CHAPTER XLI.THE SECRET REVEALED.
And in her lineaments they traceSome features of her father’s face.—Byron.
And in her lineaments they traceSome features of her father’s face.—Byron.
And in her lineaments they traceSome features of her father’s face.—Byron.
And in her lineaments they trace
Some features of her father’s face.
—Byron.
In the meantime Miss Seabright was preparing to resign her state. Few can estimate the terrible trial it was to this just but ambitious girl to abdicate her elevated social position and step down upon the commonlevel to labor with the common herd. You have already seen how, in the fearful struggle which had ensued—in that dread bosom tempest—all the latent selfishness which marred that noble nature was thrown up and exposed upon the crest of the tossing waves of passion. But if, in this soul-storm, her hidden evil was cast up to view, it was also cast off. And then, when the waves of her heart subsided, and the clouds on her brain dispersed, and the sun of right shone out clear and bright, illuminating her soul, and revealing her to herself—then she saw that there was something in her own nature greater than all her adventitious surroundings. Now she would not have said to Hugh what she had said before, “I am not much, shorn of my beams.” No, indeed, there was consolidating in her heart a noble, steadfast self-appreciation that would no more falsify itself by factitious humility than degrade itself by unjust action. And having once made the sacrifice, and turned her back upon the splendors of her past fortune, there was no regret, no looking back, like Lot’s wife; her face was set to her forward path—her strong, impetuous soul already rushing on to realize her future of loving and hopeful toil with Hugh for her companion and guide. With Hugh! How, the recurring of his very name, the tide of emotion, like the rushing of a mighty river, would roll over her, overwhelming and confusing her soul with a sort of lost, delirious joy! Within this month of sacrifice, how much stronger and more concentrated had become her love for Hugh! And if the Judge of all hearts had demanded a reason for the mighty love that was in her, she would have been constrained to answer, “It is his moral integrity that has mastered my heart. It is his moral integrity that would not waver, for love or for ambition—those two mightiest passions of the human soul. I loved him before, I loved him well enough to have given him myself and all my wealth, but when I found in him a moral rectitude that would not bend for love of me, or hope of grandeur, I was drawn up to adore him. Yes, that is why I would rather follow him barefoot over all the earth, if necessary, and serve him as theIndian woman serves her lord, than be myself the object of worship to all the world.”
Yes, there was a man to love through life and unto death; there was a man to repose upon in all weakness, to confide in in all emergencies; whom the combined power of love and ambition, beauty, wealth, and the usages of society that would have justified him, could never move from his uprightness. There was a pillar of strength to cling to in a storm. It was with as much high-born pride and joy as love that Garnet thought of her betrothed.
The month and her preparations drew near their close. She was daily expecting to hear of the arrival of the family of Dr. Hardcastle at Hemlock Hollow. Dr. Hutton, who had not yet returned, was to come with them. She was looking for them by every stage, and hourly she added some new attraction to the preparations she was making to receive them. The ancients were accustomed to adorn a sacrifice before offering it up, and the same instinct impelled Miss Seabright daily to walk through her halls and chambers, designing, with her artistic taste, new improvements and embellishments for the palace home she was about to resign.
The wedding day arrived. It was a bright and beautiful day in May. Upon the evening previous Dr. Hardcastle, with his family, had arrived at Hemlock Hollow. Therefore, there had been no time or opportunity for a meeting between them and Miss Seabright previous to the marriage day. Dr. Hutton was a guest at the Hollow, and a note from him to Miss Seabright informed her that they would all be at Mount Calm at an early hour of the morning. Owing to the rather recent deaths in the family, and the peculiarity of the circumstances, it had been arranged that the marriage ceremony should be performed quietly at eight o’clock in the morning in the saloon of Mount Calm, in the presence of few witnesses, and that immediately after the ceremony and breakfast the young couple should depart to seek their Western home, leaving Mrs. Garnet in possession of the mansion house and the estate. The only guests invited were theHardcastles, with Mrs. Garnet, Judge Wylie and Miss Wylie, and their old friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilson, with his wife and young sister. The marriage ceremony was to be performed after the Episcopal ritual by the recently installed pastor of the New Church.
At seven o’clock in the morning, therefore, the few privileged friends, with the exception of the Hardcastles, who had not yet arrived, were assembled in the saloon of Mount Calm, awaiting the entree of the bridal party.
At last the carriage containing the family from Hemlock Hollow drove up and paused before the main entrance of the mansion, and Dr. Hardcastle alighted, followed by Dr. Hutton, who then handed out Mrs. Garnet and Mrs. Hardcastle. They passed up the marble stairs and into the hall, where they paused until Mrs. Garnet had sent up a servant to the bride, to request the favor of being received by her before she should come down into the saloon, and obtained an answer that Miss Seabright would be pleased to see Mrs. Garnet and Mrs. Hardcastle in her own apartment.
The servant who brought back the message bowed and offered to show the ladies up. Mrs. Garnet and her daughter followed him up the broad staircase into the upper hall, and through a door into an elegant front dressing room, which Alice recognized with a smile as having been her own bedchamber.
The room, when they entered, was vacant of other occupants, but they had scarcely seated themselves at the front windows when the opposite folding doors opened and Miss Seabright appeared before them.
A novice, when she is about to renounce forever the pomps and vanities of the world and take the black veil of the nun, arrays herself for the last time in costly apparel. So Miss Seabright, when about to resign forever all pretensions to splendor, arrayed her glorious form with almost regal magnificence. Her bridal costume was a rich Mechlin lace over white and silver brocaded satin, and festooned with bouquets of pearls and diamonds, a fine and ample lace veil confined above her and ringlets by a wreath of the same priceless gems.
Mrs. Garnet raised her eyes to look upon the bride. She had never seen Miss Seabright before, and now, at the first sight of her magnificently beautiful form and face, Alice started violently: all the blood suddenly left her cheeks for an instant, and then rushed back again, crimsoning her face to the very edges of her hair—so startling, so strong, so painful was the resemblance of Miss Seabright to the late General Garnet. Yes, there was the same majesty and sweetness of mien, the same regal turn of head and neck, the same fiery, dark hair, the same smoldering and flashing eyes, the same beautiful lips, the same bewildering smile. The only difference was that in place of the latent diabolism under General Garnet’s countenance all heaven shone from Miss Seabright’s. Alice felt that she looked upon her late husband’s face, only with its beauty idealized, elevated, made divine. The vague, half-formed suspicions concerning the paternity of Garnet Seabright that had occasionally floated through her mind now became painfully confirmed. As she gazed chills and heats alternately shook her frame, and then a strong, yearning compassion mingled with the high admiration she had hitherto felt for the noble-souled girl, and she said to herself: “I wonder if she knows it?” Then, looking at her more attentively, she exclaimed inwardly: “No, no! she does not know or suspect it! My soul upon it, she does not know or suspect it! No; there is a high self-appreciation, a grandeur in her mien and air, a majesty seated on that pure and lofty brow, unconscious of shame—unconscious of the very possibility of shame! God shield her from the knowledge! for, oh! as I look upon her noble presence now, I feel too surely that the knowledge of her shame would kill her with a stroke swift, sharp, and sure! God shield her from the knowledge! It were sacrilege to discrown that imperial brow of its diadem of unsullied honor, and brand it with shame instead. God shield the innocent from the knowledge of guilt which is infamy! God shield her! Oh, I can now forgive my dead husband for having cheated me out of this beautiful daughter, when I think he had the grace tokeep her innocent of the knowledge of her parentage and his guilt. Yet how he must have loved her! Oh, doubtless many times when his brow was overcast with gloom and sullenness, it was with the thought of this child. He never confided his sins or his troubles to me. Would he had! I could have been as much of a friend as a wife to him. Would he had had faith enough in me, when the poor little one was orphaned, to have laid her on my bosom instead of exiling her to that bleak isle! I would have brought her up as my own. Did he dream that I would have been otherwise than good to a little child? But he would not trust me. He could tyrannize over me in a thousand useless ways, yet never could venture to bring the motherless child to my arms. No; he could never tell me until that night, when drunken both with brandy and bad passions—he taunted me with the fact.”
All these thoughts of Garnet’s parentage passed with the rapidity of lightning through the mind of Mrs. Garnet, while Miss Seabright, with outstretched hands and radiant countenance, was advancing toward her.
“No; she must never know it! That pure, bright brow must never be smirched and darkened by the burning, blackening smite of shame! Yet shall she be another daughter to me,” concluded Alice, as she arose to meet the bride. As Miss Seabright, being the taller of the two, bent to welcome Mrs. Garnet, Alice threw one arm caressingly over her shoulder, and saying:
“We must not meet as strangers, my love,” kissed her cheek.
Miss Seabright looked down with proud gravity upon the gentle lady for an instant, and then said:
“I have great pleasure in welcoming you back to your native halls, Mrs. Garnet. Long may you live in the enjoyment of them!”
“The enjoyment of which I owe to you, noble girl.”
“Nay, madam; the long deprivation of which you owed to me, unfortunately. The repossession of which now you owe to nobody—nothing. It is simple justice.”
“But it is not justice, thou noble girl, that thou, who wast brought up in affluence——”
“Nay, madam—I have known penury, too!” interrupted Miss Seabright, with a sort of proud humility, if the phrase be admissible.
Without noticing the interruption Mrs. Garnet resumed:
“It is not justice that one educated in luxury, and in the prospect of nearly boundless wealth, should be suddenly bereft of everything and reduced to a position for which she is totally unfit.”
“Oh, madam! pardon me. Had I not an example before me? Did not your own admirable daughter resign wealth and station and go forth to a life of toil and privation to preserve intact the integrity of her heart?” said Garnet Seabright, with gentle dignity, waving her hand toward Mrs. Hardcastle, who had withdrawn to a distant window during this colloquy.
“Yes, to preserve the dignity of her heart, and the love of her heart—which latter gave her strength to do as she did. Yes, and that was scarcely a trial to Elsie, who possessed a cheerful, loving, and active temperament, and was, besides, without your aspiring ambition. No, Miss Seabright—nature, even more than education, has quite unfitted you for the life of active household toil and privation, voluntarily assumed for long years by Mrs. Hardcastle. No, Miss Seabright—justice, as well as your own magnanimous conduct, has imposed this duty on me.” Miss Garnet paused and, drawing from her pocket a roll of parchment, placed it in the hands of the bride.
“What is this?” asked Miss Seabright.
“It is a deed of conveyance of property to the amount of one-tenth the Mount Calm estate. Receive it, with my love, as a marriage portion.”
“I cannot, madam,” said Miss Seabright, returning the deed.
“Nay, take it—take it then as a mark of the high esteem—the honor I bear you!” persisted Mrs. Garnet, tendering the packet.
“No, I cannot take it, madam.”
“Receive it, then, as your right, proud girl! Educationand expectation have given you a right to this Take it.”
“Indeed, believe me, I cannot, madam; though from my soul I thank you,” said Miss Seabright, with emotion.
Mrs. Garnet looked discouraged for an instant, and then, as her glance fell upon the bright and joyous form of Elsie, as she stood looking out from the front window upon the spring scene, her eyes lighted up, and she called to her:
“Elsie, my love, come here. You have a gift of persuasion that I, with all my good-will, never possessed.”
Elsie came smiling forward.
“Miss Seabright, this is my daughter, Mrs. Hardcastle.” (Ah, Heaven! if they knew they were sisters!)
As Miss Seabright bowed Mrs. Hardcastle threw her arm around her neck, and kissed her heartily, exclaiming simply:
“Oh, I wished to meet you so much! I shall be so glad to know you well!”
“I called you here, my love, to aid me in persuading Miss Seabright to suffer me to do her justice. You know——”
“Yes, I know!” said Elsie, interposing her cheerful voice. “I know all about it. See here, Miss Seabright! I never was crowned with magnanimity, sublimity, enthusiasm, or the rest of the Godlike virtues and frenzies! But I am gifted with some sound, good sense, which is ever at the service of my friends, and I offer you a sample of it now. Magnanimity is Godlike, until it is distorted into fanaticism, when it is fool-like! It was magnanimous in you to give up the whole of this estate. It would be fanatical to refuse to take the tenth of it when it is offered to you.”
The aptness of this argument seemed to strike Miss Seabright, for, smiling, she replied:
“I refer you to Dr. Hutton. I underwent such a course of lessons from him upon the love of lucre, as opposed to the love of justice, that I shall not forget it soon. Ha! I am not sure that, should I go to the altarwith a deed of any portion of this estate in my pocket, he would not think I had backslidden in principles, and reject me even there!”
Here Miss Joe, who, unperceived, had entered the room and came up to them, interposed her voice, saying:
“I wish he wouldn’t—I just do! I shouldn’t like to see Hugh make such a fool of himself as that!” Then, patting Miss Seabright affectionately upon the shoulder, she whispered, in a knowing, confidential tone: “You take it yourself, honey. Who has got a better right to some o’ General Garnet’s property than you? Sure, you’re his own flesh and blood! and the image of him, too! You’re his own flesh and blood, honey. I know all about it. It’s all in the little yellow hair trunk among the letters. You take it, honey. You’re his own flesh and blood!”
“Oh! Miss Joe, your rash words have destroyed—have blasted her!” exclaimed Alice, in a voice of agony, as the old lady, having fired this magazine, hurried out of the room quite heedless, because quite unsuspicious of the impending ruin.
And ruined indeed looked Miss Seabright, with every vestige of color blasted from her marble-like face. Still as a statue of despair, she stood with her dilated eyes immovably fixed upon the receding figure of the old woman, until it had disappeared from the room.
Then tossing back her bridal veil and springing forward she grasped the hand of Mrs. Garnet, and, darting her wild gaze piercingly into the lady’s gentle eyes, she asked hurriedly:
“Did I—did I hear aright? What did she say?”
“Nothing; do not mind her, Miss Seabright,” replied the lady, with a flushed brow.
“What did she say?” repeated Garnet.
“Nothing! Nothing worth telling, my dear.”
“Oh! I implore you, tell me what did she say?”
“My dearest girl! nothing that it is well you should hear.”
“Nay, then! I adjure you to tell me! By your soul’s truth, I adjure you to tell me!” she persisted wildly.
“She told you, dearest Garnet, that you were the daughter of my late husband; but——”
“Stay! am I so?” interrupted Garnet, in a voice of indescribable anguish.
“Yes—I believe so,” replied Alice gently.
She dropped the hand she had grasped with such strength, and stood as if suddenly turned to stone, for an instant—and then springing forward with the wild energy of desperation, she exclaimed:
“Unsay those words—or see me die before you.”
Alice suddenly threw her arms around the form of the stricken girl, and, catching her wild eyes, gazed into them deeply and tenderly as though she would have transfused all her own sweet love and resignation into that rampant soul, and said:
“Dearest child! She told you only what we knew, and still loved you. Dearest child! you are my husband’s daughter, and Elsie’s younger sister—and we love you.”
“The child of your husband and not your child! The younger sister of your daughter, and you living!” exclaimed the wretched girl, sinking, withering, shriveling as it were before the fell blast of this burning and consuming revelation. At last she groaned forth in tones of unutterable sorrow: “Oh! oh! was it right, Heaven! was it well, Heaven! just as I had made a great sacrifice to duty, and achieved a great moral victory; was it well to strike me in my pride of place, and bring me down so low! so low!” Then with another spasmodic outbreak of energy, she exclaimed: “Unsay those words! Unsay them, or see me die before you! Take all I have—wealth, rank, prospects, hopes! all, all! but, for the love of God, unsay those words! Take all, all! but leave me my honorable name! Take all, all! but let me go an honored, if an humble bride, to my husband’s home! Oh, for the pity of God!”
Again Mrs. Garnet threw her arms around the cowering form of the wretched girl, as though she would envelop, sustain, save her in this trying moment, by the might of love; and saying:
“My dearest Garnet! my love! my love! you shall goan honorable and an honored bride to your husband’s home. One whom I will take to my bosom thus—is a worthy match for any man. You should have been my own daughter, Garnet, but that I was cheated out of you; but I claim you now. You are my husband’s child, and the express image of his person; therefore you should have been my child; therefore I claim you now to be my child of right! I loved your father, Garnet! I love you! Believe me! Do not cover your face, and turn it from me. Let me kiss you. Do not grieve so.”
“Grieve!” exclaimed the sinking girl, in a voice of anguish; “I do not grieve, lady! I die! Grieve! Oh, look you, madam! If I had suffered the loss of friends by death, or what is worse, by treachery; if I were miserably poor, ill, and abandoned; if I were dying of disease, want, and neglect; if I were misjudged, slandered, and persecuted; if I were unjustly charged, falsely imprisoned, and innocently doomed to death; if I were suffering any other anguish of mind, or agony of body, then I might grieve—but now! now! that I know myself a living, breathing monument of guilt!” A terrible shudder shook her frame and arrested her speech—her form collapsed and sank more than before—and it was in a dying voice she resumed: “Now that I know myself infected by worse than leprosy”—she paused and looked at herself from head to foot; she stretched forth her beautiful brown arm, frosted with pearls and diamonds, and surveyed it; she gathered up the lurid ringlets of her dark hair and gazed on them; then, dropping her arms wearily, she continued—“I was not so vain as grateful for my beauty. But now! oh, God! to think that every atom of flesh, and every drop of blood, and every nerve and vein to my heart’s core is pervaded, permeated with sin and reproach! sin and reproach! Oh, God! oh, God, quickly take back the soul Thou didst send into this shape of sin!”
Once more her form cowered, crushed beneath the overwhelming weight of ignominy. She tottered and must have fallen to the floor, but that Elsie sprang and aided her mother in supporting her to a sofa near.
“I declare,” exclaimed Elsie, in her positive manner, “there should have been no concealment; she should have grown up with the knowledge of her parentage!”
“Oh-h-h! doubtless,” murmured the nearly dying girl, “oh, doubtless they should have told me of my birth! And then my soul would have grown up familiarized with infamy, until it became as base as its proscribed dwelling-place!”
“But,” said Elsie, in her calm way, “is it possible you never suspected this? Is it possible that, when you came home from school, with all your faculties alive and keen, you could have looked upon my father’s portrait, and looked upon your own reflection in the glass, and not be struck by the resemblance, the identity of the two faces? Is it possible that you did not suspect?”
“Suspect this! suspect my birth! suspect my shame! Oh, woman, woman! you found me proud and joyous! how could I have suspected this? You found me living! how could I have suspected this and lived?” she exclaimed, in a voice of indescribable grief and reproach, and then her form subsided, as it were, prostrate, among the cushions. And so it was throughout the scene; frequent convulsive outbreaks of anguish would be instantly followed by the prostration of all strength. And then she lay with her hands pressed upon her face a long time perfectly still, but for an occasional start and shudder. She lay there, with Elsie sitting by her side, until the clock struck eight—the marriage hour. Mrs. Garnet then approached, and, kneeling by her, embraced and kissed her, saying:
“My dear girl, my daughter, rouse yourself. The bitter trial of this needless revelation has shocked you nearly to death. But it will pass away, as all trials must, my love. Garnet, I, too, have had trials in my time, heart-crushing disappointments and sorrows, from which I thought I never could recover. But I have recovered, you see. My sorrows are gone, long ago; gone down the stream of the past, and I have been happy for years. So it will be with you. We all think our first sorrow is to kill us, but it does not. We live and recover.So you will find it. This sudden revelation has overwhelmed you, but you will get over it. We will make you forget it. You will be an honorable and honored wife. You will be loved and happy. Come, rouse yourself! Your marriage hour has struck. Your husband waits you even now; come! Give me your hand! Garnet!”
“My marriage hour has struck! My husband waits me now! Oh, madam, do you then believe me base in soul as in birth?” exclaimed the miserable girl, with bitterness.
“In the name of Heaven, what mean you?”
“Do you think that I, stripped of all other possessions, will carry my dower of shame to my husband’s home?”
“In the name of mercy, what do you mean?” asked Alice, in alarm.
“Oh, merely this, that this marriage must not and shall not proceed! Oh, no! Dr. Hutton must never blush for his wife’s parentage!”
Mrs. Garnet glanced at Elsie in despair. Elsie here interposed her blooming face and hopeful voice, saying:
“Miss Seabright, as I told you before, I have no grand sentiments, but I have some good sense, and it seems to me, as it takes two to make an engagement, it takes two to break it, honestly; I think, as you have plighted your troth to Hugh Hutton, you might consult him before breaking faith with him, for such a cause, at the very last moment.”
“Consult him!” said the poor girl, as the blood crimsoned her ashen brow. “How can I consult him? And if I could, I know his self-immolating generosity. I know, besides, that he loves me so, he would hold me to my word; he loves me so, he would take the shame with me. Consult him! No, no! for many reasons. But without consulting him, I will break with him; since in breaking faith I shall wrong him less than in keeping it!”
“Ah, Miss Seabright, that is sophistry! And sophistry is ingenious, but it deceives no one. Duty is very simple, and it never can be mistaken. But I hear the bridegroomand his friends approaching the door. Come, rise! let me re-arrange your hair and wreath.”
Mrs. Garnet opened the door, and admitted Dr. Hardcastle and Hugh Hutton. Dr. Hardcastle went up to his wife, who drew him off to a distant window, while Hugh Hutton, seeing his bride reclining, pale and disordered, upon the sofa, hastened to her, stooped over, took her hand, and gazed anxiously upon her, inquiring:
“My dearest Garnet, what is the matter? Are you ill again?”
She turned her face, whitened and sharpened with anguish, upon him, gazed intently in his countenance, but said nothing for a full minute—then, as by a new and sudden impulse, she exclaimed:
“Hugh! I know my birth. Do you?”
Dr. Hutton dropped her hand, frowned, and compressed his lips.
Garnet’s features convulsed with a spasm of anguish, and she covered her face with her hands.
When Hugh Hutton saw that he dropped upon his knees at her side, removed her hands, and kissed her pallid brow, saying:
“I know that God created you a beautiful and high-souled woman. I know that by no act of your life have you ever marred His creation. I seek to know”—he broke forth with sudden energy—“I consent to know no more.”
“Hugh,” she said, looking at him piteously, “an evil covered up is not an evil cured. Hugh, this marriage must not go on.”
“Nettie, you are insane!”
“No, never more soberly, sadly sane than now.”
“What! would you break your engagement to me—and at the last moment?”
“Yes; for a sufficient reason.”
“But I will not consent to it.”
“I do not ask your consent. I break it.”
“Nettie!”
“Hugh! stoop down here! nearer—there. Hugh!” she said tenderly, running her pale fingers through thedark waves of hair each side his massive forehead, and holding his head between her hands as she gazed fondly in his face—“Hugh! I know you love me. I have never doubted it one single moment. And I do love you. So much—so much, Hugh, I love you so much that, to save my own immortal soul I would not marry you.”
“You dare not refuse me. I claim your plighted faith. I claim you for my wife,” exclaimed Hugh Hutton passionately.
“To save you I dare refuse you. To save you I dare break my plighted faith, and take the sin upon my own soul. Hugh! dear Hugh! in one great contest I yielded to you, because high principle was on your side. But this is a different matter; I am as inexorable as Death.”
“Nettie! Nettie! I am strong; but your loss would paralyze me. But oh! it cannot be. I will never, never leave you nor forsake you. If I do, may God abandon my own soul!”
Her features were convulsed again, and for a moment she concealed them with her hands; then laying her hands tenderly upon the head of her kneeling companion, she said:
“It does not matter much for me, for I think that death is upon me—but for you, Hugh—oh, it is hard, it is hard for you. It is hard for you, so good and true, so noble as you are, to be so grievously wronged by disappointment. Oh! it shakes one’s faith in goodness, in Heaven. But I love you so—I love you so that I will pray God, living or dying, I will pray God to give you another love, another wife, who shall be worthy of you.”
“By Heaven! I will have no other wife but you. And you will I have!” exclaimed Hugh Hutton, forgetting the presence of others, and speaking so loud as to startle Mrs. Garnet, who came forward and said:
“Oh, Hugh! my dear friend, is not this a trouble? What shall we do to persuade her?”
“Dear friend, leave me alone with her for a little while. God has deputed to me some power over His self-willed child—this noble but stubborn girl. Leave me with her.”
Mrs. Garnet turned to go, but was met near the door by Miss Joe, who bustled in, and, nudging the lady’s elbow, whispered to her, saying:
“I say! aint it time for them all to walk down? The parson—Parson Sinclair—has been come for half an hour, and the company downstairs is getting out o’ patience. Besides, if the ceremony don’t make haste and get performed, the breakfast will get spoiled—the coffee will boil all its strength away, and the batter for the rice waffles will rise so much it will turn sour. What are they all waiting for?”
“Nothing. And I do not know that there will be any marriage,” replied Mrs. Garnet sternly and bitterly.
“Hugh, what is the matter?” exclaimed Miss Joe, looking around in surprise. Then, perceiving the recumbent form of Miss Seabright, with Dr. Hutton still kneeling by her, she inquired: “Dear me! What ails Garnet?”
“You have ruined her peace forever,” indignantly exclaimed Mrs. Garnet, unable to forbear reproaches. “You have killed her with your uncalled-for revelations.”
“Me! ruined what? killed which?” exclaimed the innocent old lady, in perplexity.
“Garnet Seabright. I say you have killed her.”
“Killed her! why I haint even tetched her. I haint done a thing to her; I haint harmed a hair of her head. I haint been a-nigh her. She was well enough when I come through here with the napkins.”
“Words kill! You told her the secret of her birth. You told her she was General Garnet’s child, and the shock and the shame have overwhelmed, have killed her.”
The old lady listened with her eyes starting out of her head, and her mouth wide open with unmeasured astonishment, and then exclaimed:
“Me! Me tell her she was General Garnet’s child! Why, I didn’t do no such thing! Who says I did?”
“I! I heard you with my own ears.”
“Why, you didn’t hear any such a thing! High! how could I tell such a lie as that, when it wa’n’t the truth?”
Mrs. Garnet, in her turn, stared with such unboundedastonishment and incredulity, that the old lady took high offense, and exclaimed:
“Well! upon my word! Next time it lightens, I shouldn’t wonder if you accused me of setting the clouds afire. Come! if you don’t b’lieve me, there’s the young gal herself. Go ask her now. She aint dying neither, no more ’an I am. She looks gashly as a corpse, to be sure, but Lord! I’ve seen her look that way afore, when she’d get into her tantrums long o’ her guardian or Hugh. Come! I’ll go;” and the old lady waddled precipitately across the room to the sofa, exclaiming wrathfully, “Miss Seabright! Garnet Seabright, I say! Now, did ever I tell you such a falsity as that you were General Garnet’s child?”
Dr. Hutton started up from his kneeling posture, and stood staring at the excited old lady. Garnet sprang up from the cushions, and gazed at her face with all her soul in her eyes.
“My goodness, child; don’t stare at me so wild! You’ll give me the fever ‘n’ ague. Answer my question.”
Here Dr. and Mrs. Hardcastle were attracted to the scene of action.
“Can’t you speak? Did ever I say you were General Garnet’s child?”
“Did—you—not—say—so?” asked Miss Seabright, with life and death struggling in her bosom.
“No! I did not say so. How could I tell such a lie, when it wasn’t the truth?”
“And—he—was—not—my—father?”
“I wish people wouldn’t be slandering of your poor, dear mother! poor, little, wild thing. She was distantly connected with myself.”
“But,” said Elsie, interposing, “no one raised a doubt but yourself, Miss Joe, and we would like to hear you explain your words, that gave rise to all this trouble.”
“Words! what words?”
“The words you whispered to Miss Seabright when you passed through the room an hour ago.”
“Oh! yes. Why, I telled her she might well have ashare o’ the property, seein’ how she was General Garnet’s granddaughter.”
“General Garnet’s granddaughter!” exclaimed everyone.
“Yes. Don’t all talk to me at the same time, you ’fuse my head. I declare, if my heart aint as big as a batch of light dough, and my head goes round like a coffee-mill! That ’minds me of the breakfast—’deed it will get spoiled.”
“But you did not tell her that she was General Garnet’s granddaughter. It was something else you told her,” said Elsie.
“I—don’t ’fuse my mind. I don’t ’member what the words were, but that’s what the meaning was.”
“I remember what the words were exactly,” said Elsie; “she said she was ‘his own flesh and blood.’”
“To be sure I did; that’s just what I did say. It’s all in the little yellow hair trunk—her mother’s little yellow hair trunk. I never knowed anything about it until I come here to live, because I never had no chance to fool my time away ransacking of old papers afore. If you’ll all stop talking to me, I’ll tell you all about it, and you can read the rest. You see, General Garnet, when he was a boy about seventeen or eighteen years old, he falls in love long of a poor gal, and marries her secretly. In about a year arter this, the poor gal she died, leaving of a young infant son. Then General Garnet—he was Mr. Garnet then—he being a wild young man, and not wanting to be bothered with children, he puts this child out to nurse, and goes off and forgets all about it. But the boy, as he grew up, he knew, somehow, who his father was, and sort o’ always had a hankering arter finding him. Well, he didn’t meet his father till he listed in the wars, when he was no more than fourteen years of age; and he served under him the whole length of the war; and though General Garnet—he was Captain Garnet then—being a handsome, dashing, gay young officer, would not acknowledge or even notice this son, yet the boy seemed to worship the very earth his father walked on. He seemed to live but for one thing in the world—tolove and serve his handsome but unnatural father. He watched over the safety of his life and his honor. Twice he saved his father’s honor at the loss of his own reputation; and that was the reason why he never got to be anything better ’an a corporal all the time he sarved in the war. I’ll tell you all about it some time, or else you can read it all in the old letters in the little yellow hair trunk. Well, and at last he saved his father’s life, at the expense of a dreadful wound, that, arter years of illness, caused his death. Well, this boy—though his father didn’t set any store to him, and his comrades didn’t vally him as they ought to ’a done—was thought a heap on by my wild little cousin. And so, when he come from the wars, wounded, and feeble, and broken-hearted, she stole away to him, and they were married. She said she could work for both, and she did work for both till he died. Well, arter the poor misfortunate young man was dead and gone, I suppose General Garnet’s conscience, as had been stone dead long before, had a resurrection, or else the ghost of his murdered conscience haunted him, for he paid a visit to the young widow, and found her grieving herself to death. Well, he made a whole parcel o’ splendid promises as he never fulfilled. And when the poor young thing died, leaving her little darter in his care, he jest passed her over to me as a great favor, and that was the very last I ever saw or heard of him or his promises till he quarreled long o’ his own darter, and then he comed over and ’dopted Nettie. You see, God never could prevail with him to do anything, but the devil could make him do as he pleased.”
“There, there, Miss Joe, that will do,” interrupted Mrs. Garnet, to whom these severe reflections were deeply painful. “Never, Miss Joe, cast unnecessary reproach upon the memory of the dumb, defenseless dead.”
“I won’t. I am sure if the Lord pardons him, we can. I won’t say any more. Only if you want to know all the particulars, you see, you can read the letters in the little yellow hair trunk. And that’s the end of the story; and now I know the coffee is spoiled.”
“Garnet, you have a right to blush for your parentage—but let it be a blush of enthusiasm, for never have I heard of two such disinterested souls,” said Dr. Hardcastle, shaking her hand with cordial sympathy.
Hugh Hutton said nothing as yet, but stood by her, pouring all his earnest, loving soul through the gaze he fixed upon her face. And she—down her cheeks the tears had poured like rain. But now that copious and refreshing shower was over and the sun of gladness shone out again, Garnet smiled brightly, while yet the tears sparkled like rain-drops on her ringlets. Mrs. Hardcastle, with her cheerful blooming expression, was standing behind her quietly rearranging the disordered wreath and veil. Mrs. Garnet went to the door of the adjoining room, and beckoned the two young ladies who were to act as bridesmaids. Dr. Hardcastle opened the hall door and admitted the groomsmen, who entered and gave their arms to the young bridesmaids. Hugh Hutton took the hand of Garnet, and, when she arose, Elsie arranged the folds of her robe, and whispered:
“Never mind if you are very pale and agitated, dear; it is not so unbefitting a bride—besides, your veil is down, you know.”
The bridal party moved onward downstairs. As Dr. Hardcastle followed with his wife, he turned to her with an arch look, and whispered:
“My dear Elsie, there is an old acquaintance of yours below stairs.”
“Many of them, I suspect.”
“Yes, but this one is an uninvited, unexpected, but most welcome guest.”
“Whom?”
“The Honorable Ulysses Roebuck!”
“‘The Honorable Ulysses Roebuck!’ I remember ‘Marse Useless,’ as the negroes used to call him; but how on earth became he ‘Honorable’?”
Dr. Hardcastle shrugged his shoulders, elevated his eyebrows with a queer smile, and answered:
“I really suppose just as more of our Honorables become so. He failed at everything useful, went to a distantpart of the State, took to politics, made stump-speeches ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ and got himself sent to Congress. After an absence of ten years he has just now revisited his native neighborhood. He reached Point Pleasant by the early boat this morning, and, finding that the family were all here, he followed them, and is here also.”
“And his old ladylove, who jilted him to marry my father, and lost both, and who must be now near twenty-eight years of age—how did she receive him? I should like to have seen that meeting!”
“I saw it. When he first entered the saloon he was caught in the arms of Judge Jacky, who ran to him and rapturously embraced him, overwhelming him with welcomes. Then, when released from the old gentleman’s arms, he shook hands with all his friends and acquaintances, looking uneasily around the room all the while, as if in search of someone else. At last his flying glances alighted on the distant form of Ambrosia, standing near the fireplace. He made her a formal bow, which she acknowledged by a cold courtesy!”
“After a lover’s quarrel and a separation of ten years! That is a first-rate sign, Magnus; I should not wonder if he had cherished her image in his heart through all those years.”
“Well, they had not even spoken when I came away.”
“Better and better! I shall not be surprised if he propose for her before the day is over.”
They had now reached the saloon where the bridal party were already ranging themselves before the clergyman, who was no other than our oldest friend, the Rev. Milton Sinclair.
“See!” whispered Dr. Hardcastle, pointing to where Miss Wylie sat gloomily at one end of the room, and Mr. Roebuck morosely at the other; “see! I do not believe they have spoken yet.”
“I believe they’ll be married in a week!” laughed Elsie.
But the clergyman had opened his book, the ceremony was about to commence, and all became silent and profoundlyattentive while it progressed. It was over, and friends crowded around to offer their congratulations to the newly-married pair. In the crowd Ulysses Roebuck, Mrs. Hardcastle, and Ambrosia Wylie got pressed together.
“I declare!” exclaimed Elsie, with her cheerful, ringing tones, “if here are not two of my old, old playmates!” And seizing a hand of each, she shook them heartily; then joining those two hands in hers, she said, “Let me be the mediator. Be friends, as you long to be!” and slipped away, leaving them together.
“Shall we be friends? Shall we be more to each other, Ambrosia?” said Ulysses, pressing her hand.
“Yes; if you can forgive the infidelity caused by ambition, and expiated by whole years of suffering!”
“I have waited for you ten years, Ambrosia. I should think that an answer. Come! let’s go to the bay window and talk over old times!”
“Not now; the company are going in to breakfast,” replied Ambrosia, taking his arm; and they followed in the wake of the foremost. Mrs. Garnet approached the clergyman, who still lingered as if lost in abstraction.
“Mr. Sinclair,” she said, “it gives me great happiness to see you back here and settled in our parish. I am much pleased, also, to welcome you to our house. The company have gone in to breakfast; will you come?” Mr. Sinclair bowed in grave silence, gave the lady his arm, and they followed the others.
Breakfast was over. The traveling carriage of Mount Calm was packed and at the door to convey the newly-married couple to the stage office at Huttontown, whence they were to start for the West. The family party, consisting of Mrs. Garnet, Dr. and Mrs. Hardcastle, and the bride and groom, were grouped for a last leave-taking in the passage, when Miss Joe suddenly appeared among them, in her poke bonnet and brown shawl, with a bandbox in one hand and a basket in the other, and followed by a negro man, bending under the weight of a great trunk. When the little party stared with surprise, she exclaimed:
“Well, now, you needn’t look so queer, all of you, cause I couldn’t help of it! I’ve been a-struggling and a-struggling with my feelings, and I couldn’t help of it! I’m gwine long o’ Hugh and Nettie. They’re like my own children, ’cause I took care of them when they were little! And I’m gwine long o’ them. Besides, long as they’re poor, they’ll want somebody to help them work. It aint much I can do now, seeing I’m nigh on to seventy years old. But, leastways, I can mend their clothes, and darn the children’s stockings, and mind the baby, and so on.”
There was no time for much argument now; but to all that Mrs. Garnet and the Hardcastles could say to prevail on her to remain at Mount Calm the old lady turned a deaf ear. She was set to go with Hugh and Nettie, because they were like her own children, and because they were poor.
“But they are not poor,” said Mrs. Garnet; “and, oh! that reminds me—I have the deed of gift yet,” continued the lady, producing the deed from her pocket, and placing it in the hands of Dr. Hutton.
“What is this, madam?” he asked, examining the parchment.
“It is merely a dower with your bride,” said the lady.
“It is a deed of conveyance, Hugh, investing me with properties to the amount of one-tenth the great Mount Calm estate. Can I take it?”
“No, dearest—no, you cannot!” replied Dr. Hutton, pressing her hand; then, turning to the lady, he said: “Mrs. Garnet, we sincerely thank you. This generosity is so like yourself that we are not surprised at it, while we must gratefully decline it.”
As no arguments could move Hugh Hutton from his resolution, the effort was at last abandoned.
The carriage, into which Miss Joe was packed, drew up nearer to the door. Garnet embraced her friends successively. Hugh Hutton shook hands with them in turn, and handed his bride into the carriage. The steps were put up, the door closed, and the carriage rolled away.
Mrs. Garnet continued to reside at Mount Calm, happy in her vocation of “Lady Bountiful” to the neighborhood—happy, that is to say, as long as the fine weather of spring, summer, and autumn last, during which, in her missions of usefulness or benevolence, she could walk, ride, or drive through the most beautiful country in the world; but, when winter came, with its wind and rain, and hail and snowstorms, its impassable roads, and its long spells of tempestuous or intensely cold weather, and its longer seasons of enforced confinement within-doors, the lonely lady of Mount Calm found the solitary grandeur of her mansion house dreary enough. The minister had been her coadjutor, and often her companion, in her labors of beneficence, during the preceding eight or ten months; and now, in the stormy winter weather, he was her willing representative and almoner among the sick, the poor, and the suffering. No fury of tempest overhead, or depth of snow, or quagmire under foot, could interrupt the weekly visits of the pastor to the lady. The solitary lady knew this; and so, even in the most frightful weather, during the darkest, dreariest, and loneliest seasons, there was one day in the week to which she could look forward with certainty of enjoyment—namely, to Wednesday, when, let the wind and the rain, the hail and the snow, do what it might to prevent him, the minister was sure to present himself at Mount Calm. Each Wednesday evening it became more painful for these two friends to part, and the parting was protracted to a later hour. One very stormy night in February, when he had lingered by her fireside later than ever before, and had at last risen to take leave, he detained her hand in his a long time in silence, and then faltered: “Alice, are we never to be more to each other than now?” The lady shook her head in mournful negation, and there was a “soul’s tragedy” in the tone wherewith she answered simply: “We are old, now!” The timid proposition was not renewed then; the shyness of age, worse than the shyness of youth, silenced the lips of the minister. The proposal probably never would have been renewed, but for the intervention of the cordial-heartedElsie—that happy, healthful, sworn foe to all morbid scruples and needless suffering. She had been made acquainted with her mother’s early history, and for years past she had watched over the delicate lady with more care and tenderness than over any of her own robust and blooming babies. Now that she was divided from her, she felt increased solicitude for the welfare of the fragile, sensitive recluse. It was toward the spring that she was awakened to a knowledge of the attachment existing between the lady and the pastor; and, after taking observation for a few days, she one day said to her mother: “Mother, why don’t you marry the minister?”
“Dear Elsie, what could suggest such an absurd thing to your mind? What would the neighbors say? At our age, too!”
“Dearest mother, they may wonder a little; but, upon the whole, they will be well pleased. Besides, shall their wonder prevent you being comfortable? You need each other’s society—you and the minister. You are both so lonely—you in your mansion, he in his lodgings; you need each other. Come! accept him, mother. Magnus and I will give you our blessing,” laughed Elsie; and then, immediately regretting her involuntary levity, she said seriously: “Dear mother, think of this. You have reached the summit-point of life; before you lies the descent into the vale of years; your old friend stands on the same ground, with the same road before him. Give your hand to your dear old friend, and go ye down the vale together.”
Elsie was successful in her efforts. Before another winter the lady and the minister were married; and thenceforward the serene and beautiful life of the pair gave a poetic fitness to the name of their homestead, “Mount Calm.”
Dr. and Mrs. Hardcastle made Hemlock Hollow their place of permanent residence. They erected an elegant mansion, and improved and adorned the grounds with such artistic taste that it was considered one of the most beautiful seats in old St. Mary’s.
The Honorable Ulysses and Mrs. Roebuck spent theirsummers at Point Pleasant, and their winters in the metropolis, until the Honorable Ulysses grew weary of political life and careless of popularity, and lost his election, when they took up their permanent abode at the Point, with Judge Jacky Wylie.
And the families of Hemlock Hollow, Mount Calm, and Point Pleasant formed an intimate social circle, and kept up their agreeable relations after the St. Mary’s fashion of family dinner-parties, social tea-drinkings, fish feasts upon the coast, fox-hunts among the gentlemen, neighborhood dances, etc.; while the gentle, but powerful influence emanating from Mount Calm spread the spirit of religion over all.
Dr. and Mrs. Hutton eventually settled in a Southern State. Miss Joe Cotter remained with them to the end of her long life. Consistent in her economy to the very last, she devoted the remaining years of her life to “laying up treasures in heaven.” Dr. Hutton became one of the most celebrated physicians in the country, and amassed a large fortune. Mrs. Hutton became one of the brightest stars in the great Southern constellation of beauty, genius, and fashion. Their home is a beautiful edifice on the banks of a Southern lake, within easy distance of the city. For elegance, taste, and luxury it is scarcely excelled by the far-famed palaces of the Old World. From his present affluent ease Dr. Hutton delights to look back upon his early struggles, and he repeats now, with more emphasis than before, that, “A young American should never permit himself to depend upon the accidents of fortune for success in life; for in our prosperous country a man of good health and good habits need never fail to make an independence for himself and family, and to win the blessing of God.”