Mary Greenway McClelland - Princess
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Mary Greenway McClelland >> Princess
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Pocahontas took the paper to her mother's room, the letter she put
quietly away. She would answer it, but not yet; at night--when the
house should be quiet she would answer it.
The lines containing the brief announcement were at the head of the
list:
MARRIED.
"CUMBERLAND-THORNE.--At the church of the Holy Trinity, September 21st,
18--, by the Rev. John Sylvestus, Cecil Cumberland to Ethel Ross
Thorne; both of this city."
Mrs. Mason laid the paper on the little stand beside her chair. "My
daughter," she said, looking up at the girl seriously, "this can make
no difference."
"No, mother," very quietly, "no difference; but I thought you ought to
know."
In her own room, at night, when the house was still, the girl sat with
the letter in her lap thinking. The moonlight poured in through the
open window and made a map on the floor, whereon slender shadows traced
rivers, mountains and boundaries. In the trees outside, the night
insects chirped, and bats darted and circled in the warm air.
If only she could think that this made a difference. She was so weary
of the struggle. The arguments which formerly sustained her had, with
ceaseless iteration, lost their force; her battle-worn mind longed to
throw down its arms in unconditional surrender. Her up-bringing had
been so different; this thing was not regarded by the world in the same
light as it appeared to her; was she over-strained, opinionated,
censorious? Nesbit had called her so--was he right? Who was _she_, to
set up her feeble judgment against the world's verdict--to condemn and
criticise society's decision? Divorce must be--even Scripture allowed
that; a limb must be sacrificed sometimes that a life might be saved.
True, the process had always appeared to her, in her ignorance, an
operation of cruel anguish, from which the patient came halt, or lame,
or blind for life; but what if she should be wrong? What if the
present crab-like propensity for the renewal of the missing part was
the natural and sensible condition. This wicked woman--this wife who
had recklessly thrown aside life's choicest gift--was happy; she had
replaced her lopped-off limb with a new one, and it was well with her.
Norma had said long ago that, "any woman who trifled with her happiness
because of a scruple was a fool." Was Norma right? Was her hesitation
senseless, doltish folly?
The boundaries of the moonlight shifted; a long irregular cape, like a
shining finger, stretched out across the floor and touched the hem of
her dress. From behind the screen in the fireplace came a little
sound, as though a mouse were rustling fragments of torn paper.
If she could only recognize that this marriage _had_ made a difference.
It was so wearisome, this strife with a heart that would not admit
defeat, a love that fought on and would not die. What was required of
her?--nothing; nothing save to sit with folded hands and let happiness
flood her life like sunshine--only to lay away the letter in her desk
and wait silently for her lover to come to her. Her lover--the man
whose influence had changed the monotonous calm of existence into the
pulsing passion of living--the man who loved her; whom she loved. No
words were needed--only silence; he was so thoughtful for her, so
anxious to spare her; only silence, and in a little while his arms
would infold her; his beautiful eyes, heavy with tenderness, gaze deep
into hers; his sweet, passionate kisses burn upon her lips.
The radiant finger stole softly up her dress, across her lap, and made
a little pool of brightness in the heart of which the letter lay;
outside in the dove-cote a pigeon cooed sleepily to his mate.
What was that tale of long ago that was coming strangely back to her?
A girl, one whom they all knew and loved, had been separated from her
husband after several years of misery, bravely borne. Her husband had
been a confirmed drunkard, and in his cups was as one possessed with
devils. They had grieved over Clare, and when her husband's brutality
grew such that her brother interfered and insisted on her procuring a
divorce for the protection of herself and her children, they had felt
that it was right; and while they deplored the necessity, they had
sided with Clare throughout. But when, two years later, wedding cards
had come from Clare, from some place in the West, whither she had moved
with her children; it had been a grievous shock, for the drunkard still
lived. It had seemed a strange and monstrous thing, and their judgment
had been severe--their censure scathing. Poor Clare! She understood
her temptation better now. Poor little Clare!
What was it Jim had said? The men had been guarded in the expression
of their opinion before her; they were fastidious in conversation
before women. This, he had said in an under-tone to Berkeley, but she
had caught it, and caught also the scorn of the hazel eye, and knew
that the lip curled under the brown mustache. He had said--"To a woman
of innate purity the thing would be impossible. There is a coarseness
in the situation which is revolting."
What would he think of her? She was weighing the matter--canvassing
its possibility. Was her nature deteriorating? Was she growing
coarser, less pure? Would her old friend, whose standard was so high,
despise her? Would she be lowered in the eyes of those whose influence
and opinions had, heretofore, molded her life? The associations of
years are not uprooted and cast aside in days or in months.
Responsibilities engendered by the past environed her, full-grown,
comprehensible, insistent; responsibilities which might be engendered
by the future, lay in her mind a tiny germ in which the embryo life had
scarcely begun to stir. The duty to the old life seemed to her plain
and clear; a beaten track along which she might safely travel. The
duty to another life which might, in time, be equally plain and clear,
was now a bewildering mist through which strange shapes passed, like
phantasmagoria. She could not think; her mind was benumbed; right and
wrong, apparently, had changed places and commingled so, that, for the
time, their identity was confused, indistinguishable: she could not
guide herself, as yet; she could only hold blindly to the old supports.
The silver finger had lifted itself from her lap and rested on her
breast, forming a shining pathway from her heart, through the open
window, out into the silence and beauty of the night.
CHAPTER XX.
Winter again; the city dull, listless and sodden of aspect in the gloom
of a January evening. In the country, and nature's quiet places, the
dusk was throwing a veil over the cheerlessness of earth, as a friend
covers a friend's deficiencies with love; but here, in the haunts of
men, garish electric lights made plain the misery. The air was a
depressing compound which defied analysis; but was apparently composed
of equal parts of snow, drizzle, and stinging sleet; the wind caught it
in sudden whirls, and dashed it around corners and into the eyes and
the coat collars of wayfarers with gusty malevolence.
The streets were comparatively deserted, only such people being abroad
as could not help themselves, and these plodded along with bent heads,
and silent curses on the night. Even the poor creatures who daily
"till the field of human sympathy" kept close within the shelter of
four walls, no matter how forlorn, and left the elements to hold
Walpurgis night in the thoroughfares alone.
In a comfortable easy chair, in the handsome parlor of an elegant
up-town mansion, sat Ethel Cumberland, reading a novel. Since her
second marriage, life had gone pleasantly with her and she was content.
Cecil never worried her about things beyond her comprehension, or
required other aliments for his spiritual sustenance than that which
she was able and willing to furnish; he was a commonplace man and his
desires were commonplace--easily understood and satisfied. He liked a
pretty wife, a handsome house, a good dinner with fine wine and jolly
company; he liked high-stepping horses, a natty turn-out, and the smile
of Vanity Fair. Ethel's tastes were similar, and their lives so far
had fitted into each other without a single crevice. The Cumberlands
were grim and unbending, it is true, and after that one concession to
fraternal feeling, made no more; they held themselves rigidly aloof
from the pair, and invested all intercourse with paralyzing formality.
Ethel did not care a pin for them or their opinion; if they chose to be
old-fogyish and disagreeable, they were quite welcome to indulge their
fancy. As long as society smiled upon her, Madam Ethel was superbly
indifferent to the Cumberland frown.
Cecil worried over it, as men will worry, who have been accustomed to
the adulation of their womenkind, when that adulation is withdrawn. He
grumbled and fumed over their "damned nonsense," as he called it, and
bored his wife no little with conjectures as to their reasons for being
stiff and unpleasant when nobody else was.
Since her return from her wedding trip, which had lengthened to four
months amid the delights of Paris, Mrs. Cumberland had found time for
only one short visit to her little son. There had been such an
accumulation of social duties and engagements, that pilgrimages over to
Brooklyn were out of the question; and besides, she disliked Mrs.
Creswell, Thorne's aunt, who had charge of the boy, and who had the bad
taste, Ethel felt sure, to disapprove of her. It was too bad of Nesbit
to put the child so far away, and with a person whom she did not like;
it amounted to a total separation, for of course it would be impossible
for her to make such a journey often. When her time should be less
occupied, she would write to Nesbit about it; meanwhile, her maternal
solicitude found ample pacification in sending a servant across at
intervals to carry toys and confectionery to the little fellow, and to
inquire after his welfare.
The portieres were drawn aside to admit Mr. Cumberland in smoking
jacket and slippers, yawning and very much bored. He was a large,
heavy looking man, very dependent on outside things for his
entertainment. Failing to attract his wife's attention, he lounged
over to the window, and drew aside the velvet curtain. The atmosphere
was heavy, and the light in front of the house appeared to hold itself
aloof from the environment in a sulky, self-contained way; all down the
street, the other lamps looked like the ghosts of lights that had
burned and died in past ages.
A little girl with a bag of apples in her frost-bitten hands came
hastily around the corner, and, going with her head down against the
sleet, butted into an elderly gentleman, with a big umbrella, who was
driving along in an opposite direction. The gentleman gave the child
an indignant shove which caused her to seat herself violently upon the
pavement; the bag banged hard against the bricks and delivered up its
trust, and the apples scudded away into the gutter.
Cecil laughed amusedly as the little creature picked herself up crying,
and proceeded to institute search for the missing treasure. A kindly
policeman, who doubtless had children of his own, stopped on his beat,
and helped her, wiping the mud from the rescued fruit with his
handkerchief, and securing all again with a newspaper and a stout twine
string which he took from his pocket; then they went away together, the
officer carrying the bundle and the child trotting contentedly in the
lee of him. They seemed to be old acquaintances.
Nothing else happened along to amuse him, so Mr. Cumberland let the
velvet folds fall back in their place and came over to the fire. He
had been suffering with a heavy cold, and found confinement to the
house in the last degree irksome. His wife was too much engrossed with
her book to be willing to lay it aside for his entertainment, and he
spurned her suggestion of the evening paper, so there was nothing for
it but to sulk over a cigar and audibly curse the weather.
A sharp ring at the door-bell, tardily answered by a servant, and then
footsteps approached the parlor door. Husband and wife looked up with
interest--with expectation. Was it a visitor? No; only the servant
with a telegram which he handed Mr. Cumberland, and then withdrew.
Cecil turned the thin envelope in his hand inquisitively. He was fond
of having every thing pass through his own hands--of knowing all the
ins and outs, the minutiae of daily happenings. "What is it?"
questioned Ethel, indolently.
"A dispatch for you. Shall I open it?"
"If you like. I hate dispatches. They always suggest unpleasant
possibilities. It's a local, so I guess it's from my aunt, about that
rubbishing dinner of hers."
Cecil tore open the envelope and read the few words it contained with a
lengthening visage; then he let his hand fall, and stared blankly
across at his wife.
"It's from that fellow! and it's about the child," he said, uneasily.
"What fellow? What child? Not mine! Give it to me quickly, Cecil.
How slow you are!" And she snatched the telegram from his unresisting
hand. Hastily she scanned the words, her breath coming in gasps, her
fingers trembling so that she could scarcely hold the paper. "The
child is dying. Come at once!" That was all, and the message was
signed Nesbit Thorne. Short, curt, peremptory, as our words are apt to
be in moments of intense emotion; a bald fact roughly stated.
For a moment Ethel Cumberland sat stunned, with pallid face and shaking
hands, from which the message slipped and fluttered to the carpet.
Then she sprang to her feet in wild excitement, an instinct aroused in
her breast which even animals know when their young are in danger.
"Cecil!" she cried, sharply, "don't you hear? My child! My baby is
dying! Why do you stand there staring at me? I must go--you must take
me to him now, this instant, or it will be too late. Don't you
understand? My darling--my boy is dying!" and she burst into a passion
of grief, wringing her hands and wailing. "Go! send for a carriage.
There's not a moment to lose. Oh, my baby!--my baby!"
"You can't go out in this storm. It's sleeting heavily, and I've been
ill. I can't let you go all that distance with only a maid, and how am
I to turn out in such weather?" objected Mr. Cumberland, who, when he
was opposed to a thing, was an adept in piling up obstacles. "I tell
you it's impossible, Ethel. It's madness, on such a night as this."
"Who cares for the storm?" raved Ethel, whose feelings, if evanescent,
were intense. "I _will_ go, Cecil! I don't want you, I'll go by
myself. Nothing shall stop me. If it stormed fire and blood I should
go all the same. I'll walk--I'll _crawl_ there, before I will stay
here and let my boy die without me. He is _my_ baby--my _own_ child, I
tell you, Cecil!--if he isn't yours."
Of this fact Cecil Cumberland needed no reminder. It was a thorn that
pricked and stung even his dull nature--for the child's father lived.
To a jealous temperament it is galling to be reminded of a predecessor
in a wife's affections, even when the grave has closed over him; if the
man still lives, it is intolerable.
He was not a brute, and he knew that he must yield to his wife's
pressure--that he had no choice but to yield; but he stood for a moment
irresolute, staring at her with lowering brows, a hearty curse on
living father and dying child slowly formulating in his breast.
As he turned to leave the room to give the necessary orders, a carriage
drove rapidly to the door and stopped, and there was a vigorous pull at
the bell. Thorne had provided against all possible delay. Then the
question arose of who should accompany her, and they found that there
was not a single available woman in the house. It was impossible to
let her go alone, and Cumberland, with the curses rising from his heart
to his lips, was forced, in very manhood, to go with her himself.
In Brooklyn Mrs. Creswell met them herself at the door, and appeared
surprised--as well she might--to see Mr. Cumberland. She motioned
Ethel toward the staircase, and then with a formal inclination of the
head, ushered her more unwelcome guest into a small parlor where there
was a fire and a lamp burning. Here she left him alone. Her house was
in the suburbs, and there was nowhere else for him to go at that hour
of the night and in that terrible storm.
The room was warm and cheerful, a child's toys lay scattered on floor
and sofa, a little hat and coat were on the table, beside a cigar case
and a crumpled newspaper. There was nothing for the man to do save to
stare around and walk the floor impatiently, longing for death to
hasten with his work, so that the false position might be ended.
Guided by unerring instinct, Ethel went straight to the chamber where
her child lay dying--perhaps already dead. Outside the door she paused
with her hand pressed hard on her throbbing heart.
It was a piteous sight that met her view as the door swung open,
rendered doubly piteous by the circumstances. A luxurious room, a
brooding silence, a tiny white bed on which a little child lay, slowly
and painfully breathing his life away.
CHAPTER XXI.
There were two persons in the room besides the little one: Thorne and
the doctor, a grave, elderly man, who bowed to the lady, and, after a
whispered word with Thorne, withdrew. Ethel sank on her knees beside
the low bed and stretched out yearning arms to the child; the
mother-love awakened at last in her heart and showing itself in her
face.
"My baby!" she moaned, "my little one, don't you know your mother?
Open your beautiful eyes, my darling, and look at me; it is your mother
who is calling you!" Her bonnet had fallen off, the rich wrap and furs
were trailing on the carpet where she had flung them; her arms were
gathered close around the little form, her kisses raining on the pallid
face, the golden hair.
The sleet beat on the window panes; the air of the room stirred as
though a dark wing pressed it; the glow of the fire looked angry and
fitful; a great, black lump of coal settled down in the grate and
broke; in its sullen heart blue flames leaped and danced weirdly. The
woman knelt beside the bed, and the man stood near her.
In the room there was silence. The child's eyes unclosed, a gleam of
recognition dawned in them, he whispered his mother's name and put his
hand up to her neck. Then his look turned to his father, his lips
moved. Thorne knelt beside the pillow and bent his head to listen; the
little voice fluttered and broke, the hand fell away from Ethel's neck,
the lids drooped over the beautiful eyes. Thorne raised the tiny form
in his arms, the golden head rested on his breast, Ethel leaned over
and clasped the child's hands in hers. A change passed over the little
face--the last change--the breath came in feeble, fluttering sighs, the
pulse grew weaker, weaker still, the heart ceased beating, the end had
come.
Gently, peacefully, with his head on his father's breast, his hands in
his mother's clasp, the innocent spirit had slipped from its mortal
sheath, and the waiting angel had tenderly received it.
Thorne laid the child gently down upon the pillows, pressing his hand
over the exquisite eyes, his lips to the ones that would never pay back
kisses any more; then he rose and stood erect. Ethel had risen also,
and confronted him, terror, grief, and bewilderment, fighting for
mastery in her face--in her heart. Half involuntarily, she stretched
out her hands, and made a movement as though she would go to him; half
involuntarily he extended his arms to receive her; then, with a
shuddering sob, her arms fell heavily to her sides, and he folded his
across his breast.
Down below, pacing the floor, in hot impatience to be gone, was the
other man, waiting with smoldering jealousy and fierce longing for the
end. And, outside, the snow fell heavily, with, ever and anon, a wild
lash of bitter sleet; the earth cowered under her white pall, hiding
from the storm, and the wind sobbed and moaned as it swept through the
leafless trees like a creature wailing.
CHAPTER XXII.
The south of France. There is music in the very words--sunshine,
poetry, and a sense of calm; a suggestion of warmth and of infinite
delight. No wonder pain, care and invalidism, flock there, from less
favored climes, for comfort and healing; returning, year after year, to
rest beneath the shadow of olive and ilex, and to dream the luscious
days away beside the blue waters of the Mediterranean, drinking in
strength and peace with every far-reaching gaze into the cloudless
azure of the southern sky, every deep-drawn breath of the sunny
southern air.
Mrs. Smith grew daily stronger, more like herself. Time, and care, and
ceaseless affection, had wrought their beneficent work, and mind and
body were recovering a healthier tone; her interest revived, and her
hold on life renewed itself. As the weeks drifted into months, her
condition became so materially improved that the anxiety of her family
subsided and left room for other thoughts and interests; and finally
her health was sufficiently re-established to admit of her husband's
leaving them in the picturesque French village, while he returned to
America.
In the quaint little village, time glided softly by on golden-slippered
feet, the peaceful monotony broken only by little jaunts to neighboring
hamlets, the arrival and departure of the mails, and long, blissful
sails on the deep blue sea. Blanche's sweet face and gentle ways
speedily won the simple hearts of the fisher-folks, and her letters
were filled with anecdotes of her village _proteges_, and their
picturesque life. And a steamer would have been necessary to convey
away the floral and aquatic treasures heaped on her by the kindly
peasants and their little brown-legged children.
The family would winter abroad, and return to America in the spring for
the wedding, which Blanche had decided should take place in June. June
was a lovely month, she thought, past all the uncertainty of spring,
and with the glory of summer beyond it.
Some weeks after General Smith's return to New York, Nesbit Thorne
joined his relatives in the pretty Mediterranean village. The general
had found his nephew so changed, so worn in mind and body, that the
kindly old soldier became seriously alarmed, and insisted on trying the
remedy uppermost in his mind. He had come, with unswerving faith, to
regard the south of France as an unfailing sanitarium, and he took his
nephew promptly in hand, and gave him no peace until he consented to go
abroad, never leaving him until he had secured his stateroom, and seen
him embarked on his voyage.
Thorne went indifferently enough, partly to escape his uncle's
persistence, and partly because all places were alike, all equally
wearisome to him. He cherished also a hope of hearing, through
Blanche, some tidings of the woman who still possessed him like a spell.
When he first joined them, Norma's waning hopes flickered up, in a
final effort at revivification, but not for long. That her cousin
should be moody, listless and thoroughly unhinged, did not surprise
her, since the trials through which he had recently passed were
sufficient to have tried a more robust physique than his. She set
herself to interest and cheer him, and, at first, was in a measure
successful; for Thorne--always fond of Norma, observed her efforts and
exerted himself to a responsive cheerfulness, often feigning an
interest he was far from feeling, in order to avoid disappointing her.
But as he grew accustomed to her ministrations, the effort relaxed and
he fell into gloom and bitterness once more.
There was in the man a sense of wrong, as well as failure. Life had
dealt hardly with him--the bitterness had been wrung out to him to the
very dregs. In all things--whether his intentions had been noble or
ignoble, he had alike failed. He could not understand it. In his
eyes, the conduct of the two women whose influence had been potent in
his life, while springing from different causes, had resulted in the
same effect--uncompromising hardness toward _him_. The diverse
properties of the solutions had made no appreciable difference in the
crystallization.
His love for Pocahontas had suffered no diminution; rather, it had
increased. His longing for her presence, for her love, was so great at
times, that the thought would come to him to end the intolerable pain
by stopping forever the beating of the heart that would not break.
Her second refusal had been a cruel blow to him. He had seemed to
himself so patient, so tenderly considerate; he had made allowance for
the conservatism, the old world principles and prejudices amid which
she had been reared; he had given her time to weigh and consider and
plead. That the verdict should have gone against him, admitted, in his
mind, but of one conclusion--Pocahontas did not love him. Had she
loved him, she _must_ have proved responsive; love, as he understood
it, did not crucify itself for a principle; it was more prone to break
barriers than to erect them. And this point of hers was no principle;
it was, at noblest, an individual conscientious scruple, and to the man
of the world it appeared the narrowest of bigotry.
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