That was how the affair ended as far as Eleanor was concerned. Of course she suffered, but she was not of that generation of women who parade their suffering. Beautiful and self-respecting, she was, above all, endowed with physical self-control. Even Alice was spared the hysterical sobbings and faintings and other signs of pathological distress common to weak women.
Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor Bethune's heartache for love never led her to the smallest social impropriety. Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise and cummin due to her position.
Eleanor's reticence, however, had this good effect—it compelled Alice to talk Smith's singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all, it was Alice's and not Eleanor's bridal shopping that was to do. And there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation. Before it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny temper.
"Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!" said Alice, thankfully, to herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.
At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol's influence was paramount. "We have got a better idea, Eleanor—quite a novel one," she said, one morning. "We are going to make our bridal trip in Carrol's yacht!"
"Whose idea is that?"
"Carrol's and mine too, of course. Carrol says it is the jolliest life. You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you. You issue your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy conscience"
"But I thought you were bent on a European trip?"
"The yacht will be ever so much nicer. Think of the nuisance of ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome letters waiting for you at your banker's, and disagreeable paragraphs in the newspapers. I think Carrol's idea is splendid."
So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown. Eleanor was at a loss what to do with herself. She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them together. It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was out of the question.
While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid—a beautiful girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid. "I am going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune," she said. "Papa has heard wonderful stories about it. Come with our party. We shall have a special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty."
"And I love the mountains, Celeste. I will join you with pleasure. I was dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be delightful."
Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver. It was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver. Suddenly the look of intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and annoyance. It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never thought of shirking it.
So she immediately inquired her way to the telegraph office, and even quickened her steps into as fast a walk as she ever permitted herself. The message she had to send was a peculiar and not a pleasant one. At first she thought it would hardly be possible for her to frame it in such words as she would care to dictate to strangers; but she firmly settled on the following form:
"Messrs. Locke & Lord:
"Tell brother Edward that Bloom is in Denver. No delay. The matter is of the greatest importance."
When she had dictated the message, the clerk said, "Two dollars, madam." But greatly to Eleanor's annoyance her purse was not in her pocket, and she could not remember whether she had put it there or not. The man stood looking at her in an expectant way; she felt that any delay about the message might be fatal to its worth; perplexity and uncertainty ruled her absolutely. She was about to explain her dilemma, and return to her hotel for money, when a gentleman, who had heard and watched the whole proceeding, said:
"Madam, I perceive that time is of great importance to you, and that you have lost your purse; allow me to pay for the message. You can return the money if you wish. My name is William Smith. I am staying at the 'American.'"
"Thank you, sir. The message is of the gravest importance to my brother. I gratefully accept your offer."
Further knowledge proved Mr. William Smith to be a New York capitalist who was slightly known to three of the gentlemen in Eleanor's party; so that the acquaintance began so informally was very speedily afterward inaugurated with all the forms and ceremonies good society demands. It was soon possible, too, for Eleanor to explain the circumstances which, even in her code of strict etiquette, made a stranger's offer of money for the hour a thing to be gratefully accepted. She had seen in the door of the post-office a runaway cashier of her brother's, and his speedy arrest involved a matter of at least forty thousand dollars.
This Mr. William Smith was a totally different man to Eleanor's last lover—a bright, energetic, alert business man, decidedly handsome and gentlemanly. Though his name was greatly against him in Eleanor's prejudices, she found herself quite unable to resist the cheery, pleasant influence he carried with him. And it was evident from the very first day of their acquaintance that Mr. William Smith had but one thought—the winning of Eleanor Bethune.
When she returned to New York in the autumn she ventured to cast up her accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.
But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to her that no change could make her happier.
But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he whispered this opinion to her.
"It is only four months since we met, dear."
"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter—the dearest, sweetest little letter—see, here it is!" and this William Smith absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first William Smith's offer.
Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.
"What did you think, dear?"
"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was not going to seek up any other W. Smith."
"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it was intended for me. I can imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W. Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was coming back to New York to look for you."
"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."
"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said, 'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."
"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was written to the wrong Smith."
"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith. Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what you like with the letter."
Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.
THE STORY OF MARY NEIL
Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty—where with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being prepared for the heavenly temple.
This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.
Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer. Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.
And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was "poor" in every bitter sense of the word.
A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears," what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.
Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she needed—a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.
Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords in her heart, and
"'Mid days of keenest anguish
And nights devoid of ease,
Filled all her soul with music
Of wondrous melodies."
As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been here that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then solemnly repeated:
"Saviour, what means this breadth of death,
This space before me lying;
These deeps where life so lingereth,
This difficulty of dying?
So many turns abrupt and rude,
Such ever-shifting grounds,
Such strangely peopled solitudes,
Such strangely silent sounds?'"
Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines from the same grand hymn:
"Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:
Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."
Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.
"Is it very dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the last for her on earth.
"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold my hand."
After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive, while that greatest of all struggles was going on—the struggle of the Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn and anxious:
"Who are we trying to avoid?
From whom, Lord, must we hide?
Oh! can the dying be decoyed,
With the Saviour by his side?"
"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding, and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her lips:
"Both hands, dear Lord, both hands.'"
Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the dark river almost dry shod.
"Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon
Lie in her tent—for on the golden street
She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn
With her unsandalled feet."
THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE
Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and excitement had come—the master was returning with a young bride, whom report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty. It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor and extravagant.
For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers, had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds, was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.
It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind to all her faults; deaf to all his friends—in the glamour of her enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.
Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over, nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the reward of her seductive attentions came.
"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."
She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made herself marvelous.
"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."
In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."
"Impossible, Tina! No modiste in the world could get the things that are absolutely necessary ready in that time."
"Everything is possible in New York—if you have money—and Uncle Gray will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering dinners and running up bills, the better."
"Poor Philip Lee!"
"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor lawyer—especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr. Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations he is sure to indulge in."
In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.
This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success. She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said. It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should be feeling a contempt for her duplicity—that he should use her to cure his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.
It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.
The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.
This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.
Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home, which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in the country.
Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed. Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty, supported by wealth and position.
Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.
For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.
No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now been many years dead.
Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her. However—though she knew it not—no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.
She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not likely to obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts could no longer be concealed.
But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.
To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground; she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the vantage-ground of her retirement sent Félicité to take observations.
The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully prepared to defend her rights.
"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we arrived?"
This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner she had always found omnipotent.
"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."
This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the defensive generally assume.
"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"
"No; my daughter, Clementina."
"But you were never married before?"
"So people say."
"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person of—"
"I see no reason why you should not—that is, if you live in the same house with me."
A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the infatuated husband was willing to promise anything—everything—that his charmer demanded—that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler feelings.
A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her, assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum; but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.
This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband. He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for her—a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.
A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected rôle which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very antipodes of the married siren.
Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually, as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.
Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive him of life.
His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if the settlement and disposing of his property was named.
One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock the door and sit down.
"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter—the lawful heiress of the Kurston lands—whom my wife drove, by subtle and persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in possession of her rights."
"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"
"They are all in this box—everything that is necessary. Take it with you to your office to-night. Her mother—ah, me, how I loved her—was a Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the living!"
Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank gradually during the following week, and died—his last word, "Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying injunction, to Philip Lee.
A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of a sentimental woman to her first and—as she chose to consider it—her only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer, dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of the Kurston property.
Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.
He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.
The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the artful widow was encompassing him with—he must marry some one else.
But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him; yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin with.
So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out driving—had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park. Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters, was at home and alone.
He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.
"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best friend and patron?"
"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.