it. I treat her kindly, but I cannot love her, and never should, under any circumstances. She is little, and soulless, and selfish. How can such a woman touch my heart, when I have seen and appreciated the noble generosity, the soulful delicacy of Susie? Of course Albert thinks I am jealous without knowing it. Can you understand how he wrongs me? I like him to flatter and caress women. It is his nature to be very gallant, only I would know that I hold my old place in his heart, and knowing I have lost it, I would not have him place another before me in the eyes of the world. This he does constantly. For weeks I have suffered a dull pain in the centre of my brain, and at times I fear I shall go mad. I am relieved, actually, by Albert’s absence; for a time, at least, I shall be spared the sight of his blissful expression when Ella comes into his presence. Oh, Susie! grief like mine dries up the fountains of my gladness at the happiness of others, and I long for death as I have sometimes longed for Albert’s loving words and kisses, as I knew them in our happy days. How often I think of poor La Vallière’s words, referring to the king and Montespan—‘When I wish todo penance at the convent of the Carmelites, I will think of what these people have made me suffer.’
“Write me often, dear Susie. Your letters are my one comfort. The thought haunts me that some crisis is approaching. It may be that there is; that I have seen Albert for the last time; but I am so weary, so anxious for rest, that I would pay for it with this or any sacrifice. Do not afflict yourself too much on my account. Remember I still appear regularly at table. I walk every day, and I am young, and can endure to the end. With love to Mrs. B. and kisses to Min,
“Lovingly yours,“Clara Delano.”
“Lovingly yours,“Clara Delano.”
“Lovingly yours,“Clara Delano.”
“Lovingly yours,
“Clara Delano.”
Dr. Delano found his father very ill, and his few days of absence lengthened into two weeks. He wrote occasionally to his wife, but every day brought a letter, or a book or magazine, to Ella, which she never read, being engaged in a flirtation that demanded too much dressing and general attention to leave any time for reading. Clara sometimes thought her husband must be crazy. He knew how fond she was of reading. As a school-girl, he had constantly sent her magazines and periodicals, with passages or articles marked which he wished her to notice particularly, and he had told her afterward that he had loved her even then, and thought of her as his future wife.
She often watched Ella in her display of feminine wiles, but could not discover what there was to fascinate men. The subtle mystery escaped all analysis in that case, as it ever does; but Clara, in her generosity, believed there must be something beneath the surface-somehidden wealth of sensibility, perhaps—which women could not discover. If Albert had only trusted her as a perfect friend, and had not tried in any way to deceive her when he became absorbed in his passion for Ella, she would have met him nobly and suffered far less; but her pain had been tenfold increased by his want of confidence in her sympathy. He did not and could not understand her, and this discovery of his weakness was a blow to her self-pride hardly less endurable than his submitting her to the mortifying position of the neglected wife.
One evening, when he had been gone two weeks, Clara sat in her room watching the rosy sunset haze on the old mountains, and thinking over the events of her life. She had just re-read Albert’s last letter. The words were there, but the soul was lacking. Later in the evening she recognized Ella’s voice proceeding from a balcony beneath. A gentleman was with her, and there could be no doubt that Ella was drawing him on to make the greatest possible fool of himself. Clara heard her own name mentioned by Ella in no flattering terms. Her companion opposed her criticism quite generously, considering his position with regard to Ella. Clara could not sit there without hearing everything, and there was a temptation to do so, as any one can believe who has ever been placed in a similar position. She, however, closed her window with a little noise, and when she opened it again, all was silent. What she had heard Ella say, was, that Dr. Delano’s marriage was a “veritablemésalliance”—that there could “never be any real sympathy between them.” Once Clara would have written all her thoughts freely to Albert; now a seal was on her lips. Whatever she might say of Ella would be attributedat once to her inability to comprehend Ella’s “childlike” nature. Oh, it was hard to be forced to brood in silence over thoughts and feelings that he, of all the world, should share with her.
That day Clara had received one of Susie’s long, nicely-written letters, detailing little village events, the mild flirtations of the twin sisters, the doctor’s sayings and doings, the ways and speeches of “little Min,” and her own schemes and hopes for the future. “Dear Susie!” thought Clara; “she knows I am unhappy, and so writes me every day, hoping to bring some little sunshine into my life. Why, even Susie shows more love for me than Albert. What is there in his letter? Only the cool assurance that he has not changed—the stupid persistence that the sun is shining, when all the world is wrapped in Cimmerian gloom. My father would never consider me weak enough to be deceived by such shallow pretence.”
Clara had gone to her room to answer Albert’s letter. For this purpose she had given up joining a moonlight excursion toDiana’s Baths, a wonderful freak of Nature where, in the solid granite, the trickling water-drops of ages have smoothly carved out vessels of all imaginable shapes, not a few greatly resembling the common bathing-tub. All these vessels were overflowing with the crystal water of a mountain-spring.
Clara sat until far into the night, trying to write to Albert, and knowing all the while that it would be just as well to be silent. And yet she did write a long letter—a cry from an overladen soul that ought to have moved a heart of stone. “I know not why I write,” she said, toward the last of the letter. “My reason rebels against these frantic attempts to patch together the fragmentsof the golden bowl. Love wants its perfect illusions—wants and will have nothing else, these failing. No wonder you try to deceive me when you see how my health and strength, and all the little beauty I ever had, are failing under the griefs I have borne so long. Believe me, dearest, Idoknow I am wrong to write you when I must burden you with sorrow you are powerless to alleviate. I cannot blame you in my heart. It is not your fault that Clara’s love has ceased to be the most precious thing in the world to you.”
To this there soon came the following reply:
“My Dear Clara:—I wish you would give up studying the death of love, and study its life. You brood over imaginary troubles too much. I wish you could have children, but that will never happen, because you are too unquiet in your temperament. You have no real cause for unhappiness. My regard for Ella in no way interferes with that for my wife. You ought to know that all real love ennobles. Albert never takes back any love that he once freely gives, and my love for you has never suffered the slightest change. Love is not a suffocating warmth, or at least, it should not be.
“I send you some valerian powders. Take one every night at bed-time. I am obliged to go out of town for a day or two on pressing business, and then, dearest, I shall be with you in the flesh, as I am ever in spirit.
“Always and ever yours,“Albert.”
“Always and ever yours,“Albert.”
“Always and ever yours,“Albert.”
“Always and ever yours,
“Albert.”
“Never suffered the slightest change!” repeated Clara, bitterly. “What must he think of my common sense?”His words about children cut her to the heart. She did not believe him, and she despised the whole heartless tone of the letter.
The next morning Ella rapped at her door. She was in a very jaunty traveling dress. She was in very high spirits, and made Clara think she was going away “for good,” but finally stated that she was only going down to Wolfboro’, on Lake Winnepiseogee, for a day’s visit. She would return the next evening. The next morning a letter came. Clara did not notice the postmark, and her heart leaped as she read, in Albert’s own hand, “My precious one,”—the old words he had always applied to her. It went on for three pages, in the lover’s most impassioned strain. The first few lines revealed the fact that it had been written to Ella, but Clara’s eyes were fascinated, and she read every word. He dwelt continually upon Ella’s beauty, upon her lips, her “glorious eyes,” everything, showing clearly and most unmistakably, that he was wholly, desperately enamored. It was dated the same day and hour as her last letter from Albert, which added, if possible, to the heartlessness of his deception. It had perhaps been purloined from Miss Wills’ room, or possibly Ella had dropped it, and one of the boarders, from some justifiable motive, had sent it through the Conway post-office to Mrs. Delano.
Clara sat for a long time with this letter before her, her hands and feet icy cold. Shouts of gay laughter came up from the veranda. Were they discussing the effects this letter would have upon the forlorn wife? Clara did not believe human nature capable of heartlessness like that. Doubtless the person who had found that letter and sent it to her, had been disgusted at her blind faith,her submission to gross neglect that would have roused any woman of spirit to open rebellion. Some woman had sent this letter. The superscription revealed that fact. Poor Clara’s thoughts were bitter indeed. She was not lacking in spirit, but it was not her way to bluster and remind her husband of her rights as a wife. He had failed to respect her position before the world, and for this she could not forgive him. She knew well that we cannot command the inward devotion of the heart; that this must be won by charm; and here Clara felt that she was powerless. Still this could not excuse him for deceiving or trying to deceive her. It was so like a common, coarse man’s treatment of his peer. Though Clara felt like sinking utterly beneath this blow, her native dignity supported her. After a while she dressed carefully, and joined the groups below. Towards evening, gossip was busy with the story that Dr. Delano and Miss Wills were stopping at a hotel together at Dover. Clara traced the report to Colonel Murdock, who had been absent for a few days, and had returned by the afternoon stage. Clara found an opportunity to speak to him alone.
“I am told,” she said, “that this story about my husband is stated as a fact in your possession.” Colonel Murdock bowed.
“Will you be kind enough to repeat it to me, if it is true? I charge you, by everything you hold sacred, to tell me only what you know to bepositive fact.”
Clara was very calm, but there was something in her tone and manner that would have exacted the truth even from the most untruthful. Colonel Murdock had no disposition to deceive, and moreover, he was a very honest man.
“Madam,” he said, “I am sorry to afflict you, but it is perfectly true.”
“Whatis perfectly true? Do not mind afflicting me.”
“That I saw Dr. Delano and Miss Wills in Dover yesterday, at four o’clock in the afternoon, riding together in an open carriage.”
“Might you not possibly have been deceived?”
“No, madam, it was your husband; and as for Miss Wills, she recognized me. I may add that she told me distinctly, a few days ago, that she was going to Wolfboro’ yesterday, which was a falsehood.”
“I thank you, Colonel Murdock, and beg you to excuse me for troubling you,” and with a smile upon her lips, and a manner perfectly calm, she left him, and soon after went to her room. It is folly to try to describe the long horrors of that night. They had to be lived through, and Clara counted the hours one by one, for she never touched her bed nor dreamed of sleeping. Early in the evening she had packed her trunk, carefully putting away in Albert’s, everything that belonged to him. Some time during the night, she wrote a note to him. The stage was to leave early in the morning. A little while before it started, she ordered a cup of coffee and sent for the landlord. He came in bland and smiling, and asked what he could do to serve her.
“Mr. Hammond,” she said, with the air of one confident of carrying all points. “I must leave this morning, and I wish you to loan me fifty dollars.”
“Well, madam, doubtless your husband——”
“No, no,” she said, cutting him short. “I must have it on my own responsibility. Take my watch as security,and understand that my husband is not to pay this under any circumstances. I shall return you the money without delay.”
The polite landlord refused the security, and furnished the money. This, with what Clara had in her purse, enabled her to just meet her traveling expenses, and to pay the hotel bill of herself and her guest, Miss Wills, which had been running since Albert left. A few minutes later, after running the gauntlet of a few curious boarders lounging on the veranda, the smiling landlord handed Clara into the coach with great deference.