Silent Struggles Part 56

"Woman, thou knowest that he loved thee, even to human sinfulness. When William Phipps came back to this country, broken-hearted and alone, he was but the shadow of the brave youth whose hand I joined with thine that fatal night."

"Forgive me," pleaded Barbara, with plaintive humility. "I loved him, and am but a weak woman. Think how hard it was to yearn so for one word of comfort, and never dare ask it."

"Unhappy woman! thine has been a hard lot," cried the minister, clasping both her hands in his, and weeping over them like a child.

"Tell me again, kind old man--for I am so near death that it cannot harm me to know--did he in truth mourn my loss?"

"Poor martyr! he has never ceased to grieve over the ruin of his love."

"Then he did love me, dearly?"

"So dearly, that I thought he would have died deploring thy loss."

Barbara drew a deep breath, and tears swelled heavily under her drooping eyelids.

"But he married another!" she said, with an effort.

"Yes; but he was still faithful to the love of his youth. It was but the ruin of a heart which William Phipps gave in his second marriage. He said this to me on the night when I was summoned to perform the ceremony."

"Did he say this?"

"Of a verity he did. It was like whispering it to his own heart, for I alone held his secret. In the future he hoped that tender friendship might warm into love; but I had buried the wife of my bosom, and knew how vain was the hope."

Barbara's eyes were fastened on the old man's face. She drank up his words eagerly. A smile parted her lips; a flush of roses warmed her cheeks. Then a shadow swept over her, and bending her head in gentle humility she murmured:

"Poor, poor lady!"

For a moment both Parris and the lady sat together in silence. Then Barbara looked up with a sad smile, and went on with her story.

CHAPTER LI.

A MOTHER.

"Time wore on, and I became a mother. With the first gleam of maternal hopes, such as thrilled my whole being with new-born happiness, I was hastened into the country; and, in a remote estate seldom visited by the family, gave birth to a son. My life was in great peril; a fever set in, and for a week I wandered unconsciously on the very brink of the grave, delirious, and sometimes wild. When reason came back, my father was there: he told me that my child was dead.

"Alas, old man! mine was a dreary life after that. Honors and wealth were showered on my father. By the death of his mother he became Earl of Sefton, and one of the wealthiest peers in England; but all this was embittered by the fact that I, who must inherit all these privileges, was wedded to a man, as he persisted in believing, so utterly beneath me. This thought seemed to pursue him like a demon. At times my very presence appeared hateful to him; there was never affectionate companionship between us. He was content that I should remain in the solitude of the estate to which I had been consigned almost as a prisoner, and I, still hoping against hope, was willing to live in seclusion till my husband should claim me. For, strange as it may appear, I had faith in the accomplishment of his promise, wild as it seemed.

"One day--it was in the second year of my solitary life--Lord Sefton came down to the country, after the rising of parliament; and for the first time since the death of my child was announced to me spoke of William Phipps.

"'Read this,' he said, placing a newspaper before me, 'and thank G.o.d that the disgrace of your connection with that man is unknown.'

"I unfolded the paper. It contained a paragraph copied from an American letter, dated two months back.

"How I read this paragraph through--the agony of fear that possessed me--I cannot tell; but every word of the cruel statement reached my heart. My husband was dead--lost at sea! I was a widow.

"This mournful knowledge broke up my life. Even my father was terrified by the state of dejection into which I fell. Thinking that it was only the promptings of compa.s.sion that induced him to take me away from England, I was grateful. We travelled for years through Europe, into Egypt and the Holy Land. Sometimes we rested in one place for months and months together; then again we would make long sea-voyages, and visit places far remote from the usual course of English travel. Among other countries we went to Bermuda and the West India islands, taking with us, on our return, a young person, whose history I have no time to give, but with whom my after-life has been strangely a.s.sociated.

"We returned to England only a year ago. My father was an old man then.

I had left youth forever behind, and with it, all hopes of such happiness as a woman's heart craves most. We had long since ceased to talk of the past. It was a sealed subject between us, but as my father drew near the grave, he became more tender and gentle in our companionship.

"A few weeks after we returned to London, Lord Sefton was taken ill. The disease ran its course rapidly, and in three days he was on his death-bed. G.o.d forgive the old man! With his last breath he told me of the terrible fraud that had been practised upon me. My husband was living. He had achieved all that seemed audacious in his promise, and had been in England years before to claim his wife. Then another fraud was perpetrated, and they told him that I was dead.

"My father made this confession in broken gasps. I had no details, and could scarcely gather the facts out of his imperfect speech. Something more he would have told me, but death was inexorable, and the secret died on his white lips.

"Thus, striving to retrieve the evil his pride had occasioned, my father died and I became a peeress in my own right, the inheritor of more wealth than I knew how to use. But, far above all, was the certainty that my husband was alive, and had kept the n.o.ble promise of his youth.

"At last, my father, whose pride had widowed me while yet scarcely more than a child, was laid with the cold and proud of his ancestors, dust with their dust, and I, the inheritor of his estates, the lady of a proud line, thought nothing of these things, but, urged by one wild wish, turned from his very grave and set forth for America, searching for the husband of my youth--the father of that child which had blessed me for an hour and disappeared, but whose tomb I had never seen.

"Thus, full of hope, I pursued my voyage, counting every hour as a loss till I once more saw the man who had been dearer to me when I thought him beneath the waves than all the earth beside. Never had a voyage seemed so long, and yet the wind was fair. How I wished the good ship that bore us had wings! When a storm blew up hurling us westward, I rejoiced, for through danger we should reach him the sooner. When a calm overtook us my heart was restless with impatience. So much of life had been spent away from him that I grudged each moment as a treasure forfeited.

"Oh, how I loved him, myself, and all the world! I had worshipped him as a girl--you know a little how much. But what was that to the holy affection of mature womanhood, to the yearning tenderness that filled my soul and kindled up every bright idea in my brain that it might do him homage? I thought of the change years must have made in him--not to regret that he was no longer young, but feeling how much grander he would be with age on his brow and a consciousness of power in his bearing.

"On the pa.s.sage I had thought of myself differently. Sometimes I would look at my hands and wonder if they had lost any thing of the symmetry and whiteness he once so much admired. When I found a few silver hairs dimming the tresses he had praised for their golden hue, it would make me sad; for love grows timid sometimes as it deepens, and though I cared not for his departed youth, every grace that had fled with mine was remembered with regret. But I recalled his last words and had faith in him. For his sake I would have gifted myself with perpetual youth and immortal beauty. There was no good thing on earth or in heaven that I would not gladly have brought him.

"Had it been possible, I would have gathered up sunlit colors from the sky and those rare tints that sparkle in the ocean for his sake. I had never given much thought to the t.i.tles and possessions which had fallen to me, but now they grew precious in my estimation, for all that I had was his.

"We came in sight of the coast in the midst of an awful storm, and buffeted by the elements that seemed striving to force me back from my fate. I thought nothing of that. The tedious voyage was over. The land which he governed hove in sight. In a day--in an hour--it was possible to see him. The thought filled me with wild impatience. For the universe I could not have remained on board that ship one half-hour after she cast her anchor.

"The captain and crew expostulated with me, but it was impossible to heed their reasonings with the sh.o.r.e in sight. Careless of danger and with my heart fairly singing with secret hopes, I descended into that boat, with the waves leaping and roaring around it. I had no fear, after suffering so much; it seemed impossible to die within reach of him. You know the rest: it was your hand that dragged me from the breakers, yours and Norman's.

"G.o.d sent you to the sh.o.r.e that day, Samuel Parris. I felt it then, I feel it now. Had the waves swallowed me I should have died with a sweet hope in my heart, and the struggle would have been hard. But now that all is lost--nay, nay, I shudder yet!"

CHAPTER LII.

THE LAST WISH.

"I awoke in sight of the spot where we had first met, in hearing of the waves that had borne us, twenty-two years before, a happy pair, across the ocean. All the dear, old memories came back to me then--the night when we rode through the forest to your dwelling, and were sacredly wedded under its roof--the secrecy, the doubt, the happiness, and the love unutterable which bound me, the daughter of a proud earldom, to the fate of a being rendered greater still by the energies and strength which make the n.o.bility of manhood.

"Full of these thoughts, rich in the holy love that runs like a golden thread from time into eternity, I waited in that old farm-house, to which exhaustion confined me, for the hour when I could tell my husband all that I had suffered--all that I had hoped, since the pride of my father forced us asunder. But while I was resting in the sweet hush of a new hope, with the sound of the far-off waters reaching me like a perpetual promise, content with the dear certainty that he was close at hand, a cruel blow was preparing for me. I was resting in peace, with a new life before me, and sweet hopes singing at my heart, when a lady came to my presence, a fair woman, whose smiles made my heart ache under their sweet welcome. She came with offers of hospitality and cordial good-will--came in the plenitude of her rich happiness to invite the storm-tossed stranger to share the luxuries of her home--to share the society and protection of her husband, Sir William Phipps, Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts!

"I fainted at the lady's feet, but kept my secret safe. She left me smitten to the soul with a great blow, for which I was utterly unprepared. Old man, you would pity me could you guess at the anguish, the terrible, terrible desolation that followed this interview with my husband's second wife!"

"Oh, me!" said Samuel Parris, dropping the hands that had covered his face--"oh, me! I do pity you. And it was I that married you both--he, so n.o.ble, so grand of character--you, so bright and good. G.o.d have mercy upon us!"

"At last," continued Barbara, "my decision was made. I could not force myself to wrest happiness from others, or build my home on the ruins of an honorable household. I would return to my native land, and tread the ashen desert of life which must yet be mine, for I was strong, and could not die. Utterly, utterly wretched, for his sake and hers I would take up this penance of life, and endure its loneliness silently to the end.

But I could not bring myself to this all at once. There came moments when my soul rose up in arms for its rights, and the love of my youth grew mighty in its own behalf: but it is easier to suffer than inflict suffering, better to endure than avenge. I resolved to see my husband, and after that decide.

"I went to the North Church, where he stood by its altar in the pride of his state and the humility of his faith, and was baptized for another life. Then it was, Samuel Parris, that a resolve of perfect self-abnegation possessed me--then it was that I almost wrested the consecrated wine from your hands, and made a vow which I have kept even unto death--a vow to remain dead to the man who had been my husband, to leave him forever, and go away into utter loneliness.

"But I could not remain dumb within reach of his presence--I could not see him in domestic converse with another without such anguish as makes the breath we draw a torture. For one instant he--mistaking me for her--held me to his heart. Oh, my G.o.d, I had need of thy help then! My resolve grew faint; but that insensibility came, I should have betrayed myself. Stung with agony, wounded to the soul, I fled from him--fled through the wilderness to your dwelling; and there--oh! my G.o.d! help to do away the evil--there the mystery spread from my own heart through your household. You had seen without recognizing me, and I supposed myself safe till a ship should come. But the instincts of memory filled you with unrest, and you mistook them for supernatural influences; your child grew wild with wounded love. So my suffering bore poisonous fruits, and were tortured into proofs of witchcraft, and for that I am to die!