Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life Part 3

"Wicked! oh, not that, only there is no one of your own age here; come out a little while; he has been asking for you."

"For me?"

"Of course; who else should he think of? Why, child, you will never know how dearly we both love you."

"And you always will?" I asked, holding my breath in expectation of her answer.

"And always will, be sure of that. Ah! here he comes to promise for himself."

Yes; there he stood holding back the curtains, proud, smiling, and strong, as I shall always remember him.

"Ah! you have found her, silly thing, hiding away by herself," he exclaimed, kindly.

"I have just made a promise for you," answered the bride with gentle seriousness.

"Which I will keep; for henceforth, fair lady, am I not your slave."

"I have promised to love this girl so long as I shall live, and that you will be her very best friend, and love her dearly."

"Dearly, you say?"

"Most dearly."

"Next to yourself?"

"Next to myself; and after me, best of all."

"Ah, it is easy to promise that, for, next to yourself, sweet wife, she is the dearest creature in existence." She held my hand in hers while he was speaking. When he uttered the word wife, I felt her finger quiver as if some strange thrill had flashed down from her heart, and the broad white lids drooped suddenly, veiling the radiance of her eyes.

"Now that I have promised, let us seal the compact," he said, with touching seriousness; and lifting me for a moment in his arms, he pressed a kiss upon my lips.

"Why, how she trembles; don't be afraid, you sensitive little thing; come, come go with us and see how the people are making themselves happy."

The bride took his arm, and leading me with his disengaged hand, he crossed the drawing-room and went out on the flower-wreathed platform, where a band of music was filling the night with harmonies.

Here an ecstasy of feeling came upon me; I remembered all that both these persons had promised, and that it would be a solemn compact which they would never think of breaking. I should be with them, not for a time only, but so long as I lived. Remember, I was an imaginative girl, and knew but little of the mutability of human affairs. I only felt in my soul that these two persons whom I loved so entirely, would be faithful to the promise they had made that night, and this certainly filled me with exultation that was, for the time, something better than happiness. After a while, Mr. Lee dropped my hand, but it crept back to his, and I made a signal that he should bend his head.

"It is a promise," I whispered; "you will never, never send me away from you?"

"It is a promise," he answered, smiling down upon me.

"Good night," I said, longing to be alone in my room where I could feel of a certainty that the few words spoken that night had anch.o.r.ed me for life. "Good night; I shall never leave you or her while I live."

It seemed a rash promise, but I made it to G.o.d in my prayers that night.

The reader shall see how I kept it.

CHAPTER V.

AFTER THE WEDDING.

Our Jessie was born in Paris, a little more than a year after her parents were married, and a lovelier child never drew breath. I was in school then, and she was two months old before I saw her, but she had learned to smile, and was a beautiful, bright little creature even then.

How I wors.h.i.+pped the child! no elder sister ever rendered her heart more completely up to an infant of her own blood, than I gave mine. All the affection I had ever felt for the parents was intensified and softened into infinite tenderness for their little girl. In her I resolved to repay some of the kindness which had been so lavishly bestowed on me.

How this was to be done, I could not tell, but I had dreams of great sacrifices, unlimited devotion, and such care as one human being never took of another. Thus the first existence of this child was woven into my own better life and became a part of it.

Our Jessie was two years old when Mr. Olmsly joined us in Europe, and for the first time saw his little grandchild; before she had counted another year, the good old man was dead and buried in a strange country.

He left a will contrary to all expectation, written after he had seen and loved little Jessie. All his vast property was left to Mr. Lee and his wife, but on the death of Mrs. Lee, even though the husband was still living, one half the estate was to revert, unrestricted and uncontrolled, to her daughter.

This was all, and with it the persons in interest were satisfied; indeed, the property was large enough to have been divided half a dozen times, and still have been sufficient for the ambition of any reasonable person.

Mr. Lee did not return to the United States at the death of his father-in-law; there was, in reality, nothing to call him home. He had retired from active business soon after his marriage, and the old world had so many resources of knowledge and pleasure, for persons of their fine cultivation, that they lingered on, year after year, without a wish for change, sometimes travelling from country to country, but making Paris their head-quarters so long as I remained in school.

After that, we spent a year in Italy, and some months in Germany and Spain, where I became perfect mistress of the languages, and found happiness in imparting them to "Our Jessie," who became more lovely and lovable every year of her life.

At last we went to the Holy Land, and lingered a while in Egypt, where Mrs. Lee was taken ill, almost for the first time in her life, and then came the only real sorrow that we had known since Mr. Olmsly's death.

The moment it was possible, we returned to Paris, in order to get the best medical advice. It came all too soon; Mrs. Lee was p.r.o.nounced a confirmed invalid, some disease of the nerves, in which the spine was implicated, threatened a tedious, if not incurable illness.

At this time Jessie was ten years old, and I had entered the first stages of womanhood; as her mother became more and more frail, the dear child was almost entirely given up to me, and my love for her became absolute idolatry. The child had always been taught to call me aunt, and for her sake I was ready to give up all the bright social prospects that opened to me just then. Indeed, there never was a time in my life that I could not have found pleasure in sacrificing anything to the parents or the child.

One thing troubled Mrs. Lee at this time,--a craving desire to go home seized upon her. With an invalid's incessant longing, she wearied of the objects that had so pleasantly amused her, and sighed for rest. But it had been arranged that Jessie should be educated at the same school which I had left, and the gentle mother could not find it in her heart to be separated from that dear one.

Now came the time for my dream to be realized. Why should "Our Jessie"

be given up to the hard routine of a school, when I could make her studies easy and her life pleasant. It was in my power to keep the mother and child in one home.

I found Mr. Lee and his wife together one day, and made my proposition.

I would become Jessie's governess.

My generous friends protested against this. It was, they said, the opening of my life. In order to do this, I must give up the society which I had but just entered, and perhaps injure my own prospects in the future. No, no, they could not permit a sacrifice like this.

But if they were generous, I was resolute. To have Jessie always with me, had been the brightest dream of my girlhood. I could not be persuaded to give it up. What did I care for society, if she was to suffer the dreary routine of the school-life from which I had but just been emanc.i.p.ated? I really think it would have broken my heart had the dear child been left behind. But great love always prevails. We sailed for America a united family, happy even with the drawback of Mrs. Lee's illness, which in itself was seldom painful, and her untiring cheerfulness was never broken.

The valley of the Delaware had become highly cultivated in our long absence. A railroad ran up the banks of the river, from which our house could be seen standing on the hill-side miles and miles away. I started with surprise when it first met our view. A square stone tower, three stories high, loomed up behind the pointed gables and balconied front, giving a castellated air to the whole building.

This had been done by Mr. Lee's orders. He had drawn the plans, and his architect had carried them out splendidly. Our first view of the house was accompanied with exclamations of pleasure which delighted Mr. Lee, who had kept all his improvements a secret, that he might enjoy our surprise. Indeed, the site of the house was so finely uplifted from the valley, that the effect was that of many lordly mansions we had seen on the Continent, though I do not remember one more picturesque in itself, or that could command a landscape to compare with this in extent or varied beauty.

It was a lovely June day when we reached the Ridge; everything had been prepared for our reception. In the years of our absence nothing had been permitted to go to decay, but many improvements presented themselves as we turned up the carriage-road. A young peach-orchard had grown into bearing trees; grape trellices were tangled thickly with vines; choice fruit-trees of every kind had just lost their blossoms. A range of hot-houses glittered through the trees. All this made the Ridge more beautiful by far than it had been years before when it seemed a paradise to me. On entering the house, we were still more pleasantly surprised.

Everything rich and rare that a long residence abroad had enabled Mr.

Lee to collect, was arranged through the rooms,--bronzes, statuettes of marble, old china carvings, pictures, ornaments of malachite, and Lapes lazula, met us on every hand. All this might have seemed out of place in a country house of almost any ordinary description, where the occupant was likely to spend half the year in town; but Mr. Lee had fitted up this place as his princ.i.p.al and permanent residence. The health of his wife demanded quiet; her tastes required beautiful objects, and all these rare articles had been carefully selected for her pleasure. Here she found many a precious gem of art which she had seen in her travels, admired, but never thought to possess. But he had remembered her faintest preference, and the proofs of his unbounded devotion met her at every turn, as we entered, what was, in fact, the blending of an old and new home.

Not one article of the old furniture was missing, every sweet a.s.sociation had been preserved with religious care; but affection had grafted the new life she had been leading on the reminiscences of her girlhood, and, spite of her infirmity and fatigue, Mrs. Lee was supremely happy as she entered her home. The square tower was entirely modern, and everything it contained had been sent from abroad. The lower room was a library, with pointed windows, a black-walnut floor, and a small Gobeline carpet in the centre of the room, upon which a heavily carved table was placed. From floor to ceiling the walls were lined with books, richly bound, and carefully selected; the book-cases were each surmounted with a bas-relief in bronze, representing some cla.s.sical subject, while the gla.s.s that shut in the books was pure as crystal.

Easy-chairs of every conceivable pattern stood about this room, and between each book-case a bronze statuette reminded you of some cla.s.sic name, or hero known to history.

The second story of the tower opened into the main building; thus the large square chamber fitted up for Mrs. Lee was connected with two smaller rooms, one intended for her personal attendant, the other a dressing-room.

The princ.i.p.al window of this room opened upon a balcony, which overlooked the brightest portion of the terraces; near this window a couch was drawn, from which even an invalid might attain lovely glimpses of the cl.u.s.tering flowers, without changing her position. A carpet, thick and soft as a meadow in spring, covered the floor, and in the back part of the room stood a bed, surmounted by a canopy carved from some rare dark-hued wood, from which curtains of lace that a countess might have worn, swept to the floor, and clouded the bed, without in any degree obstructing the air. In this room everything invited to repose.