 | III. My third book |  |
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.
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