Wau-nan-gee or the Massacre at Chicago Part 6

"Wau-nan-gee not my friend?" returned the officer, sadly. "Well, I was prepared in some degree to hear the a.s.sertion, Mrs. Headley, our conversation an hour since being well calculated to make me revolve the subject in my mind during your short absence, and I have done so. When you mentioned a moment ago that Wau-nan-gee had been at this door, seeking for admission, I felt confident that you had done him great wrong; but now, I confess, since you so positively a.s.sert his presence and sudden evasion, I am led to apprehend, I know not what. Speak; let me hear it all," he concluded, with bitterness.

"Ronayne, my almost son," she said, leaning her arm affectionately on his shoulder, "it was with the view that suspicion should be excited in your mind by my language that I stated what I did. I did not wish the truth to burst upon you with annihilating suddenness, and therefore sought to prepare you for the blow I am destined to inflict."

"And that is--" he said, with stern and furrowed brow, a pallid cheek, and compressed lip.

"Nay, Ronayne, I like not that tone and manner."

"Proceed, Mrs. Headley, pray proceed; I am ready to hear all. Whence this sorrow so much keener than that I now endure, and how is it connected with Wau-nan-gee!"

"Has it never occurred to you to connect the one with the other?"

she observed, in low and uncertain accents.

"Ha! is it that?" he exclaimed, vehemently starting and hurriedly pacing the apartment. "It is then even as your words had led me to infer. Still, I would not approach the subject myself. I waited for something more direct from your lips. You have uttered it, and I am now prepared to hear all. But, Mrs. Headley, mark me, be well a.s.sured of all you say; let not mere appearances be the groundwork of your suspicions, or you destroy two generous hearts for ever; but," he resumed more calmly, yet with a look of fierce determination, as he once more seated himself at her side, "although the love I bear Maria is deeper far than man ever bore for woman, a.s.sure me that it is not returned, that this soft--eyed boy, with Indian guile, has stolen the love in which I lived, and then I tear her from my heart for ever. Think me no mere puling fawnster, craving a love that is not freely given. As the pa.s.sion that I feel is fire, hot as the Virginian sun that nurtured me, so will it become ice the moment it ceases to be fed by that which first enkindled it. Yes," he continued, bitterly, "I could tear my heart out if in its weakness it could pine for one, however once endeared, who had ceased to respond to all its devotedness and wors.h.i.+p. I might think of her, but only to sustain my wounded spirit. Contempt and scorn for her fickleness, not love--base and grovelling love--should ever be a.s.sociated with her image, when undesiredly it arose to my repelling memory. But oh, G.o.d!" he exclaimed, bowing his head upon hand, and yielding to his deep emotion, "is it possible that this can be! Can it be that I should ever speak and think of Maria thus!

Oh, whence this too great affliction! why this separation of soul from soul! this rending asunder of the mystic bond that once united us! But stop!" and he raised his head, the hot and inflaming tears still gathering in his eyes, "she cannot surely thus have acted, and yet--and yet--oh! Mrs. Headley, if you knew the desolation of my heart, you would pity me. It is crushed, crushed!"

During this painful ebullition of contradictory feeling, in which pride and love combated fiercely for the ascendency, Mrs. Headley had been deeply affected; but feeling the necessity for going through the task she had imposed upon herself, she strove as much as possible to appear calm and collected, even severe. His last appeal brought tears from her own eyes.

"Indeed, indeed, Ronayne," she exclaimed, pressing his hand fervently between her palms, "I do pity you, I do sympathize with you, even as a mother, in the desolation of your heavily-stricken heart. I had dreaded this emotion, and only my strong regard for yourself gave me strength to undertake the infliction of the counter wound, which I knew alone could preserve you from utter misery and despair; and yet, if you would cherish the illusion, if you would not that the stern reality should sear up each avenue to hope, to each sweeter recollection of the past, I will, if you desire it, abstain."

"Nay, not so, Mrs. Headley," replied the unhappy officer; "you are very cruel, but I know you mean it well; proceed--let me be told all. The stronger your recital, the more confirmatory of the utter destruction of my dreams of happiness, and the better for myself.

I have already said that scorn and contempt alone can dwell in my heart, if that which I surmise you are about to relate be but found to be true. I am ready for the torture--begin!" and, as if with a dogged determination to hear, and suffer while he heard, he leaned his elbow on the back of his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand.

The recital need not be repeated here. All that had occurred on the preceding day, and that which is already known to the reader, Mrs. Headley now communicated, adding that she had been undecided in her opinion on the subject, until the answer to the question put to Von Voltenberg convinced her that the whole thing had been planned, and that she had willingly thrown herself into the power of Wau-nan-gee. The few guns, she concluded, were evidently a signal of which she availed herself by instantly galloping off, while Ronayne was yet at some distance from her, and unhorsed.

Prepared as the unhappy officer had been for intelligence involving this mysterious change of affection in his wife, he was utterly dismayed when Mrs. Headley recounted what she had witnessed in the summer-house, to which she had voluntarily gone, and from which she probably never would have returned had not accident disclosed the secret of the trap--door.

"This is, indeed, a terrible blow!" he said, solemnly, removing his hand and exhibiting a pale cheek and lip, and a stern and knitted brow; "but now I know the worst, I better can bear the infliction. Strange, I almost hate myself for it; but I feel my heart relieved. I know I am no longer cared for there, and wherefore seek to force an erring woman to my will? And yet, when I think of it, of the monstrous love that weds rich intellect and gorgeous beauty to the mere blus.h.i.+ng bud of scarce conscious boyhood, I feel as one utterly bewildered. Still, again, since that love be hers, since she may not control the pa.s.sion that urges her to her fate, so unselfish am I in my feeling, even amid all the weight of my disappointment, that rather would I have her free and happy in the love she has exchanged, than know her pining in endless captivity, separated from and consumed with vain desire for a reunion with myself--her love for me unquenched and unquenchable."

"Ah! what a husband has she not lost! Generous, n.o.ble Ronayne, that is what I had expected. You bear this bravely; I knew you would, or never should I have dared to enter upon the matter. But your generosity must go further; it must never be known that Maria has gone off willingly--no doubt must be entertained of her continued love for you. She must still be respected, even as she is pitied and deplored; the belief that she has been made captive and carried off must not be shaken."

"The struggle at her heart must indeed have been great before she fell," remarked Ronayne, musingly, and with an air of profound sadness; "for although her appearance in the rude vault beneath the floor of the summer-house would appear to indicate compulsion, her after conduct justifies not the belief. The imploring earnestness with which she entreated you, Mrs. Headley, not to make known what you had seen to me; her abstaining from all censure of Wau-nan-gee at the moment, and her subsequent interest in him, too forcible to be concealed; her strange and unaccountable manner during our ride, as if to banish some gnawing reproach at her heart; her galloping off when freed for the moment from my presence, and at the evident signal given to announce that everything was prepared for her reception; the appearance of her trunks in the farm-house, evidently, I am now convinced, taken there within a day or two; the pretended desire of the Indians, friends of Wau-nan-gee, to make me a prisoner, and thus induce in me the belief that such was her fate. Oh! yes,"

he continued, rising and pacing the room rapidly, "I can see through the whole plot. His party were Pottowatomies, painted as warriors of a distant tribe, that suspicion might be averted from themselves.

Their object was not to make either Von Voltenberg or myself prisoners, but merely to give such evidence of hostility as to cause us to believe they were enemies. Oh, what sin, what artifice for a woman once so ingenious, a boy so young! But now I am a.s.sured of all this, I am better--I am better. Some sudden inspiration has flashed the truth upon me, that I might, find that relief which a knowledge of her unfaithfulness alone can render me."

"It must have been even so," rejoined Mrs. Headley; "for, certainly, the fact of yourself and Von Voltenberg being allowed to escape by hostile Indians, who could so easily have shot you down, or taken you prisoners, had they been really so inclined, appears to me to be incredible."

"And yet, if it was planned," pursued Ronayne thoughtfully, "what opportunity of communication had they to arrange their measures?

Wau-nan-gee has, we know, long been absent for weeks, or certainly not once within the fort."

"Ronayne," said Mrs. Headley, significantly, "I speak to you of these things freely as to one so much younger than myself. Have I not just said that I saw Wau-nan-gee most distinctly at your door as I entered--n.o.body but ourselves know that he has got in, much less in what manner."

"I understand you, my dear Mrs. Headley; you would infer that he has stolen in at some obscure part of the fort, and under cover of the darkness; but even if so, am I not always at home?"

"Never on guard, Ronayne; or am I mistaken," she added with a faint smile, "in supposing that the officer on duty pa.s.ses the night with his men?"

"By heaven it is so," returned the Virginian vehemently, and striking his brow with his open palm, "this intimacy is of long standing.

Though pretending absence, Wau-nan-gee has been ever present. My guard nights have been selected for those interviews. The poison of his young love has been infused into the willing woman's ear and heart, and now that I recollect it, often on my return home have I seen her, pale, dejected, and full of thought--he has entreated her to fly with him--to suffer him to be the sole, the undivided sharer of her love--she has hesitated, struggled, and finally consented. By the same means by which his entrance has been effected, the trunks of Hardscrabble have been removed, and all was prepared for her evasion yesterday, had she not been baffled in her object by your sudden appearance. Oh, I see it all!"

CHAPTER IX.

"Ronayne, Ronayne!" resumed Mrs. Headley, after the strong excitement of her feeling had been in some measure calmed, "how rapidly you arrive at conclusions. Much of what you say is probable--for your sake, I would it were all so, but let us be guided in our judgment by circ.u.mstances and facts alone. If it had at first been arranged that the plan adopted with such success to-day, why the visit to, and detention in, the vault of the summer-house where every preparation had been made for a long concealment?"

"That," replied Ronayne, "is a mystery which time alone can unravel.

I confess that it involves a contradiction susceptible of explanation only by themselves. This, in all human probability we shall never know; but then, again, forgive me, Mrs. Headley, for thus detaining you with any selfish interests, but your voice, your counsel, your very knowledge of the facts--all breathe peace to my wounded spirit; but, I ask again, why the scream she gave--why the emotion, the grief, she evinced when, on opening the trap-door, you saw her reclining exhausted on that rude couch? I would reason the matter so as to convince myself _thoroughly_ that her flight has been her own wilful act, for then I shall the less regret, even though I should not be able to banish her image wholly from my mind. You have said that you saw Wau-nan-gee leave the summer-house with an excitement in his eye and manner you had never witnessed before, and that this corresponded with the state in which you found Maria a few moments later. Now, is it probable that if she had purposed anything wrong she would have asked you to accompany her, or that she should have asked you to wait for her, while visiting a spot whence she knew she never would return? Oh, no! this could never be. Her mode of evasion, if such had been intended, would have been very different; she would have chosen a moment when you were in some distant part of the garden, and saw her not, to steal into the summer-house. All clue, then, would have been lost, and the appearance of the Indians lurking about the cottage would naturally have impressed you with the belief that she had been carried off by them. How were they dressed?"

"Even as you have described the party that pursued, or affected to pursue you yesterday," exclaimed Mrs. Headley, "in the war paint of the Winnebagoes. I know it well, for their chiefs have often been in council here."

"Just so," pursued Ronayne. "Is it not then reasonable to suppose--mark, I do not weakly seek to justify the wrong which but too certainly exists, but I would dissect each circ.u.mstance until the truth be known--is it not, I repeat, reasonable to suppose that, even if Maria wanted an evidence of her abduction, she would have gone towards the cottage rather than the summer-house. It would have been easy enough then for the Indians who, I have no doubt, were the same party I encountered at Hardscrabble, to have carried her off before any a.s.sistance could arrive from the fort.

On the contrary, she was certain of discovery in the summer-house into which she had been seen to enter, and every part of which she would have known would have been most strictly searched. Wherefore, too, the object in keeping her confined, as it were, in a dungeon, when the free air was open to her, and the boundless wilderness offered health and freedom?"

"I have thought of all that, Ronayne," replied Mrs. Headley, "and I cannot but suppose that this retreat was a temporary one. In all probability, when Wau-nan-gee issued from the summer-house, he was in the act of proceeding to make his preparations for finis.h.i.+ng the work just begun, but seeing that I had not yet left the grounds, waited to know what my movements would be before he took any farther step. My stationing the boat's crew before the gate, where they could command the whole of the view between the cottage and the summer-house, acted as a check upon them, and little dreaming, I presume, that I had discovered the trap-door, they had intended, on my departure across the river, to avail themselves of my absence, and bear her off into the forest. As for the deep grief which I witnessed on entering the summer-house, that may easily be accounted for. A woman of refinement, education, and generous susceptibility, however unhappily carried away she may be by a resistless, and, in her view, fated pa.s.sion, does not without a pang tear herself from old a.s.sociations to enter upon new, especially where they are of an inferior character. She may mourn her weakness even at the moment she most yields to it. One dominant thought may fill her soul--one master sentiment influence all her actions, and govern the pulsations of her heart, but that does not exclude the workings of other and n.o.bler emotions of the mind. Even when she feels herself most tyrannized over by the pa.s.sion, the infatuation, the destiny against which she finds it vain to struggle, sorrow for her altered position will intrude itself, and then is her heart strengthened and her mind consoled only by the reflection that the sacrifice was indispensable to the attainment of that, without which, in the strong excitement of her imagination, she deems life valueless.

Charity should induce us to believe that it is, what I have already termed it, a disease, for on no other principle can we account for that aberration of the pa.s.sions, the intellect and the judgment which can lead such a woman to forget that mind chiefly gives value to love, and to sacrifice all that is esteemed most honorable in the s.e.x by man, to the fascination of mere animal beauty. Ah!

Ronayne, this must have been the case in the present instance. You see, I probe you deeply--but enough!"

"Dear Mrs. Headley," returned the Virginian, pressing her hands warmly in his own, "I am satisfied that, humiliating as it is to admit the correctness of your impression, there is but too much reason to think that it is even as you say. When I recur to the past of yesterday and to-day, I cannot doubt it; and yet I confess there is much buried in obscurity which I would fain have explained.

Were it made clear, manifest as the handwriting on the wall, that Maria had abandoned me for Wau-nan-gee, I should be at ease.

It is the uncertainty only that now racks my mind. Could I _know_, not merely _believe_ her false, a weight would be taken from my heart. Oh! Mrs. Headley, why did you not suffer Wau-nan-gee to enter--why drive from me the only means of explanation at which I can ever arrive--and, yet, what could have been his object in thus venturing here after having despoiled my home of its treasure? If guilty, would he have dared to approach me? and that he might not do so with evil intent, is evident from the fact of his having knocked for admission. Oh! Mrs. Headley, I know not what to think--my mind is chaos--I am a very changeling in my mood: not from want of energy to act when once a.s.sured, but from the very doubts that agitate my mind, made wavering by the absence of all certain proof."

While the soul of the unfortunate young officer was thus a prey to every shade of doubt, and manifesting the very weakness that his lips denied, Mrs. Headley regarded him with, deep concern. She could well divine all that was pa.s.sing in his heart, and the chord of her sympathy was keenly touched. For some moments she did not speak, but appeared to be lost in her own painful reflections. At length, when Ronayne, who during these remarks had been rapidly pacing the room, threw himself into a chair, burying his face in his hands, evidently ill at ease, she drew forth her packet, the seal of which was broken, and handed it to him, saying with sadness--

"My dear Ronayne, I had hoped that I should not have been under the necessity of making known to you the contents of this note, but I see it cannot be withheld. It was placed in my hands, just after I had parted with Mrs. Elmsley, by Serjeant Nixon, who stated that Maria had left it with him for me, as she rode out this morning, telling him it was of the utmost importance that he should deliver it."

"I saw her in conversation with him," said Ronayne, as he took the note and approached the light to read it, "and on asking what detained her, she said, hastily, that she was merely sending you a message--not a doc.u.ment of the importance which you seem to attach to this. I felt at the time that she was not dealing seriously with me; but as it seemed a matter of little consequence I did not pay much attention to it; but, let me read!"

The following were the contents of the note, which Ronayne eagerly perused, with what profound emotion it need scarcely be necessary to describe:

"My dear Mrs. Headley: When you receive this, you will have seen me, perhaps, for the last time; but I am sure that you will believe that, in tearing myself from the scene where so many happy, though not altogether unchequered days have been pa.s.sed, no one occupies a deeper place in my regret than yourself, whom I have ever regarded as a second mother. The dreadful reasons which exist for it, however, prevent me, as a wife, from acting otherwise. I know you will condemn me--tax me with ingrat.i.tude and selfishness. I am prepared for reproach; but, alas! no other course remains for me to pursue.

If I have yielded to the persuasions of the gentle, the affectionate, the devoted Wau-nan-gee, it is not so much on my own account as in consideration of the hope held out to me of a long future of happiness with the object of my heart's wors.h.i.+p. For him I can, and do make every sacrifice, even to the incurring of your displeasure, and the condemnation of all who know me. But let me entreat you to remember, that if he is seemingly guilty, I alone am truly so, and chargeable for the deep offence that will of course be attributed to him. Remember that I have planned the whole; and should it be decreed by fate that we never meet again, I pray G.o.d in his infinite goodness to preserve those whom I now abandon, and spare them the distraction that weighs upon this severely-tried heart.

"I promised you a candid explanation of everything relating to what you saw yesterday. This you will find fully detailed in the accompanying doc.u.ment, written after you had left me, and before the return of Ronayne last night from fis.h.i.+ng."

"Doc.u.ment! what doc.u.ment?" asked the Virginian, interrupting himself, and in a voice husky from emotion; "there is nothing here, Mrs.

Headley, but the letter itself."

"Nothing but that and the piece of embroidery which Maria had worked for me were contained in the packet," was the reply. "In her hurry she must have forgotten to inclose it."

"In the accompanying doc.u.ment (resumed the Virginian, reading) you will find the nature of my connexion with Wau-nan-gee fully explained.

You will, of course, make such use of all that is necessary to your purpose as you may deem advisable; but, as I make that part of the communication which refers to Wau-nan-gee strictly confidential, I conjure you never, in the slightest way, to allude to him as being connected either with my evasion or with the revelation I have made to you in the inclosure. Adieu, my dear Mrs. Headley.

G.o.d grant we may meet again!

"Your own Maria."

During the perusal of this note, Mrs. Headley had watched the countenance of Ronayne with much anxiety. She saw there evidence of strong and varied feelings which he made an effort to subdue, and so far succeeded that, when he had finished he returned the note to her with a calm she had not expected.

"There is no need of further confirmation now, Mrs. Headley," he said, with a bitter half-smile. "You have, indeed, probed but to heal. All my weakness is past. To-morrow I shall be myself again, and attend the council. Pardon me that I have been the cause of detaining you so late, and believe me when I say that deeply do I thank you for the interest you have taken in me."