 | My third book |  |
The Tenant of the Old Brown House.
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide:
Careless tenants they!
All within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.
Close the door, the shutters close,
Or through the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the dark, deserted house.
Come away; no more of mirth
Is here, or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground.
TENNYSON.
“Oh! do whate'er thou wilt, I will be silent.”
THE old brown house on the hill was at last to have
a tenant. A woman was coming to dwell in it.
No one in Ryefield had ever seen her. By letter she
had made the bargain, and she gave no clew to her
fortune or circumstances, save, at the foot of the page,
the strong, bold signature, “Hester Wilde.” The
property, which belonged to a distant owner, had been,
ever since I could remember, in my grandfather's care.
It had not been inhabited for years. There were
strange stories about a murder which had once been
committed there, though I believe there was no positive
proof. Shrieks and groans, it was confidently reported,
came forth from its windows at midnight; and
strange forms, clad in the costume of long ago years,
passed before them in ghostly conference. However
this may have been, certain it is that the proprietor,
Wilton Eldredge, had not visited it since he came of
age; and the last family who inhabited it moved out
at midnight, and came, as I have heard my mother
say, to our house white with terror.
My grandfather, as in duty bound, had inserted an
advertisement in the county paper at the beginning of
every quarter, and, naturally anxious for the interests
of his client, he was heartily glad to receive an application
at length, and acceded to the proffers of Mistress
many inquiries concerning her character or circumstances.
She had written like a lady well bred and well educated,
and yet the tone of her communications was
hard and stern, and invited little freedom of reply.
She had said she should bring no furniture, and requested
that the house should be made habitable before
the fifteenth of May.
“Put on your bonnet,” said my grandfather, when
he had finished the perusal of this letter, “put on your
bonnet, Louise, and we will walk up the hill to the old
house.”
I obeyed him gladly. It was a delicious May-time
afternoon, bright with opening leaves and blossoms,
sunshine, and a cloudless expanse of blue sky. Only
about the brown house seemed to lie a heavy shadow.
It might have been the effect merely of the dark row
of tall old poplars leading solemnly up to the door, but
I fancied there was something in that unbroken silence,
that still darkness, almost supernatural. With a half
shudder I involuntarily murmured, “And what if
there should be another removal—if the ghosts should
drive out the strange lady?”
My grandfather was a God-fearing man of the straitest
sect of Puritans, and had no terror of any thing
out of heaven. In his strong, unimaginative mind
there was no foothold for superstition, and he answered
me almost sternly, “Mistress Hester Wilde, if I
have read her letters rightly, is not a person to be
driven out of house and home by imaginary fears, and
I had hoped you, too, had more sense than to talk of
ghosts.”
I was quieted, but not subdued. To me there seemed,
in spite of myself, a strange mystery in the shadows
that lay so thick about the old mansion, and I
looked up at its windows—I could not help it—with
a thrill of something very much like fear.
It had gone a long way toward ruin during those
uninhabited years. Here and there panes of glass
were broken in; bats whizzed in and out at the windows,
and swallows built their nests in the chimneys.
The furniture belonging to the old proprietors was
stored away under lock and key in an upper chamber,
and we found it, though faded and rusty, in very tolerable
repair. It had lain useless ever since the fair
Margery Eldredge went to her rest, and now it was to
be furbished up and arranged once more in the deserted
rooms. In this task of arrangement I was to superintend
the labors of my grandfather's trusty servant.
At length the repairs were completed. Bridget had
put down the carpets the day before, and early in the
morning we set out to prepare the house for the reception
of its mistress. It was a large house, but Mistress
Wilde had said she wanted little room, and so we only
fitted up the most convenient apartments. There was
a parlor—a stately parlor looking out upon the poplar
walk. A rich but sombre carpet was upon the floor,
and we arranged around the walls, at regular distances,
the high-backed, embroidered chairs which graced the
best room during the Eldredge dynasty, and which
Margery Eldredge had herself worked in her days of
youth and love. A few paintings, portraits of the
dead, hung upon the wall—cold and lifeless they were,
and suited well the grim aspect of the room: we left
them there. The kitchen would be dining-room and
custom, and we took more pains to make that cheerful.
The white floor was nicely sanded, and over the
mantle I hung the only pleasant picture the house had
to boast. This was the likeness of Margery Eldredge
in the early days of her wifehood. She was the mother
of Wilton Eldredge, the present proprietor, and the
summer of her life never dawned—she died while it
was yet spring. In the portrait she was fair, with a
bright, bewitching, girlish beauty, very sweet and tender.
When this picture was hung it seemed to brighten
up the whole room. We put Margery's low sewing-chair
and soft footstool of Berlin wool beside the
little work-table; and when all else was set in order, I
gathered a few early wild-flowers, and bestowed them
in a dainty gilt-edged saucer on the white-covered toilet-table
of the new mistress's bedroom.
She was expected that day; and in the afternoon
my grandfather came over to remain with me and receive
her. As the day drew toward its close and she
did not come, I began to tremble at the quick approach
of twilight, shutting in that long silent house. But I
sat there, too proud to confess my undefined fears to
the strong-minded man at my side. At length, and
this time startling even him—we had not heard the
stage stop at the distant gate—footsteps sounded on
the graveled walk without, and a tall figure darkened
the door-way.
“Mr. Cleveland, I suppose,” she said, coldly and
stiffly. My grandfather bowed. “I am Hester Wilde,”
she continued, bestowing a scrutinizing glance upon
the premises.
She was a woman to whom I could not venture a
planning in my own mind, so I sat still, and silently
looked at her. She was very tall, with a certain angularity
and stiffness pervading not only her figure,
but all her motions. She was not in the least pretty,
and she never could have been. Her hair was straight,
black, and coarse, giving evidence of extraordinary
powers of endurance. Her eyes were black and very
stern; rigid lines lay about her mouth—lines which
suffering must have furrowed; and her features were
not only masculine, but irregular. She sat down, not
in the easy sewing-chair I had left vacant for her, but
at the other side of the table, in an arm-chair as hard
and stiff as herself, exactly facing the picture of Margery
Eldredge.
“Is that a portrait?” she asked, after a time, in her
cold, quiet voice.
“It is—of the mother of Wilton Eldredge, the owner
of your new home, which I trust may prove a happy
one,” replied my grandfather, with the courtly politeness
of a gentleman of the old school.
She uttered a cold “Thank you,” and once more
relapsed into silence.
Her age might have varied any where from thirty
to forty. I could not tell. There was something in
her expression which moved me to a silent sympathy,
notwithstanding it was so forbidding. It never softened,
except once or twice, when she glanced involuntarily
at the portrait over the mantle, and then for
a moment her face fairly gleamed with something
which, in her, I was forced to pronounce untranslatable,
which yet resembled the look other faces wear
when any trifling thing recalls the aspect of one tenderly,
disposed to make conversation, and after a few moments
my grandfather rose to wish her good-evening.
“Will she not be afraid?” I whispered aside. He
looked at me with a sternness which was meant to be
final; but I could not heed him, I was so timid in
those days. She was a woman, and I thought it terrible
to leave her there alone.
“Miss Wilde,” I said. She started. A flush even
rose to her sallow face as if she had not always been
accustomed to hearing herself addressed by that name.
“You have no servant engaged. Shall we not send
Bridget over to sleep in the house with you to-night?”
“By no means,” she replied. “It was one thing I
wished to say to you, Mr. Cleveland. I would like
you to find me a trusty boy, who will come here at
night and morning, and do little jobs and any errands
I may wish about the village. It is all the help I shall
need.” My grandfather bowed, and promised to execute
her commission on the morrow; but I could not
leave her so.
“Miss Wilde,” I said, “I can't help telling you.
They do say this house is haunted! What if you
should see a ghost? I wish Bridget might come over.”
She smiled, not unkindly, and answered with a tone
just a little thawed, “I am not afraid. There are no
dead people who want any thing of me—and no living
ones either,” she added, after a moment, with a touch
of something like sadness in her voice. She bade us
good-evening—not rudely; though in her careless invitation
to come again there was an evident intention
to put its acceptance out of our power by her frigidity.
We went out. I turned round at the gate, and looked
shudder. I met my grandfather's eyes fixed upon me
with a curious twinkle. “Well, child,” he said, “you
have had your say; but you did not frighten Mistress
Wilde. May you have as much sense some day.
Ghosts indeed!”
“But, grandfather, wasn't there once a real murder
committed in the house?”
“I do not know of any. Old George Eldredge died
there very suddenly. The doctors called it apoplexy;
only ignorant people said poison.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence, but my
thoughts were roaming up and down the poplar walk,
or sitting in the silent house with Mistress Hester
Wilde.
The next morning my grandfather found a boy suited
to her needs, and I begged the privilege of taking
him to his new mistress. She did not look as if she
had closed her eyes.
“You did not sleep?” I queried, timidly.
“No;” then seeing my “I told-you-so” look, she
added, with a queer kind of half smile, which I afterward
found was peculiar to her, “but it was not ghosts
—at least not such ghosts as you mean. If you live,
child, you will find there are no spirits so potent as
memories.”
A verse came to my mind of a little fragment, written
I never knew by whom. I murmured it aloud:
Sunk in the grassy waves;
But we have more dead in our hearts to-day
Than the earth in all her graves.”
She looked at me curiously. “Poetical, I see!”
tone.
The more I saw of her, the more she interested me.
As the weeks passed on, finding that no coldness would
discourage me from visiting her, she began to receive
me more cordially. But she saw very little of society.
The boy, Thomas Wilson by name, was her chief organ
of communication with the villagers. Many of
the neighboring families had called upon her, but when
they found she did not return their visits, or manifest
any desire for their acquaintance, they abandoned her
again to her solitude. My own perseverance formed
the only exception.
None of our conversations, however, though at length
they became quite numerous, ever gave me any light
upon her past history, until one warm August afternoon,
when I strolled over to the brown house, and
found her busy in the arrangement of her drawers.
She had folded up a packet of letters, and tied them
with a black ribbon. She held them in her hand
when I entered. She was so absorbed that she did
not notice my approach. I could see that her face was
very white and rigid, but her hands trembled, and her
nerves were so overwrought that, on my coming to
her side, a heavy miniature escaped from her hold, and
fell, with its crimson-velvet case wide open. I looked
upon the face only for an instant, but that was long
enough to have it fully impressed upon my memory.
It was that of a very handsome man. His bold, black
eyes; his short, crisp, black curls; his mouth, passionate
yet stern, were unlike any one I had ever seen;
and yet, in the whole, there was a certain intangible
something which associated itself in my mind with the
I stooped to raise it, but she bent over me
almost fiercely:
“You shall not!” she cried, sternly; “you shall not
look upon my husband!”
I surrendered it, half in terror, and for the moment
she seemed unconscious that she had betrayed her
cherished secret; for this was the first intimation I had
had that she was other than she seemed—a quiet, single
woman, living alone. For an instant she looked
upon the pictured face with an expression I could not
quite translate. There was pride in it, passion, tenderness
which softened even her hard features, and yet
with all these was blended a look of intense pain.
“I did not mean to see that face now,” she murmured
rather to herself than me. There seemed a fascination
in the proud lineaments on which she gazed,
from which she could not bear to turn away; but at
length she resolutely shut the case, and pushed it from
her into the farther corner of the drawer. Then she
looked at me, and said, in tones as sharp and imperative
as ever,
“You have surprised me out of my secret. Now I
hope you'll have honor enough to keep it. I would
not have even your grandfather know that Hester
Wilde is other than she appears.”
I gave the promise which her words seemed to require,
and then I lingered in the expectation that she
would reveal more of her history. But I was disappointed.
She was silent and thoughtful. She evidently
wished to be left alone, and I very soon went
away. As I went out of the door a strong perfume
greeted me from a scarlet geranium standing there in
geranium, no matter where I meet it, always brings
before my eyes a picture—a glowing, glorious August
afternoon; the brown house behind the poplars; the
lone woman standing there in her proud silence; and,
above all, that pictured face, seen but for a moment,
yet never afterward to be forgotten.
Days braided themselves into weeks, and though I
visited Mistress Hester Wilde very often, she never
alluded to the scenes of that August afternoon. But
I fancied, somehow, that we drew constantly nearer to
each other. More recently I had made another discovery,
quite as startling as the first: Hester was a
student and a genius. I had found Greek and Latin
authors in her closet; and gradually I had so far won
her confidence, that she uttered in my hearing some
of the thoughts which the woods, and the winds, and
the everlasting sky were forever speaking to her solemn,
solitary life; and I grew to hold her in strange
reverence.
One wild November afternoon Tommy Wilson came
for me. It was drawing toward night, and in the west
a storm seemed rising. The wind blew outside a slow,
monotonous dirge, and I sat by my window watching
the red leaves it whirled along from the maple-trees.
The boy made his awkward, shuffling bow at the door,
and then, coming in, put a note into my hand. It was
written in the stiff, regular chirography of Hester
Wilde, and it said,
“Louise, will you come to me? I have not felt
well for some time, and at last I am forced to yield to
the illness so long resisted. I think a storm is coming
up. If you do not fear to encounter it here, and if
will you stay all night with me?”
I smiled at her allusion to the ghosts. This one
brave, solitary woman had lived so long unharmed in
their immediate vicinity, that they had well-nigh lost
their terror for me, and I tied on my bonnet and hurried
up the hill, well pleased with the invitation. It
seemed to me, as I approached, that every thing wore
a look even more deserted than usual. The sentinel
poplars along the walk lifted up their great naked
boughs, and over the carpet of dry, faded leaves, on
which my footfall made a crackling sound, the winds
rustled slumbrously. I opened the door without
knocking, and entered. Hester was not in her accustomed
place in her neat kitchen, but her cold voice
proceeded from the bedroom beyond, and summoned
me. I went in, and she half sat, half reclined upon
her bed, bolstered up with pillows. Her face seemed
actually wan in the dim light, and I noticed that her
hands clutched the bed-clothes tightly, as one in pain.
“I am glad you have come,” she said, as I entered.
“For the first time I was unwilling to be left here
alone. Besides, I think I have not long to live, and I
have resolved to tell you to-night the story of my life.
You might hear false accounts of me when I am gone,
and I would like to have you know the truth.”
“But what is the matter?” I cried, in alarm. “What
caused this sudden illness? What makes you look so
wan and white?”
“The illness is not sudden. My heart has been terribly
diseased for some time. When I came here I
knew the blow had been struck, and that I had not
long to live. So far, I have struggled against it, but
be quiet. I have a very painful task before me, and
if I am to tell you my story I can not be interrupted.
It is almost dark. You may light that wax candle
yonder. It will require no care, and last the whole
night.”
I obeyed her; and then, drawing up an easy-chair,
I settled myself in a comfortable position by the bedside,
and she began:
“I was born in Georgia, though you would never
think me a daughter of the soft, sunny South. My
father, however, was a New Englander, and perhaps
it was from this union of the North and South that I
derived the very opposite qualities in my nature. I
look like my father. He had the same coarse hair,
the same stiff angularity of figure, and the same hardness,
so to speak, of voice. From him also I inherited
an energy very unusual in that enervating climate.
From him I derived an intense, passionate love of
study, particularly of languages and mathematics. But
from my mother came an undercurrent of fire—smouldering,
volcano-like, beneath the overlying hardness
of my nature. From her came the quick perceptions,
the passionate worship of the beautiful, the hidden sensitiveness,
to which you, my friend, have given the
name of genius.
“I was not more than twelve years old when, within
two days of each other, an epidemic carried off both
my parents. Different as they were, they had loved
each other tenderly, and I, their only child, sympathized
enough even then in the wonderful mystery of
that love whose outward symbol is marriage, to rejoice
that since one must be taken, the other was not
with a calm patience, far too old for my childish
years; but inwardly, fierce flames of passionate
grief swept over the child's heart, and left it arid and
desolate.
“In the whole world there was no one to love
me. I was not at all a prepossessing child—a shy,
dark, silent girl, caring little for society, liking best
to take some cherished book, and flee away into solitude
and stillness. But my mother had understood
me. In my nature were all those strong qualities so
unlike herself, which, by some strange spell, had made
my father the object of her worship, united to an underlying
current of emotions so like her own that I
scarcely needed to give my thoughts utterance in order
to be comprehended. Her death had left me alone.
There was no human being on all God's fair earth, it
seemed to me, so utterly loveless and sorrow-stricken
as myself. I was not a buoyant child. I had no far-reaching
hopes, to sit all day, like golden-winged birds,
and sing me siren strains of future love and joy. I
expected to pass through life misunderstood and unloved,
and I accepted my destiny with a kind of savage
content.
“The guardian to whom my father had left me was
a Mr. Randall, an old friend of his own, living in a
handsome country house on the margin of the Hudson.
He had a graceful, sweet-tempered wife, and three
daughters, beautiful girls, the youngest a year younger
than myself, and the eldest three years older. They
received me very kindly, and, indeed, during my whole
life with them, I had never any thing unkind to complain
of. But they were not of my kind. Among
straight black hair and dark skin, like some Indian
waiting-maid; nor would my stiff, ungraceful motions
have denoted any higher position or more careful training.
I think this soured me in a degree. No outside
observer could have perceived the contrast half
so actuely as I, with my sensitive pride, my passionate
love for the beautiful.
“I loved the beauty of the Misses Randall, but I do
not think I always felt toward them as kindly as, considering
they were my only friends in the world, would
have seemed natural. In particular, I used to have
a kind of instinctive dread of the elder, Miss Jessie
Randall. She was called a very amiable, pleasant girl,
and there was really about her an extreme softness,
a certain pliancy of muscle, manner, and voice. To
me, however, it always seemed a dangerous and deadly
softness. The large bright blue eyes never fearlessly
met your own. It is true, there was a semblance of
great modesty in the way the golden lashes drooped
over them, but the frank, uplifting eyes of her younger
sister Anne pleased me a great deal better. By some
strange association of ideas Jessie always seemed to
me like a cat—an animal I held in the extremest abhorrence,
from the gliding, stealthy motion, to the
treacherous claws cased in velvet. A curious prophetic
instinct made me look upon her as an enemy,
and yet she was uniformly polite to me. She smilingly
tolerated all my rudeness, apologized for my
brusquerie, and appeared so amiable that every day she
grew more and more out of my favor.
“We were educated at home by teachers. Miss
Jessie's education was completed at eighteen, and an
care of an aunt residing in New York, she was to make
her début. Nothing could have been more beautiful
than Jessie Randall at that age. Her sisters were more
than pretty, but she was, par excellence, the beauty, and
on her, above all, was the ambition of her father and
mother centred.
“She had been trained carefully in every accomplishment.
Her snowy fingers discoursed ravishing music
on the harp and piano; her voice was sweet and clear;
her dancing had been pronounced, by our gallant
French teacher, `the very poetry of motion;' and her
manners were considered faultless. We who were left
behind heard of her triumphs—how joyously her days
were floating on; of her appearance at party, theatre,
and opera; and I, imbittered perchance by a consciousness
of my own entire incapacity to attract, would inwardly
cry out,
“`Oh, shame upon her for a woman! Does she
think this dancing, and dressing, and reigning is all
that there is of life? that for no better ends than these
God has made her so beautiful?'
“For the next three years Miss Jessie was seldom
at home; and when she did come, she would bring
with her a train of her city friends, brightening up the
house with their gay dresses and brilliant jewels, as if
a flock of tropical birds had alighted there, pausing in
their flight.
“In the mean time I grew up, as was the promise
of my childhood, plain and shy. I bestowed all my
suppressed enthusiasm on study; all my friendship
on my black horse, Hercules. When I was eighteen
our teachers were dismissed, and I came into possession
me from eighteen until I should be twenty-one,
when my fortune, large at first, and greatly increased
by accumulation during the comparatively inexpensive
years of my minority, was to come into my possession
unencumbered, and unfettered by a single restraint.
“About the period of my eighteenth birthday Jessie
Randall came home for a much longer stay than
usual. It was a beautiful autumn. I remember how
glorious every thing looked to me. I was young, in
high health, and had begun to be hopeful. I was not
long in discovering that among the gay friends whom,
as usual, Jessie had brought with her, was one, a Mr.
Eldredge, the cynosure of all, the chief object of interest.
He was the life and soul of their parties of pleasure.
He rode, he danced, he jested—in short, he
seemed crowned of all manly graces, natural and acquired.
I had never before seen any one who so nearly
approached my ideal of masculine perfection. I did
not speak of him, even to Anne, who during this influx
of visitors was my room-mate, but mentally I compared
him to Apollo and Ulysses, my favorite heroes
of the classic world, in which so much of my life had
been spent.
“I was considered old enough now to go into society,
and I was doomed to weary evenings of unoccupied,
listless looking on, while the gay party sung, and
danced, and acted charades. But the weariness was
short-lived. I soon became intensely absorbed in the
contemplation of this same Wilton Eldredge.”
“What!” I exclaimed, interrupting her, “was it the
owner of this house?” She went on without heeding
me:
“Every development of his character, every expression
of his face, was a welcome study to me. I soon
perceived that in what I had at first thought perfection,
there were many deficiencies. Physically, nothing
was wanting. I have seen years of life since then, and
yet I have never looked upon one more perfect in
manly beauty. Intellectually, I discovered he possessed
more brilliancy than depth. That is to say, intellectually
he was indolent, and to a certain extent superficial.
Morally, his want of energy was still more
culpable. He would assent to a wrong opinion, countenance
a wrong action, rather than arouse himself to
the exertion of resistance. These spots upon my sun
had troubled me greatly at first, for I had a nature inflexible
in its stern love of right and justice; but I was
rapidly losing the consciousness of them in my admiration
for his beauty, for the strong sense, the glow, so
to speak, of physical life that animated his face, and
radiated over his whole being. I thought, too, and this
conviction has never left me, that there were depths
in his nature which needed only the angel's `troubling
wing' to bring the bright waters of healing to the brink.
“He had been there two weeks without addressing
a single observation to me after our first introduction.
It was a bright October morning; the leaves were just
turning, and a thousand gorgeous tints, sparkling with
dew-drops, flashed back the sunlight. A horseback
ride had been arranged to some place of interest in the
neighborhood, and my horse had been brought out
among the rest. Going through the hall, I had caught
the reflection of my face and figure in a full-length
mirror hanging there, and, for the moment, I was impious.
My wild thoughts arraigned God, who had
my face give pleasure. I went out into the sunshine,
among that group of glad young creatures, every one
of whom had her own distinctive charm, and I stood
there, as I felt, like a black, ugly shadow—the only
blot upon the landscape. Jessie, in particular, had
never seemed so beautiful. Her slight, undulating figure
showed to advantage in her close-fitting ridinghabit
of Marie Louise blue; her golden curls fell in a
shower from beneath her beaver hat; and her face,
oh! I thought at that moment she was radiant as Helen
when she tempted Paris to his doom. They mounted
their steeds among jests and silvery laughter, with
courtly aid from their attendant cavaliers. As ever,
Wilton Eldredge was close at Jessie's side; for, though
there was no positive engagement, rumor said our fair
`eldest' would not long remain unwedded.
“Without assistance I vaulted upon the back of my
own horse, and dashed off in an opposite direction from
that which the party were to take. The fresh autumn
wind blowing in my face restored my reason, and I repented
of my momentary insanity, and began to bless
God for life, when in the very sense of existence—of
being—was so much joy. I remembered how much
on earth was worth living for besides idle dreams of
love—pleasure-palaces—gilded by youth and beauty.
“I had ridden perhaps a mile, when I heard the
quick tramp of a horse behind me. I did not turn my
head, and in a moment more Wilton Eldredge rode to
my side.
“`Well,' he said, in his gay, ringing voice, `well,
runaway, I am commissioned to bring you back to the
rest of our party.'
“`Thank you. I had rather not go.'
“`But why? Let me tell you, Miss Hester Wilde,
it looks very ungirllike and unsociable to be riding off
by yourself in this way. Will you tell me your reason?'
“I was one of those who never take a medium course
—I must obey or disobey. Perfect truth was an element
of my nature: I must answer honestly or not at
all. I chose the former.
“`Because,' I said, `I am very plain. I look out
of character among those beauties. I don't want to
go with them. It makes me feel wicked.'
“`A little envious, hey? You are honest in your
confession, Miss Wilde.'
“`No, sir, not envious; but it makes me feel wicked
—as if, somehow, God hadn't used me well in making
me so plain nobody could ever love me.'
“I should have liked him less if he had insulted my
common sense by contradicting or complimenting me.
He did neither. He made no answer to my speech,
and for a moment there was silence. Then he said,
“`You have been studying me closely for two weeks
back, Miss Wilde. What have you made out?'
“A crimson glow suffused my face as he bent his
laughing eyes upon me; but I answered, honestly still,
“`Well, sir, I have discovered that you love beauty
almost as intensely as I do; that you love ease and
pleasure better yet—mental ease I mean, for physically
you are not lazy; that you would be thorough if being
brilliant had not already satisfied your ambition,
and good if it were not too much trouble.'
“`Well, Miss Wilde,' with a slightly disturbed face
and a bow of mock courtesy, `you are at least candid.
and now, let me tell you, I too have studied you, though
I'll wager you have never seen me look at you. I have
found out several things. To begin with, you think
me very handsome, and for that compliment your humble
servant is much obliged.'
“I blushed more painfully than ever; but he went
on:
“`You think your cousin Jessie little better than a
beautiful butterfly. You come as near to envying her
loveliness as your pride will allow you; and then you
flatter yourself that you pity her for making what you
call an unworthy use of it. Now I don't sympathize
with you there. I neither envy nor pity the fair Jessie.
I am contented to look at her. What has a star
to do but to shine? You know more about books
than people; you are honest, but too proud to be half
as happy as you ought; and, finally, you and I are so
very unlike that I think we shall be excellent friends.'
“Oh! how I hoped so in my heart, as I looked up
at him, much as the Lady of Shalott might have looked
at Sir Launcelot riding by with his `Tirra—lirra.'
We had both of us forgotten that he was to take me
back to the gay company he had left, and we rode on
in the bright autumn sunlight, while I drank in, at
every pore of my being, such happiness as comes but
seldom in a lifetime.
“After that our acquaintance progressed rapidly.
Scarcely a day passed that he did not join me in my
morning rides and rambles, and I think these meetings
were as pleasant to him as to me. He said I was
so different from the women he had known before, so
unconventional and so honest; and I became conscious
his nature and loftiest in his thoughts. It is one of
the surest ways to awaken the highest elements of
character to let their possessor feel that he is expected
to be a giant and not a pigmy. It was many days before
I realized how dangerous was this new acquaintance
to my peace. Before I was aware, the whole tide
of my being had set in one channel. I, who had never
before felt other than the general and diffusive sympathies
of humanity for any human being, loved now, unsought,
unwooed, with all the silent, resistless might of
my passionate but reserved nature. This knowledge
came to me with a bitter pang.
“For the most part, all his attentions to me had
been bestowed during our solitary rides and rambles,
and in the evening he was Jessie's constant cavalier as
before. At first, I had accepted the common rumor
which coupled their future together without regret or
questioning. Of late, when my glimpses into his inner
nature had been more frequent, I had begun to
doubt her ability to enchain his preference; and, finally,
I had resolutely cast the Future from my mind altogether,
and quaffed eagerly the wine of joy held to
my lips by the rosy fingers of the Present.
“But one night he, my hero, was more attentive to
her than usual—he seemed to hang upon her every
look and word; and, finally, some plan for the coming
winter was discussed, in which she seemed to turn to
him for his approbation, and I heard his reply:
“`It matters little where you are, since, wherever
you are, we shall be together.'
“For a moment my eyes were blinded, my limbs
were paralyzed. Then, with an instinctive feeling that
night I never closed my eyes. No moan or cry escaped
me. I suffered dumbly such pangs as her shallow
nature never could have comprehended. But I
could not submit. Once more I arraigned my Maker.
I asked him why on my poor life had been poured
out so much bitterness—why He had given me such
power to love, when no kiss of husband or of children
could ever bring the warmth to my cold lips? Why
I must so worship beauty, when I possessed not one
element to gratify this yearning? Thinking of it afterward,
I wondered He whom I blasphemed in my
madness had not struck me dumb; but He spared me.
The face of the night was calm, the stars shone above
my speechless agony, and the silent moon looked down
lovingly upon even me.
“In the morning I rose. I bathed my tearless eyes,
smoothed my disordered hair, and went out. Never
was there a brighter day. Dew-drops glistened like
diamonds on every spray, and below me the blue river
wound along, flashing gayly in the sunshine, and singing
as it journeyed to the sea. Up to the loving, leaning
sky I lifted my ghastly, defiant face, and then a
voice fell on my ear, gay, mocking, yet tender:
“`Does the sky pity you, Hester?'
“Wilton Eldredge had followed me. He came to
my side.
“`No, I don't think the sky does pity you. You
don't look comforted. Perhaps I can do you more
good. I see you have not been crying, hard girl that
you are; but you haven't slept any all night. Now I
shouldn't tell you how bad I have been if I didn't
know, beforehand, you would forgive me. I made
you to hear. I wanted to find out whether you loved
me. You had been too proud to show it—I meant to
make you. I saw it struck home when I said it. I
don't think I meant to make you suffer quite so much,
and yet it is flattering, Hester.'
“He looked into my face with a roguish smile. Ah!
if his fault had been ten times as great, I could not
have chosen but to forgive him. Can you fancy what
it would be if you had been immured in a dark dungeon
for life; if the days and the nights had come and
gone above your misery till your soul sickened, and,
just as your despair was growing absolute, one should
throw open the iron door, and heaven's own bright
sunshine should once more trance your life with its
half-forgotten glory? But that would be nothing to
the flood of light which broke upon my whole being.
“`Your face is transfigured, Hester,' said Wilton
Eldredge, looking at me. Then he went on gayly:
`You ought to have known I loved you all the time,
else why did I seek you? Jessie I do not love—that
is, I do love her as I love all beautiful women, but not,
oh, not as I love you! I want to marry you, Hester.
Will you have me?”
“He drew nearer to me, and waited for my reply.
I could not utter a word. The depths of my being
were stirred, and the waves gushed to my lips in too
full a tide. I put my hand in his, and—it was almost
the first time in my life—the tears fell from my eyes,
and glittered on the grass at my feet. For once all his
lightness and gayety were gone. He said, solemnly,
“`I love you, Hester. Plain, and shy, and dark as
you are, you are more to me than all other women.
You have ennobled me, and I give you my life. If I
am not faithful, Hester, may the Lord judge between
us!”
“I believed him then; I knew that I was beloved;
and, looking back now over all the years, I believe still
that in that hour, heart and soul, he was mine. Our
hearts were too full for farther speech. We walked
back to the house in silence—my hand upon his arm,
as became his betrothed. Jessie Randall smiled as she
saw us coming up the steps—a kind of speculative,
derisive smile; but that morning our engagement was
announced, and she was first in her congratulations.
Her vanity must have been piqued, and perhaps—I
do not know—her heart was wounded; but she had
far too much tact to show it. She danced, and sang,
and flirted as gayly as ever.
“Soon after this, one little circumstance occurred
which I must not forget to mention, as after years
brought it back to my thoughts. My father's will
provided that, if I married before I was twenty-one, I
should come into the full possession of my property,
though it was to be secured to myself. I mentioned
this one day to my lover, saying playfully, in the fullness
of my joy,
“`You didn't know what a golden treasure you had
won. Confess, now, did you ever hear I was rich?'
“`Oh yes,' he said, with careless sincerity; `I knew
that always. I used to be very proud, Hester. You
would call it a weakness, but I don't think, if you had
been poor, we should ever have become acquainted.'
“I remember the remark thrilled me at the time
with a sudden pang; but I reflected how natural was
it passed from my mind.
“I do not think there had been any vanity in my
desire for beauty; for, from the moment I knew that
he was mine—he, my king, my eidolon of love—I
ceased to repine that fate had not been more bountiful.
He loved me—I was precious in his sight—that
was enough. My very face became dear to me because
of the radiance his glances reflected upon it. I
would not have had a single feature changed. For
the rest of the world I cared not. He was my universe.
“Some women might have thought his continued
attentions to the fair Jessie—which she received with
a kind of repellent raillery, irresistibly piquant and
charming—were cause enough for jealousy. But that
was not in my nature. I was too proud of my lover
ever to doubt him, and I do not think he gave me any
cause. Beyond a man's natural admiration for pretty
women, I do think that he was true to me—that all his
tenderest thoughts centred in the bride he had chosen.
“Our engagement was a short one. We were married
in December, and we went immediately to reside
on my paternal estate of Heath Cliffe, in Georgia.
This was my wish, and Wilton seemed to unite in it.
In truth, his wife was not charming enough to tempt
him into society, that the world might appreciate the
treasure he had won. I think now that he must have
had an ever-present consciousness, which no love had
power to soften, of my irredeemable want of beauty.
Despite that, however, we were happy.
“Our Southern home was dowered with the rich
gifts of nature, and we did all that art and wealth could
time, seemed to overbrim with gladness. I had enough
and to spare, and I scattered loving words and deeds
on all around as carelessly as a rose sheds dew-drops.
“Three years passed, and a new joy grew into both
our hearts. We were expecting God's sweetest gift—
a little child—to nestle on our bosoms, and look up at
us with its shy, sweet eyes. Around this vision we
wove bright and beautiful fancies. In its presence our
thoughts grew sweet, yet solemn as prayers.
“The day of trial came. There were a few hours
of terrible suffering, and then they laid my baby girl
upon my bosom, cold and dead. The eyes I had
dreamed would meet my own opened only in heaven
—the baby voice I had thought would coo out such
murmurous music responded only to the symphonies
of the angels. The Great Father had need of her.
The mysterious instinct of motherhood had been
aroused within me, stirring all my nature, and now
the new chord was broken.
“For a little while I held her there—my dead child,
my wonderful, beautiful mystery—and then they took
her from my arms and buried her. They made her
grave—I would have it so—in a bower of magnolias,
where Wilton and I loved best to sit together, so that
in our hours of tenderest intercourse her memory
might blend, and all that earth held of her be near us.
Had she lived, she must have been very lovely; for
she was her father's own child, and her baby features
seemed a reflection of his.
“God never gave me another child; but, hard as it
was, at first, to resign myself to His will, I was very
happy. And yet my husband would not have made
true and fervent as my own. He was arbitrary in his
disposition, absolute in his control over the minutest
actions of my life. But, proud as I was to others,
while I believed in his love I had no pride for him.
Even this control was grateful to me. Love made the
yoke easy to be borne. I had no troubles. Only once
or twice, when he had been absent upon business a
little longer than I thought necessary, I had been conscious
of a passing twinge of fear lest my society was
not so much life, air, sunshine to him as his was to me
—lest I did not make his home so attractive as a more
beautiful woman would have done. But when he
came back, once more his kisses upon my lips would
charm away my fears, and my life would be all brightness.
“We had been married ten years without so much
as meeting any of my guardian's family. At last, one
evening in early spring, my husband, opening the letter-bag,
tossed into my lap a dainty, delicate-looking
epistle, on the outside of which I at once recognized
the smooth, flowing, characteristic chirography of Miss
Jessie Randall—still Miss Jessie Randall after all these
years. I broke the seal, and the letter informed me
that she was blasé, as she said, ennuied of fashion, and
folly, and New York. She smelled from afar the fragrance
of my Southern roses. Might she come and
gather a bouquet of them? I should find she had
grown very good, she added. She was quite a different
woman at thirty-one from what she had been at
twenty, and she really thought we should get on nicely
together, particularly if I would keep my satirical,
too perfect husband out of the way. Indeed, she made
as soon as her letter.
“I had always ridiculed presentiments, and yet, as
I read that letter, I was seized with a mortal dread.
A sudden spasm of blinding pain came and went, leaving
my cheek blanched, my lips rigid. In the distance
I seemed to hear the future wail out a warning of the
events she was bringing me. I reasoned with myself
a moment. What trouble could there be in store?
My confidence in my husband was perfect. I should
be selfish not to rejoice that some one else was coming
to enliven the solitary life so much of which he passed
alone with me. Besides, my guardian's daughter had
a right to as warm a welcome as her father had given
me when I went to his home a helpless orphan. So
reasoning, I regained my self-command, overcame my
undefined dread, and, handing the letter across to Wilton,
said cheerfully,
“`Read that, dear. Jessie Randall is coming to us.
It seems we may expect her any day now.'
“He took the letter and glanced over it.
“`What a graceful hand!' he said.
“Alas! those words cost me another pang. You
know what my writing is. There never was any grace
in that, or any other of my outward manifestations.
“`A pretty, piquant style,' he said, as he handed
the letter back. `This visit will be a fine thing to set
you up, Hester. You are growing thin, and it's confoundedly
dull here. Jessie must be a splendid woman
by this time!' Then, seeing a look of pain upon my
face, he added, `My gifted wife, though, is worth a
dozen such.' Then he kissed me gayly, and went out.
“That was our last evening alone together. He
next day Jessie came. Wilton was out of the house
when she arrived. I expressed my regret that he was
not there to welcome her.
“`Nonsense!' she cried, with a kiss I shrank from,
and did not return. `I had quite as lief he would not
see me in this chrysalis state,' pointing to her gray traveling-wrap,
somewhat covered with dust, and the `ugly'
drawn over her straw bonnet.
“I conducted her to her room, and then, sending my
own maid to unpack her trunks and assist her, I went
down to give directions for my early tea. When the
bell sounded she came, looking quite refreshed and radiant.
Time had dealt lightly with her. She was
even more beautiful than in her girlhood. Her proportions
were more mature, her grace more queenly,
her self-possession more perfect. Her taste, too, always
exquisite, perfected by years of patient study, was now
faultless. Wilton met her at the dining-room door.
I saw him start back as if bewildered by this unexpected
vision. He welcomed her cordially, and she
came in and took her seat at the board. Sitting beside
her, I forgot that I was a loved and loving wife, and
once more, in my heart-sickness, I seemed to myself the
black, ugly shadow, necessary and welcome to no one,
which I had been in the days when I first knew her.
“Weeks passed on, however, without bringing me
any thing of which to complain. It is true, I seldom
saw my husband alone. Most of his time was occupied
with our guest; walking with her, riding with
her, or listening, in the pleasant evenings of early summer,
to melody so entrancing that even I was charmed
out of myself.”
At this stage of her narrative I glanced at Hester's
face. It was fearfully pale. Her nerves trembled,
and her whole appearance gave signs of extreme exhaustion.
I had been too much absorbed in her story
to notice this before; now it frightened me.
“You are overtasking yourself,” I said, earnestly.
“Don't! You mustn't go on. It will kill you. You
can not bear it.”
“Yes, I must do what I do very quickly,” she answered,
solemnly. “Just hand me that glass of wine.
It will strengthen me a little. There!
“I said at first I had nothing to complain of, and
yet all this time a weary, desolate weight was settling
down upon my heart. I went often alone to the little
grave where they had buried my baby, and there only
I could weep. Oh, what a blessed relief those tears
were!
“One night they had gone out to take a walk, and
I turned my footsteps toward the accustomed spot.
As I drew near I heard voices. I stole noiselessly toward
the bower, and, standing on one side, looked in
through the leaves. There, above my child's grave,
his child and mine, knelt my husband; on the seat
beside him sat Jessie, her beautiful eyes beaming on
him through a mist of tears, her hand clasped passionately
in his. I thought not of propriety, or so-called
honor, when my all was at stake. I listened—listened
with strained ears, desperately, eagerly, as for my life.
“`She was rich, you know, and I was poor,' I heard
him say, as I drew near, and then came shudderingly
back to me the memory of how he himself had said,
in the days of our engagement, that, had he not known
I was rich, he should never have sought me. I bit my
tones came next:
“`Then you did love me?'
“`Love you! For what else did I go there but for
love of you? There was not an hour before my marriage
when you might not have drawn me to your
feet, had you willed it. But what matters that? I
did not love you then as I love you now — Jessie,
Jessie!'
“He said her name over and over again, as if its
syllables embodied all tenderness—and I, I listened. I
can not tell you what else they said; light words of me
—cold, sneering words; pledges of eternal love; and
yet, notwithstanding she exchanged these vows, her
firm refusal of even a single kiss—I understood it all.
She wished him to contrive some pretext for divorcing
me, and then she would be his wife—be revenged for
the innocent wound I had once given to her vanity,
nay, perhaps to her heart; for I think she must have
loved him as well as such a nature could.
“I wonder I did not go mad. I wonder, roused to
phrensy, I had not stood before them and denounced
them — cursed them by my love and my wrongs.
But I did not. I still retained the deep, undemonstrative
nature of my childhood. I listened until I
could listen no longer, and then, my hands tightly
clasped, my lips resolutely sealed, I walked noiselessly
toward the house. I gave myself no time for repining.
I would not let my sick heart utter a single cry;
I sat down and looked my grief steadily in the face.
One thing I saw clearly—I was no longer loved. I
stood in the way of his happiness whom I would have
died to bless. I had promised to cleave to him for
own words had raised up between us a barrier more
effectual than death ever could. I would depart and
leave him free. I had one wild, irrepressible dread,
and that was of meeting him again. How could I hear
his voice, how look upon his face, I whom he loved no
longer? Let me go any where, any where, was the
wail of my heart—only let me get out of his way. A
beautiful woman would not so have given him up, but
I had no confidence in my own powers. Besides, from
childhood I had learned to yield; and more than all,
during the ten years of my married life, had I been
daily and hourly learning the lesson that my happiness
was nothing to his, and I never thought of putting
them into competition. I made up a bundle of a
few necessary things. In it I put a tress of his hair,
a miniature which he had given me during our brief
engagement, and the letters I had received from him
in his short absences. Then I wrote him a few lines.
I told him that I had listened to the scene in the arbor
over my dead child's grave; that I knew all—and
then I said,
“`Because I do know this I am going out of your
sight. I have staid with you while I thought I was
necessary to your happiness, but now that I am in
your way, I love you too truly not to go. But oh, my
husband! my heart's own husband! I leave you my
blessing. Its fullness shall abide with you, even
though her head should lie, where mine so often has
rested, upon your bosom.'
“Then I ordered a trusty servant, who had been
my mother's, and who loved nothing on earth so well
as his mistress, to bring horses for himself and me.
whether any attempts were made to pursue us. At
any rate, in three days we reached Savannah, and I
went to my lawyer. One haunting fear had seized
me, that my husband might seek a reconciliation with
me for the sake of my fortune. There never could be
a moment of my future life when I would not receive
him with open arms; but if he came, it must be from
love, and not from policy. With the assistance of
Mr. Brief, I executed an instrument conveying to him,
without incumbrance or restriction, all my property,
reserving for myself but a mere pittance. Leaving a
copy with the lawyer, I intrusted this instrument to
Pompey's care, and dispatched him on his return to
Heath Cliffe. The same night I started for the North.
Fate or chance led my steps to a town about twenty
miles from here, and I was soon established in a quiet
boarding-place. What I suffered God only knows. I
have made no moan; I will not.
“From that day to this—it is three years now—I
have never heard from Wilton. My heart has been
troubling me more and more, and I have felt that the
struggle with death would be but brief. Last spring I
read, by chance, your grandfather's advertisement. I
recognized the house as being my husband's early
home, and I at once applied for it. I loved him as
fondly as ever. I yearned with irrepressible yearning
for the tones of his voice, the touch of his hand, or the
sound of his foot upon the stair. I longed to come
here—to dwell in solitude and silence where he had
played, a young, innocent boy, pillowing his head upon
his mother's breast. I thought these fancies would be
company for me. Besides, there was another reason,
this might lead to my seeing him once more. I could
not put aside the belief that he had loved me once. I
knew he had had no means of learning the place of
my abode since we parted; that he could not have
found me had he sought me even with tears. Now I
thought he would learn from your grandfather that
one Hester Wilde, a lone woman, was his tenant, and
perchance he would come to me.
“I have waited, vainly; but, ten days ago, the cloud
began to lift, and I could see the faint dawn of day.
I read the announcement of Jessie Randall's marriage
to a rich old man in New York. I knew then that
my husband was not with her. At the same moment
I felt that the hand of death was on me; that I had
but a few days more to live. In the might of my dying
life and my undying love I sent my soul forth to
summon him. I prayed, I wrestled with God that I
might look upon his face once more this side of heaven,
and since then I have been waiting.”
She sank back as she said this in utter prostration,
and lay there, her face growing fearfully deathlike in
the steady light of the wax-candle. I drew my watch
from my belt; it was almost midnight. Suddenly she
started up.
“Listen!” she cried, with wild energy, “listen!”
My first thought was of the ghosts. I listened
breathlessly, but I heard nothing save the storm—
which, having come on at nightfall, had risen now to
a gale, and was bursting wildly against the windows,
and rocking the old brown house to its foundations.
“Don't you hear it?” she cried, eagerly—“a horse,
coming here?”
I could hear it now, plainly enough—the tramp of
a horse ridden furiously. It came in at the gate, up
the long poplar walk. It stopped, and the rider dismounted
before our very door. Hester had risen up
in bed now. Her head was bent forward, and every
wan feature was aglow with longing anticipation. The
door opened, he sprang in, and in a moment the original
of Mistress Hester Wilde's miniature stood before
me; but sadly worn and wasted, as if by long sorrow,
was the proud, noble face now. He did not seem even
to see me. He sank on his knees by Hester's bedside,
and, gathering her up, folded her to his bosom. Her
arms were closely clasped about his neck, her head
sank on his shoulder, and a low murmur of ineffable
peace floated from her lips.
“Wife—saint—idol—blessed one!” he cried, holding
her there, “you shall not kiss me, you shall not
even utter that forgiveness for want of which, for three
long years, I have been slowly dying, until you hear
my story. I did love you, Hester, God knows. I did
love you, and no other. I went into the house that
fatal night. I sought you in our own room. I found
your note, and read it. Oh, Hester! its uncomplaining,
patient tenderness thrilled me as no reproaches
could have done. I felt then that your heart was broken.
How I longed to cast myself at your feet, to
pray for your forgiveness! I loved you so unutterably.
You had never been so dear; and I loathed with
deadliest loathing the beautiful Evil who had tempted
me from you. Before light the next morning I had
left Heath Cliffe and started in pursuit of you. I left
behind me a few lines for Miss Randall, in which I inclosed
a copy of your note. I told her I had awaked
all earthly objects was the wife I had lost. I
reached Savannah the day after you had left. Your
deed of all your property to me was another stab, piercing
my very heart. I had no clew by which to trace
you, and so I staid there until I heard that Miss Blair
had left Heath Cliffe, and was en route for the North.
Then I went home and waited. Oh, Hester! I sometimes
thought you would come back, but as time passed
on this hope faded. It was only three months since
that I learned you were living here; and then you
seemed so pure, so perfect, so far removed from me,
that I dared not come to you. But ten days ago, at
noonday, I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice. The
tones were like yours, but it seemed to come from very
far off. It uttered a wail, a pleading cry that I should
come to you before you died. I have traveled, since
then, night and day. Here I am; Hester, mine only
one, will you forgive me?”
Her voice was broken now and faltering, very thick
with tears.
“You, too, have much to forgive,” she murmured.
“I did wrong. I was your wife. I should have kept
my place and striven to win you back; but yet, God
knoweth, I did what I thought would make you happiest.”
His arms clasped her tighter. Feebly she raised
her head. Their lips clung together in one long, passionate
kiss, and in that, I know not how, her spirit
was exhaled. The kiss of forgiveness was the kiss of
death.
The storm lulled, and the wind only wailed now like
the tender, sorrowful notes of a solemn psalm. We
A smile was upon her dead face.
Three days later we buried her in the family burying-ground,
behind the stately poplars, and it was not
many weeks before Wilton Eldredge lay down beside
her, to sleep in the same grave his long, dreamless slumber.
The Eldredge family were left without an heir.
No one cared to live in the old brown house. It is
going to decay.
But the dead rest well. At “moonless midnight or
matin prime” they lift not up their covering of verdure.
Suns rise and moons set for them in vain; but I know
there is another country where the long-enduring love
will receive its reward—where the roses are eternal,
and the tenants of the everlasting mansions shall never
die.
| My third book | |