CHAPTER XIV.
THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER
It was not until late the next day that Lillian granted the oft repeated request of her cousin to be allowed to come to her, and not a moment was lost ere the two friends were together.
"It was cruel in you, my sweet Lillian, to banish me so long, but how ill you look," and Grace Stanley clasped her arms about the dear form and kissed the pale cheek tenderly.
"You are mistaken, pretty cousin, in my general appearance, for I have not been so well in a long time. In fact, your 'poor despondent cousin' is almost happy to-day."
Lillian was looking into the face of her companion while her pure liquid eyes were overflowing with the new-found joy that was filling her heart.
"I have been troubled, Grace. Yesterday a heavy wave rolled over me, that came near burying your 'Lily Bell' beneath it. But it has passed on, and I was left out of the tempest, and a hand reached out to hold me as I was going down beneath the roaring billows. At any rate I am standing firm to-day, and have no fears of winds or storms. Somehow I feel secure in the belief that I shall be shielded and brought through it all," and the fair head drooped for awhile on her hand, and the joyful tears came and baptised afresh her trembling new-born hope. Grace had no word of trust to lay on the altar of consecration, and could only sit at the feet of her who was casting her all upon it, and be silent.
"Forgive me cousin, my heart and thoughts have been straying. I wanted to talk with you that I might, if possible, break the last cord that binds me so tenaciously to the dark scenes of the past that I would bury forever."
"Are you able, Lillian, to bear the agitation such a conversation would subject you to?" interposed Grace, with much feeling. "It would make me very happy to know you had opened wide the door of your poor heart and taken me into its sacred places, yet I would not give you the slightest needless pain."
"Thoughtful as ever, darling; but I feel quite sufficient for the task. Yesterday you heard me tell George St. Clair of my marriage, and how my mother came to the city and influenced me to go with her. No doubt you think it strange, as he did, that no greater effort has been made by my husband to reclaim his lost bride. I could not tell him all, the old habitual fear made me silent. I am free to-day, and my confidence is unfettered. No power could have kept him but the one this guilty hand set up between us."
"You, Lillian?"
"Yes, Grace, I did it. Not willingly, not quite consciously, yet I did it."
Grace looked puzzled, and her bright eyes were fixed intently on the sweet face she so loved, then she said, "Go on."
"It was the night before our departure from Philadelphia when, seeing the postman coming down the street, I ran out to meet him, for something seemed to tell me he had a letter that would gladden my poor heart. I was not mistaken. It was from Pearl, and O what a wealth of love it contained. He would be at home in a week. The business that had called him away was almost finished. 'Then, dearest,' he added, 'no king was ever more ecstatic over his crown than I shall be with my own pure Lily.'"
"'Pure!' How that word thrust itself home to my poor quivering heart. I had run with the precious missive to my room, and there, as the evening shades settled down about me, I raved in my agony with the madness of delirium. I would not leave him! Alone that night I would fly into the darkness leaving behind me forever those who would tear me from him. By and by my mother came in with her soft, soothing tones, she pitied and caressed me. It was not at all strange, she said, that I, a child, should struggle in the arms of wisdom. I was weak now, but by-and-by I could walk alone, then would come her reward. She was laboring for my good only, and when I could look at it I calmly would bless her for it. We would go to England, where my father's relatives were living, and she would cause pleasure to fall around me as bountiful as summer rain. After a few years of travel and study, if I then should find my heart still clinging to its 'imaginary' love, I should return to the object of my tried devotion. O how gradually but surely did my silly heart yield to this sophistry! In a few hours I was her submissive tool. The fascination of a European tour, the pictures of Parisian frivolities, and the glitter of pomp and fashion in the society into which I might plunge and come forth sparkling with its polished gems for all future adorning, captured my bewildered senses and stilled my whirling brain. In the morning we were to start on our journey, would I like to leave a few words for him who would probably for a while grieve at my absence and mourn over his disappointment? It would not, however, last long, such troubles never do with these of his sex, she said, and I should not certainly make myself uncomfortable about it. Nothing could be more to my wishes, and then I was told that she had written a short letter which I had better copy, as my head was not clear enough to think intelligently. It would help him to forget his disappointment and make him happy, just as I wished him to be. O that letter! I can only give you its purport; that I can never forget. It told him that terrible falsehood that I went from him willingly believing it not only to be my duty, but better for us both. Then it went on to say that I had come to the conclusion since his absence, that my affections were fleeting with my childhood; but if in after years I found that I was mistaken I would frankly write and tell him so; until then I wished he would not try to see or hear from me. Georgia would not be a pleasant place for a northern 'abolitionist' like himself to visit, and should he presume upon so rash an act, I had no doubt my mother would not fail to incense the people against him, and pleaded that for my sake he would not attempt it. He might have suspected the origin of that infamous epistle, had not a cunning brain devised and executed it. O Grace, dear Grace! how can you hold that perjured hand so closely in your own?"
"It is pure and white my Lily Bell; no sin-stain mars its beauty. Heart and hand are free from such implications. But you told him also that you were going to Europe?"
"O, yes, and that it would be uncertain when we should return. We went as anticipated the next morning, taking with us one hired servant. This seemed strange to me at that time, as I supposed we were to return to our southern home immediately and would need no one if this be so. I soon found, however, our route lay in a different direction. I cannot tell where we spent the summer months, but it was in a small cottage in a wild, dreary place not so far from human habitation but that Margeret could go twice a week in a few hours to procure the necessities on which we subsisted. The first of October we left this retreat where I had spent so many wretched hours under the surveillance of my mother, and after two days of tiresome travel by private carriage and cars we arrived at the seashore. There we took possession of a summer residence on a high cliff that overlooked the water, which showed signs of not having been long vacated. Here in less than three weeks I became a mother! Can I tell you about it? O the terrible suspicions that arise in my poor brain as I remember that scene! Only once did I look on my sweet lily bud! I cannot make you understand the rapture of that moment! It was mine– it was his! How I longed that he should see our beautiful flower; and then I said 'her name shall be Lily-Pearl, and that shall be the inseparable tie between us.' I was very ill for a long time they told me, and when my fluttering life came back with its full powers I was informed that my beautiful bud had withered and died and lay sleeping in the elegant robe my hands had taken such pleasure in forming. Grace – God forgive me if I impute wrong to the innocent; but here in the presence of Him into whose hands I have committed my cause I assert my belief that the terrible blow that came near severing the brittle, trembling thread of life was a base fabrication and that my child is not dead!"
"Lillian! Lillian! I know it is a dreadful accusation, but listen! You know I was in London five years and then my mother came for me. In one year more we returned home. Not many weeks after my arrival I was passing through the east hall when little Tommy came running to me with a folded paper in his hand. He said he had picked it up from the floor and I took it. It proved to be a letter written to my mother without date or signature. It was hardly legible, for it was evident that the hand by which it was written was unused to the pen. The writer, however, complained of neglect and said the bargain made in regard to the child had not been complied with; that she was worthless to them, and if the three hundred dollars did not come soon my mother must find another place for her. What child can my mother possibly have any interest in? Something further was said about her being six years old which I could not make out. A terrible conviction took possession of me! This was my child! My Lily! And who knows but ere this she has been sent out into the world in default of this paltry three hundred! Goaded by my suspicions I rushed into the presence of my mother with that mysterious paper burning in my hand! 'What is this? What does it mean? What child is the heartless wretch talking about?' I almost gasped so ungovernably did my brain reel beneath the weight of this fearful apprehension. Never shall I forget the look that greeted me! She was standing before the mirror in her dressing-room as I entered, but turned quickly as my tremulous voice fell upon her ear. Her face was as pale and livid as the marble statuette near which she was standing, while her eyes flashed with the inward fire she vainly endeavored to conceal. 'Give me that paper!' she demanded with extended hand; 'how did you come by it?' 'Tell me first!' I exclaimed; 'who is the child spoken of in it? I must– I will know!' She stared wildly at me, while a ghastly smile spread itself over her pallid features and suddenly her voice sank to a low musical cadence peculiar to herself as you well know, Grace, and somehow it has never failed to bring my most stubborn will in meek subjection to her feet. 'Lillian, my child,' she said; 'why are you so much agitated? Compose yourself; such fits of anger is not at all becoming! The story of the child in whom you seem so much interested is a very short one. I should have confided it to you long ago, if by so doing I would not have been obliged to reveal a secret which I could not have told with honor. I will now, however, satisfy your curiosity in a measure. You know that I have both relatives and friends in Savannah, one of these had a daughter who a few years ago became a mother of an illegitimate child; of course the mortification must be hidden if possible from the world, and much against my will I became an accomplice in the affair. This is the one alluded to in that document you hold so tenaciously in your hand. Now give it to me and forget the subject altogether.' She reached for it, and with her eyes gazing steadily into mine took it from me and walked with a firm tread through an opposite door, leaving me standing alone conquered but not convinced. Do not think harshly of me, dear Grace, I know my mother is your beloved aunt, and for this reason I confide in you. I would not let my suspicions loose upon the world, but something has whispered to me many times since that day that Lily did not die in her infancy, and can you imagine my agony when I realize that now she may be homeless and friendless, or what is equally dreadful to me surrounded perhaps with evil associations growing up into womanhood unlovely and unloved?" The head of the agitated Lillian sank down on the shoulder of her companion, and clasped in each other's arms the two mingled their tears of sorrow and sympathy. During all this time Lillian had spoken kindly of the cause of all this treachery and guilt! She was dealing with the great sad past – unclasping it link by link from her present and future as one throws off accumulated burdens when preparing for laborious action. She had secretly before this laid them all at the feet of Him who had said, "cast thy burdens on the Lord and he will sustain thee." His promises she felt were true and she expected to be assisted over the road that seemed stretching itself among the thick shadows farther than her faith could penetrate.
A few hours before this conversation when alone with her blessed Saviour she had said with quivering lips and wildly throbbing heart: "Forgive the poor wailing cry, for I cannot hush its sobbings! Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted – my child is not – not dead, or the mother love would cease its calling," and then she prayed: "Thou who noticest the fall of a little sparrow watch over and protect my Lily! Shield her – lead her in a path where I may find her."
Did the Father hear?
CHAPTER XV.
SCENES ON THE PLANTATION
Autumn came at last. The heart of the great Republic throbbed with unsteady pulsation, and, every nerve in the body politic thrilled with excitement as the looked-for crisis drew near. There were faint whisperings in each breeze, so low at first that every ear was strained to the uttermost tension to catch the vibrating strains, but soon they became louder and louder until the foundations of peace and prosperity were shaken to their very center. "War, war!" It was talked of everywhere. In the salon, in the dining hall, not even were the parlor and boudoir exempt from the unwelcome sounds. The politicians discussed it over their wine, and unfledged aspirants for fame probed the bare possibilities in secret conclaves. Ebony forms crowded beneath windows and balconies with eyes and lips protruded, eager to catch the mysterious meaning of the universal subject, "war!" Aristocracy in the brilliant halls of pleasure and revelry saw the strange hand appear and the finger writing upon the wall. How flushed cheeks paled, and rosy lips changed to ashy hue, and how knees smote together with fear. "War! war!" A cloud, dark and murky, rolled up from the horizon full of terrible mutterings, and loaded with death and devastation, moving steadily onward, until the broad clear sky was covered, and the rays that had so long fallen upon a prosperous people were shut out, and shadows deep and portentous drooped their heavy folds about the agitated nation. Mothers all over the land gazed through blinding tears upon their noble sons, who stood with elevated brows around the home fires. Wives thrust back their true devotion into the secret chambers of agonized hearts, and pressed more closely the pallid lips, and remained silent.
Perhaps there was not another in the whole land who was more bitter towards those who had caused these preparations of calamity than was Mrs. Belmont. True, she had her own ideas who these were, as well as all others throughout both sections of the Republic. Having been for so many years upheld in her present position of luxury and ease by sable hands, it was no very agreeable prospect, surely, to discover a mere possibility that they might at some future time be giving way beneath her.
The lady of Rosedale with her son and daughter had been in the habit of spending several weeks during the winter in Savannah, but now her arrangements for the season were materially changed, Lillian having gone to New Orleans with her cousin Grace for an unlimited time, the mother and son would go immediately without her.
The cloud had never disappeared from the family horizon since that eventful day when George St. Clair left Rosedale a rejected lover. The daughter would not recall him with a promise of her love or her hand, and consequently the shadow of her mother's anger hung over her, dark and gloomy. There were no filial tears shed at parting, nor were there words of regret, or even one sweet, maternal kiss. How sad, how very sad, that such things must be. Can human love die? That healthful seed which God planted so tenderly in every heart to make life endurable as well as beautiful with its buds and blossoms – can all this ever be rooted up? True, its flowers may wither, its bright green leaves may fade and fall, its tender stalks even be broken, but the roots, the deeply imbedded roots —they can never, never die. Smother them with cruelties and wrongs, if you will, bury them beneath the accumulated rubbish of selfishness and misconduct, there will come a time when the warm sunshine of tender memories and the soft dews of genial affections, which the hand of divinity shall scatter over it, will bring forth fresh shoots from the hidden life of the heart's immortal love.
No, it cannot die; or why did Mrs. Belmont hurry into her private apartment, as soon as the sound of the rolling wheels that were bearing her daughter from her was lost in the distance, to give vent there to pent up tears? It might have been remorse, it is true, for the last look on that pale face, as Lillian waved her adieus from the carriage window, would not leave her. There were tears also on Aunt Vina's cheeks, although she endeavored to hide them, amid her merry laughter, as she took off her well-worn shoe to throw after her departing darling. But Lillian felt that there was more good luck in her parting words and benediction than in this. "De good Lord bress ye, honey, and bring ye back to poo' old Vina!"
"Pray for me, Auntie, while I am gone," was the feeble response from the sore and aching heart.
"Dat I will ebery day, sartin! And don't ye mind nothin'! Just ye be happy; dat's all!"
But there came an hour when the warm sunshine gathered up its little gems of joy from out the poor twisted life of the humble slave, and left the heart bleeding beneath the gloomy shadows where it had been stricken. No one knew how it came about – but one bright morning when the orange groves were full of birds, who had arrived from their northern homes before the wintry blasts had reached them, little Shady was found in the store-house lying beneath a huge bale of cotton quite dead! The overseer "had seen him frolicking like a kitten among them and told him not to climb to the top one, as he seemed inclined to do;" and that was all that could be revealed of the sad story! It was night now to old Vina! Nowhere in her desolate heart could she find the sweet balm she had so often poured into the wounds of other's griefs. Above her shone no star with silvery ray to light up the dark despair! Grief has many fangs, all sharp and poisonous and hard to be borne as they pierce through the sensitive nerves of the human heart; but some strike deeper than others, letting out the very life of the soul and flooding the secret chambers with the malaria of woe! Aunt Vina felt all this when at last the little form she had so loved and cherished was laid away in its cheerless bed among the buttonwood trees, where her hand could reach him no more with its cheery good-night. What was there now to keep her tired feet from faltering by the way, or her heart from sinking under its weight of life's sorrows? When the last sod was laid tenderly on the little grave, and "Parson Tom" had said in his most solemn tones "de Lord gabe and de Lord hab taken away; and bressed be de name ob de Lord," she turned away from it all with no responsive "bress de Lord" bubbling up through the torn fissures of her bleeding heart, and sought her accustomed place by the kitchen grate. Without a tear or moan she sank down upon a chair, her head drooping low upon her broad chest, sitting there as motionless and still as though the lamp of her existence had also been blown out. In vain did dark forms gather about her with their tears of sympathy and words of condolence and love! She heeded them not! The soft, warm beams of the noonday sun came in through the door and gathered themselves about her bowed form, but she moved not. When the shadows of night crept in she arose and stole away into the thick darkness of her chamber to pray alone! No eye but His who wept tears of sympathy at the tomb of Lazarus witnessed the agony that night of the poor heart-broken slave. No ear but His who will wipe away all tears listened to the moans and prayers that were borne upward on the wings of departing night from that humble chamber! God heard them, however, and a register was made in that book which is to be opened on that great day of accounts when one more spotless robe of white was ready for her who had "come up through much tribulation!"
The next morning, earlier than usual, Aunt Vina appeared in her accustomed place. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes sunken, yet she moved about with steady step gathering up every trace of her lost darling, burning the few scattered blocks he had brought in that sad day he went out to come in no more, throwing far back into the dark closet the tattered hat and much-used whip, as if by so doing she could hide the sorrow that was eating away her life. And thus she labored on.
The house was indeed empty now! "Pete" had gone with his young master, and Emily, the particular favorite of her mistress, was with her in Savannah, and poor Aunt Vina turned her heart's longings towards the absent Lillian. "If she was only here," she would say over and over again; "de wee lamb! De Lord knows how to pity dem dat lub Him!"
"And don't you lub Him, Vina?" asked the kind old preacher, who strove in his feeble way to comfort the bereaved one.
"Yes – yes – brudder Tom; but somehow dese old eyes can't see out straight. He was all that was left; it seems as how I might hab dat one little head to lie on dis lone bosom! It won't be long 'fore I shall be 'tro wid it all – and it wouldn't 'a' hurt nothin' if he been lef till I went home!" Tears mingled with her sobs as she bewailed her loneliness.
"De Lord say 'come unto me when tired and can't find nowhere for de sole ob de foot, and He will gib you rest;" and the good man laid his ebony hand on the bowed head as he spoke.
"Don't I know it, brudder Tom? He's all right; but it's hard to bress de Lord when He makes it so dark; maybe by and by old Vina can look up! If Miss Lillian was here she would tell me how."
How many have thus bent beneath the rod as they hid the light of faith from them, "refusing to be comforted" when the pitying Father was so ready to bind up the heart His careful love had wounded? "Before I was stricken I went astray" is the testimony of many a happy soul. The clouds are about us but the sun shines above them all.
Lillian was gone and Rosedale somehow seemed deserted and dreary. Perhaps it was because the flowers were all withered and nature seemed going to sleep; at any rate Mrs. Belmont and her son concluded to go to the city immediately, even should one or both of them be obliged to return to the plantation during Christmas week.
"The servants always expect their holiday gifts, and it would be too bad to disappoint them," so the mistress said, "but it is insufferable here!" Besides, Ellen St. Clair was to give a birthday entertainment in two or three weeks, and as everybody hinted the betrothal of the fair heiress with Charles Belmont it really did seem a necessity that he at least should be there. The mother of the young gentleman also was exceedingly desirous of satisfying herself upon this one point, not feeling quite as sure as the veracious "Mrs. Grundy." The reason being, no doubt, that the said son, who had inherited from the maternal side an abundance of the very commendable element of secretiveness, did not seem at all disposed to satisfy any one in regard to the matter as he understood it. Neither was the mother quite sure that he would from any cause be persuaded to sacrifice any of his self-will for her accommodation, for he was fully aware that her heart was unswervingly set on this union. Thus she was kept in ignorance which she was determined should, if possible, be dispelled. All these things were taken into consideration by the intriguing mother – and the son, not at all averse to the arrangements, the next week found Aunt Vina sole mistress of the great house at Rosedale.
Little Shady was in high spirits. Every day the hall door was thrown wide open for the free circulation of fresh air, then such a scrambling up the broad stairs on all fours and such rapid rides down the heavy balustrades! "Bress de chile! Can't see no hurt no how! Missus say she lick him, but she don't see him!" and the good old grandmother turned her own head that her eyes might not be at fault in the matter. The love for this child was all the earth-spot the withered old heart contained. All of her children, not excepting her last, the mother of little Shady, had been taken from her, some by death, others by the greedy hands that snapped the tenderest cords of the human hearts that its own mercenary ends might be reached. "But it's a mercy dat I'se got dis one," she would often repeat to herself as if not quite sure of her resignation in the matter. Certain it was that the merry gambols of the frolicsome boy as her loving eyes followed him through the day, and the joy of feeling his plump arms around her neck at night, shut out in a great measure the dark agonizing past from her view.
Outside of the elegant appointments of the home and its surroundings all was left as usual in the hands of the overseer, who was expected to administer kindness and justice with wisdom, if not with discretion; but as Pete had often said in the quiet of Aunt Vina's kitchen fire, "Massa Firey and old Tige look jist like 's do' day was brudders," and as to disposition and characters it could not be disputed that they were similar. Still, at the "quarters" he was not only feared but regarded with a kind of respect and awe. Three weeks passed away and little had been thought of the dark cloud spreading itself over the nation, for "Massa Firey" said nothing to those under his care, if indeed he knew what was really going on in the outside world.
There was plenty of work in the cotton-fields, for Mrs. Belmont had said before her departure that Charles would want some money and the product of the plantation must be put into the market as soon as it was open. Shady was in high glee, snapping his whip at some imaginary intruder about the extensive grounds or rolling his hoop, when the sweet voice of the child would steal in through the open windows and doors into Aunt Vina's kitchen, awaking the worn-out melodies of her own heart which would come forth in answering chorus. A little curly head was often thrust in through some aperture near, when the song would suddenly change as the dark eyes sparkled with mock terror at the words caught from the sabbath services,
"Git away you Satan, fo' de Lo'd is on the way,"
and the rotund figure of the old grandmother would shake with suppressed merriment.