Silent Struggles Part 58

"Oh! If it were to save your life, I would give him up! I would--I would!" sobbed Elizabeth.

"It will make the few hours left to me almost happy, if you become his wife now," said Barbara, placing her hand on the little book which lay near her.

"Elizabeth, your father has consented that it shall be even as I wish.

Do you love this man well enough to wed him in the gloom of a prison?"

"Do I love him! But that I loved him so madly you would never have been in this strait," cried the girl.

"Then let it be as I wish, dear child. Love makes its own sunshine even in a dungeon. Norman, take her hand. Samuel Parris, they are ready."

The old minister, who stood leaning against the wall, came forward silently, took the two hands reached out to him in his firm clasp, and in a few, deep, solemn words, made Elizabeth Parris Norman Lovel's wife.

Just as the ceremony was completed a cloud pa.s.sed over the sun, and its light, filtering dimly through the iron bars which grated the window, shed a weird gloom over the group of persons so strangely brought together. While the newly-wedded pair stood hand in hand, pale as death, and scarcely daring to feel happy. Barbara went to her pallet-bed, and took a leathern case from beneath the pillow. This she unlocked with a key suspended to her neck, and opening it revealed the contents. A quant.i.ty of bank notes, bills of exchange, and gold, lay in one compartment; from the other she took the coronet of diamonds, which had been mentioned as the witch-crown at her trial, and placed it on the head of the bride.

"It is my gift to your wife, Norman," she said, addressing the young man with subdued tenderness. "Before long you will both prize it for something more than its value. Here are other jewels for the bosom and arms. My sweet child, may the heart which beats under them prove happier far than their poor owner has been. Some day you will know why she gives them to you."

Elizabeth shrunk, and almost cried out with terror, as the coronet settled down upon the waves of her hair, for, spite of herself, thrills of superst.i.tion shook her disturbed nerves, and it seemed as if the prisoner were crowning her with coals of fire. But the sweet voice of Barbara Stafford soothed all fear away, and the bride received this princely gift with her head drooping in meek thankfulness under its starry crown.

Lovel was astonished and bewildered. As he turned to gaze upon his bride the sun broke out, and streaming through the window set the coronet on fire with rainbow hues. "Lady, lady, I know the value of these things.

We must not accept them," he exclaimed.

"What will they be worth to me after to-morrow?" answered Barbara.

"But would you have us profit by the awful crime which your enemies will perpetrate?" he persisted.

"Hush!" she said; "it must be so. The gold for yourself--the jewels for your wife. I will not be disputed in this."

"Oh, lady! I shall never have the heart to wear them," said Elizabeth; "they burn my temples even now."

"Yes, child, you will learn to wear them for my sake; and because I loved you--for my sake, remember."

"Oh! this kindness is breaking my heart!" sobbed the bride. "Only reproach me, and I can bear it better."

"Reproach you! Come, come, we will lock the gems in their case again,"

said Barbara, smoothing Elizabeth's golden tresses with her hands, as she took off the coronet. "They do seem like a mockery in a dungeon.

When this dark pa.s.sage of our lives is over, they will not seem so out of place."

As she spoke, Barbara locked the leathern casket again and, taking its key from her neck, gave both to Samuel Parris.

"When you go forth take them with you," she said; "but they must not be otherwise disposed of."

Parris took the case in silence. He knew, far better than the others, how sacredly these young people would hold her wishes hereafter.

"Now, my child, farewell! We must not see each other again on this earth," said the prisoner, kissing Elizabeth on the forehead. "When we do meet, be able to look in my face and say, 'I have been a faithful and good wife to the man who blessed me with his love.'"

Bathed in tears, and trembling under the solemn effect of these words, Elizabeth left the dungeon with her father. Lovel remained behind.

When they were alone, Barbara stood before her son. Slowly her eyes filled with the intense love which up to that moment she had suppressed in her heart. She reached forth her arms and, without understanding the power of natural affection that urged him on, Norman wound his arms around her neck, and resting her head on his shoulder, broke into a pa.s.sion of grief that shook his whole frame. She trembled in his arms, not with sorrow, but thrilled with a joy so intense that it lifted her into a state of wonderful exaltation.

"He loves me completely, with more than filial devotion, and yet knows nothing of our kinship--never dreams that I--even I--am his mother," she thought. "After this one moment I should of a truth be ready to die, for the bliss of a life-time falls upon me now."

But that craving affection which never was, and never will be, fully satisfied in a loving woman's heart, demanded an a.s.surance of this feeling in words. She drew her head back, and looked into Norman's face.

"And you love me?" she said, pa.s.sing her hand over his hair in an unconscious caress. "My n.o.ble boy, you love me!"

"If I could but explain how much, and with what pure, pure affection!

Surely the Catholics must worship their saints as I worship you. My love for you is made up of tenderness and prayer. I shall never kneel to my G.o.d hereafter without feeling that you are near him."

"And near you, also, my--my friend. If spirits are ever permitted to retrace their steps in the eternal progress, no grief shall ever reach you that I will not be near to soothe."

"My heart will feel your presence, and take comfort from it, sweet mother."

"Mother! boy--boy! Why did you call me mother?"

"If I did so, the word escaped my lips unconsciously. Forgive it."

"Forgive it--yes, yes, my son, I can forgive it, for the word has a sweet sound."

"You called me son," said Norman, gazing on her with a sad smile.

"Did I? That sprung from the word mother. I would gladly hear it from those lips again. Norman, I once had a child--a sweet babe, which was taken from me long before it could p.r.o.nounce the word mother, and no one, even by accident, ever called me by that dear name till now."

"Mother! mother!" repeated the young man, pausing on each word, as if to drink in its hidden music. "It is very strange, but ever since I first saw you that word has been constantly whispered in my heart. I never thought of it before, save as a sound full of regrets. To me, an orphan from the first, it had no other meaning."

"But now--now you love it?"

"Yes; now it has depth and significance. A tender significance, which makes my heart swell, and fills my eyes with tears. Lady, I am glad the word escaped me, since it does not wound or offend you, for it has unlocked my heart. I could rest your head on my bosom thus, and weep my life away with yours."

"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, "if G.o.d would be merciful, and let us die so."

"Or permit you to live. How beautiful existence would be for us all!"

Instantly, the holy tenderness that had trembled on Barbara's features went out from her face. Her head rested like marble on the young man's shoulders. The thought of what must happen to-morrow broke through her exaltation, and froze her into ice.

"Go," she said, in a husky whisper. "Go! your wife is waiting. Take her out of this place--from the town itself. You must not be near me when the time comes. I shall be better alone."

"Not near you!" exclaimed the young man. "Though my heart break--and I feel that it must--you shall not drive me from your side."

"But it will take away my strength. I shall falter at the last moment.

Boy, can you not see how weak I am?"

Her voice broke out of its husky whispers; she shivered from head to foot, and held out her shaking hands that he might clasp them.

Norman folded her close in his arms till the trembling subsided. Then she was firm again, but cold as stone.

"Go, now," she said. "Here we part forever. To-morrow, if I am to perish as a Christian woman, with the example of our blessed Saviour before me, I must meet the agonies of death alone. With you standing near me, my friend, it would be to die twice. Nay, take your arms from around me. I am stronger standing alone. But--but your hand still; let me hold that to the last."

"Oh, that it had the power to lead you from this horrible place!"

"Hush! hush! we must not think of that. Farewell! farewell!"