Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life Part 54

He laid his hand heavily on the paper, and bent his white face toward her.

"Jessie Lee, you have slandered the father that loved you better than his own life. You have killed your mother!"

CHAPTER LXI.

THE DEPARTING GUEST.

They were gone, and a gloom like that of the grave fell on everything in that room. While Jessie Lee lay cold and insensible on my bosom, smitten to the heart by her father's denunciation, Mrs. Dennison took the letter from Mr. Lee and read it from end to end. After that she uttered some words which I did not understand--for the cold head upon my bosom had frozen up my faculties--and went her way from the room, and oh! thank my G.o.d! from our presence, I prayed inly, forever and ever.

I do not know when or how Mr. Lee left the room, but I was alone with Jessie, and she dead, for the moment, as if in her winding-sheet.

I had no strength to lift her, or remove her from the room, but I laid her gently on the carpet, and, taking the crimson pillows from a couch, rested her head upon them. All this had been done with great quietness; no unusually loud word had been spoken during that terrible scene--not a soul in the house, except us four, knew that anything had happened.

Striving to subdue my agitation, I went up-stairs in search of restoratives. The crystal flasks in poor Mrs. Lee's chamber had never been emptied of their contents, so I went there hoping to find something that would bring the stricken girl out of her deathly sleep.

The room was dim, but filled with the breath of flowers, as it had been in its owner's life-time. Every article of furniture was in its old place. The white bed gleamed out from the twilight of the apartment like a snow-bank; the soft lace curtains covered the windows, flowing down beneath the silken over-curtains like ripples of falling sleet.

Everything was so natural, so almost holy in its stillness, that even in the terrible anxiety that filled my soul, I felt like falling down by the bed and praying that sainted one to help me save her child.

A wild pet.i.tion did spring to my lips; but it was a time for action; so, s.n.a.t.c.hing a flask from the dressing-table, I was turning to leave the room, when Lottie arose from a stool, at the foot of Mrs. Lee's easy-chair, and stood before me like a ghost.

"What are you doing here, Miss Hyde?" she said, in a whisper. "She does not like people to come to her room."

I held up the flask and was going on; but she seized it between both hands.

"It is for Miss Jessie--for her child--she is ill."

The girl's hands dropped.

"Take it--take it," she said, and followed me from the room.

When Lottie saw her young mistress lying so still and marble-like on the floor, a cry of anguish broke from her.

"Oh! my poor, poor lady! how much she looks like her--how much she looks like her!"

Jessie came to at last: that is, she breathed again, and her eyes opened; but this was all. She had no strength, and all the rich, young life that made her so beautiful had left her frame.

While she lay thus but half conscious, swift footsteps pa.s.sed through the hall, a spasm swept over that pale face, and Jessie made a struggle to move and get away from the hateful sound. It was but a faint motion, and she was still again. Then came a low smothered sound of conversation near the door, and all was silent after that.

I had hoped that Mr. Lee would come back and help me save his child from the depths of her trouble; but he did not appear, and I dared not send for him.

"Lottie," I said, at last, "will you help me? Can you and I carry her up to her room, or must I call one of the people?"

"You and I--no one else."

We lifted Jessie from the floor, and carried her up-stairs, meeting no one.

As we came to the pa.s.sage which led to Mrs. Lee's chamber, Lottie paused and drew a heavy breath; then looking down on that still face, she turned toward the sacred chamber.

I did not protest. That room seemed the most natural place for Mrs.

Lee's daughter when driven forth from her father's heart.

Poor Jessie! We laid her down on her mother's bed, and there she rested for many a long day and night--if rest was ever known to a nervous fever like that which fell upon her from the hour of her father's wrath.

While Jessie lay on the bed with her eyes wide open, and shudders of distress pa.s.sing over her, Lottie drew me to another part of the room, and asked, in a troubled voice, what had made her young lady so ill.

I had no other friend in whom it was possible to confide. Lottie, with all her eccentricities, was true as steel, but I did not myself know the entire cause of all this disturbance, and could not speak of it with anything like certainty, so I only answered her, as quietly as I could, that Mrs. Dennison was going away.

A quick light flashed into Lottie's eyes. She looked from side to side, as if wondering what direction to take. Her sharp intellect almost caught the truth.

"But Miss Jessie isn't fretting so about that. There's something else.

Oh, Miss Hyde! do tell me what it is!"

"I cannot tell you, Lottie, what I do not understand myself."

"And you won't listen. High notions will be the death of you yet. Oh, how I hate airs! Now, if it had been me, I'd have known all about it, by hook or by crook, but it's of no use talking. Are you sure Babylon is going; if she is, her last trump has been played, and she thinks she's won High, Low, Game, and a Jack turned up. Oh, if I only had time to make this all out, but it's hop, skip, and a jump; here they jump right into the dark."

"What do you mean, Lottie?"

"Oh, nothing particular. You keep your secrets, and I'll keep mine.

That's fair."

As Lottie spoke, the door of our room was open, and this gave us a view of the hall, at the other end of which was Mrs. Dennison's chamber. The door of that room also was wide open, and we saw the widow talking earnestly with her mulatto maid, who had drawn a couple of trunks from the closet, and was now emptying a wardrobe in what seemed to be angry haste. With three or four dresses flung over her arm, she turned fiercely upon her mistress, and seemed to be upbraiding her.

Mrs. Dennison answered with an imperative gesture, at which Cora tossed her head, like a racer under curb, and flung the dresses in a heap upon the bed, stamping angrily on the floor as Mrs. Dennison left the room and turned down the staircase which led to the library.

"By gracious! they are packing up, sure enough!" exclaimed Lottie, "and I standing here like a frightened goose. Take care of Miss Jessie, ma'am. I couldn't help you now--no, not if she were dying. Babylon is playing that last trump this minute."

Lottie left me instantly, and I saw her draw close to Cora, with whom she had become very intimate during the last few weeks.

"Do tell me what all this fuss is about," I heard her say. "Miss Jessie is off in hysterics, and your madam looks like a thunder-gust--quarrelling, I should surmise."

"Quarrelling? I should think so," answered the mulatto. "Here she comes all in a storm, and orders me to get ready in an hour, as if I had a dozen hands--no consideration--no feeling. In an hour, and all her dresses to fold! It's too bad! I believe she thinks I'm her slave yet; but I'll show her--I will! Just look at the pile of dresses on the bed, all to fold and pack in an hour."

"I'll help you," answered Lottie, in her stolid fashion, which I noticed she had always used with Cora, who seemed to hold her in profound contempt. "I can fold dresses first-rate."

"Oh! she would never trust you with them; but I'll tell you what will help just as well; there is her writing-table, with the drawer running over, and the top loaded with books; just pack that heap of things away in the smallest trunk."

"Well, I'll do that, if you'd rather," said Lottie, with apparent reluctance; "but not knowing how to read, you see I might get the wrong things."

"No, everything belongs to her; just empty the drawer, and pack them nicely away."

"But you're not really going?" inquired Lottie.

"In an hour."