Mabel's Mistake Part 50

"Weaker and weaker--alas! poor lady, she seems to have no real illness, but fades away calmly and softly, like a flower that the frost had kissed to death.

"Harrington watches the gentle decline with silent anguish, that I can feel, while I bitterly condemn him. How cold and distant this trouble renders me! He speaks sometimes of his fears as she grows worse and worse, but it is with mournful restraint, and when I lift my look to his, or attempt those broken words of comfort that spring naturally to the lips, he turns away without reply, as if my attempt at consolation had only deepened his remorse. Was that wild confession on the raft all a dream? Had terror and privation rendered me delirious? Could these words, so deeply written in my memory, have been only a wild hallucination? Is this man the same being I almost wors.h.i.+ped then?

"She is dead--oh, heavens! She died last night, with no one near but the slave, and, as the girl Zillah said, without a struggle or a sigh.

"The slave came to my room just at daylight, weeping and wringing her hands in such distress, that she fairly terrified me, when I saw her standing in the open door.

"'Oh,' she said, tossing her arms on high, 'she is gone, she is gone.' I watched her, young mistress, just like a mother hangs over her sick child. She made a motion with her hand,--I thought she wanted more drink, but she turned her face on the pillow, and looked at me so wild, I couldn't turn my eyes away, but sat watching, watching, watching till her face turned gray under my eyes, and I could see the white edges of the teeth, between her lips, as they fell more and more apart. I reached out my hand to touch hers. It was cold as snow, but her eyes were wide open, looking straight into mine, dull and heavy, as if they had been filling with frost.

"In the gray light of that morning, I went down to the death chamber.

General Harrington and James received me in mournful silence. I had no heart even for unspoken reproaches, there. If ever forgiveness was glorified, I saw it on that sweet, dear face.

"We pa.s.sed a gloomy day. The shock has been terrible to James, terrible to us all--for the General is greatly disturbed, and, as for the slave-girl, her grief is fearful; she raves rather than weeps, and trembles like an aspen at the mention of her dead lady's name.

"With the solemn burial services of the Catholic Church, we have consigned the remains of this lovely woman to her grave, and now my loneliness is complete. My own poor heart seems to have partaken of the chill that has quenched her life. I am weary of this beautiful land--weary of everything--alone and unloved; for now I am almost sure my own wild brain coined the words that seemed to come from his lips in the storm--alone, unloved--what remains for me but----

"A great disappointment has fallen upon General Harrington. A will is found, and every dollar of his wife's property is left to her son. All this seems incomprehensible. I pity the proud old man.

----"It is all over now! Oh, Heaven, that I should have so deceived myself! Harrington loves another--Lucy whom he has known almost since childhood, and from whom a series of untoward circ.u.mstances separated him. There is, there can be no doubt--no room for a single hope--the General himself informed me of it to-day.

"I cannot write--I cannot even think! There is a strange confusion in my brain--a fever in my heart which give me no rest. I long for some one to advise me--some one to whom I can look for sympathy--but I have no counsellor. Kindred--mine are in the grave! Friends--the last one sleeps in the cemetery yonder--in the wide world I am utterly alone. The General grows kinder to me daily, but to him how could I speak of all these things? No! I must bury the secret deep, deep in my own heart--must endure this suffering in silence and alone.

"I have but one wish now--could I but be the means of uniting James Harrington with the woman he loves. The only consolation left to me, would be to know that he was happy, and that it was to me he owed that happiness. But I can do nothing; the General only hinted at some mysterious history, and he requested me to consider all that he had revealed as sacred. Is this the secret? Does Lucy Eaton suspect the unworthiness which it kills me to know?

"Six months in a convent. It is too late to look back, or to retract anything I have promised. I have consented to become General Harrington's wife--to fill the place of one who took me to her heart as if I had been her own child, bestowing upon me the fondness which I could have no right to claim, except from a mother.

"The change I had remarked in the General's manner was not fancy, as I strove to think. He desires to make me his wife. He alluded to it yesterday for the first time, and to-night I gave him my answer. I can but confess that the arguments he employed were just; a young girl could not remain in the house with a man no older than he without being connected to him by a nearer tie than that which binds us. He spoke to me very kindly, more gently and tenderly than I had thought he could do.

He believes that I have formed no other attachment, or, if not entirely heart free, it was but a girlish fancy, which had no real basis. He a.s.sures me that I shall be happy as his wife, but my heart answers how impossible that is! I do not ask happiness--let me but find quiet and contentment--I seek no more.

"A year has gone by. We are in America again. General Harrington will join me to-morrow. Ay, it is better thus--I would have it over. Perhaps, in the peaceful home I shall find in my native land, I may learn to still this poor heart to rest. I long to return.

"_He_ is not here. He left us when we reached Madrid, for the purpose of entering France through the Basque countries; but this month the General received another letter from him--he is staying in Italy. The General, it seems, had written that he had obtained my consent to become his wife, and the answer is--'Whatever will conduce to your happiness, and that of the lady, must be acceptable to me.'

"Nothing more--not even an expression of astonishment! Yes, it is better thus! I will marry General Harrington--he is the only being on earth who cares for me--the only one who would seek to render me happy. In a few years he will be an old man, and the trust and friends.h.i.+p I now feel, will be sufficient to his contentment. This firm and trusting friends.h.i.+p I shall always be willing to give. If I do not accept him, where am I to turn for a protector--of what avail is my great wealth, since it cannot win for me a home in any human heart?

"I marvel at my own calmness--pray Heaven that when too late, I do not find that it has been only the apathy of despair. I _will_ be calm--my hushed and trembling heart shall at least be silent--by-and-by it will, perhaps, be numbed into insensibility. I can expect nothing more; for I know that the uprooted flowers of a love like mine can have no second-blossom, the sweet fountain of affection once wasted, its waters may never flow again.

"I will write no more in my journal for a season--why should I make this record of my weary life--this plaint of my troubled soul?

"I have suffered the one terrible grief of a lifetime; of what avail to inscribe upon these pages a memento of a lasting wretchedness!"

CHAPTER LVI.

TOO LATE, TOO LATE.

"A year to-day since I became a wife, a year into which has been crowded an eternity of sorrow and regret; can I never learn to endure in silence! Did my husband mean to deceive me when he told me that James Harrington was plighted to another. I spoke of it to-day trembling as the words left my mouth. My husband laughed pleasantly, and answered 'oh, child, that was a love ruse. I had a vague fancy that the young fellow might be in my way, and so disposed of him poetically. There was nothing in it. The fellow has not spirit enough to win a beautiful woman.'

"Great Heaven! did he know how faint and cold those words left me--how I almost loathed him for this awful fraud. G.o.d help me--G.o.d help me to forgive him! It seems now as if I never could. How this portion of my life has pa.s.sed I hardly know; seldom have I made a record of its secrets. Much of the time has been spent in the gay world, for my husband--how strangely the word husband sounds even now--seems to grow every day fonder of its pleasures. The months thus spent have been most wearisome to me; I like better the calm retreat where I have spent my summers, with only a few servants to disturb the quiet of the house, and faithful Ben Benson, who has never left us, to gratify, as if by magic, every wish of his capricious mistress. But there is to be a change--henceforth we are to reside wholly at the North, and _he_ is coming home to live with us.

"A new blessing has been granted to me! Forgive me my G.o.d, that I have dared thus to repine and forget that Thy protecting care was over me! I am a mother! My baby sleeps in his cradle by my side, and one glance at his face makes me forget all the misery I have endured. James returned during my illness. My heart was too full of its new bliss for any other feeling. With my child folded over my heart, I could meet him without one of its pulses being stirred--there is a sacredness in the duties G.o.d has now given me, which I should not have dared profane by one human regret.

"He looks ill and careworn--would that I might speak of his affairs, but I can do nothing, though it is fearful to see him thus; to know that he suffers and feel that I have no power to relieve him. He seems to love my baby. Heaven bless him for that! The General's indifference has pained me, but the nurse says men never like children--when he grows older and his father sees him all that is n.o.ble and good he will love him; how could he do otherwise?--my precious, precious child.

"This little girl, poor, forsaken, young, innocent, she seems to have been sent to be the companion of my boy. How he loves her already; bending over the cradle where she lies to touch her little face with his dimpled hands, his great eyes lit up, and his whole countenance aglow with feeling, such as one seldom witnesses in a child. This is only another kind act for which I have to bless Ben Benson. He found the infant wandering away from some unknown home in a fearful storm, almost perished, and unable to tell even her name.

"It is a beautiful child, and the nurse p.r.o.nounces her a very healthy one. The General seems quite willing that I should adopt her; so I have now a daughter--the word sounds sweet, very sweet to me. James looks at me strangely as I sit with Lina in my lap, and little Ralph by my side, there is a mournfulness in his face which wrings my very heart; doubtless he reflects upon the happiness denied him--ah! he need not envy me a few blessings which have been bestowed upon me.

"Am I happier now! My children are growing all that I could wish. I have wealth, kind friends--say, am I happy? I would not repine nor be ungrateful, but, oh! were it not for the little ones Heaven has confided to my care, how gladly would I seek a quiet resting place in the grave!

"I know now that time cannot alleviate suffering, that nothing can teach the heart to forget or still it into quietude, save for a little season.

Yet my existence is not wholly vain, and while those youthful creatures need my care I am willing to live, but there are times when the burden forced upon my soul seems harder than I can endure. When I fling myself down in utter despair, feeling unable to tread longer the weary path which lies before me.

"It seems to me that I should suffer less could I but see James happy, but his sad silence increases my own pain. He is always gentle and kind, devoted to the children; full of respect and quiet attentions for me; but how changed from the bright youth of former years. How distant that season--through what a fearful gloom I look back upon the brightness of those summer years! How often I ask myself if I am indeed the dreaming girl who, in her chamber at Neathcote watching the stars out in a vigil which was like a charmed vision, believing that life was to be one long fairy dream of delight.

"I have been thinking of that sail upon the lake. I could not help it!

Ralph brought me some water lilies that he and Lina had gathered; as if the odor of those flowers had possessed a spell to conjure up the past, the fleeting happiness of that summer day came back to me.

"Ralph left me alone, and for a long hour I gave myself up to the feelings which his simple offering had aroused. I had not thought there could be so much of pa.s.sion in my suffering now--the tears I shed burned my cheek like flame; and, when the storm gust had spent its might, I lay back on my couch, weak and faint.

"I was roused from those haunting memories by voices beneath my window--it was _his_ voice; he was conversing with Ralph. I leaned forward, and looked down upon them--then I realized how fearful was the change which had pa.s.sed over him. I had been dreaming of him, as he appeared upon that blessed day, and the being I beheld beneath my cas.e.m.e.nt looked like the ghost of the happy-eyed boy of my vision.

"O, had he but confided in me--would he but have trusted me as his sister--hus.h.!.+ am I not a wife? Whither have my mad thoughts led me! My G.o.d, have mercy upon me, stay the terrible tempest which has desolated my whole being, and now breathes its deadly simoon through the sepulchre which was once a heart. I will neither write, nor think more--there must be an end of this weakness--how unlike the fort.i.tude I had promised myself to acquire.

"Yet it seems strange that I have no right to indulge in these memories of an era in my existence gone forever! How few and fleeting were those moments of unshadowed sunlight; the brightest twin memories which my soul can recall, were given to me under such different auspices. Of the first sweet hour, I have just promised my soul never again to think--upon the gloomy waters of my existence, no lilies are blossoming now--the last withered flowers have been torn from their roots, and swept idly down the current to perish, leaving only a faint perfume in my heart, which is but an added pain.

"Now I know that its very bliss was a delusion of my fancy, like the words, I believed to have heard, wrung from Harrington's breast during that fearful tempest, when we stood upon the deck of the ill-fated vessel, and death seemed so near us. Could I have died then, died with his arms enfolding me, his manly heart against my own, the measure of my existence had been complete--it began beneath the sunlight of his smile, it would have ended with the last life-pulse within his n.o.ble bosom.

"Now I will lay this book aside nor shall my hand again turn its pages, until I have taught myself something of the quiet I have so long striven to attain. If in the sight of Heaven I have sinned, cannot my sufferings atone for it?--the evil, if evil there has been, was involuntary; the penitence has been deep and earnest; surely the angels watching over me will not let it be without avail.

"Great heavens! will this heart never have rest--will years do nothing for me? Ralph is now a man; Lina, one of the most lovely creatures I ever saw. These two children, whose infant kisses seem, even now, upon my lips, have sprung up into sudden youth, and seem ready to escape my love. Yesterday, Lina came to me with a world of innocent blushes, and hung about my chair, as if longing to whisper some secret into my ear, yet without the courage to speak. I wondered what the child wanted, but would not force her confidence.

"I thank G.o.d, oh! I thank my G.o.d that I am alive. The terrible shock of that night is still through my frame. I have been so close to death, that the vitality at my heart seems unreal. Last night I was hurled into the depths of the river, that is even now rus.h.i.+ng onward to the ocean so near to my window, that the eternal sweep of its waters haunt me like a threat of death.

"He saved me--or rather they--for Ben Benson was in the midst of the storm, resolute, like the other. I must have been dead for a time, for, when my memory came back, it seemed as if I had forgotten all these miserable years of married life, and was upon that heaving raft again, with his arms around me, and whispering those low, pa.s.sionate words in my ear. Why did that dream come back then? Was it to lay my heart open, and reveal to me how little prayer and time have done to wrest this first and last love from my heart?"

CHAPTER LVII.

ZILLAH.