The Missing Bride Part 8

They were at the threshold.

"Are you Marian?" poor f.a.n.n.y asked, abruptly.

"Yes, that is my name."

"Oh, I oughtn't to have come here! I oughtn't to have come here!"

"Why? What is the matter? Come, be calm! Nothing can hurt you or us here!"

"Don't love! Marian, don't love! Be a nun, or drown yourself, but never love!" said the woman, seizing the young girl's hands, gazing on her beautiful face, and speaking with intense and painful earnestness.

"Why? Love is life. You had as well tell me not to live as not to love.

Poor sister! I have not known you an hour, yet your sorrows so touch me, that my heart goes out toward you, and I want to bring you in to our home, and take care of you," said Marian, gently.

"You do?" asked the wanderer, incredulously.

"Heaven knows I do! I wish to nurse you back to health and calmness."

"Then I would not for the world bring so much evil to you! Yet it is a lovelier place to die in, with loving faces around."

"But it is a better place to live in! I do not let people die where I am, unless the Lord has especially called them. I wish to make you well!

Come, drive away all these evil fancies and let me take you into the cottage," said Marian, taking her hand.

Yielding to the influence of the young girl, poor f.a.n.n.y suffered herself to be led a few steps toward the cottage; then, with a piercing shriek, she suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away, crying:

"I should draw the lightning down upon your head! I am doomed! I must not enter!" And she turned and fled out of the gate.

Marian gazed after her in the deepest compa.s.sion, the tears filling her kind blue eyes.

"Weep not for me, beautiful and loving Marian, but for yourself--yourself!"

Marian hesitated. It were vain to follow and try to draw the wanderer into the house; yet she could not bear the thought of leaving her. In the meantime the sound of the shriek had brought Edith out. She came, leading her little daughter Miriam, now five years old, by the hand.

Edith was scarcely changed in these five years--a life without excitement or privation or toil--a life of moderation and regularity--of easy household duties, and quiet family affections, had restored and preserved her maiden beauty. And now her pretty hair had its own will, and fell in slight, flossy black ringlets down each side the pearly brow and cheeks; and nothing could have been more in keeping with the style of her beauty than the simple, close-fitting black gown, her habitual dress.

But lovely as the young mother was, you would scarcely have looked at her a second time while she held that child by her hand--so marvelous was the fascination of that little creature's countenance. It was a face to attract, to charm, to delight, to draw you in, and rivet your whole attention, until you became absorbed and lost in the study of its mysterious spell--a witching face, whose nameless charm it were impossible to tell, I might describe the fine dark Jewish features, the glorious eyes, the brilliant complexion, and the fall of long, glossy, black ringlets that veiled the proud little head; but the spell lay not in them, any more than in the perfect symmetry of her form, or the harmonious grace of her motion, or the melodious intonations of her voice.

Edith, still leading the little girl, advanced to Marian's side, where the latter stood at the yard gate.

"I heard a scream, Marian, dear--what was it?"

Marian pointed to the old elm tree outside the cottage fence, under the shade of which stood the poor stroller, pressing her side, and panting for breath.

"Edith, do you see that young woman? She it was."

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Edith, turning a shade paler, and beginning, with trembling fingers, to unfasten the gate.

"Why, do you know her, Edith?"

"Yes! yes! My soul, it is f.a.n.n.y Laurie! I thought she was in some asylum at the North!" said Edith, pa.s.sing the gate, and going up to the wanderer. "f.a.n.n.y! f.a.n.n.y! Dearest f.a.n.n.y!" she said, taking her thin hand, and looking in her crazed eyes and lastly, putting both arms around her neck and kissing her.

"Do you kiss me?" asked the poor creature, in amazement.

"Yes, dear f.a.n.n.y! Don't you know me?"

"Yes, yes, you are--I know you--you are--let's see, now--"

"Edith Lance, you know--your old playmate!"

"Ah! yes, I know--you had another name."

"Edith Shields, since I was married, but I am widowed now, f.a.n.n.y."

"Yes, I know--f.a.n.n.y has heard them talk!"

She swept her hands across her brow several times, as if to clear her mental vision, and gazing upon Edith, said:

"Ah! old playmate! Did the palms lie? The ravaged tome, the blood-stained hearth, and the burning roof for me--the fated nuptials, the murdered bridegroom, and the fatherless child for you. Did the palms lie, Edith? You were ever incredulous! Answer, did the palms lie?"

"The prediction was partly fulfilled, as it was very likely to be at the time our neighborhood was overrun by a ruthless foe. It happened so, poor f.a.n.n.y! You did not know the future, any more than I did--no one on earth knows the mysteries of the future, 'not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.'"

This seemed to annoy the poor creature--soothsaying, by palmistry, had been her weakness in her brighter days, and now the strange propensity clung to her through the dark night of her sorrows, and received strength from her insanity.

"Come in, dear f.a.n.n.y," said Edith, "come in and stay with us."

"No, no!" she almost shrieked again. "I should bring a curse upon your house! Oh! I could tell you if you would hear! I could warn you, if you would be warned! But you will not! you will not!" she continued, wringing her hands in great trouble.

"You shall predict my fate and Miriam's," said Marian, smiling, as she opened the gate, and came out leading the child. "And I know," she continued, holding out her palm, "that it will be such a fair fate, as to brighten up your spirits for sympathy with it."

"No! I will not look at your hand!" cried f.a.n.n.y, turning away. Then, suddenly changing her mood, she s.n.a.t.c.hed Marian's palm, and gazed upon it long and intently; gradually her features became disturbed--dark shadows seemed to sweep, as a funereal train, across her face--her bosom heaved--she dropped the maiden's hand.

"Why, f.a.n.n.y, you have told me nothing! What do you see in my future?"

asked Marian.

The maniac looked up, and breaking, as she sometimes did, into improvisation, chanted, in the most mournful of tones, these words:

"Darkly, deadly, lowers the shadow, Quickly, thickly, comes the crowd-- From death's bosom creeps the adder, Trailing slime upon the shroud!"

Marian grew pale, so much, at the moment, was she infected with the words and manner of this sybil; but then, "Nonsense!" she thought, and, with a smile, roused herself to shake off the chill that was creeping upon her.

"Feel! the air! the air!" said f.a.n.n.y, lifting her hand.

"Yes, it is going to rain," said Edith. "Come in, dear f.a.n.n.y."

But f.a.n.n.y did not hear--the fitful, uncertain creature had seized the hand of the child Miriam, and was gazing alternately upon the lines in the palm and upon her fervid, eloquent face.

"What is this? Oh! what is this?" she said, sweeping the black tresses back from her bending brow, and fastening her eyes upon Miriam's palm.

"What can it mean? A deep cross from the Mount of Venus crosses the line of life, and forks into the line of death! a great sun in the plain of Mars--a cloud in the vale of Mercury! and where the lines of life and death meet, a sanguine spot and a great star! I cannot read it! In a boy's hand, that would betoken a hero's career, and a glorious death in a victorious field; but in a girl's! What can it mean when found in a girl's? Stop!" And she peered into the hand for a few moments in deep silence, and then her face lighted up, her eyes burned intensely, and once more she broke forth in improvisation: