Jessamine Part 15

She was doing more than escaping the malignant tongue that had blackened the fair fame of her betrothed. She despised Hester Sanford's intellect and inventive talents so heartily that she should have laughed to scorn the tale to which she had hearkened; dissected the ill-formed ma.s.s of contradictions, and boldly refuted her statements by a comparison of their incongruities. Three months earlier she would have covered the traducer with confusion, and rightly punished her gloating audience by standing forth as the defender of Roy's honor and truth, and proudly announcing the nature of the bond between them. She was incapable of such an attempt now.

Like a cowed hound, she had crouched in a corner and suffered the outrage to him who was her other self--the gallant gentleman, whose name she was to bear some day--lifted neither tongue nor finger to save that name from obloquy. Not even to amiable f.a.n.n.y (how much braver than her craven self!) had she been able to say--"This man is to be my husband! Who strikes him, wounds and makes an enemy of me!"

Why was this?

She stopped midway across the bridge; leaned over the parapet with locked hands and rigid features; stared down upon the shining black ice--still not feeling the cold--and tried to answer the question thrust upon her.

Why had she made no fight to save the character of him for whom she had once declared herself willing to die?

"How _dared_ they?" she had muttered between her teeth, in leaving Judge Provost's portico. On the bridge she spoke again--a hoa.r.s.e whisper it hurt her throat to sibillate.

"If this be true!" she said, letting her clasped hands fall upon the stone wall.

There was a livid bruise on both, when she removed her gloves that evening, but she had not felt it when it was dealt.

Had then her belief in her lover's integrity succ.u.mbed to the weight of the first doubt cast upon it, in her presence? Were her faith and her love made of such flimsy stuff as to be torn into wretched rags by a single gale? If these were ever well-founded, must not the inroads of distrust have been gradual in order to be effectual? Had suspicion and forebodings visited her before to-day? been harbored, but not recognized? If so, what were the grounds for doubts and fears?

"_If_ it be true--" she repeated, with a desolate moan--"there is no help for me in earth or in heaven! I can never trust or love again!"

Some one was coming on behind her with quick steps, which echoed loudly on the icy planks, and she walked on hastily. Her first unwise impulse was to increase her speed in the hope of getting away from the intruder, whoever he might be. But finding, on reaching the opposite sh.o.r.e, that he gained on her, she slackened her pace to let him pa.s.s. She would be the sooner alone and un.o.bserved if she allowed him to go on. It was only a chance wayfarer, of course, but she would shun all eyes, idle or searching, while her brain was in such a whirl, her heart rent and quaking. She detected nothing familiar in the footfall, but she did remark, with a sense of irritation, that it was more deliberate in nearing her. Did the unseen pursuer mean to dog her?

Annoyance was exchanged momentarily for active alarm; the angry blood welled to her face and head in one mighty throb, as a hand touched her elbow, before her persecutor had breath to accost her.

It was Orrin Wyllys' voice that said, laughingly, "Is it Atalanta, or swift Camilla scouring the plain, whom I have chased for the last ten minutes? What are you running away from?"

"The Furies!"

CHAPTER XII.

Orrin was shocked into sober sincerity by the fierce, curt utterance.

"My dear Jessie! what has happened?"

"Don't ask me!" walking on, without looking at him.

Orrin kept step with her for several moments, studying the eyes that, black and disdainful, stared straight before her, and the mouth set in a close curve of pride, before he spoke again.

"I will ask nothing just now, except that you will take my arm, and allow me to be your escort. This is a lonely road."

"It suits me the better, then!"

He waited a minute more, and, with gentle force, undid her right hand from its hold upon its fellow, and drew it within his arm.

"I see that my society is unwelcome, Jessie, but it is not right for you to be so far from home at this time of day without a protector.

I shall not compel your confidence. When you are ready to give it, my sympathies or services are at your command, as they have always been since I became your guardian in the absence and with the sanction of my cousin."

The hot sparkle was a blaze as she looked up.

"Yes! and you, too, must have known it! You, who pretend to be my friend! My trust has been blind and foolish throughout. You were ready enough to counsel and warn me about other things. Why did you never tell me of Roy Fordham's former engagement? of the love-affair (save the mark!) that clashed with mine? You have said again and again that you respected me--that my happiness was of value in your estimation. Did not respect or humanity urge you to spare me this bitter humiliation?"

Unaffectedly amazed though he was at the onslaught and the information she imparted, Orrin yet refrained from explicit denial.

"Who has been talking to you?" he asked, instead.

She dashed through the story in the same impetuous strain, ending it with--"He ought to have told me this, and so ought you! I can forgive anything but deliberate deception."

Orrin mused.

"You are excited--" he began, slowly.

She interrupted him--"Who would not be? I am not a stone!"

"n.o.body said that you were, or ought to be," smiling a little. "I was about to say that the displeasure you feel is perfectly natural--just what any woman with a heart would experience in the circ.u.mstances. But let us investigate before we condemn. What is your ground of complaint against my friend and your betrothed? Did he ever tell you that you were his first and only love?"

"I do not know that he a.s.serted it in so many words," she replied, with a vivid blush. "But I certainly inferred as much from what he has said."

"Every woman's inference is the same when she listens to a declaration of affection. Who but a fool would preface such by a confession of how many times he had rehea.r.s.ed it to other ears? Few men reach the age of twenty-five without having had two or three _grandes pa.s.sions_. I do not maintain, as a gentleman did once in my hearing, when taxed with being engaged in his fortieth love-suit, that in this, as in most other things, practice makes perfect. But I hold that you cannot accuse Roy of deceiving you, unless he has declared expressly that he had never loved or wooed until he met you. Happy are those who are not visited by the ghosts of by-gone--and, as they deemed, buried--affections upon their bridal eves! Ghosts that are hard enough to lay, as many a miserable married, not mated one can testify."

"None such shall stand between me and him whom I marry!" cried Jessie, vehemently. "If Roy Fordham once loved--if he still regrets this girl--has one pang of compunction in the review of her fidelity and her sorrow; if he repents, never so slightly, his relinquishment of her upon insufficient cause--he shall go back to her. I will have a whole heart, or I will quit him, a pauper in love. Divided allegiance is worse than desertion."

"Be a.s.sured of one thing!" returned Orrin, emphatically. "Roy Fordham 'regrets' no past action of his own. His judgment is as calm as his measures are decided. If he suffers his heart to go out of his keeping, he does it in the persuasion that he could not act more prudently, more in accordance with his best interests, than to intrust it to her whom he has chosen. But should he, nevertheless, discover, from subsequent developments, that he was mistaken, he would recall affections and troth without weak hesitation. If Miss Sanford's story be true (which, please observe, I am far from admitting), we may still rest content in the knowledge that he pursued what he thought was the wisest course--performed what seemed to him a simple and imperative duty. He is, of all men I know, the most clear-headed and conscientious. If his ideas upon certain subjects appear to me to be over-strict, if his conduct, in cases that would be trying emergencies to me, looks like an exercise of superhuman resolution or self-denial, I do not, therefore, question his wisdom or my failings. His standard of right is so elevated, his views of duty are based upon--"

"Don't make labored excuses for him which you feel, in your soul, are paltry sophisms!" burst out Jessie, impatiently. "Is it your belief that he was ever betrothed to this girl? And, if so, did he cast her off upon the barbarous pretext Hester Sanford named? I have tried to think it all out," she continued, putting her hand to her head, like one dazed or stunned, "but nothing is fixed and clear. He _was_ at the seash.o.r.e two summers ago, after he visited Dundee. He _did_ go to B---- the following winter--twice--both times to attend the weddings of friends, he told me. These things he made no secret of. That does not look like guilt. And yet--Tell me what to believe--how to act!"

"If I were in possession of the exact truth, you should have had it before now. I am as ignorant as yourself of all except the facts you have stated. He has friends--relatives whom he esteems--in B----. I recollect that he was with them at the sea sh.o.r.e late in his vacation, and that he spent Christmas before last in the city which is their home. This is the extent of my actual knowledge touching this mystery. He is reticent in the extreme with respect to his personal affairs. I never heard your name; never suspected that he was not heart-whole prior to my first visit to Dundee. I can only judge him in this, as in every case, by what I know of his principles and past conduct. He is incapable of what he would consider a dishonorable, much less a base deed! Try and trust him; forget this tale which may be a fiction, out-and-out, and hope for the best!"

"Christmas before last!" murmured Jessie, in stifled accents. "He was corresponding with me then! He had told my father that he meant--Oh!" stopping short, and stamping her foot with feverish energy upon the frozen earth--"Is there _no_ way of ending this horrible suspense? no one who can put me out of this pain? I would give my right hand if I might stand face to face with Roy Fordham, for ten minutes! just long enough to bring my accusation, and hear his defence!"

"I am thankful that this cannot be!" said Orrin, composedly. "I understand him better than you do in some respects. To doubt is to insult him. One sentence of 'accusation,' and your power over him is gone forever. Be guided by me, Jessie! You are not in a fit condition to decide for yourself upon your safest mode of action at this critical juncture. It is an oft-repeated maxim of human law that every man is innocent until proof brings his guilt home to him. Two things are patent from our present standpoint. When Roy asked you to marry him, he was free to do so,--the previous engagement, a.s.suming that such had ever existed, having been dissolved some months earlier than the date of his proposal to you.

Again--and on this head I can speak confidently--he is thoroughly satisfied that his choice is a judicious one. This is not the first time I have wanted to say this to you. He may not be an ardent suitor, because his is not a pa.s.sionate nature, nor is he given to demonstrations of emotion. But he is more than contented. He is sincerely attached to you--"

"Which means that he will fulfil his part of the contract of marriage unless _my_ sister should die of consumption before the wedding-day arrives!" Jessie checked his defence of his kinsman by saying, with a rasping laugh.

Wyllys looked deeply pained.

"We will defer further conversation about this matter until you are calmer," he said, with a manifest struggle. "You are not ready for it just yet, or you would not sneer at my well-meant, if ineffectual, attempt to set your mind at rest."

"With unfeeling arguments! with special pleadings that freeze the blood at my heart!" she pursued, unappeased and desperate. "If this is the ablest defence you can set up for your client, you do well to defer the further consideration of it. I have prayed you for bread, and you give me a stone! I have said--'Let me have the plain truth!'

and you tantalize me with fine-drawn theories and exhortations to patience and faith. I am tempted to believe that you are in the league to deceive me!"

"Jessie! Jessie! take care! You do not know what you are doing!"

It was entreaty--not reproach. He seemed to crave a personal boon--deliverance from impending trial of his strength or feelings.

Jessie rushed on headlong, deaf to the significance of the pet.i.tion.

"Your advocacy is worthy of the cause you have espoused! And while you expatiate upon your cousin's cool head and colder heart, and recommend me to make sure of this pattern partner--yes! that is the way you put it--I am being torn by pride and wounded affection and incert.i.tude, as by raging wild horses! It is easy for you to talk sensibly and even eloquently of what appeals only to your reason!"