The Missing Bride Part 19

"In love with her! ha! ha! no, not as you understand it! who take it to be that fantastical pa.s.sion that may be inspired by the first sight of a pretty face. No! I am not in love with her, unless I could be in love with myself. For Lina was my other self. Oh, you who can talk so glibly of being 'in love,' little know that strength of attachment when two hearts have grown together from childhood."

"It is like a brother's and a sister's."

"Never! brothers and sisters cannot love so. What brother ever loved a sister as I have loved Lina from our infancy? What brother ever would have done and suffered as much for his sister as I have for Lina?"

"You! done and suffered for Lina!" said Thurston, beginning to think he was really mad.

"Yes! how many faults as a boy I have shouldered for her. How many floggings I have taken. How many shames I have borne for her, which she never knew. Oh! how I have spent my night watches at sea, dreaming of her. For years I have been saving up all my money to buy a pretty cottage for her and her mother that she loves so well. I meant to have bought or built one this very year. And after having made the pretty nest, to have wooed my pretty bird to come and occupy it. I meant to have been such a good boy to her mother, too! I pleased myself with fancying how the poor, little timorous woman would rest in so much peace and confidence in our home--with me and Lina. I have saved so much that I am richer than any one knows, and I meant to have accomplished all that this very time of coming home. I hurried home. I reached the house.

I ran in like a wild boy as I was. Her voice called me. I followed its sound--ran up-stairs to her room. I found her in bed. I thought she was sick. But she sprang up, and threw herself upon my bosom, and with her arms clasped about my neck, wept as if her heart would break. And while I wondered what the matter could be, her mother interfered and told me.

G.o.d's judgment light upon them all, I say! Oh! it was worse than murder.

It was a horrid, horrid crime, that has no name because there is none heinous enough for it. Thurston! I acted like a very brute! G.o.d help me, I was both stunned and maddened, as it seems to me now. For I could not speak. I tore her little, fragile, clinging arms from off my neck, and thrust her from me. And here I am. Don't ask me how I loved her! I have no words to tell you!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE FAIRY BRIDE.

Since the morning of her ill-starred marriage, Sans Souci had waned like a waning moon; and the bridegroom saw, with dismay, his fairy bride slowly fading, pa.s.sing, vanishing from his sight. There was no very marked disorder, no visible or tangible symptoms to guide the physicians, who were in succession summoned to her relief. Very obscure is the pathology of a wasting heart, very occult the scientific knowledge that can search out the secret sickness, which, the further it is sought, shrinks the deeper from sight.

Once, indeed, while she was sitting with her aunt and uncle, the latter suddenly and rudely mentioned Cloudy's name, saying that "the fool" was sulking over at Dell-Delight; that he believed he would have blown his brains out if it had not been for Thurston, and for his own part, he almost wished that he had been permitted to do so, because he thought none but a fool would ever commit suicide, and the fewer fools there were in the world the better, etc., etc. His monologue was suddenly arrested by Henrietta's rushing forward to lift up Sans Souci, who had turned very pale, and dropped from her seat to the floor, where she lay silently quivering and gasping, like some poor wounded and dying bird.

They tacitly resolved, from this time forth, never to name Cloudy in her presence again.

And the commodore struck his heavy stick upon the floor, and emphatically thanked G.o.d that Nace Grimshaw had not been present to witness her agitation and its cause.

And Jacquelina waned and waned. And the physicians, wearied out with her case, prescribed "Change of air and scene--pleasant company--cheerful amus.e.m.e.nt--excitement," etc. A winter in Washington was suggested. And the little invalid was consulted as to her wishes upon the subject.

"Yes," Jacquelina said she would go--anywhere, if only her aunty and Marian would go with her--she wanted Marian.

Mrs. Waugh readily consented to accompany her favorite, and also to try to induce "Hebe," as she called blooming Marian, to make one of their party.

And the very first day that the weather and the roads would admit of traveling, Mrs. Waugh rode over to Old Fields to see Marian, and talk with her about the contemplated journey.

The proposition took the young lady by surprise; there were several little lets and hindrances to her immediate acceptance of the invitation, which might, however, be disposed of; and finally, Marian begged a day to consider about it. With this answer, Mrs. Waugh was forced to be content, and she took her leave, saying:

"Remember, Hebe! that I think your society and conversation more needful, and likely to be more beneficial to poor Lapwing, than anything else we can procure for her; therefore, pray decide to go with us, if possible."

Marian deprecated such reliance upon her imperfect abilities, but expressed her strong desire to do all the good she possibly could effect for the invalid, and made little doubt but that she should at least be able to attend her. So, with this hope, Mrs. Waugh kissed her and departed.

The very truth was, that Marian wished to see and consult her bethrothed before consenting to leave home for what seemed to her to be so long a journey, and for so long a period. In fact, Marian was not now a free agent; she had suffered her free will to slip from her own possession into that of Thurston.

She had not seen him all the wretched weather, and her heart now yearned for his presence. And that very afternoon Marian had a most pressing errand to Charlotte Hall, to purchase groceries, which the little family had got entirely out of during the continuance of the snow.

There was no certainty that she should see Thurston; still she hoped to do so, nor was her hope disappointed.

He overtook her a short distance from the village, on her road home.

Their meeting was a very glad one--heart sprang to heart and hand to hand--and neither affected to conceal the pleasure that it gave them.

After the first joyous greetings, and the first earnest and affectionate inquiries about each other's health and welfare, both became grave and silent for a little while. Marian was reflecting how to propose to leave him for a three-months' visit to the gay capital, little thinking that Thurston himself was perplexed with the question of how to break to her the news of the necessity of his own immediate departure to England for an absence of at least six or eight months. Marian spoke first.

"Dear Thurston, I have something to propose to you, that I fear you will not like very well; but if you do not, speak freely; for I am not bound."

"I--I do not understand you, love! Pray explain at once," said he, quick to take alarm where she was concerned.

"You know poor little Jacquelina has fallen into very bad health and spirits? Well, her physicians recommend change of air and scene, and her friends have decided to take her to Washington to pa.s.s the remainder of the winter. And the little creature has set her sickly fancy upon having me to go with her. Now, I think it is some sort a duty to go, and I would not willingly refuse. Nevertheless, dear Thurston, I dread to leave you, and if you think you will be very lonesome this winter without me--if you are likely to miss me one-half as much as I have missed you these last three weeks, I will not leave you at all."

He put his hand out and took hers, and pressed it, and would have carried it to his lips, but her wicked little pony suddenly jerked away.

"My own dearest Marian," he said; "my frank, generous love! if I were going to remain in this neighborhood this winter, no consideration, I fear, for others' good, would induce me to consent to part with you."

It was now Marian's turn to change color, and falter in her tones, as she asked:

"You--you are not going away?"

"Sweet Marian, yes! A duty--a necessity too imperative to be denied, summons me."

She kept her eyes fixed on his face in painful anxiety.

"I will explain. You have heard, dear Marian, that after my father's death my mother married a second time?"

"No--I never heard of it."

"She did, however--her second husband was a Scotchman. She lived with him seven years, and then died, leaving him one child, a boy six years of age. After my mother's death, my stepfather returned to Scotland, taking with him my half-brother, and leaving me with my grandfather. And all communication gradually ceased between us. Within this week, however, I have received letters from Edinburgh, informing me of the death of my stepfather, and the perfect dest.i.tution of my half-brother, now a lad of twelve years of age. He is at present staying with the clergyman who attended his father in his last illness, and who has written me the letters giving me the information that I now give you.

Thus, you see, my dearest love, how urgent the duty is that takes me from your side. Yet--What! tears, my Marian! Ah, if so! let my dearest one but say the word, and I will not leave her. I will send money over to the lad instead."

"No, no! Ah! no, never trust your mother's orphan boy to strangers, or to his own guidance. Go for the poor, desolate lad, and never leave him, or suffer him to leave you. I know what orphanage in childhood is, dear Thurston, and so must you. Bring the boy home. And if he lives with you, I will do all I can to supply his mother's place."

"Dear girl! dear, dear Marian, my heart so longs to press you to itself.

A plague upon these horses that keep us so far apart! I wish we were on foot!"

"Do you?" smiled Marian, directing his attention to the sloppy path down which they were riding.

Thurston smiled ruefully, and then sighed.

"When do you set out on your long journey, dear Thurston?"

"I have not fixed the time, my Marian! I have not the courage to name the day that shall part us for so long."

He looked at her with a heavy sigh, and then added:

"I shrink from appointing the time of going, as a criminal might shrink from giving the signal for his own execution."

"Then let some other agent do it," said Marian, smiling at his earnestness. Then she added--"I shall go to Washington with Jacquelina.

Her party will set out on Wednesday next. And, dear Thurston, I shall not like to leave you here, at all. I shall go with more content, if I knew that you set out the same day for your journey."

"But fairest Marian, never believe but that if you go to Washington, I shall take that city in on my way. There is a vessel to sail on the first of February, from Baltimore, for Liverpool. I shall probably go by her. I shall pa.s.s through Washington City on my way to Baltimore. Nay, indeed! what should hinder me from joining your party and traveling with you, since we are friends and neighbors, and go at the same time, from the same neighborhood, by the same road, to the same place?" he asked, eagerly.