 | I. My third book |  |
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.
| I. My third book | |