Carice Bergan was gifted with instincts singularly quick and delicate. She had not long breathed the same atmosphere with Astra and Doctor Remy before she felt it growing heavy around her with some intensity of emotion which she neither shared nor understood. It might be sympathy, it might be aversion; in either case, its effect was to make her feel confused and constrained, in their presence. At one moment, she seemed to behold them afar off, as it were, in a sphere of their own, whither she had neither the right nor the ability to follow them; at another, she felt herself standing between them, barring their way to a free and satisfactory interchange of thought and feeling; and again, she believed that Doctor Remy alone was responsible for her discomfort, interrupting, by his presence, the cordial flow of sympathy between Astra and herself. At any rate, it would be a relief to escape from so oppressive an atmosphere; accordingly, she took her departure, leaving the lovers—if such they can be called—together.
Certainly, there was nothing lover-like in the manner with which they faced each other, a few moments after the door had closed behind her. That brief interval had been spent by both in preparation for the crisis which the one knew, and the other felt, to be approaching. Astra awaited it with a mixture of eagerness and dread; she was weary of wearing the checkered tissue of suspense and anxiety; she would be glad to know exactly what was in store for her, even though the bitter fruit of such knowledge should be mortification and anguish. Doctor Remy's face was set and hard; over it a sombre emotion, like the gray shadow of a cloud on a rock, now and then passed swiftly, taking nothing from its sternness, but adding much to its gloom. He looked like a man who, at no slight cost to himself, has braced his soul with iron for the performance of some heavy, but necessary, task. Little as he likes it, he will carry it out pitilessly to the end.
With an inauspicious frown on his brow—none the less dark because it must have been assumed—he now opened the conversation by saying, abruptly;—
Astra, I have heard some very strange rumors, of late.
Indeed! she returned, with a note of disappointment, as well as of surprise, in her voice. This was but a roundabout road to explanation, she thought; it would have pleased her better had the doctor chosen a more direct one. She looked round for a chair, and sat down wearily, as if to wait his pleasure with such patience as she could command.
However, Doctor Remy was going as straight to the point—his point, at least—as could be wished. "Perhaps you will be less indifferent to these rumors," he continued, insinuatingly, "when you understand that they concern you, and your good name, much."
A slight flush rose to Astra's face, and her eyes lit; but she kept her seat, and she answered not a word, though Doctor Remy waited a moment, as if he expected her to speak. Seeing her silent, however, he went on, slowly, and with seeming reluctance; yet, to a keen and disinterested observer, it might have appeared that he was trying his best to provoke her.
I once told you that it was not in my nature to trust, said he. "But I have trusted you, Astra, even to blindness,—else I should not have been indebted to others for the first intimations of things that I ought to have seen for myself. I should have discovered what sort of game you were playing, before the knowledge was forced upon me at the hands of public rumor. I suppose that I ought to take shame to myself for being so easily deceived;—I do,—nevertheless your shame is certainly the greater for having so deceived me."
The flame in Astra's eyes was kindling brightly now, and her breath came quick and short; nevertheless, it was in a tone of the coldest and quietest dignity that she answered;—
I am not quick at reading riddles—be so good as to tell me, plainly, what you mean.
As plainly as the subject allows, returned Doctor Remy, in a tone that was in itself a taunt. "I mean that the names of Astra Lyte and Bergan Arling are ringing together from one end of the town to the other, in a way which, it may readily be believed, is not pleasant to my ears. It is confidently asserted—and believed—that a secret engagement exists between them. That is to say; the lady has long admitted the gentleman to a degree of daily intimacy and familiarity, which she could not with propriety have accorded to any other than her promised husband;—some say, not even to him. Mr. Arling has been observed to be in her studio for hours together; he has been seen strolling with her in the outskirts of the town; the twain have been noticed talking earnestly together in that out-of-the-way spot known as the oak amphitheatre. On all these occasions the lady has been observed to be so much the more demonstrative of the two, as to give rise to the suspicion that the gentleman's sudden journey westward has been taken, mainly, for the purpose of freeing himself from entanglements not approved by his better judgment."
As these atrocious sentences fell, one by one, with distinct and cutting emphasis, from Doctor Remy's lips, Astra rose to her feet; the flush on either cheek settled into a vivid crimson spot, in the midst of a deadly pallor; her eyes darted fire; her lips trembled with the rush of an indignation too tumultuous, as yet, for word or action. Noting these signs, Doctor Remy congratulated himself upon the successful progress of his experiment. Already, the lioness was at bay; with a little more provocation, she would think only of vengeance.
He resumed his statement. "At first, of course, I paid no attention to these rumors; my ears and eyes were closed against them by that blind, foolish trust in you, of which I have spoken. By and by, they came thicker and faster, and in a shape to compel my consideration. I began to understand that the possible heir of Bergan Hall possessed an immense advantage over the humble physician;—although it might be well to keep a hold on the latter until the former was secure, and his inheritance certain. By way of two strings to the bow, there might be two secret engagements. I commenced an investigation. I traced the reports which I have mentioned back to their source—"
You did! interrupted Astra, with indignation that she could no longer repress. "Instead of sending these foul slanders back down the throats which invented them, you—" She stopped, choked by her bitter sense of indignity and wrong.
—took the pains to verify them, rejoined Doctor Remy, coolly finishing her sentence. "Every accusation was established in the mouths of several witnesses. Arling himself had spoken frankly, as well as lightly, of his engagement, to more than one person."
It is false, and you know it! exclaimed Astra. "Mr. Arling is incapable of such baseness."
Never mind defending him, said Doctor Remy, with a curl of the lip. "What have you to say for yourself?"
Astra walked to the door, and flung it wide open. "I have that to say," she replied, turning upon him with a look of ineffable scorn, and a queenly gesture of dismissal. "Go!"
Doctor Remy stood for a moment irresolute, with an unwonted flush of shame rising to his brow. The climax had not only come sooner than he anticipated, but in an unexpectedly embarrassing shape,—a shape that gave him a sudden, startling perception of the vileness of the task which he had set himself to do. Naturally, he was inclined to be angry with Astra for the action to which he owed this moment of self-recognition; yet, on the whole, it was the most bewitching thing that he had ever seen her do. Never had she attracted him so strongly as while she thus stood pointing him to the door. Her free and noble attitude, the wonderful vividness of her expression, the maidenly dignity of her tacit refusal to descend for one moment to his level, and discuss with him the points that he had raised, thrilled him with involuntary admiration. It irked him to think that he must needs give her up. Was there really no way to keep her, and at the same time win Bergan Hall? He sent his thoughts back over the road which they had trodden so often, during the past fortnight, and decided once more that the risk was too great. He must persevere in the course upon which he had entered. Nor did a little present mortification matter, in comparison with hopeful progress. Astra was only helping him forward in the way that he wished to go. How easily the affections and passions of others became the puppets of his will!
Nevertheless, it was not without a softened, almost regretful, tone that he finally said,—"If I go, Astra, you understand that our engagement is at an end."
Our engagement! repeated Astra, looking at him with a kind of scornful amaze. "How dare you insult me thus? I was never engaged to you,—never!"
Doctor Remy stood aghast. For one moment, he believed that her senses were taking leave of her.
Never! repeated Astra, with proud emphasis. "I was engaged," she went on, after a moment, in an altered and tremulous tone, "to a MAN,—a calm, wise, noble man,—not a monster, nor a piece of mechanism. I was engaged to an earnest seeker after truth, a courageous grappler with problems that other men shunned, an honest speaker of his own thoughts and moulder of his own opinions,—a man who, though he might be temporarily led astray by the very excess of his virtues of candor, boldness, and integrity, would be sure to come right in the end. He is dead,—or he never lived, except in my imagination,—requiescat in pace. But to you,—a body without a soul, an intellect without a heart, a will without a faith, a kind of human beast of prey, intent on nothing but the gratification of his own selfish ends,—to you I was never pledged. I would as soon have bound myself to a corpse, or a calculating machine."
This is plain talk, Astra, said Dr. Remy, growing pale with anger and mortification. "If you were not a woman, it would be easier to answer it."
It is not only plain talk, but plain sight, replied Astra. "The scales have fallen from my eyes; at last, I see you as you are. The most that can be said for you, as well as in excuse for my late infatuation (for I would not seem altogether despicable in my own eyes), is that great and rich capabilities have been miserably perverted, in your person. A grand soul has somehow been strangled within you. Some hidden canker—beginning I know not when nor where, but to which your surgeon's knowledge ought to have impelled you long ago to put the surgeon's knife—has slowly eaten out everything that was sound and good, in your moral system, and left nothing but rottenness. And it is now too late for remedy. If it were not,—if there were any hope that I could help to save you, by clinging to you,—I think I have the strength and courage to do it. As it is, I should only corrupt myself. Indeed, I fear it will be long ere I get rid of the virus of doubt and captiousness, which, I find, you have already introduced into my mind; and of which that figure" (she pointed to the statue of clay) "is the legitimate outcome. You have given a bias to my mode of thought, which has already shaken my faith to its foundations,—and might, in time (but for the scathing commentary of your life upon your opinions), have destroyed it. Leave me now. We have done with each other."
Perhaps Dr. Remy's good angel, absent from his side for many years, hovered, at that moment, above his head, with a wistful—almost a hopeful—face. For, at last, the strong man was visibly affected. Some chance word of Astra's had found a joint in his iron armor, and penetrated to the living flesh. His lip trembled,—it may have been with an unshaped prayer to Astra to make that effort to save him, of which she had declared herself capable,—it may have been with a sudden perception of the barrenness of his life, and the valuelessness of its ends, disposing him, for a moment, to try whether any richer realities were to be reaped from an unselfish human affection and an unquestioning heavenly faith.
But not thus easily and quickly was the whole bent of a life to be changed, not thus the holding of the cords of evil to be loosed! Suddenly, between him and Astra, rose a vision of Bergan Hall, with its immense revenues, its ancient and aristocratic prestige, the vast power and influence that it would impart to capable hands, the abundant means and leisure that it would allow for scientific pursuits. For, if Doctor Remy lived for anything besides himself, it was for science. He had managed to persuade himself that the interests of the two were identical. He had embodied his selfishness, as it were, in a theory; for the development, confirmation, and proclamation, of which, he believed that he desired leisure and wealth, far more than for himself; and through which he meant to be a benefactor to his race, as well as to wreathe his own name with undying laurels. On the one hand, then, was this wide prospect of wealth, freedom, usefulness, and fame; on the other, Astra, and a life of restrictions and limitations, narrowed down to the daily necessity of daily bread. Quickly he made his choice. The angel spread his white wings, and flew upward,—never to return!
Doctor Remy turned to Astra, and held out his hand. "Let us part friends," said he.
Not so, replied Astra; "let us part—as we are to remain—strangers. No need to mock the sacred past with the commonplace civilities of ordinary intercourse. The relation that once existed between us is simply dead, not changed into something else."
As you will, returned Doctor Remy, after a pause. "At least let me wish you a short mourning, and a bright thereafter. Adieu."
He went out as he spoke, closing the door behind him. In his excitement, he used more force than he was aware of, and it fell to with a clangor that reverberated loudly through the large, uncarpeted room, and jarred painfully upon Astra's nerves. She shivered, and her eyes fell upon the clay figure. Apparently, it was trembling with sympathetic emotion; it even bent toward her, as if suddenly endued with life; for one moment, the old fable of Pygmalion seemed coming true, in her modern experience. Then, the limbs gave way, the trunk fell forward, down went Bearer and Child together, the faces of each giving her one last, distorted look of malign meaning, ere they crushed into fragments on the platform.
It is not the only ruin that he has left behind him, murmured Astra to herself, with a sad and bitter smile.
In another moment, she too began to sink. The long fever of suspense was ended; the excitement that had carried her through the late trying interview was over; the inevitable time of reaction and depression had come. The thought of the terrible blank left in her heart and life, of the woful loss of affection, faith, and hope, that she had suffered, of the miserable waste in her past, and of the chaotic emptiness in her future, came over her with awful force. Slowly she sank, as if an invisible weight were pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she leaned her head on the ruins of her statue, and shook with sobs of tearless agony.
She knew not how long a time went by thus; it seemed to her to stretch its slow length over an age. But it is a merciful provision that acute sorrow soon exhausts itself. The mind, like the body, has beneficent limits to its power of endurance. In due time, Astra exchanged the anguish of wretchedness for its torpor. Her sobs died away, the convulsive trembling of her frame ceased, she sat up and looked around her with a face of quiet misery. Perhaps it was a little hard, too. Her pride was coming to her aid in bearing the burden for which, she told herself, she was largely accountable, and must therefore struggle along with as best she could. It was miraculously heavy, it would tax all her strength and resolution, she saw that plainly enough; but she forgot to look into it for any sign of divine origin, or promise of divine help. The baleful effect of Doctor Remy's influence still followed her, making God an overhanging Law, instead of a surrounding Love. She could not even read aright the lesson of her own fragments of clay!
She was struggling up to her feet, when Mrs. Lyte hurriedly entered, holding an open letter in her hand, and looking both frightened and bewildered. Perhaps nothing could have been better for either mother or daughter, at that moment, than to see the other's troubled face. In both countenances, there was a quick change of expression,—something of sorrow and anxiety gone, something of loving sympathy in its place,—as each uttered the eager inquiry;—
What is the matter?
Fortunately, Astra was not obliged to answer. Mrs. Lyte instantly discovered the fallen statue, and connected it, though not without a degree of surprise, with her daughter's woe-begone face. For Astra had been wont to bear disaster with more fortitude! Still, this was the largest work that she had yet undertaken; besides, she had seemed so far from well, of late! Mrs. Lyte's heart thrilled with motherly sympathy.
I am so sorry! she said, pityingly. "Is it an utter ruin?"
Utter, replied Astra, with dreary emphasis. "But never mind about it now. What has happened to distress you?"
Mrs. Lyte put the letter into Astra's hand. "Read that," said she, "and see what you can make of it."
It was not without difficulty, under the pressure of her own misery, that Astra made herself comprehend the purport of the document before her, through the disguise of the legal terms wherein it had duly been couched by the lawyer employed by Major Bergan. With enlightenment, however, strange to say, came a quick sense of relief. Here, at least, was a necessity for action; and the trouble which is attended by that, is never so great as one which calls only for patient endurance. Besides, how glad would she be to leave Berganton at this juncture, to escape at once from its curiosity, its sympathy, or its censure, to be spared the pain of meeting Doctor Remy's altered face, and the irksomeness of going on with the old life, in the old scene, after it had lost all the old color and substance. Her face brightened so much, as she looked up from the letter, that Mrs. Lyte gave a sigh of relief.
Then it is not so bad as I thought, said she.
Astra's heart smote her for her selfishness. She reflected what grief it would cause her mother to be thrust out from the home endeared to her by so many and sacred associations. Her face fell, and her heart sank again. Covering her eyes with her hands, she burst into a sudden passion of tears,—a softer agony than had shaken her before, but still so plainly an agony disproportionate to the occasion, that Mrs. Lyte's eyes suddenly opened to the perception of some hitherto unsuspected sorrow. She put her arms round her daughter, and drew her head on to her bosom, as in the days of her childhood.
What is it, darling? she asked.
The soft tone, the affectionate touch, the motherly sympathy, were irresistible. Before she well knew what she was doing, Astra was pouring forth all her sad story.
Oh, mother! she moaned, as she finished, "if we could only go away,—just for a time, at least, until I have recovered myself a little! If we could only go at once, too, without explanations or farewells!"
We will, my child, returned Mrs. Lyte, soothingly,—"that is, if I can manage it."
Then followed a long consultation.
From Astra's studio, Doctor Remy went to his office, and devoted an hour to the task of writing a letter; which seemed to make an unusual demand upon his skill, either of composition or penmanship. Three different sheets were defaced and destroyed, ere the work was accomplished to his mind. The epistle was addressed to Mrs. Lyte, enclosing what purported to be the amount of an old, outlawed debt to her deceased husband; of which the debtor, having recently met with a stroke of good fortune, was glad to relieve his conscience. In good time, after making a short détour, it arrived at its destination; and played an important part in events, by furnishing Mrs. Lyte with an opportune sum of ready money.
Five days afterward, as Major Bergan was about to sally forth for his customary morning visit to his beloved rice fields, a letter was put into his hands. It ran as follows:
"DEAR MAJOR BERGAN: I duly received your notice of foreclosure, and I thank you for the measure of forbearance that you have hitherto exercised toward me. As you are doubtless aware, I have no means of paying off the mortgage, except by the sale of the property which it covers. As I am about to leave Berganton, for a time, on account of my daughter's health, I hereby surrender my house and grounds into your hands, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, as you may deem best for our mutual interests. If they sell for more than the amount of the mortgage (as I hope they will), I know I may safely trust to you, as a man of honor, and a good friend of my late husband, to hold the balance subject to my order. You will find the house in charge of my old and faithful servant, Cato; whom I also venture to commend to your kind care, until I shall be able to send for him. I cannot find it in my heart to sell him; besides, he is too old to be of much value, though still quite able to earn his bread, on your plantation. This is not a man's way of doing business, I am well aware; it is only a woman's way of shirking responsibility, in matters that she does not understand. I know that my interests are safer in your hands than in my own. As soon as I am comfortably settled anywhere, I will let you know my address. Till then, believe me,
" "Very truly yours, CATHERINE LYTE.""
"It will be seen that this epistle was a masterpiece of diplomacy, in its way. Though it proved Mrs. Lyte to be a most unbusiness-like woman, it none the less evinced her thorough knowledge of the one-sided and contradictory character of the man with whom she had to deal. Grasping and impracticable as Major Bergan would be sure to be, with a surly and obstinate debtor who met him squarely on his own ground, she believed that he would not fail to show himself scrupulously just, and even generous, to the woman who, without a word of reproach or remonstrance, quietly resigned herself and her affairs into his hands, to be dealt with according to his good pleasure.
In this conclusion, she was justified by the event. A more astonished and disgusted man than Major Bergan, after he had mastered the contents of her letter, it would be hard to find. For once, even his brandy bottle was empty of comfort. He could only partially relieve his mind, while his horse was being saddled, by pouring forth volley upon volley of curses; distributed, impartially, at first, among Mrs. Lyte, Doctor Remy, his nephew, his frightened servants, and himself. Later, his wrath began to concentrate itself on Doctor Remy. That personage had undoubtedly influenced him to the commission of the act which he now stigmatized, in his most emphatic manner, as unworthy a Bergan and a gentleman. In return, he threatened to break every bone in the doctor's body, and grimly consigned the fragments to a place of deposit always much in favor with men of his habits. Finally, he mounted his horse, and trotted rapidly toward Berganton.
His first visit was, of course, to Doctor Remy. With the most imperturbable good humor, that gentleman listened to the flow of his oaths and objurgations, until it had partially exhausted itself by its own fury. He then assured the Major that his surprise and regret at Mrs. Lyte's departure were fully equalled by his own. The thing had been managed so quietly and adroitly, that he had not suspected it, until his attention had been attracted by the deserted look of the house. At the same time, he must acknowledge that it was only a short time since he had advised Mrs. Lyte to try a change of air, both for herself and her daughter; and doubtless that had had its share in influencing her action. Besides, it was on the whole the best thing that could do to take Miss Astra out of the way, until the present cloud of gossip had blown over. Finally, he threw out a suggestion that the twain had possibly gone to join Mr. Arling.
Hereupon, Major Bergan's wrath broke out afresh. It was not in human nature—certainly not in that particular species of human nature represented by the Major—to hear with equanimity that the very measure which he had taken to prevent what he considered to be an unsuitable marriage, had possibly availed to hasten it forward. The walls of the doctor's office trembled with the oral thunderbolts launched at the offenders. In due time, however, these also subsided into the low growl of the exhausted tempest; dying away, at last, in muttered imprecations upon that curious turn of events—the grim humor of which the Major was now quite capable of appreciating—which had made him the trustee of Mrs. Lyte's affairs, and the guardian of her interests.
To the Major's credit be it spoken, that he was incapable of betraying the trust thus committed to him. Quitting Doctor Remy's office, he went in search of old Cato, put the premises in his charge during the absence of his mistress, promised him an occasional visit of inspection (and a sound thrashing if all was not found in complete order), made due provision for his maintenance, and then took himself grumblingly home, to drown the remnant of his chagrin in the Lethean glass that had already swallowed up so many of his better thoughts, impulses, and characteristics.
Of course, Mrs. Lyte's departure—or flight, as it was not infrequently termed—made the nine days' wonder of Berganton. Some few gentle, charitable souls there were, no doubt, who, judging their neighbor by themselves, saw no harm either in the fact or the manner of her going. She was ill; so was her daughter; they had neither time nor heart for leavetakings. But there were others, wise in the crooked ways of the human heart through much practice therein, who scrupled not to find motives and objects for the course of the pale-faced widow and her gifted daughter, with which it is not necessary to stain this page. There was the more room for this, inasmuch as Major Bergan, partly out of consideration for Mrs. Lyte, and partly out of shame on his own account, had taken care that the existence of the mortgage should not transpire. Yet Mrs. Lyte had depended upon the ultimate disclosure of this fact, to furnish that explanation of her departure which she had shunned to give herself, and to turn the current of popular sympathy in her favor. In yielding to Astra's morbid desire not only to leave the scene of her untoward love behind, but to do it in such swift and silent wise that neither curiosity, nor sympathy, nor malevolence, could immediately follow them, to inflict their various torture upon her sore heart, Mrs. Lyte had looked confidently forward to this forthcoming justification of her step. Her old friends, she thought, would be sure to understand the feeling that led her to flee from the sight of the sale of her lifelong home (it might be under the auctioneer's hammer), and to shut off all means of communication between herself and the painful transaction, until time had given her strength to bear it.
Next to Major Bergan, the person who felt most aggrieved at the fact and manner of her departure was Carice. Astra, to be sure, had not failed to send her friend a brief note of farewell; but it was couched in such vague terms, owing to the confusion and distress of mind in which it had been written, as to afford little satisfaction to the reader. She could only gather from it that, in one way or another, Astra's happiness was very seriously compromised; so much so as to make a change desirable, though it were only a change of pain. And, in Carice's present circumstances, this was either too much or too little. The rumors which had filled Berganton had found their way to Oakstead also; and, for the first time in their lives, parents and daughter were divided in sentiment, and alien in sympathy. Mr. and Mrs. Bergan—terrified that their idolized child should have given her heart to a man persistently held up to view as a thin mask of outward morality over an inward rottenness of intemperance, indebtedness, and unscrupulous trifling with affection—could think of no better way of correcting the mischief than by continually repeating in her unwilling ears the various dark rumors in circulation, together with such facts and theories as tended to confirm them. Carice, on her part, turned from them all with the instinctive disgust of a pure mind, and the generous faith and confidence of a true affection. And she was right. Trust, as long as it is in anywise possible, is the heart's deepest wisdom, as well as its surest instinct.
Nevertheless, it was hard to find her parents arrayed against her, with all the rest of the world. Duty, decorum, forbade her to set up her own opinion in opposition to theirs; often she had but to listen in silence to statements and inferences which she could neither admit nor disprove. She would have been glad, therefore, had Astra's note furnished one scrap of evidence in support of her own convictions; on the contrary, its testimony went quite the other way. She could only neutralize its effect upon herself by supposing that Astra had given her affections to Bergan unsought, and was now suffering from a disappointment none the less bitter that she had brought it upon herself. But Carice was too delicate and generous to breathe this suspicion aloud; at the same time she knew that it would have no weight with minds so deeply prejudiced as those of her parents.
Carice's worst trial was, however, her growing wonder why nothing was heard from Bergan. His last words to her had been a promise to write immediately, both to her father and herself,—to the former by way of frankly avowing his love, and asking for permission to address his daughter; to the latter, as a necessary sequence to that brief interview by the singing river, the thought of which was Carice's one subject of delightful contemplation. But no letter came, not so much as a word of regret or excuse for necessary delay. As time dragged its slow length along, a touching look of wistfulness, mingled with a sorrowful patience, came into the face that had lately been so serenely happy,—a look over which Mr. and Mrs. Bergan scarcely knew whether most to lament or to rejoice, it was grievous to behold it there; and yet, if Bergan would only keep silent, she must eventually give him up!
Alas for Carice! there was no doubt whatever that Bergan would keep silent—or seem to do so. Her parents' minds would have been set at rest on that point, if they could invisibly have followed Doctor Remy into the Berganton Post Office some weeks previous, and listened to his conversation with the pale, slight, weak-looking young man in charge. One month before, he had so obstinately and successfully fought death at the bedside of this young man's newly wedded wife, as to call forth an unusual amount of gratitude. To this fact he now alluded.
Well, Jekyll, said he, "I have come to make trial of that eternal gratitude which you swore to me, not long ago."
I am glad of it, sir, responded Jekyll, warmly. "What can I do for you?"
The question is rather, what will you do for me? returned the doctor, with marked emphasis.
Anything, anything, that is not wrong, replied Jekyll.
Right and wrong are relative terms, replied Doctor Remy, quietly. "If you had understood the nature of the drugs which I gave your wife the other night, you would have said that I was trying to poison her;—yet, you see, I saved her life. It is the motive which determines the character of the act."
Y-e-s, sir, rejoined Jekyll, considerably bewildered; but, nevertheless, feeling quite certain that so learned a man as Doctor Remy must understand these matters a great deal better than he did.
And so, continued the doctor, suavely, "what I am about to ask you to do, is not really wrong, though it may seem so at first sight. It is only a quiet method of averting a great deal of trouble and scandal from a very worthy family. Should you recognize this handwriting, if you were to see it again?"
Jekyll looked at the paper held towards him, and answered,—"Yes, certainly; it is—"
Never mind whose it is, interrupted the doctor; "it is just as well not to know anything about that. Well, Jekyll, what I want you to do, is simply to keep a sharp lookout for any letters, in that handwriting, which may come to Godfrey Bergan, or his daughter, or his wife, and hand them over to me."
Jekyll opened his eyes wide with surprise and terror. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed, "it's a penitentiary business!"
Not at all, replied Doctor Remy, calmly. "In the first place, no one will know anything about it but you and me. In the second, you are not doing this thing for your own advantage, but just to help me to save certain excellent people from sore sorrow and trouble."
Jekyll did not answer, but he still looked dismayed and unconvinced.
If it will ease your scruples any, pursued the doctor, after a pause, "I don't mind telling you, in confidence, that Mr. Godfrey Bergan very much desires the suppression of these letters, though he does not want to appear in the matter himself. And you must admit that he has a right to control the correspondence of his own household.
But why does he want his own letters stopped? asked Jekyll.
For the best of reasons,—he does not want to receive them. He prefers to be able to say that he hears nothing, and knows nothing. Therefore, you will readily understand that nothing is to be said, or even hinted, to him. He puts the matter in my hands, and you are responsible to me only.
It is unnecessary to trace the conversation to the end. Its results are already patent to the reader. Doctor Remy was specious and plausible; Jekyll was weak and grateful; the yielding of the pliant nature of the former to the stronger one of the latter, could only be a question of time.
No sooner was the way made clear, by the removal of Bergan and Astra, than Doctor Remy began to visit assiduously at Oakstead; taking good care, at first, that the object of these visits should seem to be anything but Carice. He came to discuss local politics or town hygiene with Mr. Bergan; or he sought to interest his wife in some newly discovered object of charity. By and by, it was a mere matter of pleasant habit, apparently, that he stopped at Oakstead four or five times a week, as he came and went on his professional rounds.
If Carice was absent, on these occasions, he never asked for her; if she was present, he rarely addressed his conversation to her; nevertheless he weighed every word, and shaped every sentence, with artful reference to its effect upon her ear and mind. Every resource of his tact and skill was exhausted, in his effort to attract and keep the attention of the fair, silent girl, sitting in the shadow, with the drooping head, and the patient, preoccupied face.
It was long ere he could congratulate himself upon any measure of success. The little that Carice had hitherto known of Doctor Remy, she had intuitively disliked. She now acknowledged that she had scarcely done him justice in her thought; or he had changed since then. Occasionally, in his mention of his poorer patients, there peeped out traits of thoughtful kindness and generosity,—or something that looked like them,—for which she would never have given him credit. She was glad to know that he was better than he had seemed. But here the matter ended, so far as she was concerned. She did not care for him, personally; she shunned his visits, as much as possible; when compelled to be present, she oftenest sat a little apart, thinking her own thoughts over her embroidery or her drawing, and letting the brightest flow of his conversation pass by her unheeded.
But so consummate a social strategist as Doctor Remy was not thus to be baffled. One day, he took fitting occasion to bring Bergan's name into his talk,—speaking of him quietly and unconcernedly, as it was natural to speak of a man with whom he had been intimately associated for some months,—and speaking of him kindly, too, as of one for whom he entertained a real regard. Carice turned away her head, and tears sprang to her eyes. It was so long since she had heard Bergan's name spoken in a friendly tone, and unaccompanied by a disparaging commentary! When she ventured to look at Doctor Remy, it was with a soft, grateful expression, which he did not fail to detect and understand. There was a certain wistfulness, also, as of a flower which, having been refreshed by one little drop of unexpected dew, opens its petals for more. This, too, the doctor understood, and was too wise to disappoint.
By the way, said he, turning to Mr. Bergan, "perhaps I can give you the latest news from your sister,—I had a letter from Mr. Arling this morning."
Carice's heart gave a great leap, of mingled pleasure and pain. At last she was to hear something;—yet, certainly, it ought not to be in this roundabout way.
It will be the earliest news as well as the latest, responded Mr. Bergan, drily; "I have heard nothing, as yet."
Is it possible! exclaimed Doctor Remy, with well-feigned surprise; "I had no idea of that. Still, severe sickness is an engrossing guest in a house, as I often have occasion to notice; outside friends are apt to be forgotten, or rather ignored, except as they can be made useful. Probably, Arling would not have written to me, if he had not wanted something supplementary to certain medical suggestions with which I furnished him, when he left, and which seem to have been of use. Anyway, I am glad to be able to tell you that the fever has passed the crisis."
I am glad to hear it, returned Mr. Bergan, heartily enough, yet with an evident dislike of the subject. Carice being present, he could not forget that talking of Mrs. Arling was the next thing to talking of her son.
Mrs. Bergan, however, was more alive to the demands both of kinship and of courtesy. "Is our sister out of danger, then?" she asked with interest.
Except as there is always danger of a relapse, answered Doctor Remy. "Still, judging from Mr. Arling's letter, I should say that there is good reason to hope that his mother's convalescence will be sure and swift. In that case, we may look for him back among us, ere long."
Mr. Bergan frowned; Carice turned away her face, that her gladness might not be seen shining in her eyes. This, then, was the reason why Bergan had not written to Oakstead. At first, there had been engrossing anxiety and fear; then, finding that he should soon be able to come and plead his cause in person, he had not thought it wise to commit it to the colder advocacy of a letter. There were many advantages in a face-to-face discussion; especially where, as he doubtless suspected, prejudice was to be met and overcome! And he could not honorably write to her, until he had written to her father.
Nor would she admit, even to herself, that this explanation did not quite cover every point, that it hardly excused Bergan for subjecting her to so long a strain of expectation and suspense. She was so glad, poor child! to discern even the outline of a reasonable solution of the mystery that had so oppressed her! And, for the rest, was he not coming soon, to make everything smooth and plain? Might he not be here in a few days,—a week,—a fortnight,—at farthest? Or, suppose it should be a month:—well, no need for her heart to sink thus,—could a month ever seem long again, in comparison with that which was just past?
Perhaps it may be well to offset the foregoing scene with one or two veritable paragraphs from Bergan's letter:—
"The crisis of the fever, Doctor Trubie thinks, was passed a week ago. But my mother does not rally, in the least. We just succeed in keeping her alive—if anything so like death can be called life—by the means which you suggested. If she does live, we shall owe it, under God, to you. The great obstacle to her recovery, now, is the ulceration mentioned above; Doctor Trubie warns us that it may terminate fatally, any day. If you have any further suggestions to offer, I need not say how gratefully we shall accept them. Can you tell me if they are all well at Oakstead? I wrote some time ago, but have heard nothing.""
"The second of these paragraphs, Doctor Remy had dismissed with a single reading and a sinister smile; but, over the first, he had knitted his brows into their sternest, deepest lines of thought,—the look of a man hurling all his reserved force into the fight, and determined to wring victory from defeat.
She must not die! he muttered to himself,—"that would set Arling free too soon. The longer and slower her convalescence, the better,—but she must not die!"
And the return mail carried back to Mrs. Arling's bedside—where the battle seemed wellnigh over—the strong reinforcements of Doctor Remy's science and experience, to carry on the fight.
From all of which, it will easily be seen that Carice's days of suspense were not yet over. Doctor Remy had artfully lifted her a little way into the sunshine, first, as a means of commending himself to her favor, and next, in order that her lapse into the shadow should be the more complete.
In the first of these objects, he was measurably successful. Carice no longer shunned him. He was certain to see her, soon or late, whenever he came to Oakstead. With the current of feeling setting so strongly against Bergan, in every other quarter, she could not afford to lose any kindly mention of him, in this one. Though she still sat a little apart, it was plain that she lost no word of his conversation. Her face, as she listened, had the same look of patient interest, with which a solitary prisoner might watch for the flight of a bird across the small square of blue sky which is his only prospect.
Her parents noticed the change, and rejoiced in it, inasmuch as they did not suspect its cause. For it must be confessed that Doctor Remy acquitted himself marvellously well of the delicate task of mentioning Bergan in terms at once pleasant to the daughter's ears, and void of offence to those of the parents. He understood perfectly the art of constructing two-sided sentences, which gave Carice the impression that he was the young man's stanch, if undemonstrative, friend, at the same time that Mr. and Mrs. Bergan found in them abundant confirmation of their prejudices.
Of course, neither party discussed these impressions with the other. Carice, feeling the uselessness of the task, had long since ceased to defend Bergan; her parents, believing that his silence was operating more powerfully against him than any arguments of theirs could do, had ceased to attack him. Nor will it seem any paradox to say that, while they were unspeakably glad of his omission to write, it was, on the whole, his worst fault, in their eyes. They resented the slight to their daughter none the less, because it hastened the end which they ardently desired. To have sought her love was bad enough, but to have flung it aside so quickly, as a thing of no value, was a thousand times worse. Godfrey Bergan gnashed his teeth, whenever he thought of it, with an indignation for which he had no words.
One day, Doctor Remy, to his great gratification, found Carice alone in the library; and at once seized upon the opportunity to speak of Bergan, in kinder and fuller strain than he had ever yet ventured to do,—though not in a way to suggest that he was aware of any special bond between his listener and his subject. He described his first meeting with the young man, and its immediate results; he sketched various pleasant scenes and incidents that had come to pass under Mrs. Lyte's kindly roof; and he dwelt with hearty admiration upon Bergan's oratorical and intellectual gifts. Carice listened like one entranced. Her joy was too perfect to admit of any alloy, even when Doctor Remy went on to speak of Bergan as a young man whose character was still in process of formation, whose talents were, as yet, far in advance of his judgment, and whose kindly impulses often led him into error. Yet these few words, of all that had ever been spoken disparagingly of Bergan, in her hearing, were the only ones that had yet effected any lodgment in her mind. So artfully thrown in, among much that was friendly and encomiastic, as to be scarcely noticed at the moment, the time came when these words shot up, in Carice's memory, into manifold thorn-branches of suggestion.
At present, however, she was inexpressibly cheered by this hour's talk on the subject that lay nearest her heart. She greeted her parents, upon their return, with a face so much more like that which had once been the sunshine of their hearts, that they exchanged looks of surprise and delight. They were looks of questioning too. Was this pleasant change owing to Doctor Remy's influence? Was he beginning to think of Carice, in lover's wise? Was she beginning to turn unconsciously from the love that had failed her, to the calm and mature affection that was certain to stand by her? Then, by all means, let the matter so arrange itself. Though Doctor Remy was not quite the man whom they would have chosen for Carice, he was infinitely better and safer than their nephew. His reputation was fair, his talents undeniable; he was certain to win eminence in his profession; and possibly, fame beyond it, as a man of science. If he had seemed a little cold and hard, hitherto, love would soften him. Who could be otherwise than soft to Carice!
And so, Doctor Remy came and went, and unlimited opportunities were given him to talk to Carice,—of Bergan, or of anything else,—of which he failed not to make artful use, with reference both to the present and the future. In due time, she came to look upon him somewhat as Astra had once done,—as a man more wise and calm than tender, more just than genial, but a man to be greatly esteemed and trusted, nevertheless; and, certainly a true, if not an enthusiastic, friend of Bergan. Yet she never thought of him, strange to say, as a friend to herself. Her instincts were far too fine and clear for that. If ever, for a moment, she felt inclined to turn to him for sympathy, she immediately shrank back from him, as powerless to give her what she sought. It was precisely the same feeling—though she did not recognize it as such—with which she would have turned away from an image in a mirror, which, during a single illusive moment of twilight, she had mistaken for a living form.
And the days came and went, and another month drew nigh its close.
Carice was strolling languidly along the bank of the creek, the heaviness of her heart easily discoverable in her absent face and languid step. Her eyes rested on the same stream, her ears were filled with the murmur of the same leaves, which had witnessed her parting with Bergan, nearly two months before, yet neither made any distinct impression on her mind; she saw and heard but the flow and murmur of her own troubled thoughts. She had noticed a singular change of tone in Doctor Remy, of late, with respect to Bergan. He no longer made the young man the subject of free and frank conversation; if obliged to mention him at all, he did it with a certain reserve and caution, an air of picking and choosing his phrases, which at first puzzled, and was now beginning to alarm, the poor girl, already worn and nervous with the long sickness of hope deferred.
Her fears, however, took a different direction from what Doctor Remy had anticipated. He had intended his alteration of manner to suggest the grave, stern reserve of a man, who, though he had himself lost confidence in his friend, is still honorably reluctant to injure him in the estimation of another. But from any such suggestion, Carice's mind was shielded by her loyal faith in her lover, as by an armor of proof. Dr. Remy's change of manner only served to strengthen her growing conviction that Bergan's failure either to write, or to appear in person, could be caused by nothing short of some great and unexpected calamity. As her eyes followed a swift cloud-shadow from object to object of the summer landscape, so her mind followed the dark shade of her fears from point to point of possible ill. Perhaps the fever, quitting his mother, had fastened upon Bergan himself; perhaps he was ill, suffering, unconscious, dying, even, or—the thought shook her like a sudden blow—dead! Gasping for breath, she leaned against a friendly tree, and closed her eyes, as if to shut out the agonizing vision, which, nevertheless, rose but the more vividly before her. Quickly opening them again, she saw Doctor Remy coming toward her from the direction of the cottage. He had espied her from the piazza, as he was taking his leave, after having spent a half-hour with her mother.
She was glad to see him. He could set her free from the intolerable chafing of suspense, though it were but to hand her over to the chill bondage of despair. He would doubtless have done so, ere this, but for some request or warning of her parents to the contrary. How far this might have let him into the secret of her relations with Bergan, she know not,—neither did she care much, just now; how far it might avail to close his lips was a much more important consideration,—still she believed that she could gather something from the expression of his face, even though he should think it right to evade her questions.
She seized upon the first opportunity, therefore, to look him, steadily in the face, though her own flushed a little, as she did so; and to ask, quietly,—"Have you heard anything from my cousin Bergan lately?"
Doctor Remy's face underwent a quick change of expression, none the less effective that it was obedient to his will. "Yes," replied he, sombrely, "I had a letter from him two or three days ago."
Carice could scarcely restrain a cry of joy; it was such a relief to know that Bergan was alive, and able to write. But her immediate perception that something was kept back, saved her self-possession.
And my aunt, she went on, as soon as she could, command her voice, "is she quite recovered?"
Yes,—that is, I inferred so.
Carice looked a little surprised. It would seem that Bergan's letter had made no mention of his mother. "Has the fever attacked any of the others?" she continued.
None.
And Bergan is quite well himself?
He says nothing to the contrary.
Satisfactory as were these replies, in substance, there was a degree of dryness and brevity about them which was far otherwise. Unwilling to quit the subject thus, Carice ventured another query:—"Then, I suppose he may be expected back very soon?"
Doctor Remy looked grave even to sternness. "No, I think not."
Carice's heart sank. "Did he not say when he should come?" asked she, anxiously.
Doctor Remy seemed to become suddenly aware that she really had something more than a conventional interest in the subject, and to be willing to gratify it, to the best of his ability.
I forget exactly what he said about it, replied he, "but I think I have his letter in my pocket-book." He drew forth a closely written sheet, and glanced rapidly over it, but seemed not to find what he sought. Applying again to the envelope, he produced a separate bit of paper. "Ah, yes, here we have it, in this slip of a postscript," he went on,—"'In order to'—um—um—'I think I shall postpone my return until after Christmas.' That is all."
Carice stood as in a dream. Bergan well! Bergan silent only to her! Bergan not coming back for three months yet!—her mind utterly refused to receive three such incongruous ideas. There must be some miserable mistake,—but where? She put her hand to her brow with a piteous gesture of perplexity and bewilderment.
Doctor Remy, meanwhile, failed not to observe the effect of his words, though apparently thinking only of refolding and rearranging his papers. It was precisely what he had expected; and, feeling quite secure, for the moment, from Carice's observation, he took occasion, as he returned Bergan's letter to his pocket-book, to let the postscript drop to the ground, taking care to conceal it with his foot during the remainder of his stay, which he wisely made short.
Can I do anything more for you? he asked, graciously, as he put up his pocket-book.
Carice gave a slight start, and turned toward him, with an inquiring look. She had heard, but she had not understood. He repeated his question.
No, thank you, replied Carice, letting her eyes go back to the far, dark line of the pine forest.
Then I must leave you. I only stopped to say good morning and good-bye. I had already spent my few moments of leisure with Mrs. Bergan.
He raised his hat courteously, and was gone.
Carice remained, trying her best to reduce the confusion of her mind to order, and, especially, to discover some clue to the mystery of Bergan's doings and intentions. She gave up the difficult task, at last, with a weary little shake of the head, and a smile of pity at her own helplessness.
It is too deep for me, she said to herself, "but Bergan will be sure to explain it all. I must just go on trusting till he comes, or writes. He shall never be able to say that my faith in him was conquered by the first difficulty!"
There was something quieting and strengthening in the mere resolve. Trust has its own special delight,—a far subtler and sweeter thing than any satisfaction of the understanding. Carice's face was almost bright, as she turned to go home.
A folded paper lay directly in her path. Mechanically she picked it up; mechanically she read it almost through, before her mind, busy with other thoughts, began, even vaguely, to grasp its meaning.
It ran thus:—
P.S. I cannot understand how my foolish engagement to Astra Lyte should have leaked out. With all due respect for your opinion, I cannot think of fulfilling it; indeed, I wrote to break it off immediately after coming home. I should never have entered into it, but for a mistaken notion that it would advance my interests in a certain quarter. Finding that it was likely to do just the opposite, there was nothing for it but to take the shortest cut out of the scrape. Never fear for Astra, she does not belong to the Ophelia order of women, she has pride and pluck enough to carry her through a worse disappointment; besides, hearts are never broken except in novels and plays. I am much obliged to her for leaving Berganton, the affair will blow over the sooner. In order to give it time to do so, I think I shall postpone my return until after Christmas. Yours, B.A."
Twice did Carice read the paper's contents through, before she began to understand what it was, and whence it came. She had seen Bergan's handwriting a few times, in notes addressed to her mother; and she remembered enough of its peculiarities to recognize them in the lines before her, as soon as her mind was able to grasp the fact that, in this heartless production, she beheld the postscript which she had seen in Doctor Remy's hand, and which he had doubtless dropped accidentally, while replacing his papers in his pocket-book. That it should have been deliberately forged, and designedly put in her way—a sort of moral torpedo, loaded with mischief—was a depth of wickedness, of which, in her innocence, she could never have conceived. She could scarcely make herself comprehend the evil tenor of the words before her eyes. She read them over again, with a feeling that either their form or their purport must change, if she only studied them carefully enough; it was impossible that she had read them aright.
No, they would not alter. Her efforts only served to brand them more deeply on her mind. She looked up, at last, with a kind of wonder that the earth was still firm under her feet, and the sky's arch entire above her head. It would have seemed more in keeping to have beheld the universe crashing backward into chaos.
Not that she suffered very keenly yet. She was too much stunned to realize the extent of her wounds and bruises. She picked herself up, as it were, after the fall and the shock, and walked mechanically homeward. Her strength did not give way until she found herself in her room, shutting her door behind her, and felt what a different being had gone out of it only a little while before.
An hour after, Mrs. Bergan found her lying on her bed, white and still, more like a corpse than a living, suffering girl.
Carice! she cried, appalled, but not without an intuitive perception of the truth,—"Carice, my child! what is the matter?"
I don't know—don't ask me, replied Carice, turning her face to the wall.
Mrs. Bergan burst into tears, and stole softly away. Here was a grief in which even she could only intermeddle as a stranger. She could simply commend her child to tenderer, wiser hands than hers.
A day or two went by, and Carice was down-stairs again, white; still, patient; filling her old place, and doing her old tasks, with a sad composure that was more affecting than any abandonment of sorrow. Her woe seemed to take the form of torpor, rather than of anguish. It was that chill and heavy misery, that dismal realization of the actual presence and power of evil in the world, which never comes to us except through the sin of some cherished, trusted friend; standing hitherto as the representative of all that is good and true, the earthly type of the Divine perfection. Falling, he falls not alone, but drags down with him the supports of every earthly confidence, and even makes the foundation of our heavenly faith to tremble. Such grief is dumb and tearless; it coils itself round the heart in cold, serpent-like folds, chilling the blood, and oppressing the breath; but it makes no single, special wound, to call forth cries and sobs of pain.
Meanwhile, the yellow fever, as foreseen long ago by Doctor Remy, made its silent entry into Berganton. One day a single case was reported in the outskirts of the town; another week, and there was scarcely a threshold which it had not crossed, either to strike or slay. The town put on sackcloth and ashes; business was suspended, except the business of nursing the sick and burying the dead; the streets were deserted, except by hearses and doctors. Or, it would be truer to say, a doctor; for Doctor Gerrish, being unacclimated, was one of the earliest patients; and Doctor Harris, being old and infirm, quickly sank exhausted; so Doctor Remy was soon left to face the pestilence alone, and multiply himself as best he could, to meet the demands of a whole people.
Let us do him ample justice. All that an iron frame, a steady courage, admirable executive ability, profound medical skill, and deep scientific interest, could prompt or do, he did. He organized and instructed a corps of nurses, and made them do effective work; he scattered printed suggestions and directions broadcast over the town, for the behoof of sick and well; he was himself constantly in the thickest of the fight, animating the workers, cheering the sick, wellnigh raising the dead,—doing everything but comfort the mourners, for that he had neither time nor talent. The town rang with praises of his energy and skill; his presence had brought back hope to many a house whence it seemed to have flown forever, joy into many a heart that had only made itself ready for sorrow. Even Carice, as her private grief half-sank, for the time, under the great wave of public calamity, was moved to a degree of respect and admiration for the doctor, of which, two or three weeks before, she could not have believed herself capable. There was still a hero, and room for heroism, in the world!
By and by, Mr. Bergan fell ill, not of the fever, but of one of the sympathetic diseases, which often go hand in hand with it. There were a few days of intense anxiety, during which the wife and daughter lived, as it were, on the words of Doctor Remy's mouth, and the look of his eyes. After these came slow weeks of convalescence, of exacting feebleness and irritable complaint.
It was during these that Doctor Remy spoke.
Is it necessary to describe the conflict, or designate the result? On the one side were parental wisdom, love, and authority, with the strong sanction of recent danger and present feebleness; on the other, filial respect, affection, and obedience, and a great self-distrust. For Carice remembered that she had taken her own way before, and whither it had led; now, ought she not to submit to the guidance ordained of God?
October found her bound fast by a promise, held irrevocably to a day. The outward conflict was over; but the inward struggle, she found, was scarce begun! Under that, she paled and wasted; sleep and appetite forsook her; her eyes grew to have the pathetic, pleading look of a dumb animal taken in a net. Finally, worn-out nature took refuge in apathy that nothing seemed to disturb.
A chill November day was drawing near its close. With the evening dusk snowflakes filled the air, and began to whiten the swells and slopes of the Arling farm, and lay the foundation of future drifts beside the doorstep and under the eaves of the Arling homestead. This structure had begun life as a log cabin, but had grown, by the simple and natural process of adding on a room or a wing, as fast as it was required and could be afforded, into a large, and somewhat picturesque, cluster of roofs and gables; beneath which there might easily be not only room for the fullest, heartiest flow of domestic and social life, but also means and influences to a considerable degree of refinement and culture.
Toward it, a stout, broad-shouldered personage was making his way, through the dusk and the snow, with a cheery face and an energetic tread, that plainly minded neither. Tramp, tramp, went the brisk footfalls up the gravel walk, the bright brass knocker was made to send a note of warning through the house, and the wayfarer admitted himself into a lighted hall, through which he strode to the open door of the sitting-room at the farther end.
A pleasant family picture was before him. Bergan Arling, on one side of the crimson-covered centre-table, looked up, smiling, from the book out of which he had been reading aloud. Two of his sisters sat near him, busy with crotchet needles and bright worsteds. Still another was drawing at a side-table; and over her, giving her the benefit of his criticism, leaned her brother Hubert, scarce two years younger than Bergan, and so strikingly like him, that one was often taken for the other, outside the family circle. At one side of the fire-place sat the master of the house, a tall, noble-looking man, with eye undimmed and hair unfrosted by the snows of over sixty years. Opposite him was the home's true light and centre, the house-mother. She reclined in a large, low easy chair, the paleness on her face half concealed by the glow of the blazing fire, and her eyes shining with that tender joy and peace which convalescents sometimes bring back from the edge of the grave,—a reflection, perhaps, from the paradise that was already opening before the gaze of the half-freed spirit.
Doctor Trubie paused for a moment in the doorway, to master the details of the scene. He has changed but little since he was introduced to the reader, fourteen years ago, in his medical Alma Mater. His figure has gained in breadth and strength, and his features in character, but it is the same frank, genial face, and the same good-humored smile. No one that knew him then, could fail to recognize him now.
In a moment, he caught sight of Mrs. Arling, and hastened toward her with outstretched hand. "I don't know whether to congratulate or to scold you," he began, smiling, yet shaking his head with mild disapproval.
Hubert Arling came forward to Bergan's side. "I can settle the question for you," said he. "Congratulate her, and scold us. We brought her down, chair and all; she did not touch foot to the floor in the transit."
Then I will save my scolding until it is needed. It seems little less than miraculous to see you here, he went on, turning to Mrs. Arling, "when I think how things seemed to be going, a few weeks ago. It has been a hard pull, and a long one."
And a strong one, and a pull altogether, added Hubert Arling, merrily, by way of arresting the tears that he saw starting into his sisters' eyes.
The strong pull, remarked Doctor Trubie, "came from my medical brother, down South."
You underrate yourself, replied Mr. Arling. "Of what avail would Doctor Remy's suggestions have been, without your indefatigable vigilance, and your professional skill and knowledge to carry them out?"
That is to say, returned Doctor Trubie, "that a good commander-in-chief can do nothing without good generals. At all events, Doctor Remy is a wonderfully talented fellow. He seems to keep not only abreast of medical science, but in advance of it. That very suggestion of his, which proved most valuable to us, was mentioned in my last medical review, as the latest discovery at Paris. There is something about his bold, yet scientific mode of reasoning which reminds me strangely of an old fellow-student. But Doctor Remy, I hope, is a better fellow than he was. By the way," he added, turning to Bergan, "I came near forgetting that I have brought you a letter from him, as I judge from the handwriting."
Bergan tore open the letter, and with an apologetic bow to the company, began eagerly to read it. Doctor Trubie seated himself by the table, picked up the rejected envelope, and gave it a critical examination.
That's what I call a good hand, said he, "a round, clear, energetic hand, that neither tries your eyesight, nor rouses your distrust. There is no crookedness nor meanness in it; yet there is plenty of character; one can see, at a glance, that the writer is bold and sagacious as well as profound, a man of action as well as a man of science."
Bergan had finished the letter, which was short; and he now looked up with a much amused face. "I ought to tell you," said he, "that Doctor Remy possesses the rare accomplishment of being able to write with either hand; he uses the right or the left, at pleasure. But the two handwritings are entirely distinct. That address was written with his left hand, and so, I remember, were the suggestions and prescriptions that I handed over to you. But this letter was written with his right hand; see what you can make of it," and Bergan pushed the open sheet across the table.
The change in Doctor Trubie's face was startling. "This!" he exclaimed, his voice trembling with excitement, "who did you say wrote this?"
Doctor Remy, the same man who wrote that address.
Doctor Trubie glanced back at the letter, and his eyes lit with a strange, stern joy. "At last!" he muttered through his set teeth.
Mrs. Arling leaned forward, and her face grew pale. "What is it, doctor?" she asked, trembling. "What is the matter?"
Doctor Trubie glanced at her excited face, and saw what mischief he was doing. "Nothing," he hastened to answer, "nothing, only an old sore pressed on suddenly. This handwriting reminds me of one that—I never expected to see again."
He gave the letter a long, moody look, then refolded it, and handed it back to Bergan.
Mrs. Arling looked anxiously at her son. "Does Doctor Remy give you any special news?" she asked.
Not much. Uncle Godfrey is better, and the fever is over. Business is still dull.
Then you will not need to hurry back?
Bergan knelt by his mother's side. "My dear mother," he whispered, "you know it is not for the sake of my business that I am anxious to return, as soon as I may. I must see Carice, and satisfy myself that nothing is amiss."
Mrs. Arling smiled, yet she sighed, too. "Ah, yes, I remember," said she, "and you are quite right."
Doctor Trubie rose, and came to the other side of Mrs. Arling's chair. "I am glad to see that I am not wanted here any longer," he began, pleasantly;—
But you are wanted, interrupted Mrs. Arling; "you are always wanted, as a friend."
Thank you; but I am wanted elsewhere as a physician; so I must take my leave, for the present.
He shook hands with Mrs. Arling, and gave Bergan a meaning glance, as he did so. The young man rose. "I will walk a little way with you, if you like," said he. "I have a boyish delight in the first snow, and I did not see any last winter, you remember."
The two gentlemen were hardly outside the gate, before Doctor Trubie asked;—"What do you know of this Doctor Remy's antecedents?"
Bergan narrated the facts which he had gathered, from time to time, from Doctor Remy's conversation.
So, he would have us believe, said Doctor Trubie, contemptuously, "that he transformed himself from a poor lawyer into a scientific physician, in a year and a half, by the help of a friendly doctor, and a course of lectures! There is falsehood on the face of it."
He had a genius for the study, replied Bergan.
Aye, I'll warrant! that is the saving grain of truth in the whole story. Do you remember the circumstances of your elder brother's death?
Not very distinctly. I was so young, at the time; and then, you know, mother could never bear to hear any allusion to them.
You know that he was murdered?
Bergan looked surprised. "I know there was talk of suicide," said he, "but I thought it was decided that he was poisoned by mistake."
He was murdered, asserted Doctor Trubie, getting his teeth, "foully murdered by the man who professed to be his friend,—a man who wrote a hand as much like this Doctor Remy's as one side of your face is like the other. I charged him with it, at the time, and I have always believed that I should live to see the charge proven." And he finished by giving a succinct account of the circumstances attending Alec Arling's death.
Bergan listened attentively and critically, as became his legal training. "I do not understand why the finding of the diamond was such conclusive evidence of guilt," said he, when the doctor paused.
Because Roath swore, at the inquest, that he did not touch either bottle or glass, and did not even go to that end of the table. That was where he overreached himself; without that, the stone in the glass would not have been such a damning circumstance. He recognized it as such himself;—else why did he fly?
Well, you may be right about the murder, said Bergan, after a little consideration, "but I think you have mistaken the man."
Let us see, said Doctor Trubie. "He is about my height?"
Yes,—perhaps a little taller.
He stoops a little?
Not at all, he is uncommonly erect.
He has dark hair?
It may have been so, it is prematurely gray.
Doctor Trubie looked a little discomfited. "Give me a sketch of his character," said he.
Bergan hesitated. It was a difficult thing to do, on the instant. His impressions of Doctor Remy's character had varied, as he remembered.
On second thought, said Doctor Trubie, "I will give you one. All of him, that is not intellect, is ice. In religious matters, he is an utter sceptic. Socially, he is brilliant; but he has no intimate friends, and he makes no confidants. Men and women, to him, are subjects of study, not objects of affection. He cares for nothing but himself and his profession. And no one cares for him—much. They may admire, but they cannot love."
Bergan looked considerably startled. "Your sketch tallies well with some impressions of mine, which I did my best to rid myself of," said he. "But Doctor Remy has befriended me, from the first, and you yourself say that he has been largely the means of saving my mother's life."
He has had his own reasons for both; Edmund Roath never did anything without a reason, and a selfish one. Has he anything to gain by keeping you out of the way?
Nothing, that I can imagine.
When do you return to Berganton?
Mother has consented that I shall start on Monday, if she is no worse.
She will be much better. Do not delay longer than that. I will accompany you; I want to see this Doctor Remy. Seeing is believing. But, mind, not a word of my coming, to him or any one else. Now, go back to your mother, or she will be alarmed. Good night.
Bergan walked back slowly and thoughtfully. Without being fully convinced of the truth of Doctor Trubie's suspicions, he was strangely disturbed and startled. Reaching the gate, he turned his face south-eastward, and gazed across the white meadows, toward the dim outline of the distant hills. His thoughts overleaped even that far barrier, and took an air line to Oakstead and to Carice. Her face rose vividly before him, not, strange to say, as he had seen it last, rosy and bright, but pale and piteous, and gazing toward him with a look that besought sympathy and succor, plainer than any speech. His eyes grew moist, his breath tremulous; his heart swelled with passionate love and longing.
I will beg my mother to consent to my going at once, said he to himself. "I cannot wait another day."
The next afternoon, he was on his way to Berganton, whither Doctor Trubie was shortly to follow him.
In those days, there was a pleasant spice of uncertainty about Southern journeyings. Cars, steamboats, and stages ran in happy independence of each other and the time-table. The traveller never knew at what point of juniper swamp, or pine barren, or cotton plantation, he would be set down to while away some hours in botanical or ethnological investigations, if his mind were sufficiently at ease, or in chewing the bitter cud of impatience, if it were not. Defective machinery and lazy officials labored mightily together to miss connections, and wherever human inefficiency came short, down swept a hurricane from the skies, and strewed the roads with prostrate trunks of trees, through which the cumbrous stage coach had literally to hew its path.
More than one such delay attended Bergan's progress southward. Under their teasing friction, the shadowy anxiety with which he had set out, increased to a positive weight of alarm. Reaching Savalla on the twelfth evening, he stopped neither for rest nor refreshment, but looked up a horse, flung himself into the saddle, and set off toward Berganton at a rapid rate. Outside the city limits, however, he was forced to slacken his pace. The night was dark, no faintest gleam of moon or star tempered the black obscurity of the tree-arched and swamp-bordered road. Compelled thus to feel his way, as it were, it was near midnight when he came upon the outlying fields of Oakstead. Reluctantly he told himself that an interview with Carice, to-night, was out of the question; she and all the household were certain to be fast asleep, it was doubtful if even the faintest outline of the darkened dwelling would be discernible through the murky night. He had no choice but to ride on to Berganton.
Scarcely had he reached this conclusion, when a radiant window shone vision-like through the trees; a little farther on, and the cottage, though yet distant, came full into view through an opening in the forest, brilliantly illuminated from roof to foundation as for a festivity of no ordinary magnitude. Even the surrounding lawn was lighted up into the semblance of day; and in its remotest corner, a group of negroes, dancing to some strain of music inaudible to the wondering spectator, looked fantastic enough for the unsubstantial images of a dream.
For a moment or two, Bergan suspected his jaded senses of playing him false, as a step preparatory to taking leave of him altogether. There was something too incongruous to be real, between this gay scene of festivity and the picture presented by Doctor Remy's last letter,—a dull, silent house, its master a feeble, exacting convalescent, its mistress and daughter worn out with anxiety and watching. An intuition of some unlooked-for calamity seized him. Putting spurs to his horse, he dashed over the mile that intervened between him and the cottage, at a scarcely less furious rate than that with which Vic had borne him over the same road—how well he remembered it!—just one year ago. He did not suspect that he was now to taste the bitterest consequences of that ride.
In a very few moments, he rode through the open gates of Oakstead. Here, he found the avenue to the house encumbered with teams and saddle-horses, tied to every tree and post. The every-day aspect of these sleepy animals was like a bucket of cold water to his excited imagination. Strains of dancing music, too, came to his ear,—flutes and violins, none too well played, sent forth the notes of a popular air. Plainly, he had been a fool to connect the thought of calamity with anything so exceedingly common-place as an evening party. If Godfrey Bergan chose to call in his friends and neighbors to dance over his restoration to health, who should gainsay him? Convalescents had their fancies, and must be humored.
In this cooler frame of mind, it naturally occurred to Bergan that he was in no fit condition to face a festal throng. His appearance, thus way-worn and travel-stained, would be scarcely more timely than that of the Ancient Mariner to the wedding guest. It would look as if he, too, had a tale of horror to impart, and Carice might be unpleasantly startled,—Carice, who little imagined him so near to her! At the thought, a strange, indefinable thrill and shiver passed over him, hard to define as either pleasure or pain.
After a moment's consideration, he dismounted, and walked quietly round to the spot where the negroes still kept up their lively dance. One of them, Bruno by name, stood a little apart, a smiling spectator of the merriment that he was too old to join. It was easy to touch him on the shoulder, without attracting the notice of the rest. The negro turned, and instantly recognized Bergan; but his exclamation of surprise was cut short by the young man's significant gesture, and he silently followed him to a spot equi-distant between the cottage and the dancers.
All well, Bruno? was Bergan's first inquiry.
All bery well, Massa Arling. You's welcome back, sah. But I'se sorry you's too late for de weddin'.
The wedding,—the word fell almost meaninglessly on Bergan's ear, so intent was he upon satisfying himself that his late anxieties had been groundless. "And Miss Carice," he went on, "is she quite well, too?"
Bruno smiled. "Yes, massa, I 'spec so, tho' she do look mighty pale and peaked, dese yere last weeks. But dey mostly look so, at sich times, I s'pose. She'll be better when de weddin's ober, an' all de fuss and flurry."
This second mention of "the wedding" penetrated to Bergan's understanding, and awakened a faint emotion of surprise.
The wedding!—whose wedding? he asked.
Bruno opened his eyes wide in astonishment. "Why, don' you know, sah? I thought you'd come on purpose. Miss Carice's weddin', to be sure."
It was Bergan's turn to look more than astonished, confounded. "Miss Carice's wedding!" he repeated, as doubting the trustworthiness of his own ears.
Yes, sah, to Doctor Remy, sah. Dey had—
Bruno stopped short in alarm. Bergan's face had grown deadly pale, his blank stare was that of a man who neither saw nor heard. For a few merciful moments, he was simply stunned with the suddenness and severity of the shock. Too soon his benumbed senses began to revive, he put his hand to his head, where a dull, heavy pain was beginning to make itself felt; mechanically he sat down on the grass, and his breath came hard like that of a man stricken with apoplexy.
With a delicacy not uncommon in his race, Bruno turned his eyes away. A trusted servant of the household, he had seen Bergan and Carice together enough to be able to divine something of the state of the case.
Slowly, one by one, Bergan's thoughts came out of chaos, and ranged themselves into something like order. This, then, was the reason why Doctor Remy had so persistently discouraged his earlier return to Berganton, and allayed his anxiety with plausible statements respecting Carice and her father,—that he might supplant him in her affections. But why? It must be taken as evidence that he had estimated the doctor's character more correctly than he knew, that it never once occurred to him as possible that love for Carice had been the doctor's motive; yet, considered solely as holding the reversion of the Oakstead estate, her hand was scarcely worth the labor and treachery it had cost.
There was so little to reward investigation in this direction, that Bergan's thoughts came back to his own blighted hopes, and here he was pierced with the sharpest pain that he had yet felt. The treachery of the doctor was as nothing to the faithlessness of Carice. Two months,—yea, two days ago, he would have staked all his hopes for time and eternity on her truth. Fair and delicate as was the cast of her beauty, and sweet and gentle as was her manner, there had always been a certain quiet steadfastness about her, which was one of her most potent charms. All hearts felt intuitively that they might safely trust in her. What subtle or powerful influence could have been brought to bear upon her, to make her so belie herself!
He looked up. "Bruno, how long has this been going on?"
The negro did not quite understand, but made shift to guess what was meant.
De engagement, sah? since October, I b'lieve.
And how long has Doctor Remy visited here?
Oh, a good while, 'bout eber since you went away. But after massa was took sick, he come oftener, ob course—ebery day, sometimes two, tree times a day. Massa got so—'pendent on him, like, he couldn't bear to have him out ob de house, one time.
Bergan fell into thought again. He began dimly to understand something of the sort of pressure to which Carice had been subjected, and the motives that had governed her,—not that he held her exonerated, by any means—only she was a little less culpable than she had seemed, at first. But if she had sinned, poor child! how miserably she would be punished! What a sterile soil, what a chill, unfriendly climate, awaited this delicate flower, in Doctor Remy's hands! It was as if a lily should think to root itself in a rock, or a rose expect to bud and blossom on an iceberg. Besides—why had he not thought of it before?—to-morrow, perhaps, in two or three days, at farthest, Doctor Trubie would be here, with authority, if it seemed good to him, to take this man, her husband, into custody as a murderer!
Bergan's was the fine, strong temperament, which rises to the greatness of a crisis. With the necessity of action, the chaos of his mind began to clear itself. "Bruno," he asked, suddenly, "does—Miss Carice love this man?"
Bruno looked surprised, as well he might, at the question; but there was something in Bergan's tone that made him answer at once, and frankly; "I don' know,—de servants do say she done it to please her father."
Bergan laid his hand impressively on the old negro's shoulder. "Bruno, I must see her at once. Her happiness—more than her happiness, the honor and peace of the whole family—is at stake. Find some way to let her know, quietly, that I am here, and that I must see her for one moment. Hurry! there's no time to waste."
Bruno was so thoroughly mastered by Bergan's earnestness, that he started swiftly toward the cottage, without a word. As he ascended the piazza steps, however, he began to be appalled at the difficulty of the task that he had undertaken. Looking into the window, he saw Carice standing at the farther end of the long parlor, with her bridesmaids clustered around her. He could neither get at her, nor she escape, without challenging a good deal of wondering observation. While he stood hesitating, Godfrey Bergan came out into the hall, and caught sight of his troubled face.
Well, Bruno, what do you want?
I—jes' wanted to speak to Miss Carice, stammered the negro.
The request was an odd one, at that moment; still, Mr. Bergan might have been moved to grant it, as the whim of an old and faithful servant, if the negro's disturbed face and faltering tone had not excited his suspicions that something unusual was on foot. "What is the matter?" he asked. "What do you want to speak to her for?"
Bruno was wholly unprepared for this question. Vainly he racked his brains for a plausible answer, but nothing better rewarded his efforts than,—"I jes' wanted to speak to her, dat's all;"—a reply so little congruous with his frightened face and voice, that Mr. Bergan's suspicions were confirmed. He stepped out on the piazza, and closed the door behind him.
How, Bruno, said he, sternly, "I want to know what this means. Come, no shuffling; tell the truth."
Bruno's self-possession gave way entirely. "I—I—I—it's only Mr. Arling."
Mr. Bergan started. "My nephew, Bergan Arling, do you mean?"
Yes, massa.
What—where?
Out dar, under de larches, massa.
And he—he dared to ask for my daughter?
Mr. Bergan's voice shook with anger. Bruno tried to explain, not very coherently.
He didn't mean no harm, massa, I'se sartain. He said her happiness and all you'se happiness, was at de stake.
Did he! muttered Mr. Bergan, scornfully. "Hark you, Bruno, not a word of this to anybody—to anybody, mind you! Now, go back to your dance,—I'll see Mr. Arling."
Bergan's impatience had brought him from under the larches to a point commanding a view of the path to the cottage. He was both surprised and disappointed to see his uncle instead of Carice; nevertheless, he came frankly forward to meet him, holding out his hand.
Mr. Bergan took no notice of the friendly offer. "How dare you show yourself here?" he began, his voice quivering with rage. "How dare you insult my daughter with your presence, at this time? Have you not done harm enough already?"
Uncle, replied Bergan, gently, "I know not what you mean. I have never harmed Carice, that I know of, and now I came here to save her, if it be not too late. Oh! uncle"—and here his calmness began to fail him, and his voice grew eager—"do not, do not let this marriage proceed,—at least, not until you have heard my story, and have satisfied yourself of the real character of this Doctor Remy!"
What have you to say against his character? demanded Mr. Bergan, icily.
Bergan felt the full disadvantage of his position. It was a heavy charge that he had to make against a man of Doctor Remy's standing, without documents or witnesses, nothing to substantiate it but his single assertion. Besides, to say truth, there was nothing to allege against Doctor Remy but Doctor Trubie's suspicions. He hesitated, and his hesitation was not lost upon his uncle; neither was the want of assurance with which he finally spoke.
Uncle, there is great reason to believe—or, at least to suspect—that Doctor Remy is a—murderer,—the murderer of my brother Alec.
Godfrey Bergan stood in silent scorn. The accusation struck him as too extravagant, too baseless, to be seriously discussed. His nephew must be drunk, or mad, to make it. And, now that he looked at him more narrowly, his face was haggard and his dress disordered enough to befit either condition.
Bergan saw the impression that he had made, and a cold, sick despair crept over him. "I beg of you, uncle," he exclaimed, vehemently, "as you value your own future peace of mind, put a stop to this unhappy business, ere it be too late."
It is too late now, said Mr. Bergan, impatiently, "Carice is already married."
Must she, therefore, be left in the hands of a murderer? Save her, at least, from further contamination. If you will do nothing else, call her, and let her decide the matter for herself.
Impossible, answered Mr. Bergan, decidedly. "Carice has already borne and suffered too much; her nerves are in an exceedingly sensitive state; this story would kill her, I verily believe. If you really have her happiness at heart, go away quietly, and leave her to the care of the husband she has chosen."
Chosen? repeated Bergan, bitterly,—"has she chosen him, or has she only been forced to wed him?"
Godfrey Bergan's eyes lit. "You forget to whom you are speaking," said he, coldly. "Enough of this, my patience is exhausted. I have listened to your drivel longer than it deserves. The quicker you take your leave, the better."
Bergan drew himself up haughtily, and his eyes flashed back an answering flame. "My patience is also exhausted," said he. "I have begged and pleaded long enough. I tell you now, uncle, that I will not go, until I have seen Carice, if I seek her out among the wedding guests."
Godfrey Bergan set his teeth hard. "Will not?" he repeated angrily. "Will not! I will have you to understand, young man, that there is neither will, nor will not, on these premises, but mine. On my soul, if you do not go, and quickly, I will call my servants, and have you put off from the place as a drunkard and a vagabond."
At this threat, the hereditary temper, scotched in Bergan's heart, but not yet killed, reared its evil head aloft, and sent its deadly poison burning through all his veins.
Call them, he retorted, in a voice deep and low as a distant thunder peal, and lifting his clenched hand on high,—"call them, if it so pleases you! Their blood be on your head, not mine."
Godfrey Bergan was no coward, yet he might well stand aghast at the unexpected fury of the tempest that he had evoked. Moreover, to put his threat in execution, he now saw, to court that publicity which he specially desired to avoid. He stood irresolute, questioning within himself how best to deal with the emergency.
He was saved the trouble of a decision. While he still hesitated, Bergan's hand fell by his side, his eyes softened, and a spasm of anguish passed over his face. "God forgive me!" he murmured, shudderingly,—"I, too, was a murderer—in heart!"
He bowed his head on his hands. Woful was the inner conflict. Within his soul, the "black Bergan temper" was gasping out its last venomous breath, with the clutch of a firm hand on its throat. Agonizing were its death-throes. They ceased at last. It would never trouble him more.
Godfrey Bergan, standing by, saw something of the struggle, yet did not understand it in the least. "A drunkard's aimless wrath!" he said to himself,—"quenched in its own fury."
So carelessly does the world construe the deeper soul-conflicts that come under its observation!
Bergan lifted his head, and his face was ashy pale. "I go, uncle," said he, hoarsely, "since that is your wish. In all that I have said, though said never so unwisely, I assure you that I have had only Carice's happiness at heart; and I pray God that you may not have cause to rue it, to your dying day, that you did not listen to me!"
He turned and plunged into the darkness, not knowing whither he went.
Godfrey Bergan stood motionless for some minutes. His nephew's persistency had irritated his nerves, if it had not convinced his understanding. Nor was he altogether unimpressed by the solemnity of the young man's parting words. Though he had not condescended to state the fact to Bergan, it was still true that he had exacted what he considered to be very complete and satisfactory evidence, touching the correctness of Doctor Remy's antecedents, before giving him his daughter. Yet it was only after he had recapitulated this evidence to himself, point by point, and had also taken into account the doctor's late brilliant achievements, present high standing, and promising prospects for the future, that he could rid himself of a certain chill weight of responsibility, which seemed somehow to have been flung upon his shoulders by Bergan's last sentence.
On entering the cottage, he met Carice in the hall, encircled by her bridesmaids. He was half pleased, half startled to see that the singular listlessness, amounting to a degree of apathy, which had characterized her for some weeks, had given place to a certain tremulous agitation. A round red spot burned on either cheek, where of late the bloom had been both rare and faint; and her eyes were bright and wistful almost to wildness. With a sudden impulse of tenderness, he put his arms round her, and pressed her to his heart.
Father, she whispered, with her lips close to his ear, "am I dreaming or mad? I have heard a voice in the air—Bergan's voice. I was standing by the window, and I heard it distinctly,—no words, only tones,—pleading, pleading, until I thought they would break my heart. Then all at once, they changed to anger,—fierce, bitter anger! And they ended in despair! Father, what could it mean!"
My child, said Godfrey Bergan, after a pause, and there was a perceptible tremor in his voice, "you are very weak and nervous, and these wedding gayeties have been too much for you. Go to rest, and sleep away your fatigues and your fancies together; joy cometh in the morning. The wife of Felix Remy will hear no voices in the air. Good-night."
He unclasped his arms, and her bridesmaids, again clustering round her, led her upstairs in triumph.
But no sooner had they freed her from her bridal garniture,—the veil's soft mistiness, the robe's heavy, satiny folds, the fragrant orange blossoms, already beginning to fade!—than she put them gently aside.
Bid me good-night, now, she said, with quiet decision. "I am very tired, and I want to be alone for awhile. Rosa will do the rest."
There was something in her tone which forbade remonstrance; quickly the door shut out the fresh, young faces, and snowy, fluttering robes.
Was she, as she had desired to be, alone?
Alas! no. The image evoked by that "voice in the air," had followed her across the threshold, and still faced her with sad, upbraiding eyes. Instinctively, she threw herself upon her knees to exorcise it by the spell of prayer. Though no intelligible word might come to her trembling lips, though not a coherent thought might shape itself in her dizzy brain, she was, nevertheless, prostrate at the foot of the cross, and the Saviour would understand!
And so—let us not presume to doubt it—He did, and, moreover, answered. But the ways of Providence are utterly inscrutable; and the answer came in no shape that would have been likely to present itself to her mind, had she been capable of definite thought. She rose from her knees but little comforted.
For the delirious disquietude that had taken possession of her, had its physical, not less than its mental, side. The long overstraining of the delicate nerves, the long overburdening of the heart that knew its own bitterness, were fast reaching the point beyond which must needs come fever, or insanity, or death. Nature—often the wisest of physicians, when left to herself—had sought to work restoration by means of the apathy aforementioned, wrapping her mind and heart as with quilted armor; but the events of this night had pierced quite through the soft sheathing, and set every nerve quivering with pain. Unable to remain long in one position, she soon began to pace restlessly up and down the room. She was dimly aware that Rosa had come in, and was waiting her commands; but she never once looked to see with what a disturbed and doubtful face the young negress was regarding her.
Getting weary, at last, of her monotonous march to and fro, she went to the window, and leaned out to bathe her fevered temples in the cool night air. Suddenly she cried out;—
Rosa, see! Is not that a light in the old Hall?
Yes, Miss Carice, it's just that, answered Rosa, impressively. "It's in Mr. Arling's room. He's here."
Here! Carice started, and turned round with eager, expectant eyes.
No, no, Rosa hastened to say, "not here,—at least, not now."
Not now, repeated Carice, wonderingly. "When was he here, then?"
Rosa hesitated for an instant, and then flung herself at her mistress's feet. "I will tell you," she cried, vehemently,—"master may kill me, if he likes, but I will tell you! Mr. Arling was here not much more than half an hour ago."
Carice smiled,—a strange, wan smile, with no spirit of mirthfulness in it, but something of gentle triumph, as well as relief. "It was no fancy, then," she murmured, softly.
Rosa went on. "I was walking down by the river—with Tom, you know—when I thought it must be getting late, and you might want me, and so I took the short cut through the larches. And who should I see standing there but Mr. Arling, and your father coming to meet him! So I slipped back behind the trees, meaning to come round the other way; but I caught a few words, and then I listened;—I couldn't help it, Miss Carice, if I'd died for it. For Mr. Arling began to beg and plead that your father wouldn't let your wedding go on, if he cared anything about your happiness. He said there was something dreadful against Doctor Remy,—oh! Miss Carice, I don't like to say it, but I think you ought to know,—he said he was a"—sinking her voice almost to a whisper—"a murderer."
Carice's eyes dilated with horror. "A murderer!" she gasped,—"oh! no, no, Rosa; you could not have heard him right!"
Indeed I did, rejoined Rosa, firmly. "That's the very word he used,—more than once, too. At least, he said there was great reason to believe so; and he begged your father to wait until he could make sure about it. Oh! Miss Carice, I never did like Doctor Remy, but I always liked Mr. Arling, and I don't believe he'd say a word that wasn't true. Do pray wait, as he said, until you can find out the whole truth, before you have anything more to say to the doctor. Lock your door, and say you're sick—I'm sure you look as if you might be—and I'll promise to keep him out, if he were ten Doctor Remys."
And Rosa set her teeth and clenched her hands, in a way that promised much for her valor in the cause of her young mistress.
Carice put her hand to her brow, and tried to think, but merely succeeded in bewildering herself with images of horror. That frightful word, murderer, continually sounded in her ears, to the effectual hindrance of anything like connected thought. Only one idea presented itself to her confused brain with even tolerable distinctness,—Bergan was near, Bergan was in possession of knowledge that might yet relieve her, to some extent, from a burden too heavy to be borne,—a burden which she ought never to have consented to take upon herself, nor ever would have done, had she not first been bound fast with a torpor that benumbed both feeling and will. Still, having so consented, she would have tried, but for Rosa's terrible revelation, to endure it patiently. Now, it seemed to her, this was no longer possible.
Again she fixed her eyes upon the gleaming light from the old Hall; the only star of hope or suggestion that had yet risen upon her darkness. What could she do, in her mortal terror and bewilderment, but follow it?
Rosa, she said, suddenly, "I am going to the Hall. I must see Bergan, and hear what he has to say; then I can decide what it is right to do."
And so I would, rejoined Rosa, approvingly. "Just let me slip this dark wrapper on you, and wind this scarf round your head, and well over your face,—so;—why, your own father wouldn't know you, if he were to meet you! Now, we'll be off."
Carice hesitated. "No, Rosa, that will never do; our absence would be quickly discovered. You must stay and keep the door."
But, Miss Carice, you can't go alone!
I can, and must. It is the only way to prevent discovery. Remember, no one is to be let in, upon any consideration, until I return.
Let me alone for that, responded Rosa, emphatically. And having seen Carice safely down the steps from the upper piazza, and watched her light form till it was lost among the trees, Rosa returned to mount guard over the door of the deserted chamber.
Godfrey Bergan had been unaccountably shaken by that brief meeting and parting with his daughter, in the hall. Watching her slender form as it toiled up the staircase, with the languid step that betrays a heavy or a reluctant heart, he sighed to think with what a graceful alacrity she had used to flit upward, as if lifted on invisible wings, her happy smile seeming to make a little illuminated space about her, like the light which is seen irradiating angelic forms, in old pictures. A sudden burden of despondency fell upon his heart, whereof he understood neither the purport, nor whether it bore reference to her or himself, but only knew that it quite unfitted him for playing the part of a gay and gracious host to his guests. Seeing Miss Ferrars coming toward him, with her stereotyped smile, an impulse of flight seized him; and hastily stepping through one of the long windows, he soon found himself once more under the sighing trees, which were swaying to and fro under the first breathings of a rising wind.
The night was no longer dark. Here and there, a star looked through the broken clouds, and lighted him to the river's bank, down which he walked slowly; torturing himself, as he went, with that weary after-birth of doubts and questions, which often follows hard upon the accomplishment of a cherished purpose. Had he done well in wedding Carice to the doctor? Had he not done wrong in refusing to listen to Bergan, at least with courtesy and calmness? Was it barely possible that there could have been some small grain of truth at the bottom of the young man's turbid story? What was the meaning of that odd, wild look in Carice's eyes? Had he been thrusting himself, as it were, into the awful place of Providence, only, by reason of his human short-sightedness, to work irremediable ruin?
At that moment, a dark, slender woman's figure hurried past him, toward the ruined foot-bridge, which was near at hand. "One of my brother's servants, who has stolen over to dance with mine," he said to himself, turning idly to watch her progress.
To his utter amazement, at the further end, he seemed to see her cast herself deliberately into the water!
Godfrey Bergan was a practised swimmer, and, after the first motionless moment of astonishment, he threw off his coat, plunged into the stream, which, at this point, was neither rapid nor deep, and swam rapidly toward the spot where he had seen the body disappear. Here, the water was scarcely up to his armpits; in a few moments, he had caught the floating garments, and borne the lifeless form to land. The heavy head fell back on his arm; the scarf trailed away from the white features; he recognized Carice!
With a thick, muffled cry of horror, the father sank upon his knees, not so much of devotional intent, as crushed under the double-weight of his physical burden and mental anguish.
Oh, God! have mercy upon us! he ejaculated, brokenly,—"I have driven my child to suicide!"