University of Virginia Library

27. XXVII.
THE CONVICT'S BEAUTIFUL WIFE.

Meanwhile Faustina waited, in torments of anxiety,
to learn the result of the trial, — Abel's fate and her own.
Now she tossed and groaned upon the bed. Now she
went to the window, and looked out upon the tempestuous
snow-storm, straining her eyes to see, through the
white, driving cloud, Abel or Eliza, or at least some
friendly neighbor coming with the news. But no Abel
appeared; and nevermore would she behold, in storm or
shine, that goodly form of manhood returning home to
her as she had seen it countless times and cared not, in
the by-gone, wasted years.

Sigh, wretched wife! Wring your passionate, white
hands, O woman fair to see! Weep; blind your eyes
with hot, impatient tears, as you gaze! He is nowhere
in the storm. He is not just beyond the corner of the
common, where you could see him but for the dim vortex
of snow, as you sometimes fancy. He will never
come to you again, he will never smile kindly upon you
again, at noon or evening, coming from his work, in all
this weary world. Toss then upon your bed, and groan,
thinking of what has been lost, and fearing what is to
come.

For she was tortured also with fears. Up to the last she
could not believe that Abel would really sacrifice himself
for her. If conviction became certain, then surely he
would save himself by giving her up. It was for his
interest to preserve her good name, if possible to do so
and at the same time avoid suffering the penalty of the
law in her place. But more magnanimous conduct she
could not understand. Each day of the trial, therefore,
and now on this third day especially, she trembled with
dread of exposure. And when she looked for her husband,
she more than half-expected to be frightened with
the sight of an officer sent to summon her before the
awful court.

But nobody came. She could not have even the miserable
satisfaction of knowing the worst. And there
was no one to sympathize with her, and listen to her
conjectures and complaints, and help her waste the lonely
hours of waiting, except Melissa. She made the
most of Melissa, which indeed was not much. Now
she called her to her bedside, and clung to her desperately,
and confessed to her, and questioned her; promised
extravagant favors if she remained true to her, and
threatened all the pains of death and hell if ever she betrayed
her secret. Then she would send her to the
windows to look, or to the outer door to listen, to know
if anybody was coming, — or at least to form some
opinion whether anybody would come or not.

“What do you think?” she asked once when the girl
had been absent some minutes from the room, and returned

to it — as appeared to Faustina — with the same
slow discouraging step as usual. “Is he coming? Has
he got clear? Oh, dear! dear! Melissa, why don't you
speak?”

But it was not Melissa who mournfully drew near the
head of the bed, and stood there, unseen by Faustina,
regarding her with speechless grief.

“Oh, I shall die! I shall have another dreadful fit, I
know I shall. Melissa, if you would save my life, why
don't you tell me again you think he is acquitted, and
will be here soon? I want you to keep saying it.
That's all the consolation I have. And he wouldn't betray
me, would he? Do you think he would?”

No answer from the figure at the bed-head. But now
wonder began to mingle with the heavy sorrow of the
eyes that watched the writhing woman.

“He promised me so faithfully! But if he should not
get clear! Oh, what shall I do? What would you do
in my case, Melissa? I wish I had run away a month
ago! What a fool I was! I'd have done it if it hadn't
been for Tasso. He told me not to be afraid, but to stay,
and never care what happened to my husband, — as if a
body could! — as if I hadn't before my eyes every minute
what may happen to myself. Oh, dear!”

And Faustina, restless, rose up in bed, and pushed
back her hair, moaning as she twisted it away and threw
it over her shoulder, and looked with burning languor
and despair around her, as if in search of some object
of hope on which to cast her weary heart; but saw instead,

with a start of alarm, the silent figure behind her
pillow.

“Eliza!” she scarcely articulated, staring pallidly.
“Where — where is Melissa?”

“She is gone to put the horse in the barn,” replied
Eliza.

“The horse! What horse?” Faustina hardly knew
what she was saying, so great was her trepidation, thinking
of what she had already said, and Eliza — not Melissa
— had heard. “How did you come? I — I —
what did I say?”

Eliza advanced to the side of the bed, and sat down
upon it. The two looked at each other, — one with a
countenance full of anguish and pity, the other with
guilty, affrighted eyes.

“You know best what you were saying, and what you
meant by it,” Eliza answered. “I was thinking of what
I have come to say, and what you must prepare yourself
to hear.”

“Abel?” Faustina whispered, “did he — has he
come?”

“Mrs. Dane,” Eliza said, with indescribable repugnance
in her heart, when she felt that she ought to show all
sympathy and pity to the distressed creature before her,
“your husband cannot come now; if you wish to see
him you must go where he is.”

Faustina did not speak; but, putting both hands to
her head, slid them into her hair, and clenched them thus
entangled over her neck, with an aspect of abject fear.

“I have come for you, if you wish to visit him. You
must get ready, while I go and break the news to
mother.”

“Where is he?”

“In jail. To-morrow he will be taken to prison.”

“To prison? O heavens! You are dreaming, trying
to frighten me!”

“It is only too true,” said Eliza. “I heard his sentence,”
— clasping her hand on her heart at the remembrance.

Faustina was not so full of astonishment and grief for
her husband, as not to reflect, with a secret, selfish hope,
that her own guilt had probably remained concealed.
She remembered also, in the midst of her consternation,
that she had a part to play.

“To prison, did you say? What prison?” she asked.
“For how long?”

“To the State prison. For five years,” replied Eliza.

“State prison! — my husband! — Five years!” —
And the miserable woman wrung her hair, and thrust
it into her mouth, biting it. How much of this seeming,
too, was real and unaffected, and how much disguised or
assumed, it would be hard to say. And whether it
was chiefly grief for Abel, or remorse for her own misconduct,
or only a selfish sorrow and alarm, who shall
judge? But that fear and dismay were upon her, there
could be no doubt.

And why did not Eliza endeavor to soothe and encourage
her? She believed it her duty, and accounted it

a privilege, to give aid and counsel wherever they were
needed. But, when she would have spoken sympathizing
words to this unhappy being, her heart contracted
and her tongue refused to utter. It was not her own
affliction, it was not jealousy, or vindictive hatred, because
of the irremediable wrong she knew this woman
had done to her and to Abel, which made her shrink
away and close her lips; but rather a sense of falsehood,
and of a deeper wrong concealed, which her sensitive
nature scented like a corruption in the very air Faustina
breathed. She arose from the bed.

“Will you be ready?” she asked, going. “We are
to take Ebby with us.”

“Oh, I can't!” cried Faustina. “Such a storm! —
Besides, I am sick. How can I go?” She threw herself
upon her face. To confront her husband in jail; to
be present, knowing what he suffered, and was doomed
still to suffer, for her, — and she wickedly permitting;
to listen to his reproaches, or, if he uttered none, to witness
the uncomplaining trouble his soul was in for her
sake, more cutting than any reproach; to hear his tremulous
words of leave-taking, to look into his face, and to
part for so long, — oh, it seemed impossible to go
through all this! Nevertheless, she reflected that it
would be far the safest policy to visit him; to go, and
show her love; yes, and carry Ebby with her, to touch
his heart; repeat her professions of fidelity, and make
him promise again, and once for all, never to betray her.

“Tell me what to do!” she cried. “It shall be as you
say. Did he send for me?”

She raised her head as she spoke, and looked for Eliza.
But Eliza was not there. She was at another bedside
now, holding in her arms the almost dying form of the
convict's stricken mother; trying in vain to impart to
her a little consolation out of her own scanty store.

Then Faustina, left alone, resolved to rise and dress
herself whilst she was deciding in her mind what to do.
She found a sort of distraction and relief in the occupation.
And though she vowed incessantly to herself that
she could not go, and that she would not go, she continued
to put her apparel on, even to her mantle and
furs; so that, when Eliza sent for her, lo, she was
ready. And though she now, almost frantically, informed
Melissa that she could not and that she would
not, nevertheless, as if a spell had been upon her which
she was powerless to resist, she went trembling and
sighing to the outer door, where the wagon stood, and
got into it, and took Ebby with her under the buffalo-skin;
and did not faint dead away, as she had determined
to do in Eliza's sight, so that she might be left
behind, but, irresolutely holding that strategy in reserve
until it was too late, rode through the storm of wind and
snow, and through the wilder storm of her own thoughts,
to the centre of the town, and found herself at last
alighting at the jail-door, as weak and helpless as Ebby
himself, in Eliza's governing hands.