 | Alice May |  |
THE SEQUEL
TO ALICE MAY.
4. PART FOURTH.
The mystery that involved the death of Alice May seemed to Edward
impenetrable. He could obtain no clue to the motives which
led to her strange flight from her father's roof, or her seclusion in the
remote convent of Sacre Cœur. The cause of her father's suicidal
end was equally inscrutable. Lost in mystery and burdened with
grief, he left New Orleans, and after traversing the rivers and lakes of
the west, at length reached Boston. A settled gloom was upon my
mind, and with his clouded brow and grave and sad countenance he
seemed ten years older than when he left three months before. The
mystery in which Alice's fate remained wrapped had preyed deeply upon
him, and kept him in a state of feverish anxiety and nervous expectation.
His health was suffering, and his mind wandering and unsettled:
for night nor day did it rest; but was ever active, ever seeking
some clue to unfold her destiny.
It was night when he reached his native city. The carriage which
bore him to his lodgings was whirled rapidly along through lighted
and thronged streets, and at length drew up at his door. He alighted,
and scarce returning the congratulations of his family, he hastened to
his rooms. Every thing seemed as he had left it. He cast himself into
a chair, and for a few moments remained with his head buried in his
hands. Suddenly he recovered himself as his servant entered with his
baggage.
`Thomas!'
`Sir.'
`Has any letter: has any package arrived for me since I left!'
`Yes, sir, a dozen nearly. I have kept them locked up here.' As
the servant spoke, he deposited his master's valise upon the floor, and
unlocking a draw in his secretary, handed him several letters and parcels.
With a trembling, hurried hand, Edward turned them over,
a gesture of impatience. He looked at the last, and then with a look
of painful disappointment, cried,
`What did I hope for? She wrote me no more after that letter
which led me to fly to her. Why should I hope to find another from
her? No, no. The causes which led to her flight and death must
forever remain in mystery; a mystery that like an internal fire, will
feed upon my brain till reason perish. It will make me go mad. I have
had since the hour of her death but one thought: one burning, overwhelming
thought: and that is to find the key to these fearful events.'
`Here, sir,' exclaimed Thomas, who had returned to close the
drawer, `here, I have found another letter; perhaps it is the one you
want. It was edge-wise up, and I did not discover it before.'
Edward sprang to snatch it from him; and the instant his eye rested
upon the superscription, he uttered a cry of mingled joy and anguish,
and sunk almost insensible into his chair. Thomas flew to assist him.
`No: I need it not. Go: go, Thomas; I am better now. Leave
me, I wish to be alone; all alone; with my heart and her!' He waved
his hand faintly yet resolutely, and his servant, after casting upon him
a look of pity and wonder, quitted the chamber.
For several minutes the lover remained seated with the sealed letter grasped
in his hand. He seemed to want energy to break it open. At length he raised
it to his eyes, and read the address with evident anguish.
`Yes, dear Alice—those grateful characters were traced by thine own fair
fingers. And you did not forget me at the last moment of your flight! How
shall I read this?' he cried, starting up!
`Here is evidently the key of all that I would learn—of all that ignorance of
which has been driving me melancholy mad! And yet my hand trembles to
open it and read! my heart shrinks! I feel I have not the courage to come to
the knowledge of all I would most learn! It is a double sheet, and perhaps
contains a narrative of all, to read which may fire my brain with I know not
what terrible passions! I will put an end to this suspense, and thus relieve
my mind from the load of uncertainty which has so long borne it down!'
As he spoke he tore the seal and unfolded the letter. A lock of dark hair
fell from it, which he caught and pressed to his lips and heart with passionate
exclamation. He again seated himself, but again and again he had pressed the
dear signature of `Alice May' to his lips, and many were the hot tears that fell
upon it, ere he commenced reading; and often did he interrupt himself, and
rise and pace the room now in tears now in resentment, before he came to the
close.
In the three preceeding parts to this story, the reader has seen Alice May
the loveliest among the beautiful of her school companions, and winning all
and mind. He has seen her the betrothed of a young gentleman worthy of her,
and beheld her on her return to the `sunny south,' the idol of a doating father,
and surrounded with every luxury that wealth and taste could contribute. He
has seen her there, in the midst of those means of enjoyment happy only in the
love of her betrothed; living only in him; and looking forward to the spring
when he was to come and claim her as his bride. The reader has also seen how
happy Edward was in correspondence, and how hopefully he looked forward to
his meeting and union with the lovely Louisianian. He has witnessed the sudden
termination of this happiness by his reception of her two letters filled with
mysterious words and imploring him to forget her---`that she was unworthy of
his love or of his thoughts.' He has seen that, tortured by suspense and apprehending
every evil, he had immediately started south, and after finding her
father's house deserted, Colonel May dead by his own hand upon the floor, and
Alice flown, he at length discovered her in a convent laid upon a bier, and
ready to be borne by virgins to her grave; that to this moment all concerning
her from the time he had got her letter was wrapt in the most impenetrable
mystery. To find therefore a letter, dated, as he now saw it was, on the day of
her flight, which promised to unravel these strange things, was an event calculated
to rouse the most painful curiosity in Edward's mind. The letter was as
follows:
`I know not how to address you! `Dear Edward' was flowing from my pen
---but I am unworthy to give you any endearing title. In my last letter—it
was a wild---strange one---but I was nearly mad when I wrote it---I told you
that events had transpired that rendered it necessary for your honor and happiness
that you should forget me! I left all in mystery! But reflection has
come to my aid---reason has returned, and after hours of terrible insanity, I can
think and write calmly. I did intend, Edward, to keep the dreadful secret forever
locked up in my own bosom. But this is pride; and with pride I have no
more to do. It would be cruel to you, whom my soul loves! Oh, if I could
forget---but no! I must live and remember. How shall I relate my shame.
I have sat down to do it that I might relieve your mind from the suspense and
show you that I have not lightly trifled with your love for me; for too well I
know how fondly you love me.
`Alas, that your noble heart had not been bestowed upon a worthier object.
But I will no longer avoid the painful subject. In three hours---to-night at
midnight, I fly from my home leaving no trace of my flight. Before I take
this step I wish YOU, Edward, to do me justice. Therefore do I now write to
you. You saw me first at the boarding school, and knew me as the daughter
of an opulent southern planter. You offered me your noble love, and in return
I gave you my heart. Oh, the happiness of that hour when I first learned that
you regarded me with favor---that you loved me! But I cannot dwell upon
these days of happiness fled forever! Alas, why has Heaven made me to be
accursed! Let me speak of more recent events. Let me explain to you the
meaning of the dark language of my last letter. I told you that the only alternative
of my union with the Count was to be immured in a convent for life. I
between the two, elapsed. This letter was followed in two days by another
recalling my request and telling you an event had occured which rendered
it necessary that we should meet no more, that I was going to fly and
hide from the world, for I was unworthy your love or slightest regard. It is
this letter, which now I am on the eve of flight, I feel it my duty to explain;
then farewell forever, and forget that I have ever lived. Oh, how can I relate
my shame to him whose approbation and love I regard next to Heaven's? But
I must to my painful duty.
`The evening of the day on which I wrote you that if you wished to save
me from the persecuting attentions of the Count---you must fly to me, Desiree,
the beautiful and affectionate Quadroom nurse, of whom I have spoken to you
as being with my mother when she died, and who had been my nurse through
childhood, had been taken suddenly ill. I flew to her with affectionate anxiety,
for I had loved her as a mother, and she had always shown me the most affectionate
attachment. I found her suffering under a severe attack of typhus fever;
and as my father was absent with the Count in town, I prescribed what I
thought would relieve, and was about sending for the family physician, when
she called me to the side of her couch, and said,
`No, Alice, `its no use! I feel that I am death-struck. I am dying Come
near, I have something to say to you.'
I threw myself upon my knees by her bed side in tears, and kissing her
hands bade her live for my sake.
`You are the only mother I have ever known! If you die I shall be wretched
indeed!' I cried and bathed her burning hands with tears.
`Miss Alice,' she said, placing her hand upon my forehead, and putting back
my hair, while she looked into my eyes with the fondest affection, `I have
but a short time to live! Yet before I die, I would give utterance to the tide
of maternal affection which for years has been pent up in my breast. Yes,
Alice, for seventeen years I have kept locked in my breast the secret which is
a mother's life and joy to utter in each hour in kisses and caresses upon her
child. But I have been denied this! Fear and love—fear of your father and
love for you, for I knew it would make you unhappy, has kept me from it.—
But death has now come, and is stronger than your father's threats—and
stronger than death is a mother's love! Alice, you are my own child! Bend
over me and let me fold you to a mother's heart, that for years has yearned to
empty itself upon your bosom! You are my child, my long cherished, fondly
loved child!'
I listened to her without power to stir. I did not doubt—for a hundred
things of the past, never understood before, now rushed upon my mind to corroborate
her assertion! and while I listened I BELIEVED. She ended and would
have clasped me to her heart. I shrunk from her with a cry of mingled loathing
and anguish, and should have fallen but for the support of the couch by
which I knelt. I remained for several minutes in a state of stupor, with only
one sensation, and that one of misery unutterable and scare comprehended.
`You refuse to embrace me!' said Desiree—nay I will call her what she was
your hate has been one of my motives in keeping so secretly your birth from
you. But it matters little now, Alice, whether you hate or detest me! I have
relieved my heart; I have eased my conscience; and death will come less
heavily upon my soul! Will you kiss me but once, my child?'
`Oh, tell me—tell me, I cried, shrinking from her embrace, and burying my
face in the curtain, `tell me the whole fearful tale! Who was she then whose
memory I have been taught to reverence as my mother's?'
`She was the lawful wife of your father. When she was a bride, I was purchased
to be her attendant But I have few words to give to the story, Alice!'
she said, suppressing a cry which her physical suffering wrung from her; `A
year after your father's marriage with her she gave birth to a daughter, and in
giving it life gave up her own. The infant lived but a week, and the morning
of its death I gave birth to a daughter. The two children, I need not say, had
but one father.'
`And I was that child?' I asked eagerly.
`Yes, you were a lovely babe, and your father proposed to me to let the dead
babe pass as mine, and to raise you as his own. Tempted by the offer he made
me, and ambitious to have you placed in such a position in society as would be
the lot of a daughter ef Colonel May, I promised it. Seventeen years have I
kept the secret, daily yearning to give you a mother's love. Death has now
approached, and my breast would hold the secret no longer. The mother's
love would find its channel ere the fountain of her heart dried up forever. You
will hate me—you will curse my memory. But we are alone: no ear but thine
has heard, and beyond this death-bed the secret never need reach! My desire
is gratified in acknowledging you as my child, and my conscience lightened of
a load it has too long borne. Nay, will you not give the mother one of the
kisses you were ever ready to bestow upon the supposed nurse Desiree?'
I remaied motionless. My bosom was agitated by a hundred conflieting emotions.
That all she said was true I believed. I did not for an instant doubt
that I was her child. I felt the most intense resentment towards my father,
which then was transferring to her, for suffering me so long to remain ignorant
of my degraded birth. For I was not only a Quadroone but a slave—for such
Desiree still was to my father. Horror filled my mind and rendered me almost
insensible. For an instant—only an instant and once, the idea of concealing
my birth as she had suggested, occurred to me; but I immediately banished the
temptation. Your love was to me at that moment the anchor of my integrity.—
I could not deceive you, Edward! Under other circumstances—that is, if I had
not loved and been loved by you---that instinctive fear of the world, that innate
love of the world's good and honorable opinion, might have made me hesitate.
But I rejected the suggestion! I resolved that, however great the sacrifice, I
would willingly be the victim rather than you should be deceived. My mother
seemed to be reading my thoughts as she fixed her large, lustrous dying eye
upon me.
`Alice, breathe not the secret, or you will perish! Live and be happy! Only
by secrecy can you hold your present position.'
`I will perish, then,' I said firmly. `Mother, if such I must now call you---
you have poisoned my existence! Nay, I do not blame you! I loved you as
my nurse---I love you as my mother! I will embrace you! There I acknowledge
you to be my mother! I will acknowledge it to the world!'
She seized my hand and weeping implored me to preserve the fatal secret.--
At length I promised to conceal it from all but my father and you, and then fly
to a convent. She spent her last breath in endeavoring to prevail upon me to
lock it in my own breast: and finding all her entreaties ineffectual, began bitterly
to reflect upon herself for making the disclosure. But these regrets were
now unavailing either for herself or me, and she shortly after expired, imploring
in her last appealing look my forgiveness. I could only cast myself upon
her body and weep.
It was near sunset she died, and an hour after my father came home! I heard
his step on the portico! He was alone, and seemed from the tone in which he
spoke to his servant, to be in a cheerful mood. I was kneeling weeping by my
mother's couch, but instantly rose on his entrance, as some one told him that
Desiree was dead!
He merely glanced at me, and approaching the bedside gazed a few moments
upon the face of the once beautiful, and then sinking upon his knees bent over
it, laid his head upon the pillow and wept. The sound of his manly sobs in an
instant suppressed the fierce purpose in my breast with which on hearing his
step I had impulsively determined to meet him, charging him with my shame.
I stood by in silence till he rose up, kissed the lips of the dead, and walked to
the window. I knew then he had loved her---loved her more (as she had told
me) than his wife. Yes, or he would never have taken her child and thus assumed
her as her own. At length he approached me and asked me why I wept?
Instantly my spirit awoke within me, and I answered,
`I weep my mother's death. Doth it not become a daughter to show respect
for a mother dead.'
He started, less I suppose at the unusual tones of my voice, than at the expression
of my face. He gazed on me an instant with a look of suspicion, and
then said fiercely, while he pointed sternly towards the body,
`How---has she dared to confess---'
`Nay, father! words and rage are useless,' I said in as firm a tone as I could
command. `I know the whole truth! It is graven with a pen of fire upon my
soul. I am the daughter of that woman and my father's slave.'
He cast himself at my feet and implored my forgiveness---implored me to
keep the secret and save him and myself from ignominy and contempt. I was
resolute to divulge it, and that I would do so to the Count and to you! He menaced
and entreated me by turns, when finding me determined he said in a low
deep voice that sunk to my soul.'
`Then since you will be my slave, you shall know the power of a master!'
He took me by the arm. I followed him unresisting; and he locked me up
in a strong room, and there left me. The next morning he came to me early,
and entering, cast himself on his knees, and asking me to forgive him, imploring
me to regard my own happiness and keep the dreadful secret of my birth.
the Count --- nor but to one person in the world. Who that person was
(yourself) I declined telling him. With this he was better satisfied, and releasing
me desired me to breakfast with him. After breakfast he wrote two notes
and despatched them hurriedly by two slaves in opposite directions. While he
was at the door sending off the servants, I secretly despatched an intelligent
slave on foot to meet them at the gate of the avenue, and learn where they were
going. He returned and said one was to Father De L— the priest, the other
to Count —. I suspected this, and knew my father's object to be to unite
me to the Count at once. I pleaded illness, and shortly retired to my chamber.
In a few minutes afterwards I had packed up all my jewels and secreted them
about my person, and escaping from my window upon the gallery, gained the
stables and saddled my own riding horse. I mounted; several paths led in various
directions from the stables, and taking one of them that led by the river,
I galloped along its banks until I came to a woodman's cabin, where I often
had been before. I knew steamboats almost daily stopped there for wood, and I
intended to go on board the first. One was in sight as I came near the hut, and
soon approached. I told the woodman I wished to go on board, and that he
must accompany me and take my passage. The boat was bound---I may not
say in what direction lest you will hope to discover my retreat! In two hours
after leaving my father's roof I was on board and in the state-room from which
I now write you! This letter will be mailed to you from the first town.
I have not written you all dear Edward. I feel you will, while you acquit
me of rudely trifling with your honorable affection, do me the justice my painful
position challenges. In sacrificing your love, I have sacrificed myself. Do
not hope to find my retreat. I am going to bury myself in a convent where I
shall at least have serenity of mind Happy I never expect to be in this world.
Farewell, der Edward. We shall meet again in Heaven.
Alice May.
The subsequent destiny of the unhappy Alice is already known to the readers
of the preceeding Parts of this tale. Singular and unusual as the incidents
seem, they are taken from the life of one, who, not less hapless than she was
lovely, now rests in a flower-adorned grave in the little cemetry of the Convent
of the Sacred Heart.
| Alice May | |