Way Down East Part 5

"Both were arrested on the charge of creating a disturbance. At the State Street Police Station the woman said that Langdon had performed a mock marriage for a fellow student some four months ago. She had acted as a witness, for which service she was to receive $50. The money had never been paid. She stated further that the young man, whom Langdon is alleged to have married, is the son of a wealthy Boston banker, and the young woman who was thus deceived is a young relative of one of Boston's social leaders.

"Later Bertha Harris withdrew her charges, saying she was intoxicated when she made them. The affair has created a profound sensation."

"Mock marriage!" The words whirled before the girl's eyes in letters of fire. Bertha Harris! Yes, that was the name. It had struck her at the time when Sanderson dropped the ring. Langdon had said "Bertha Harris has found it."

The light of her reason seemed to be going out. From the blackness that engulfed her, the words "mock marriage" rang in her ear like the cry of the drowning.

"G.o.d, oh G.o.d!" she called and the pent up agony of her wrecked life was in the cry.

They found her senseless a moment later, staring up at the ceiling with gla.s.sy eyes, the crumpled paper crushed in her hand.

"She is dead," wailed her mother. The old servant wasted no time in words. She lifted up the fragile form and laid it tenderly on the bed.

Then she raised the window and called to the first pa.s.serby to run for the nearest doctor.

CHAPTER VII.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

A mother's love--how sweet the name!

What is a mother's love?

--A n.o.ble, pure and tender flame, Enkindled from above, To bless a heart of earthly mould; The warmest love that can grow cold; That is a mother's love.--_James Montgomery_.

It took all the medical skill of which the doctor was capable, and the best part of twenty-four hours of hard work to rouse Anna from the death-like lethargy into which she had fallen. Toward morning she opened her eyes and turning to her mother, said appealingly:

"Mother, you believe I am innocent, don't you?"

"Certainly, darling," Mrs. Moore replied, without knowing in the least to what her daughter referred. The doctor, who was present at the time, turned away. He knew more than the mother. It was one of those tragedies of everyday life that meant for the woman the fleeing away from old a.s.sociations, like a guilty thing, long months of hiding, the facing of death; and, if death was not to be, the beginning of life over again branded with shame. And all this bitter injustice because she had loved much and had faith in the man she loved. The doctor had faced tragedies before in his professional life, but never had he felt his duty so heavily laid upon him as when he begged Mrs. Moore for a few minutes' private conversation in the gray dawn of that early morning.

He felt that the life of his patient depended on his preparing her mother for the worst. The girl, he knew, would probably confess all during her convalescence, and the mother must be prepared, so that the first burst of anguish would have expended itself before the girl should have a chance to pour out the story of her misfortune.

"Tell me, doctor, is she going to die?" the mother asked, as she closed the door of the little sitting-room and they were alone. The poor lady had not thought of her own misfortunes since Anna's illness. The selfishness of the woman of the world was completely obliterated by the anxiety of the mother.

"No, she will not die, Mrs. Moore; that is, if you are able to control your feelings sufficiently, after I have made a most distressing disclosure, to give her the love and sympathy that only you can."

She looked at him with troubled eyes. "Why, doctor, what do you mean?

My daughter has always had my love and sympathy, and if of late I have appeared somewhat engrossed by my own troubles, I a.s.sure you my daughter is not likely to suffer from it during her illness."

"Her life depends on how you receive what I am going to tell you.

Should you upbraid her with her misfortune, or fail to stand by her as only a mother can, I shall not answer for the consequences." Then he told her Anna's secret.

The stricken woman did not cry out in her anguish, nor swoon away. She raised a feebly protesting hand, as if to ward off a cruel blow; then burying her face in her arms, she cowed before him. Not a sob shook the frail, wasted figure. It was as if this most terrible misfortune had dried up the well-springs of grief and robbed her of the blessed gift of tears. The woman who in one brief year had lost everything that life held dear to her--husband, home, wealth, position--everything but this one child, could not believe the terrible sentence that had been p.r.o.nounced against her. Her Anna--her little girl! Why, she was only a child! Oh, no, it could not be true. She never, never would believe it.

Her brain whirled and seemed to stop. It refused to grasp so hideous a proposition. The doctor was momentarily at a loss to know how to deal with this terrible dry-eyed grief. The set look in her eyes, the terrible calm of her demeanor were so much more alarming than the wildest outpourings of grief would, have been.

"And this seizure, Mrs. Moore. Tell me exactly how it was brought about," thinking to turn the current of her thoughts even for a moment.

She told him how Anna had gone out in the early afternoon, without saying where she was going, and how she had returned to the house about five o'clock, looking so pale and ill, that Hannah, an old family servant who still lived with them, noticed it and begged her to sit down while she went to fetch her a cup of tea. The maid left her sitting by the fire-place reading a paper, and the next thing was the terrible cry that brought them both. They found her lying on the floor unconscious with the crumpled newspaper in her hand.

"See, here is the paper now, doctor," and he stooped to pick up the crumpled sheet from which the girl had read her death warrant.

Together they went over it in the hope that it might furnish some clue.

Mrs. Moore's eyes were the first to fall on the fatal paragraph. She read it through, then showed it to the doctor.

"That is undoubtedly the cause of the seizure," said the doctor.

"Oh, my poor, poor darling," moaned the mother, and the first tears fell.

In the first bitterness of regret, Mrs. Moore imagined that in selfishly abandoning herself to her own grief, she must have neglected her daughter, and her remorse knew no bounds. Again and again she bitterly denounced herself for giving way to sorrow that now seemed light and trivial, compared to the black hopelessness of the present.

Anna's mind wandered in her delirium, and she would talk of her marriage and beg Sanderson to let her tell her mother all. Then she would fancy that she was again with Mrs. Tremont and she would go through the pros and cons of the whole affair. Should she marry him secretly, as he wished? Yes, it would be better for poor mama, who needed so many comforts, but was it right? And then the pa.s.sionate appeal to Sanderson. Couldn't he realize her position?----

"Yes, darling, it is all right. Mother understands," the heartbroken woman would repeat over and over again, but the sick girl could not hear.

And so the days wore on, till at last Anna's wandering mind turned back to earth, and again took up the burden of living. There was nothing for her to tell her mother. In her delirium she had told all, and the mother was prepared to bravely face the worst for her daughter's sake.

The terrible blow brought mother and daughter closer together than they had been for years. In their prosperity, the young girl had been busy with her governess and instructors, while her mother had made a fine art of her invalidism and spent the greater part of her time at health resorts, baths and spas.

By mutual consent, they decided that it was better not to attempt to seek redress from Sanderson. Anna's letters, written during her convalescence, had remained unanswered, and any effort to force him, either by persuasion or process of law, to right the terrible wrong he had done, was equally repulsive to both mother and daughter.

Mrs. Standish Tremont was also equally out of the question, as a court of final appeal. She had been so piqued with Anna for interfering with her most cherished plans regarding Sanderson and Grace Tremont, that Anna knew well enough that there would only be further humiliation in seeking mercy from that quarter.

So mother and daughter prepared to face the inevitable alone. To this end, Mrs. Moore sold the last of her jewelry. She had kept it, thinking that Anna would perhaps marry some day and appreciate the heirlooms; but such a contingent was no longer to be considered, and the jewelry, and the last of the family silver, were sent to be sold, together with every bit of furniture with which they could dispense, and mother and daughter left the little cottage in Waltham, and went to the town of Belden, New Hampshire,--a place so inconceivably remote, that there was little chance of any of their former friends being able to trace them, even if they should desire to do so.

As the summer days grew shorter, and the hour of Anna's ordeal grew near, Mrs. Moore had but one prayer in her heart, and that was that her life might be spared till her child's troubles were over. Since Anna's illness in the early spring, she had utterly disregarded herself. No complaint was heard to pa.s.s her lips. Her time was spent in one unselfish effort to make her daughter's life less painful. But the strain of it was telling, and she knew that life with her was but the question of weeks, perhaps days. As her physical grasp grew weaker, her mental hold increased proportionately, and she determined to live till she had either closed her child's eyes in death, or left her with something for which to struggle, as she herself was now struggling.

But the poor mother's last wish was not to be granted. In the beginning of September, just when the earth was full of golden promise of autumn, she felt herself going. She felt the icy hand of death at her heart and the grim destroyer whispered in her ear: "Make ready."

Oh, the anguish of going just then, when she was needed so sorely by her deceived and deserted child.

"Anna, darling," she called feebly, "I cannot be with you; I am going--I have prayed to stay, but it was not to be. Your child will comfort you, darling. There is nothing like a child's love, Anna, to make a woman forget old sorrows--kiss me, dear----" She was gone.

And so Anna was to go down into the valley of the shadow of death alone, and among strangers.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN DAYS OF WAITING.

"Bent o'er her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew, The big drops mingled with the milk he drew Gave the sad presage of his future years-- The child of misery, baptized in tears."--_John Langhorne_.