Mary Greenway McClelland - Princess
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Mary Greenway McClelland >> Princess
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Pocahontas gazed at him in bewilderment, her mind grappling with an
idea that appalled her, her face blanching with apprehension, and her
form cowering as from an expected blow.
"Must I understand, Mr. Thorne, that love for _me_ suggested the
thought of divorcing your wife?" she questioned hoarsely--"that _I_
came between you and caused this horrible thing? It is _not_--it _can
not_ be true. God above! Have I fallen so low?--am I guilty of this
terrible sin?"
Thorne's quick brain recognized instantly the danger of allowing this
idea to obtain possession of her mind. Fool! he thought furiously, why
had not he been more cautious, more circumspect. Dextrously he set
himself to remove the idea or weaken its force--to prove her guiltless
in her own eyes.
"Princess," he said, meeting the honest, agonized eyes squarely, "I
want to tell you the story of my marriage with Ethel Ross, and of my
subsequent life with her. I had not intended to harass you with it
until later--if at all; but now, I deem it best you should become
acquainted with it, and from my lips. It will explain many things."
Then he briefly related all the miserable commonplace story. He
glossed over nothing, palliated nothing; bearing hardly now on his
wife, and again on himself, but striving to show throughout how opposed
to true marriage was this marriage, how far removed from a perfect
union was this union. Pocahontas listened with intense, strained
interest, following every word, sometimes almost anticipating them.
Her heart ached for him--ached wearily. Life had been so hard upon
him; he had suffered so. With a woman's involuntary hardness to woman,
she raised the blame from Thorne's shoulders and heaped it upon those
of his wife. Her love and her sympathy became his advocates and
pleaded for him at the bar of her judgment. Her heart yearned over him
with infinite compassion.
If Thorne had kept silence, and left the matter there, and waited until
she should have adapted herself to the new conditions, should have
assimilated the new influences, which crowded thick upon her, it would
have been better. But he could not keep silent--he had no patience to
wait. He could not realize that the things which were as a thrice-told
tale to _him_, had an overwhelming newness for _her_. That the
influences which had molded his thought, were very far removed from the
influences which had made _her_ what she was. He could not understand
that, while the world had progressed, this isolated community had
remained stationary, and that the principles and rules of conduct among
them, still, were those which had governed _his_ world in the beginning
of the century.
He saw that her sympathy had been aroused, that she suffered for, and
with, him, and he could not forbear from striving to push the
advantage. He went on speaking earnestly; he demonstrated that this
marriage which had proved so disastrous was in truth no marriage, and
that its annulment was just and right, for where there was no love, he
argued, there could be no marriage. With all the sophistry; with all
the subtle arguments of which he was master--and they were neither weak
nor few--he assailed her. Every power of his brilliant intellect,
every weapon of his mental armory, all the force of his indomitable
will was brought to bear upon her--and brought to bear in vain.
Calm, pale, resolute, she faced him--her clear eyes meeting his, her
nervous hands folded tightly together. She would not give way. In
their earnestness both had risen, and they stood facing each other on
the hearth-rug, their eyes nearly on a level. The man's hand rested on
the mantle, and quivered with the intensity of his excitement; the
woman's hung straight before her, motionless, but wrung together until
the knuckles showed hard through the tense skin. She would NOT give
way.
Thorne was startled and perplexed. Opposition he was prepared for,
argument he could meet and possibly refute, tears and reproaches he
could subdue--but dumb, quiet resistance baffled him. Suddenly he
abandoned reason, cast self-control to the winds, and gave the reins to
feeling. If he could not convince her through the head, he would try a
surer road--the heart. Though proof against argument, would she be
proof against love? He knew she loved him; he felt it in every fiber
of his being, every pulse of his heart--and he was determined to win
her at all hazards; his she must be; his she _should_ be.
"My love!" he murmured, extending his arms with an appealing tenderness
of look and gesture. "Come to me. Lay your sweet face on my breast,
your dear arms around my neck. I need you, Princess; my heart cries
out for you, and will not be denied. I can not live without you. You
are mine--mine alone, and I claim your love; claim your life. What is
that woman? What is any woman to me, save you, my darling--you only?
My love! My love! It is my very life for which I am pleading. Have
you no pity? No love for the man whose heart is calling you to come?"
Pocahontas shivered, and bent slightly forward--her face was white as
death, her eyes strange and troubled. The strength and fire of his
passion drew her toward him as a magnet draws steel. Was she yielding?
Would she give way?
Suddenly she started erect again, and drew back a step. All the
emotions, prejudices, thoughts of her past life; all the principles,
scruples, influences, amid which she had been reared, crowded back on
her and asserted their power. She could _not_ do this thing. A chasm
black as the grave, hopeless as death, yawned at her feet; a barrier as
high as heaven erected itself before her.
"I can not come," she wailed in anguish. "Have you no mercy?--no pity
for me? There is a barrier between us that I dare not level; a chasm I
can not cross."
"There is _no_ barrier," responded Thorne, vehemently, "and I will
acknowledge none. I am a free man; you are a free woman, and there is
no law, human or divine, to keep us asunder, save the law of your own
will. If there be a chasm--which I do not see; which I swear does not
exist--_I_ will cross it. If you can not come to me, I can come to
you; and I _will_. You are _mine_, and I will hold you--here in my
arms, on my breast, in my heart. Have you, and hold you, so help me
God!"
With a quick stride he crossed the small space between them, and stood
close, but still not touching her.
"Have you no pity?" she moaned.
"None," he answered hoarsely. "Have you any for me?--for us both? I
love you--how well, God knows, I was not aware until to-night--and you
love me I hope and believe. There is nothing between us save an idle
scruple, which even the censorious world does not share. I ask you to
commit no sin; to share no disgrace. I ask you to be my wife before
the face of day; before the eyes of men; in the sight of heaven!"
Could she be his wife in the sight of heaven? It was all so strange to
her, she could not understand. Words, carelessly heard and scarcely
heeded, came back to her, and rung their changes in her brain with
ceaseless iteration. It was like a knell.
"Nesbit?" she said wearily, using his name unconsciously, "listen and
understand me. In the eyes of the law, and of men you are free; but I
can not see it so. In my eyes you are still bound."
"I am _not_ bound," denied Thorne, fiercely, bringing his hand down
heavily on the mantle; "whoever tells you that I am, lies, and the
truth is not in him. I've told you all--and yet not all. Ethel Ross,
the woman who was my wife--whom _you_ say is my wife still--is about to
marry again. To join her life--as free and separate from mine as
though we had never met--to the life of another man. Isn't that
enough? Can't you see how completely every tie between us is severed?"
Pocahontas shook her head. "I can not understand you, and you will not
understand me," she said mournfully; "her sin will not lessen our sin;
nor her unholy marriage make ours pure and righteous."
Thorne stamped his foot. "Do you wish to madden me?" he exclaimed;
"there is no sin, I tell you; nor would our marriage be unholy. You
are torturing us both for nothing on God's earth but a scruple. I've
argued, reasoned, and pleaded with you, and you refuse to weigh the
argument, to listen to the reason, to yield to the persuasion. You are
hard, and opinionated, and obstinate. You set up your individual
judgment against the verdict of the world and deem it infallible. You
are hard to yourself, and cruelly hard to me, for, as there is a God in
heaven, I believe you love me, even as I love you. Oh, my love! my
love!" his voice melted, his arms closed around her. "Why do you try
me beyond my strength? Why are you so cruel to us both? See; I hold
you safely; your heart beats on mine; your dear face is on my breast.
Stay with me, my darling, my own, my wife;" and soft, clinging
passionate kisses pressed down on hair, and cheek, and lips; kisses
that burned like flame, that thrilled like strong wine.
For a moment Pocahontas lay quietly in his arms, lulled into
quiescence. Then she wrenched herself free, and moved away from him.
It had been said of her that she could be hard upon occasion; the
occasion had arisen, and she _was_ hard.
"Go!" she said, her face wan as ashes, but her voice firm; "it is you
who are cruel; you who are blind and obstinate. You will neither see
nor understand why this thing may not be. I have showed you my
thought, and you will not bend; implored you to have pity, and you are
merciless. And yet you talk of love! You love me, and would sacrifice
me to your love; love me, and would break down the bulwarks I have been
taught to consider righteous, to gratify your love. I do not
understand; love seemed to me so different, so noble and unselfish.
Leave me; I am tired; I want to think it out alone."
Thorne stood silent, his head bent in thought. "Yes," he said
presently; "it will be better so. You are overwrought, and your mind
is worn with excitement; you need rest. To-morrow, next week, the week
after, this matter will wear a different aspect. I can wait, and I
will come again. It will be different then."
"It will never be different," the voice was low; the gray eyes had a
hopeless look.
Thorne repeated his assertion in the gentle, persistent tone of one who
is patient with the unreasonableness of a frightened child. His
determination to win success never faltered, rather it hardened with
opposition into adamant; but he was beginning to realize his blunder.
He had overwhelmed her; had brought about an upheaval of her world so
violent that, in her bewilderment, her dread of chaos, she
instinctively laid hold on the old supports and clung to them with
desperation. She must have time to think, to familiarize herself with
the strange emotions, to adapt herself to the changed conditions. Only
one other thing would he say. He held in reserve a card which he knew,
ere now, had proved all powerful with conscientious women. To gain his
end, he would stop at nothing; he took both her hands in his, and
played his card deliberately.
"Think over it well," he said, "weigh every argument, test every
scruple. My life is in your hands. I am not a religious man, nor a
good man, but you can make me both. Give me the heaven that I crave,
the heaven of your love, and I will be by it ennobled into faith in
that other heaven, of which it will be the foretaste. But refuse; deny
the soul that cries out to you; thrust aside the hands that seek to
clasp you, as the truest, noblest, holiest thing they have ever
touched, and--on your head be it. I have placed the responsibility in
your hands and there it rests."
With a lingering look into her eyes and a fervent pressure of her
hands, he turned and slowly left the room.
Back to the mind of the girl, standing motionless where he had left
her, came, unwished and unbidden, the memory of a summer night out
yonder beside the flowing river. She seemed to see again, the swaying
of the branches in the moonlight, and to hear the lulling wash of the
water against the shore; to hear also, a quiet, manly voice fighting
down its pain, lest the knowledge of it should wound her, saying,
simply and bravely: "Don't be unhappy about me, dear. I'll worry
through the pain in time, or grow accustomed to it. It's tough just at
first, but I'll pull through somehow. It shall not spoil my life
either, although it must mar it; a man must be a pitiful fellow who
lets himself go to the bad because the woman he loves won't have him.
God means every man to hold up his own weight in this world. I'd as
soon knock a woman down as throw the blame of a wasted life upon her."
Plain words, poorly arranged and simply spoken, for the man who uttered
them was not clever; but brave, manly words, for all that. The girl
turned from the unwelcome memory with a sharp, impatient sigh that was
almost a groan. It pained her.
CHAPTER XVIII.
The next day Thorne quietly returned to New York, without making any
attempt to see or communicate with Pocahontas again. He had considered
the situation earnestly, and decided that it would be his wisest
course. Like a skilled general, he recognized the value of delay.
Failing to carry the citadel by assault, he resorted to strategy. In
the girl's love for him, he possessed a powerful ally; there was a
traitor in the camp of his adversary, and sooner or later it would be
betrayed into his hands; of this he was convinced, and the conviction
fortified him to trust the result to time. Pride and principle were in
arms now, holding love in check, but it would not be so always; soon
her woman's heart would speak, would wield an influence more powerful
and resistless, from the concentration engendered by repression. Now,
too, she was braced by the excitement of personal resistance; she was
measuring her will, with his will, her strength with his strength. Let
him withdraw for a time, and what would follow? The outside pressure,
the immediate need of concentrated effort removed, there would
inevitably ensue a state of collapse; purpose and prejudice would sink
exhausted, the strain on the will relax, the weapons fall from the
nerveless hands. Then the heart would rally its forces, would collect
its strength for the field; external conflict suspended, internal
strife would commence, fierce, cruel and relentless as internecine
struggles ever are. Was there any doubt of the result of the battle?
It only needed time. Time, quietude, and earnest thought, free from
the disturbing, stimulating power of his presence.
He could wait; every affection of her loving, constant heart, every
fiber of her self-sacrificing nature, would fight for him; prejudices,
even the most deeply-rooted, must yield, in time, to love. When he
should come again it would be to claim his victory.
No thought of abandoning the pursuit crossed his brain; no impulse of
ruth stirred his heart. Did she suffer? So did he--keenly, cruelly.
Let her end this torture for them both; let her lay aside these
senseless scruples, and place her hand in his. His arms were open to
her, his heart yearning for her; let her come and anchor in the sure
haven of his love.
Pocahontas told her mother, very quietly, of Thorne's visit, his
proposal, and her rejection of it; just the bare facts, without comment
or elaboration. But Mrs. Mason had a mother's insight and could read
between the lines; she did not harass her daughter with many words,
even of approval; or with questions; she simply drew the sweet, young
face down to her bosom a moment, and held it there with tender kisses.
Nor did Berkeley, to whom his mother communicated the fact, volunteer
any comment to his sister. After what had passed, Thorne's proposal
was not a surprise, and to them the girl's answer was a foregone
conclusion. Poor child! the brother thought impatiently, the mother
wistfully, how much bitterness would have been spared her could she
only have loved Jim Byrd.
During the weeks that followed Thorne's second return north, the two
families were thrown together more and more intimately. Blanche's
engagement and Warner's increased illness served to break down all
restraints. All through the winter the boy had steadily lost ground,
and as the spring progressed, instead of rallying as they hoped, his
decline became more rapid. The best advice was had, but science could
only bear the announcement of bereavement; there was nothing to be
done, the doctors said, save to alleviate pain, and let the end come
peacefully; it was needless to worry the boy with change, or bootless
experiments. Even to the mother's willfully blinded eyes, and
falsely-fed hopes, conviction came at last that her son's days were
numbered.
Berkeley, Royall and other of the neighboring gentlemen took turns in
aiding with the nursing and the night-watches, as is the custom in
southern country neighborhoods where professional nurses are unknown.
Of all the kindly friends that watched and tended him through long
weeks of illness, the one that Warner learned to love the best was
Berkeley Mason. There was a thoughtful strength in the nature of the
man who had suffered, the soldier who had endured, which the weaker
nature recognized and rested on. To the general, during this time of
trouble, the young man became, in very truth, a son; the old debt of
kindness was canceled, and a new account opened with a change in the
balance.
As is usual in cases of lingering consumption, the end was very
sudden--so sudden, in fact, that Norma, still away with her northern
friends, received the telegram too late for word or look or farewell
kiss. She was traveling with Mrs. Vincent and the message followed her
from place to place.
On a still, beautiful May morning, Warner was laid to rest in the
Lanarth graveyard beside poor Temple Mason. It was the boy's own
request, and his mother felt constrained to comply with it, although
she would have preferred interring the remains of her child beside
those of her own people at Greenwood. The story of the young life
beating itself out against prison bars, had taken strong hold of the
lad's imagination, and the fancy grew that he too would sleep more
sweetly under the shadow of the old cedars in the land the young
soldier had loved so well.
Norma and Pocahontas stood near each other beside the new-made grave,
and as they quitted the inclosure, their hands met for an instant
coldly. Pocahontas tried not to harbor resentment, but she could not
forget whose hand it had been that had struck her the first bitter blow.
After Warner's death, Mrs. Smith appeared to collapse, mentally as well
as bodily. She remained day after day shut in his chamber, brooding
silently and rejecting with dumb apathy all sympathy and consolation.
Her strength and appetite declined, and her interest in life deserted
her, leaving a hopeless quiescence that was inexpressibly pitiful. Her
husband, in alarm for her life and reason, hurriedly decided to break
up the establishment at Shirley, and remove her for a time from
surroundings that constantly reminded her of her loss.
In the beginning of June, the move was made, the house closed, the
servants dismissed, and the care of the estate turned over to Berkeley.
With the dawning of summer, the birds of passage winged their flight
northward.
CHAPTER XIX.
There comes a time in human affairs, whether of nations or individuals,
when a dull exhausted calm appears to fall upon them--a period of
repose, a lull after the excitement of hurried events, a pause in which
to draw breath for the renewal of the story. Grateful are these
interludes, and necessary for the preservation of true equipoise, but
they are not interesting, and in novels all description of them is
carelessly skipped over. In stories we want events, not lingerings.
The summer passed quietly for the family at Lanarth, broken only by the
usual social happenings, visits from the "Byrd girls," as they were
still called, with their husbands and little ones; a marriage, a
christening, letters from Jim and Susie, and measles among the little
Garnetts. In August, Pocahontas and her mother went for a month to
Piedmont, Virginia, to try the medicinal waters for the latter's
rheumatism, and after their return home, Berkeley took a holiday and
ran up to the Adirondacks to see Blanche.
Poor Mrs. Smith did not rally as her family had hoped, and the
physicians--as is customary when a case baffles their skill--all
recommended further and more complete change. They must take her
abroad, and try what the excitement of foreign travel would do toward
preventing her from sinking into confirmed invalidism. General Smith,
who had abandoned every care and interest for the purpose of devoting
himself to his wife, embraced the proposal with eagerness, and insisted
on the experiment being tried as speedily as possible.
Blanche could not help some murmurs, both inwardly and to Berkeley, at
the long separation in store for them; and the lover, although himself
a little rueful, heartened her up with bright prophecies for their
future. An immediate marriage for them was out of the question, for
since Warner's death Mrs. Smith clung to her younger daughter with
absolute dependence. The last of September was decided on for sailing,
as that would allow General Smith time to enter Percival at school, and
to complete other necessary arrangements before the family departure.
The management of Shirley would remain in Berkeley's hands, and the
house would continue closed until the return of the travelers.
To Nesbit Thorne, the summer had appeared interminable, and every
golden hour had been shod with lead. He had passed the season partly
in the Adirondacks with his relatives and partly in New York; but he
was always oppressed with the same miserable unrest, the same weary
longing. It would appear, at times, impossible for him to hold to his
resolution of waiting until after the re-marriage of his _ci-devant_
wife, before again seeking Pocahontas. He yearned to be with her, to
hold her hands, and gaze into her eyes, so intensely at times, that it
required the utmost exertion of his will to prevent himself from
boarding the first southward-bound train. He was forced continually to
remind himself that if he should yield to the impulse, he would be
guilty of egregious folly--having waited so long, he could surely wait
a few weeks longer. Ethel's marriage would dissipate every shadow of a
tie between them, and with that fact fully established, Pocahontas
_must_ hear him.
In deference to Cumberland prejudice, Mrs. Thorne's marriage had been
deferred until September--to that lady's great annoyance. She saw no
reason for delay, nor any necessity for humoring the Cumberland
old-fogyism, and in delicate ambiguous terms she conveyed this opinion
to her lover, and discovered, to her surprise and indignation, that he
disagreed with her. Some concession was due to the feelings of his
family, and he did not wish to be hurried; on this ground, he
intrenched himself and defied the world to move him. When Cecil made a
point, he held to it with the obstinacy characteristic of mediocrity,
and Ethel, not being exactly in a position to dictate, and requiring
moreover some portion of the Cumberland countenance, was forced to
acquiesce.
Some weeks before the day appointed for her marriage, Ethel removed
herself and her belongings to the house of a poor and plastic aunt, who
was in the habit of allowing herself to be run into any mold her niece
should require. According to their agreement, Ethel gave her whilom
husband due notice of her plans, and Thorne at once removed the child
to Brooklyn, and placed him under the care of a sister of his father's,
a gentle elderly widow who had known sorrow. His house he put in the
hands of an agent to rent or sell, furnished, only removing such
articles as had belonged to his parents. The house was hateful to him,
and he felt that should the beautiful, new life of which he dreamed
ever dawn for him, it must be set amid different surroundings from
those which had framed his matrimonial failure.
Still in deference to the Cumberland prejudice, the re-marriage of
Ethel Thorne took place very quietly. It was a morning wedding, graced
only by the presence of a few indifferent relatives, and a small crowd
of curious friends. The two Misses Cumberland, handsome, heavy-browed
women, after much discussion in the family bosom, and some fraternal
persuasion, had allowed themselves to be seduced into attending the
obnoxious nuptials, and shedding the light of the family countenance
upon the ill-doing pair. Very austere and forbidding they looked as
they seated themselves, reprobatively, in a pew far removed from the
chancel, and their light was no better than the veriest darkness.
Twelve hours after the marriage had been published to the world,
another marked paper was speeding southward, addressed this time to
Pocahontas, and accompanied by a thick, closely written, letter.
Thorne had decided that it would be better to send a messenger before,
this time, to prepare the way for him. In his letter Thorne touched
but lightly on the point at issue between them, thinking it better to
take it for granted that her views had modified, if not changed. The
strength of his cause lay in his love, his loneliness, his yearning
need of her. On these themes he dwelt with all the eloquence of which
he was master, and the letter closed with a passionate appeal, in which
he poured out the long repressed fire of his love: "My darling, tell me
I may come to you--or rather tell me nothing; I will understand and
interpret your silence rightly. You are proud, my beautiful love, and
in all things I will spare you--in all things be gentle to you; in all
things, save this--I can not give you up--I _will_ not give you up. I
will wait here for another week, and if I do not hear from you, I will
start for Virginia at once--with joy and pride and enduring
thankfulness."
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