 | My third book |  |
Joanna, the Actress.
If her bloom be now less rare,
Let her have her youth again—
Let her be as she was then.
Let her have her proud, dark eyes,
And her petulant, quick replies;
Let her sweep her dazzling hand,
With its gesture of command,
And shake back her raven hair
With the old imperious air.
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
1. I.
FROM dawning the rain has fallen drearily, until
now it is toward nightfall. Perhaps it is fittest
the tale I have to tell should be told on such a day,
with such a cold, gray, weeping sky above, such phantom
winds wailing ghost-like and pitiful around. And
yet, looking backward over the years, the first picture
that meets my eyes is a very fair one.
An old English rectory, with broad, smooth lawn
in front, and rows of stately trees shutting it away
from the main road. On the portico sits an elderly
lady, placidly smiling to herself as she knits. She is
unmistakably a refined person. Her soft but silvery
hair is put plainly away from a brow almost as smooth
as in youth. Her muslin cap and kerchief are unsullied
in their purity, and the hands so busily plying
the knitting-needles are small and delicate. In spite
of the mild serenity of her face, however, she looks
like one whose prejudices, not easily aroused, would
yet be strong as life.
In the shade of the thick trees are walking, or rather
strolling, a young man, the Rector of Eversley, and
son of the old lady in the portico, and leaning upon
his arm his foster-sister, Joanna. She is a girl not
more than seventeen, and very beautiful. Her figure
and her eyes black, with an intensity of slumbering
power in their expression.
She was a legacy to Mrs. Huntington from a dying
friend, and the good lady had received her tenderly
and carefully educated her. Father, mother, fortune
she had none, save this kind adopted mother, and the
few hundred pounds which the Rev. Ralph Huntington,
former Rector of Eversley, dying, had bequeathed
to her.
Ralph Huntington, junior, the present rector and
successor to his father, was a young man at least ten
years her senior. He had a face outwardly calm, but
which yet gave indications of latent strength. He had
clear blue eyes, a lofty forehead, well-cut features, and
a decided-looking mouth. Just at present he was listening,
with a deprecatory air, to his companion's light
words:
“No, I won't, Ralph. I won't stay here and be quiet
Mrs. Ralph Huntington, No. 2, and sit by the chimney-corner
in winter, or on the portico in summer, knitting
stockings and cutting out clothing for the Eversley
poor children. I tell you I feel within me the promptings
of a different destiny. I can not help my fate.
Every man, and woman too, must work their own
weird. Yours is to stay here and preach, and visit
the poor and sick; mine—” and her eyes kindled.
“Yours is to ruin me and break my mother's heart,”
said Ralph Huntington, sadly.
The proud eyes softened. “Not so, Ralph. You
are cruel. You know your mother is dear to me as
if she were my own, and you—I do love you, Ralph.”
“And yet you are leaving me; giving me up voluntarily;
scale; burying all our dreams of the future; for the
sake of what, Joanna? Of hearing from a senseless
throng a few shouts, of having a few flower-wreaths
thrown at your feet, of being a mark for the pursuit
of every titled spendthrift.”
The eyes flashed again. “Not so, Ralph; you do
me bitter wrong. Your faith and mine are different.
Did you not say yourself, when we read Shakspeare
together, that I would make a finer actress than had
trod the boards since Mrs. Siddons? Did God create
faculties, and shower gifts as an idle freak? No! He
means me to use mine, and so I will. I am going to
London. I shall become an actress—a glorious one.
You know that as well as I do, and—then I will be
your wife, if you will have me, Ralph.”
He buried his face in his hands and smothered a
groan.
“Joanna, do you know how you are tempting me?
A minister—a clergyman of the Church, to marry an
actress! You know it is impossible. I must give
you up, or I must give up my vows, my profession,
all that my reason and my religion acknowledge as
sacred. Joanna, God knows how I love you! I
would do all but peril my soul for your sake, but I
must not drink the cup you offer me. Oh! will you
not turn away from this mad fancy? Is your love,
then, dead, Joanna? Have you forgotten the days
when you first came to us, a sobbing orphan? Then
you loved me—then you clung to me, and I sheltered
you in my bosom. Oh! I thought to keep you there
always. I thought to see you my happy, peaceful
wife, lighting up my home with your beauty, filling
love you, cherish you, watch over you, guard you
from every stain or sorrow of earth. Will you go,
Joanna?”
The tears gathered and sparkled on her long lashes,
but she dashed them away with an impatient gesture:
“I remember all—I know all, but I can heed nothing.
I must go; I shall go; I tell you my fate calls
me. Selfish! Do not make it harder for me.”
“And so you will go to my mother and say,
`Mother, in vain your love has cherished me, your
heart has clung to me. I am going away from you
into the great world you dread so much—going to be
an actress; to win fame that is dearer to me than
friends, or mother, or love.'”
How the eyes flashed now!
“Stop, Ralph,” she cried. “I will not have you so
unjust, so cruel. You know I shall do no such thing.
She will understand me better than you do. I shall
say to her, `Mother, my destiny is calling me. I
must go out into the world, but I will be pure, I will
be good; I will be true to your teachings; and when
I have fulfilled my mission, I will come back home
better than I went, and be your quiet daughter.' That
is what I will say, what I must say, and she will understand
me.”
“At least you will not say it to-night? Let her
rest one more night in peace. I tell you, Joanna, this
blow will break her heart.”
“Well, I will wait till to-morrow; and now, Ralph,
once more you shall be my audience—my teacher.”
The mad girl bowed her graceful figure, threw herself
into an attitude, and commenced the recital of the
angry as he could be with her; and yet there was such
fascination in her voice, her wonderful power of impersonation,
that he could not stop her. He listened.
They did not go in until after Mrs. Huntington had
rung for lights, and assembled her little household in
readiness for her son to read the evening prayers.
When these were over and the servants had left the
room, she remained for some time talking to her children
with unusual tenderness. She spoke of her dead
husband; of their happy life together; of the long
past time when he brought her to that same peaceful
home a bride; of the children that, one by one, had
glided, phantom-like, from the shelter of her arms, and
lain down in the village church-yard; and then she
told her son what a comfort he had been to her all the
days of his life; and, solemnly laying her hand upon
his head, she prayed that God might pour upon him
the fullness of blessing forevermore.
“And you too, my Joanna,” she said, drawing the
girl to her motherly bosom, “you have been to me as
my own in the place of the dead. You have been
very good to me, my daughter, and I pray that you
may walk through life in the pleasant paths of our
Father's peace.”
She kissed them both with a strange, clinging tenderness,
and then, taking her candle, she went alone
up the stairs, to the chamber so desolate now, where
her dead husband had slept so many years beside her,
where he had died, and whence he had been carried
forth to the burial.
“We have left mother too much to sit alone,” said
Joanna, thoughtfully. “We were out in the shrubbery
to her dead husband and children. I am afraid it's
not good for her. When I am gone, you must be
with her more.”
Ralph Huntington did not answer; he could not;
and she went up to him, this strange, impulsive girl,
and kissed him. It was the first kiss she had ever
voluntarily given him since the days of her childhood.
He took her to his heart and held her there for one
moment, and then, opening his arms, he said,
“There, go, and may the Lord guide you, Joanna.”
That night there came to the silent house a mysterious
visitor. No one knew the hour of his coming;
but the next morning, when the breakfast was brought
in, they waited a few moments for the mother, and
then Joanna went to call her. Ralph Huntington had
followed to the foot of the stairs. He heard her enter
the room, and then, startled at the strange silence, he
went up also. The young girl stood at the bedside,
with fixed gaze and face pale as marble, and there lay
his mother, with the smile frozen upon her placid
mouth, her half-open eyes cold and glassy—dead!
The messenger, who comes but once to any, had
sought her in her sleep.
This great sorrow drew the hearts of those two
mourners nearer to each other. It was almost pitiful
to see Joanna striving to soothe her lover's grief—
quietly, noiselessly taking the place of the departed—
superintending the household, summoning the servants
for morning and evening prayers, even attending patiently
to all the poor of the parish who had been the
dead Mrs. Huntington's pensioners.
The year of mourning was fully over before any
thing was done to break in upon the solemn calm
which had fallen upon their lives. Ralph Huntington
had said not one word in the mean time of the
love which every day had deepened, and which constantly
spoke, in spite of himself, in the tender looks
he bent upon her; the nameless attentions and care
for her smallest comfort; in the very tones of his
voice.
Again it was summer. Prayers were just over, and
the two sat together in the rectory parlor. Joanna
spoke:
“Next week, Ralph, I shall leave you. I have
waited, because I wished to pass this year of sorrow
quietly; I wished to help you as best I could to bear
it. But my arrangements are all made. I am going
to London to be fitted for the stage. I shall reside in
the family of a manager who heard me read when I
was last there, and who has promised me an engagement.
You will not see or hear from me again until
I have succeeded.”
Ralph Huntington could not have started with more
surprise if the earth had opened at his feet. He only
turned toward her with a blind, questioning gaze; he
only said, in tones half of inquiry, half of passionate
reproach,
“Joanna?”
“It is useless, Ralph. Do not let us waste the time
we have yet to be together in persuasions or reproaches.
My mind is made up, and the whole world
could not change it; my word is given; I go to London
next week.”
“Have you thought, Joanna? You have voluntarily
parish, with the poor. Does not duty call on you to
keep it—you, her daughter by love, by care, by adoption?”
“Is that generous, Ralph? Because I have sacrificed
my own plans to help you for one year, to call
on me to resign them? I am independent. I am
eighteen years old now—old enough to choose, and I
have chosen for myself. I shall abide by it.”
“Yes,” he said, bitterly, “you have chosen—chosen
sin, worldliness, vanity; nay, ingratitude—chosen to
give up home, love, peace.”
“You are wrong, you are unkind; but you love
me, and I forgive you. I have not chosen as you say.
I have chosen to follow the leading of my own genius,
to obey my destiny. Instead of ordering dinners and
mending linen, to be—myself—to live my largest,
fullest life. I will not give it up!”
He drew nearer to her. His voice took a tenderer
tone:
“Joanna, you will not give up my love? Can any
other love you as I have loved you—I, who have
cherished you all the days of your life? When you
were a little, wee, helpless girl, and came here first, a
dark, elfin-looking thing, with your black robes, your
black eyes and hair, and your pale face, my heart made
its election. Do you mean I shall cease to love you
now?”
“I mean you shall not. I defy you to cease to love
me, Ralph Huntington. I will have your love. I
will reign over your heart. You know this. I will
come back after a while, if you will have me, and be
your wife.”
“Hear me, Joanna. I will not have you. You
have well said, I shall love you to my death. My
heart owns your sway. I can not cast you off, but I
tell you before heaven that, if you are an actress, you
shall never be my wife. I may love you so that my
heart will break, so that the life will die out of my
tortured being, but I will not marry you. I am a
priest of the most High God. I will not give up my
vocation—I will not bring a stain upon my calling.
Nay, I need a wife—I shall even think it my duty to
woo and win some other woman to share my life.
Will you have it so, Joanna?”
She laughed scornfully.
“Yes, if you can do it; but your chains will not be
easily broken. You say you will not give up your
vocation. Neither will I, nor yet will I give you up.
I will haunt you. You will see me ever beside you—at
nightfall, in the quiet noonday, ay, even in your pulpit,
you will look down and see my face in the old
familiar pew, and memory will overmaster you. If
you seek to woo another, you will call her Joanna by
mistake, and the name will summon to your side a
spirit—a fierce, uncontrollable spirit, which yet you
love, which yet loves you. You do not know how,
from a child, this purpose of being an actress has been
growing strong within me. I used to loathe, sometimes,
with unspeakable loathing, this still, quiet life.
In the rectory garden, walking all alone, visions of the
great, bright, far-off world would haunt me; I would
hear the applause of the multitude like the noise of
many waters in my ears, and the purpose has grown
with my growth, until, I tell you, I would die sooner
than give it up.”
Her face glowed with enthusiasm as she ceased
speaking. He felt, rather than thought, that she was
more beautiful than ever; and with this there came to
him a blinding, suffocating, choking sense of loss—a
feeling as if something more than his own life was
being taken from him, and suddenly he fell down at
her feet in the utter prostration of a deathly swoon.
She chafed his hands and bathed his temples, and
very soon he recovered. He rose, and she said, calmly,
“Good-night, Ralph,” and without another word
left the room.
She kept her resolution. The next week she went
to London—alone, for she would not permit Ralph to
accompany her. He was left to the darkness, the loneliness,
the silence of his blighted existence. She went
forth in her proud beauty, her hope, her strength, to
work out alone her problem of life.
2. II.
Three years after, the name of Rev. Ralph Huntington,
Rector of Eversley, appeared in the list of arrivals
at the Globe Hotel. It was afternoon, and the rector
sat alone in his room, gazing listlessly into the fire.
He had come up to London with no business, no settled
purpose; driven by an impatient longing to see, or
at least to hear, something of Joanna. In the past
three years he was fearfully changed. He was only
thirty-one, but he looked ten years older than that.
There were already silver threads among the curling
rings of his brown hair. His face was thin, his figure
steadfast, as of one who has no more to hope from life.
There was a tap upon his door—then a waiter entered,
placed a letter in his hand, and retired. What was
there in that bold, yet delicate chirography of the superscription
to bring such a sudden crimson to his pale
cheek, to make his fingers tremble so as he broke the
seal? Inside there were but a few lines, which said,
“Go to-night to the Princess's Theatre, Rev. Ralph
Huntington; look well to the stage, and you will see
Joanna. Such contact will not tarnish your holy cloth
for once, and it is your only chance of seeing her whom
I know, as well as if you had told me, you seek in
London.”
That was all—no date, no signature, no clew to her
abode. Those, his parishioners, his brother clergymen,
who thought Ralph Huntington such a calm, saintly
man, so far above all the passions of earth, would not
have comprehended the emotion which, for the first
moment, seemed to paralyze all the faculties of his being;
which, the next, caused him to press that sheet
of paper to his lips; then to sink upon his knees, murmuring
a woman's name in tones of adjuration, of reproach,
of entreaty; which made him pray to God
such prayers for strength as are only borne upward,
from our hearts to our lips, by tide-waves of sorest
trouble.
That mocking, half-derisive letter was answered as
Joanna knew well that it would be. When she went
upon the stage that night Ralph Huntington's face was
one of the first to meet her eye. What shall I say of
her acting? She was determined to convince him
that she had not mistaken her vocation. She played
house rang with applause, and every time her eye
sought his, as if in his presence was the crowning glory.
Not once was his gaze removed from her face. In
the intervals of her acting, when her features were
in repose, he noted her most keenly. To him, the
face whose changes he had watched from childhood
revealed a history. She had triumphed, but she had
also suffered. Her cheek was a shade thinner, her
figure the least in the world less rounded and symmetrical.
But there was something gone which he
valued more than bloom and symmetry—her faith in
the world, her trust, her unconsciousness of sin. In
her actual life he knew she was blameless. He had
confidence no less in her principles than in her love—
the memory-spell which would link her to him, to the
pure atmosphere of her early home. And yet the delicate
green was gone from the leaf, the primrose tint
from the blossom. He read this, alas! too plainly in
the expression of habitual scorn which sat on her
mouth whenever it was in repose. Her love, too, that
had changed. Perhaps it had not grown less strong,
but it was less active: she had put it under the feet
of her ambition. Even now, when they had not met
for three years, there was more of triumph than tenderness
in the glance she cast upon him. And yet
the passion which time had no power to conquer rose
up in his heart and struggled once more for the mastery.
He was sore beset by a frantic impulse to give
up his ministry, his religion; to cast himself at her feet,
and pray her to be his wife. But in that hour he shut
his eyes and sent his soul forth in prayer. Strength
came from heaven, as manna to the fainting Israelites
calmly forth.
He made no farther effort to see or communicate
with Joanna save a note directed to her theatrical
name and address. Inside it simply said,
“Joanna, will not this life weary you some time?
When it does, Eversley Rectory is open for your return,
and so is your brother's heart. Come back, at
any time, when you so will. No mother's arms ever
welcomed returning child more gladly than I will welcome
you. I have looked into your face to-night.
You are triumphant, but not happy. May God keep
you safely, and bring you back before you die.”
That was all. The next morning the Rev. Ralph
Huntington left London and set out for his living of
Eversley.
3. III.
There was a new parishioner at Eversley. For
some time before the rector's visit to London, workmen
had been busily engaged in fitting up and beautifying
a fine old estate called “The Grange.” It had
been uninhabited for some years, and now, report said,
had been purchased by a Mr. Duncan, a man of great
wealth and high social position. During Mr. Huntington's
absence, the family, consisting of Mr. Duncan,
his sister, and his only daughter, had taken possession,
and the rector saw them for the first time in church
on the following Sabbath.
Alice Duncan, the fragile, delicate young girl sitting
between her father and her aunt, was a revelation to
saintly brown eyes and exquisitely clear complexion,
had more of heaven in it than earth. Unconsciously
to himself, she interested him deeply. Her fixed attention
was a flattering compliment.
The next day he called upon the new-comers, and
after that the acquaintance progressed rapidly. He
was an almost daily visitor. Perhaps if Alice Duncan
had been more like Joanna he would have liked her
less. Two beings so opposite could hardly have been
found. To Alice, ambition was a word almost without
signification. She lived but in her affections—
love to God and love to man. In place of Joanna's
high health and bounding exuberance of life, she inherited
from her mother, who died young, a sensitive
organization and extreme delicacy of constitution. The
sentiment Mr. Huntington felt for the two was so unlike
that he never thought of comparison. To such
love as he had bestowed upon Joanna no other had
power to move him. He never had felt, he never
could feel, a vestige of it for any other woman. He
loved her passionately; sinfully, he called it, in the
stern self-immolation which vainly strove to banish
her image from his heart; and it was with a sense of
rest he turned to Alice.
This regard at least was pure—pure as a mother's
for her child, a brother's for his sister, and yet it was
unspeakably sweet and refreshing. It seemed so natural
to talk to her of all that interested himself, of his
studies, his parish, his poor and sick people, and she
assisted him in all that her feebleness would allow.
Her health was failing. He could see that day by
day, as he visited her, and it was very pleasant to note
to her cheek the rose-tint he loved to see, and summoned
to her lips her brightest smiles.
One day he had been sitting with her a few hours,
and on his way home her father joined him. They
walked for a time in silence, and then Mr. Duncan
said, apparently with great effort,
“Mr. Huntington, do you not perceive that my
daughter is failing? But no, you can not see it. You
do not watch her as I watch her, and, besides, she
brightens up so at your coming. Mr. Huntington,
when life is in danger, above all a life so precious as
hers, my last, my only child, it is no time for delicacy.
Alice loves you. No matter how I have found out
her secret. She knows not that it is in my possession.
I think, if you could love her, if she could be made
happy, my child would live. I believe your heart is
free. Perhaps you have never thought of this before,
but—could you love her?”
The father paused and looked at the silent face beside
him as if more than life hung upon the reply.
Ralph Huntington considered the question for a moment.
His heart had been so utterly absorbed in his
hopeless passion for Joanna that he had never dreamed
that his constant visits might awaken in her sentiments
warmer than his own.
To one whose affections were free the proposal
would have been a very flattering one. But the rector's
nature was not worldly or mercenary. He did
not reflect for an instant on the wealth and social distinction
which would accrue to Mr. Duncan's son-in-law.
He only asked his heart the question whether
he could indeed forsake all others, and cherish the
prophecy was fulfilled—she haunted him. Look where
he would, he could see nothing but one dark, beautiful
face, with its splendid eyes, its mocking smile, its
lips, tempting, yet far away as the apples of Tantalus.
With a struggling attempt at self-command he turned
to Mr. Duncan:
“Allow me to leave you now, sir, and in the morning
I will answer your question. The thought of
winning your daughter had never before entered my
mind. I must have time to seek a response of my
own heart.”
He hurried home. He entered his study and fastened
the door behind him. All night long he paced
restlessly to and fro, or knelt in an agony of prayer
before the low reading-desk where his father before
him had so often sought God, not in vain. He considered
the subject in all its bearings.
On one hand was his passion for Joanna—Joanna,
the actress, separated from him by an impassable barrier—on
the other, this young, pure life, ready to distill
itself in love for his sake; this life which he could
save—a gentle wife, ready to soothe away every shadow
from his heart—one worthy, ay, ten times more
than worthy of his love—a father looking to him to
be the preserver of his daughter. The struggle was a
long one. In the end, his compassion, his esteem triumphed.
The next morning he was closeted for half an hour
with Mr. Duncan. To him he laid bare his heart. In
conclusion he said,
“Now I will abide your decision. You see plainly
this Joanna, this strange girl, is separated from me forever.
marriage with her, nor, if I would, would she give up
her calling for my sake. Yet I have loved her—how
well, God knoweth. Your gentle Alice is far more
suited for my wife, more worthy of my regard, and I
can promise to cherish her very tenderly. You shall
decide. If, knowing all, you choose to give her to
me, I will do precisely as you think best about telling
her of this former passion.”
Mr. Duncan pressed his hand fervently.
“God bless you,” he said; “you will preserve her
to me. No: never tell her that any other was ever
dear to you. I know her nature—it would kill her.
Go to her now. Let her think the proposal comes
only from you. Give her the joy of believing herself
beloved.”
Ralph Huntington went into the morning-room, as
one of the pleasantest apartments in the Grange was
called. There he found the gentle invalid. As usual,
her face brightened at his approach; and he—Heaven
help him!—on the very threshold his feet were stayed.
An image seemed to confront him—Joanna—not
as he had seen her last, scornful, defiant, mocking as
she was brilliant, but pale, sorrowful, tender. For
one moment he put his hand to his eyes, he breathed
a silent prayer, and the delusion vanished. He sat
down by Alice Duncan; he took her hand in his; he
asked her to be his wife; but he scarcely heard the
words of her reply until she said,
“I am not worthy, Ralph—not good enough for a
minister's wife—for your wife.”
Then he looked at her with an expression of agony
on his face.
“Alice,” he cried, with such energy of entreaty that
it startled her, “don't say that again—never say that
again. You are ten times too good for me, but I
would die to make you happy.”
And she, resting her head against his arm, thought,
“Oh, how tenderly he loves me!”
Once, however, that the engagement was fairly formed,
it began to grow in a certain sense pleasant to Mr.
Huntington. It was a pleasure to see how rapidly
Alice's health improved; how she grew able to interest
herself in all his plans and labors. His daily visits
became a habit, a kind of necessity to himself as well
as to her.
True, Joanna's presence was very often with him.
In the might of her proud spirit she maintained her
empire still; but he reasoned as most men would have
done—she had given him up, she had separated herself
from him, already, quite as completely as any other
ties could separate them—his marriage would not
widen the breach, and—Alice did make him happier.
He had commenced by intending to marry her for the
sake of her life; he was now rejoicing in it for his
own.
The day for their marriage had been postponed but
a few weeks from their first engagement, and now it
was the night before the bridal morning. The rector
had lingered with his betrothed until twilight, and now
he walked over the fields to his own home. For once
he was not thinking of Joanna. Alice, in her youth,
her beauty, her maiden innocence, to-morrow to become
his own, was in all his thoughts.
He went into the rectory, into the parlor where he
had received his mother's last blessing. A figure stood
started back, believing himself to be indeed haunted;
but a warm, human hand was laid on his arm; a mocking
voice said,
“I got the note you were so kind as to write me before
you left London. You told me to come home.
I wanted a little rest, and so here I am. Is my brother
glad to see me?”
“Joanna.”
“Joanna, indeed! Is that all you can say? Oh, I
came at an inconvenient time. Is that it? You did
not mean to ask me to your wedding, and here I am.”
“Joanna, you are cruel—cruel not to me only, but
to one who is as good and pure as an angel—whose
happiness depends upon mine. You gave me up.
You separated yourself from me forever, and now you
come here to shadow Alice Duncan's life also.”
“And is my life nothing, most benevolent man, that
you do not take it at all into account? It is false,
what you say about my forsaking you. I did not forsake
you any more than you forsook me. You were
resolved to continue in your profession, I was resolved
to cling to mine. But have I not been true to you?
Think you any other man could ever have won me for
his wife? I tell you more than one has tried, who
would have laid wealth and title at my feet. Is my
love nothing to me, that you would outrage it, trample
on it, kill it, and not even send me word to come to its
funeral?”
She paused; her eyes flashed fire through her tears,
for she was weeping. He had never seen her weep
before since her childhood. The sight moved him.
He put his arm about her, and would have drawn her
clasp.
“No, I tell you—no, Ralph Huntington. You have
wounded me in the tenderest point. After this I scorn
your professions. Do not think that I am come to
interfere with the happiness of your pure and beautiful
bride. I am too proud for such revenge. I shall
not trouble you long. I am going to pass this night
in my old room, where neither your father nor mother
would ever have refused me shelter, and then I
shall go to church to-morrow to see the brave wedding
there will be, and after that you shall see me no
more. Good-night, Reverend Ralph Huntington.”
So saying, she swept from the room, just as she had
done once before when she announced her fixed resolve
to go to London, and the rector heard her climbing
the stairs to her own chamber.
Once more he kept sleepless vigil. Joanna was
there, separated from him by a few partitions, a few
feet of space. He had seen her, talked with her, heard
her call his name, and yet on the morrow he was to
be married to another! In vain he recalled Alice
Duncan's gentle face, her pure heart, her tender love.
He felt bitterly that for one kiss from Joanna's lips he
could give up all. But the conflict of a strong soul
with temptation, the prayer of a tortured heart to its
God, are not for the pen to portray. Once more duty
triumphed. When he came forth from his study the
next morning Joanna was gone.
He saw her again at the church. The marriage ceremony
had been performed, and he turned away from
the altar with his young wife leaning upon his arm.
Then it was that Joanna's eyes met him, as he had
At that moment a wail range through the church as if
a strong heart had broken. The rector dared not pause.
He hurried from the house, and led his gentle Alice
to the carriage that was to convey them on a short
bridal tour.
When he returned a week after, he heard the story
which was in all the villagers' mouths—how Joanna
Montford, the adopted daughter of the late rector, was
there at her brother's wedding; how, just as he was
leading out his bride, she had given a sudden wail and
fallen in a dead faint; how she had been carried home
and restored by the rector's servants, and the next day
had departed for London.
Somehow, too, this news came to Alice in her bridal
happiness. She had remembered the beautiful face in
the church, and the cry which startled her on her bridal
morning, and had asked the stranger's name of
some one who had given her the history.
Three days after their return home the Rector of
Eversley entered the parlor, where his wife was reclining
on the sofa. He drew up an ottoman and sat down
beside her. She brushed back his hair, very full of
gray threads now, with her thin hand, and then, winding
her arm about his neck, she said,
“Come, Ralph, I am going to turn catechist, and ask
you a few questions—may I?”
“What is there that you may not do, Alice?”
“Well, then, when you've told me so much about
your parish, and your father and mother, and, I
thought, about all your life, why did you never tell
me of your adopted sister, Joanna Montford?”
“I—I—she had gone off to be an actress, Alice.”
“Well, was that quite reason enough? Didn't she
love you, Ralph? Forgive me if I ought not to ask,”
she added, seeing that he remained silent. “But I
may ask this, mayn't I?—did my husband ever love
her?”
Not for his own life, not for hers, which in that moment
he felt was more precious than his own, could
Ralph Huntington have deceived his wife. His face
crimsoned; he covered it with both his hands.
“I told your father,” he gasped—“I told your father,
Alice, and we thought we were acting for the
best. Oh, my wife, my precious wife, can you forgive
me?”
She comprehended, in that moment, with the quick
intuition of affection, the whole story.
“Forgive you!” she said, gently removing his hands
from his face and laying her soft cheek beside it; “that
word is not admissible from me to you, dear Ralph.
I have nothing to forgive. I can only pity you.”
He sank on his knees beside her, he drew her head
to his shoulder, and then caressing her, he said,
“But I love you now, Alice—you, my own innocent
darling. You must believe it; and this other—this
Joanna, I could never have married her.”
But she saw the spasm of agony which constricted
his features, and soothing him, and lying there still,
with her head on his breast, she won from him the
whole story of his love and his sorrow. Alas! he
knew not that even then the iron was entering her
soul; the heart that loved him was being broken.
4. IV.
A year had the Rev. Ralph Huntington been married,
and now his wife lay dying. Her father had understood
her nature. The knowledge that her husband
had once loved another was killing her; and yet
her death was beautiful as her life had been. During
the year that she had been the rector's wife she had
not been wholly unhappy. There was joy in being
near him, in hearing the tones of his voice, in watching
the play of his features—joy above all in feeling
that her sympathy added to his happiness. But beneath
all this there was an undercurrent. She felt
that there was one name to which his heart echoed as
it could never echo to hers; one voice which had
power to move the deep currents of his nature as hers
never could; and in every rose of happiness which
her fingers gathered lurked the thorns of despair.
It was a warm summer day, but Alice Huntington
was very cold. Her hand was chill as it lay in her
husband's clasp. Her eyes were fixed upon his face,
and she murmured,
“It is sweet, beloved, to pass away thus, with my
hand in yours, knowing, at last, that I am very dear
to your priceless heart.”
Alas! unsatisfied Joanna, even in that death hour
thou must haunt him. A letter was given to him,
whose author he knew but too surely. He crumpled
the paper in his hand, and then he withdrew to the
window to read it. It said,
“Well, Ralph Huntington, proud stoic, Christian
Are two victims enough? I hear your wife
is dying, and I— Well, hearts break, sometimes, that
are strong. I am still true to you. Joanna.”
A wave of agony rolled upward to his lips, but he
choked it back again. He went to his wife's beside.
He was startled at the change which had come over
her in his absence, momentary as it was. Death had
already set his seal on her fair young face.
“That letter,” she said, faintly—“was it from Joanna?”
“Yes, my wife. She has heard of your illness, and
she accuses me of being your murderer. Oh, Alice,
angel Alice, is it true?” He threw himself upon his
knees—he bowed his head upon his hands in anguish.
Once more, with a powerful effort of her failing
strength, she raised it, and dropped upon his brow a
kiss of heavenly peace.
“No,” she said, tenderly; “no, my Ralph, my own
husband, it is not true. If you had not loved me, if
you had not married me, I should have died long ago.
Oh, believe this, believe it always. The year that I
have been your wife is the happiest of my life. You
have been very good to your motherless girl.”
“Oh, Alice, if I had! Oh, if I could think so!
God knows I have wished to make you happy. God
knows I would die to save your precious life. I shall
die very soon—I feel it, and then, beloved, purified
from all dross of earth, we shall meet again, and be
united forever.”
She lifted her eyes to heaven with a look of faith,
of hope, of ineffable peace, and then she said,
“I feel very sleepy. I want to sleep now. I'll
talk to you again when I wake up.”
For two hours he held her. He sat in a sort of
trance. At first his tears fell fast upon that pale, upturned
brow. Then that mood passed, and he lifted
his heart in sacred faith to the land whither his wife
was going. She had grown very cold in his clasp before
he realized that the smile which her face wore
was but the token left by the angel of Death—that
Alice Huntington's awaking would be in heaven.
His grief was not loud, but deep. Three days after,
he turned away from the grave under the willows a
chastened man, with the path on which he hoped to
walk toward the “land that is very far off” stretching
out straight and narrow, to be traversed now with solitary,
longing heart, by lonely feet.
5. V.
Alice Huntington had been dead six months, when
once more a letter came to the Rector of Eversley
from Joanna. This time the chirography was hurried
and irregular, as if written by one who was suffering
much. It ran thus:
“Ralph Huntington, you are free now—come to me.
I summon you by the memory of your dead father
and mother, both of whom loved me. I summon you
by the love you yourself have so many times breathed
into my ears. The barrier is removed. Joanna
Montford is an actress no longer, but—she is dying.
Come to me at once. Wait a day, and it may be too
late. Oh, Ralph, I have loved you with a love that is
stronger than life. If it gives me any claim on you,
come to me.”
The rector traveled all night. The next morning
he stood in Joanna's presence. In a stately room,
surrounded by every luxury, she lay, but the shadow
of death was on that polished brow. She had well
said—“Strong hearts break sometimes.”
“You have come,” she said, the hectic flush deepening
on her cheek; “I knew you would—I expected
you. The drama is almost over. Soon the curtain
will fall. I wanted one last scene. Clasp me in your
arms now; kiss me. I tell you I am an actress no
longer, and your canonicals wont suffer. I want to
see how the kiss will thrill my dying lips for which
my living ones have longed so vainly.”
He obeyed her. He clasped her to his heart; he
could scarcely have helped it had his eternal birthright
depended upon it. He kissed her many times.
And then she spoke. This time her voice was not
mocking, not scornful, but earnest, pleading, thrilling,
in its tones of supplication:
“Now, Ralph, you will marry me. The doctor says
I have not more than three hours to live, and I am
going to be your wife before I die. It was for this I
sent for you.”
The Rector of Eversley turned pale.
“I can not, Joanna—I can not. My wife has been
dead but six months.”
“But you were true to her while she lived. Have
I not suffered enough for her already? You married
her, in the first place, more for her sake than for your
own, and now you must marry me, not for my sake
only, but for the dear old love. Listen, Ralph. I am
not an actress. That barrier is gone. All my pride
is gone with it. It is your Joanna—your poor, proud,
to be your wife three short hours. Then I will die,
Ralph, and not trouble you any more.”
He was vanquished. A groan burst from his lips.
“It shall be as you say, my own first love. Oh,
Joanna, God knows I would have you live! Oh, if
my arms could shelter you! if my love could save
you!”
She smiled sadly.
“It is too late now; but we must lose no time.
There is a clergyman in the next room. I got all
things ready. I knew you would come. I knew I
should be your wife.”
Her look was bright and triumphant. In a few
moments more the nuptial benediction had been pronounced,
and the two were left again alone.
She put her arms around his neck; she drew his
head down upon her pillow, and then she said, while
her whole face seemed to glow with the fullness of
content,
“There, Ralph, I am your wife. I had faith—I always
knew this day would come some time. I am
dying, but that matters little. My wild heart is at
rest. Love me, Ralph, love me.”
And he did love her. Into the lap of those two
hours he lavished the hoarded love of a lifetime. She
died in his arms, lifting to his the fading glory of her
eyes, clinging to his neck, murmuring his name. Her
life had been an ovation at the shrine of her ambition
—her death was a sacrifice to her love.
Doubly sorrow-stricken, the Rector of Eversley bore
home the dead body of his second wife. She was laid
in the church-yard, with a few feet of ground between
months before the man they had both loved, grown
prematurely old and grief-stricken, laid off, at last, the
worn-out armor with which he had fought his Battle
of Life, and went to his long sleep between his two
wives. Whose shall he be in the resurrection?
| My third book | |