Jessie Graham Part 12

"Certainly,-certainly," said Mrs. Bartow, but whether the certainly were affirmative or negative was doubtful.

Mrs. Reeves accepted the latter, and then turned to Mrs. Bellenger to remove from her mind any unpleasant impression she might have received.

This, however, was wholly unnecessary, for Mrs. Bellenger was too much absorbed in her own reflections to hear what Mrs. Bartow had been saying, and to Mrs. Reeves' remark, "I trust you do not credit the ridiculous story," she answered:

"What story? I heard nothing."

Thus relieved in that quarter, Mrs. Reeves became rather more composed, and for the remainder of the evening addressed Mrs. Bartow as "my dear,"

complimenting her once or twice upon her youthful looks, and saying several flattering things of Jessie.

CHAPTER VIII.-A RETROSPECT.

The flowers in the garden and the leaves on the trees were withered and dead. The luxuriant hop-vine, which grew about the farm-house door, had yielded its bountiful store, and loosened from its summer fastening trailed upon the ground. The cows no longer fed among the hills, the winter stores had been gathered in, there was a thin coating of ice upon the pond, and a dark, cold mist upon the mountain. There was a pallid hue upon Ellen's cheek, and a look of strange unrest in her eyes as day after day, all through the autumn time, she watched for the coming of one who had said, "I will be with you when the forest casts its leaf."

The time appointed had come, and the brown leaves were "heaped in the hollow of the wood" or tossed by the autumn wind, and the pain in Ellen's heart grew heavier to bear, as morning after morning she said:

"He will come to-day," and night after night she wept at his delay.

But there came a day at last, a bright November day, when she saw him in the distance, and with a cry of joy she buried her face in the pillows of the lounge, saying to her mother:

"I am faint and sick."

She lay very white and still, while kind Aunt Debby chafed her clammy hands, and when they said to her, "Mr. Bellenger is here," she simply answered, "Is he?" for she had never told them that she expected him.

He said he was pa.s.sing through the town, and for old acquaintance sake had stopped over one train, and the unsuspecting family believed it all, and when he said that Ellen stayed too much indoors, that a ride would do her good, they offered no remonstrance, but wrapping her up in warm shawls sent her out with him upon the mountain, where he told her how, through all the dreary months of his absence, one face alone had shone on him, one voice had sounded in his ear, and that the voice which now said to him so mournfully:

"I almost feared you had forgotten me, and it seemed so dreadful after all were gone, Walter, Jessie, and everybody. Forgive me, William, but when I remembered Jessie's sparkling beauty and knew she was a belle, I feared you would not come."

William Bellenger was conscious of a pang, for he knew how terribly he was deceiving the trusting girl sitting there upon the rock beside him, the color coming and going upon her marble cheek, and a tear dimming the l.u.s.ter of her eyes. On his way thither he had resolved to rouse her from the dream, to tell her she must forget him, but when he looked upon her unearthly beauty, and saw how she clung to him, he could not do it. So when she spoke of Jessie as one who might rival her, he said:

"Yes, Miss Graham is charming, but believe me, Nellie, I can love but one, and that one you."

The bright round spot deepened on her cheek, and William felt for an instant that had he the means, he would bear the poor invalid away to a sunnier clime, and by his tender care nurse her back to health. But he had not. There were bills on bills which he could not pay. His father, too, was straitened, for old Mr. Bellenger had left his entire fortune by will to his wife, who had refused to sanction the reckless extravagance of her son's family. A rich bride, then, must cancel William's debts, and as Ellen was not rich, he dared not talk to her of marriage, but whispered only of the love he felt for her. And Ellen grew faint and chill listening to this idle mockery, for the November wind blew cold upon the bleak mountain side. It was in vain that William wrapped both shawl and arm about her, hugging her closer to him until her golden hair rested on his bosom. He could not make her warm, and at last he took her home, telling her by the way that he would come again ere long and stay with her a week.

"I will explain to your mother then," he said, "and until that time you'd better say nothing of the matter, lest it should reach the ears of my proud family. I would write to you, but that would create surprise.

So you'll have to be content with knowing that I do most truly love you."

And Ellen tried to be content, though after he was gone she cried herself to sleep, and for a time forgot her wretchedness. She had taken a severe cold upon the mountain, and for many weeks she stayed indoors, thinking through all the long winter evenings of William, and wis.h.i.+ng he would come again, or send her some message.

At last, as her desire to see him grew stronger, she resolved to write and bid him come, for she was dying.

"I know that it is so," she wrote. "I see it in the faces of my friends, I hear it in my mother's voice, I feel it in my failing strength. Yes, I am surely dying, won't you come? It is but a little thing for you, and it will do me so much good. Do you really love me, William? I have sometimes feared you didn't as I loved you. I sometimes thought you might be glad when the gra.s.s was growing on my grave, because you then would have no dread lest your proud relatives should know how you paused a moment to look at the frail blossom fading by the wayside. If it is so, William, don't tell it to me now; let me die believing that you really do love me. Come and tell me so once more, let me hear your voice again; then when I am dead, and they go to lay me down in the very spot where you found me sleeping that summer afternoon, you needn't join the mourners, for the world might ask why you were there. But when I'm buried, William, and the candles are lighted in my dear old home, then go alone where Nellie lies. It will make you a better man to pray above my grave, and if you know in your secret heart that you have been deceiving me, G.o.d will forgive you then. I am growing tired, William, there's a blur before my eyes and I cannot see. Come quickly, William, do."

This letter Ellen carried to the office herself, for she sometimes rode as far as the village with her grandfather, and thus none of the family knew that it was sent, or guessed why, for many days, her face grew brighter with a joyous, expectant look, which Aunt Debby said "came straight from Heaven." The letter reached William just as he was dressing for Charlotte Reeves' party, and tearing open the envelope, he read it with dim eye and quivering lip, for the writer had a stronger hold on his affections than he had at first supposed.

"I will go and see her," he said to himself, "though I can carry her no comfort unless I fabricate some lie. Poor, darling Nellie! It will not be a falsehood to tell her that I love her best of all the world, even though I cannot make her my wife. Perhaps she don't expect me to do that," and crus.h.i.+ng into his pocket the letter, stained with Nellie's tears and his, he went, as we have seen, to the house of festivity, mingling in the gay scene, and letting no opportunity pa.s.s for showing to those around that Jessie Graham was the chosen one, though all the while his thoughts were away in Deerwood, where the dying Nellie waited so anxiously his coming, and whither in a few days he went, taking care to say to Jessie that he was going into the country, and might possibly visit the farm-house before he returned.

CHAPTER IX.-NELLIE.

The winter sun was setting, and its fading light fell upon the golden hair and white, beautiful face of Nellie, who lay upon the lounge in the room where Walter's mother died, and which Jessie now called hers. She was weaker than usual, and the hectic spot upon her cheek was larger and brighter, while her eyes shone like diamonds as she looked wistfully in the direction of the village, where the smoke of the New York train was slowly dying away.

"Mother," she said at last, "isn't the omnibus coming over the hill?"

"Yes," Mrs. Howland answered. "Possibly it is Walter, though I did not tell him in my last how weak you are, as you know you bade me not, lest he should be unnecessarily alarmed."

Ellen knew it was not Walter, and the spot on her cheek was almost a blood-red hue when she heard the dear familiar voice, and knew that William had come.

"Mother," she said faintly, "it's Mr. Bellenger, and you must let me see him alone,-all the evening alone;-will you? It's right," she continued, as she met her mother's look of inquiry. "I'll explain it, perhaps, when he's gone."

In an instant the truth flashed upon Mrs. Howland, bringing with it a feeling of gratified pride that the elegant William Bellenger had condescended to think of her child. She did not know the whole. She could not guess how thoroughly selfish was the man who was deliberately breaking her daughter's heart, or she would not have left them to themselves that long winter evening, saying to her father and Aunt Debby, when they questioned the propriety of the proceeding:

"He wants to tell her of Walter and Jessie, I suppose, and the fine times they have in the city."

This satisfied Aunt Debby, but the deacon was not quite at ease, and more than once after finis.h.i.+ng his fourth pipe, he started to join them, but was as often kept back by some well-timed remark addressed to him by Mrs. Howland; and so William was left undisturbed while he poured again into Ellen's ear the story of his love, telling her how inexpressibly dear she was to him, and that but for circ.u.mstances which he could not control, he would prove his a.s.sertion true by making her at once his wife. Then the long eyelashes drooped beneath their weight of tears, for there flitted across Ellen's mind a vague consciousness that if these circ.u.mstances existed when he first talked to her of love, he had done very wrong. Still she could not accuse him even in thought, and she hastened to say:

"I don't know as I really ever supposed that you wished me to be your wife; and if I did it don't matter now, for I am going to die; death has a prior claim, and I never can be yours."

He held her hot hand in his,-felt the rapid pulse,-saw the deep color on her cheek,-the unnatural l.u.s.ter of her eye,-and felt that she told him truly. And thinking that anything which he could say to comfort and please her would be right, he whispered:

"I hope there are many years in store for you. If I should take you to Florida as my wife, do you think you would get well?"

She had said to him that it could not be,-that death would claim her first, but now that he had asked her this, all the energies of life were roused within her, and her whole face said yes, even before the answer dropped from her pale lips.

"Oh, William, dear, are you in earnest? Can I go?" and raising herself up, she wound her arms around his neck so that her head rested on his bosom.

And William held it there, caressing the fair hair, while he battled with all his better nature, and tried to think of some excuse,-some good reason for retracting the proposition which had been received so differently from what he expected. He thought of it at last, and laying his burden gently back upon her pillow, he answered mournfully:

"Forgive me, darling. In my great love for you I spoke inadvertently. I wish I were free to do what my heart dictates, but I am not. Listen, Nellie, and then you shall decide. Perhaps you have never heard that Jessie and I were long ago intended for each other by our parents?"

William's voice trembled as he uttered this falsehood, but not one-half as much as did the young girl on the lounge.

"No," she answered faintly; "Jessie never told me."

"Some girls are not inclined to talk of those they love," said William, and fixing her clear blue eyes on him, Ellen asked:

"Does Jessie love you, William?"

"And suppose she does?" he replied; "suppose she had always been taught to look upon me as her future husband? Suppose that even when I first came here there was an understanding that, unless Jessie should prefer some one else, we were to be married when she was eighteen, and suppose that since we have been so much together as we have this winter, Jessie had learned to love me very much, and that my marrying another now would break her heart, what would you have me do? I know you must think it wrong in me to talk of love to you, knowing what I did, but struggle as I would, I could not help it. You are my ideal of a wife. I love you better than I do Jessie,-better than I do any one, and you shall decide the matter. I will leave Jessie, offend her father, and incur the lasting displeasure of my own family, if you say so. Think a moment, darling, and then tell me what to do."

Had he held a knife at her heart, and a pistol at her head, bidding her take her choice between the two, he could scarcely have pained her more.

Folding her hands together, she lay so still that it seemed almost like the stillness of death, and William once bent down to see if she were sleeping. But the large blue eyes turned toward him, and a faint whisper met his ear: