CHAPTER XXXV.
"QUOTH THE RAVEN, 'NEVERMORE!'"
How long Mr. Val Blake stood there, staring at that sight of wonder, neither he nor I ever knew; but while it drooped in a strange, heartbroken way over the instrument, and he stood looking at it, powerless to speak or move, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking round he saw the pale face of Paul Wyndham. Pale always, but deadly white, Mr. Blake saw, in the spectral October gloaming.
"Blake," he said, in a hoarse whisper, that did not sound like Paul Wyndham's peculiarly clear and melodious voice, "if ever you were my friend, be silent now! Help me to get away from here unseen."
Some dim foreshadowing of the truth dawned on the slow mind of Val Blake. The ghost of Nathalie Marsh – the invisible and mysterious woman shut up in Rosebush Cottage – could they, after all, be connected, and was the mad mother only a blind. The question passed through Val's mind in a vague sort of way, while he watched Paul Wyndham bend over the drooping figure, as tenderly as a mother over the cradle of her first-born. His voice too, had changed when he spoke to her, and was infinitely gentle and loving.
"My darling," he said, "you must not stay here. I have come to fetch you home."
She lifted up her head at once, and held out her arms to him, like a little child that wants to be taken. All the pale, misty hair floated softly back from her wan face. Oh! how altered from the bright face Val Blake once knew, and the blue eyes she lifted to his face had a strange, meaningless light, that chilled the blood in the veins of the looker-on.
"Yes, take me away," she said, wearily; but in Nathalie Marsh's own voice. "I knew you would come. Where's Midge? I am cold here."
"Midge is at home, my darling. Here is your mantle – stand up while I put it on."
She arose; and Val saw she was dressed in white – a sort of white cashmere morning-gown, lined with quilted blue silk. Mr. Wyndham arranged the long white mantle around the wasted figure, drawing the hood over the head and face. Ghostly enough she looked, standing there in the gloom; and Val knew she must have been dressed in the same manner on the night she so startled him and Laura. But Mr. Wyndham, who wore a long black cloak himself these chilly evenings, took it off and arranged it over her white robes, effectually concealing them, as he drew her forward.
"Go down-stairs, Blake," he said, "a cab is waiting outside the gates. Come with us, and I will tell you everything."
Mr. Blake mechanically obeyed. He was not quite sure it was not all the nightmare, and not at all certain he was not asleep in his own room, and dreaming this singular little episode, and would awake presently to smile at it all. He went down-stairs in silent bewilderment, never speaking a word, and hardly able to think. Nathalie Marsh was dead – or at least some one was dead, and buried out there in the cemetery, that he had taken to be Nathalie Marsh – how then did she come to be walking down-stairs behind him, supported by that extraordinary man, Paul Wyndham?
The cathedral was quite deserted when they got down, and the sexton was just locking it up for the night. He stared a little at the three forms going by him; but he was an old man, with sight not so good as it might be, and he did not recognize them. They met no one within the inclosed grounds. At the side gate a cab stood waiting; Mr. Blake opened the door, and Mr. Wyndham helped in his silent companion, who yielded herself, "passive to all changes."
"Come with us, Blake," Mr. Wyndham said, as he entered and seated himself by the lady. "Rosebush Cottage, driver. Make haste!"
Not a word was spoken during the drive. The slight figure of the woman lay back in a corner, her head drooping against the side of the carriage. Paul Wyndham sat by her, looking at her often, but not addressing her; and Mr. Blake, in a hopeless morass of doubt and mystification, sat staring at the living ghost, and wondering when he was going to wake from his dream.
The distance was short. In ten minutes they stopped in front of the pretty cottage, from whose curtained windows a bright light shone. The roses in the garden were dead long ago, and only gaunt stalks and bare vines twined themselves, like ugly brown snakes, where the climbing roses grew. A queer figure stood at the gate – an ugly, dwarfed, and unwieldy figure, with a big head set on no neck at all, and a broad, florid face, and little pin-hole eyes. But the eyes were big enough to express a great deal of anxiety; and she flung the gate open and rushed out as the carriage door opened and Mr. Wyndham got out.
"Have you found her?" she cried. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! Where was she, now?"
Mr. Wyndham did not notice her.
"Get out, Blake," he said; and Midge recoiled with a cry of consternation at sight of Val's towering form. The next instant, he had lifted the lady out in his arms, as if she were a baby, and carried her within the gate. "Take her into the house," he said, sternly. "I shall talk to you about this again!"
Midge obeyed meekly – Val wondered as much at that meekness as at anything he had seen yet – and led the passive girlish creature into the house. Mr. Wyndham paid and dismissed the cabman, and held the gate open for Val.
"Come in, Blake," he said gravely; "the time has come when my secret can be no longer kept, and I would sooner tell it to you than to any other human being in existence."
"Tell me," said Val, finding voice for the first time, "is that really Nathalie Marsh?"
"She was Nathalie Marsh – she is Nathalie Wyndham now. She is my wife!"
Mr. Blake fairly gasped for breath.
"Your wife!" he exclaimed, "are you going mad, Mr. Wyndham? Olive is your wife!"
"No," said Paul Wyndham, with cold sternness, "she is not – she never has been. The compact I made with her was a formal matter of business, which gave me the right to dwell under the same roof with her, but never made me her husband. She and I understand each other perfectly. Nathalie is my wife – my dear and cherished wife, and was so before I ever came to Speckport."
"Then, Mr. Wyndham," said Val, with gravity, "you are a scoundrel!"
"Perhaps so. Come in."
Val Blake took off his hat and crossed the threshold of Rosebush Cottage for the first time since it was inhabited.
"And your mother was only a myth?" he asked, as Mr. Wyndham closed and locked carefully the front door.
"Only a myth. My mother is in Westchester County yet."
Val asked no more questions, but looked around him. The hall was long, with beautiful proof-engravings, and lit by pendant chandeliers. There was a door to either hand – Midge came out of the one to the left, still wearing that anxious face.
"Now, then," said Mr. Wyndham, sternly, "how did this happen?"
"It wasn't my fault," snapped Midge, her usual manner returning. "I did my best, and she'd behaved herself for so long, I'd no idee she was going to scud off again. The door wasn't open ten minutes, and I was out in the kitchen bakin' the pies, and when I came back she was gone. I put after her and met you, and I couldn't help it now; so talk's of no use. Where did you find her?"
"In the cathedral. She was speaking of it this morning, and asking me to take her there, so I knew she would make for that."
"What made you fetch him here?" inquired Midge, poking one stubby index-finger at Mr. Blake.
"He saw her and recognized her before I did. Get out of the way, Midge, we are going in."
Midge went away, snorting to herself, and Mr. Wyndham opened the door, and preceded Mr. Blake into the drawing-room of the cottage. Such a pretty drawing-room, lit by the rosy blaze of a clear coal-fire in a grate of shining steel, and pendent chandeliers of glittering glass and frosted silver. A small, high-ceilinged room, the walls hung with white and gold paperhangings, and adorned with perfect gems of art. The windows were draped in blue satin and white lace, and there was a Brussels carpet on the floor, where violets, and bluebells, and morning-glories ran wild on a white ground, and looked like pale spring flowers blooming in a snow bank. The chairs were of white enameled wood – the legs and back touched up with gold, and cushioned in blue satin. There were inlaid tables, laden with superbly bound books of beauty, annuals, albums, and portfolios of engravings; and a rosewood piano stood in one corner, with the music scattered about. There was an open door to the left, leading into a bed-room furnished in much the same style; but Val scarcely looked at it – all his attention was taken by the white girlish form lying back in a great carved and gilded chair in front of the fire. What a wreck she was! The transparent skin, the hollow cheeks, the sunken eyes, the wasted little hands, the shadowy figure – what a wreck of the blonde loveliness of other days. Her head lay back among the blue satin pillows, her hands dropped listless over the arms of the chair, and her eyes were fixed on the leaping jets of flame, in a meaningless stare. She never turned to look at them when they came in; she did not even turn when Val Blake crossed over and bent above her.
"Nathalie," he said, a little tremor in his voice; "Nathalie, don't you know me?"
She lifted her blue eyes vacantly to his face, murmured an inarticulate something, moved her head restlessly, and then went back to staring at the fire. Val rose up, white even to his lips.
"Wyndham, what is it?" he asked, afraid, while he spoke, to hear the answer. "Why does she look like that?"
Paul Wyndham was leaning against the mantel, his head drooping. Now he lifted it, and Val saw the dark despair that filled his eyes.
"Its meaning," he said, "has nearly broken my heart. If I have done wrong, I have been terribly punished, and even you, Blake, might be merciful now. My poor darling's mind is gone!"
There was a pause, a pause of mute consternation on Val's part. Mr. Wyndham bent over Nathalie, with that look of unspeakable tenderness that made his face something new to Val – a face entirely new.
"My darling, you are tired, I know," he said, "and want to go to bed. Don't you, Natty?"
The old name! It brought a pang to Val's heart to hear it. Paul Wyndham spoke to her as he would have spoken to a child of three years; and Val thought he would sooner she were indeed lying under the sods in the cemetery than see her as he saw her now – dead in life.
"Yes, Paul," she said, rising wearily, but at once.
"Or, perhaps," Mr. Wyndham said, looking at her thoughtfully, "you would like to sing before you go. You told me the other day, you know, you always slept better if you sang before going to bed."
"Oh, yes!" Nathalie said, her face lighting suddenly with animation. "What shall I sing, Paul?"
"Anything you like, my dearest."
He led her to the piano, and opened it, while she took her seat on the stool, and ran her fingers lightly over the keys at random. Val Blake closed his eyes to listen. How long – how long ago it seemed since he had heard Nathalie Marsh's melodious voice ringing through the cathedral-aisles! The thin fingers wandered off into a plaintive little prelude, that had something wild and melancholy in its wailing minor key. The song was as sadly-sweet as the air, and the voice that sung was full of pathos.
The song died out as mournfully as the last cadence of a funeral-hymn, and the pale singer arose.
"I am very tired, Paul," Nathalie said, in a spiritless sort of way, "and I think my head is aching. Tell Midge to come."
He rang the bell and put his arm round her to lead her away.
"Say good night to Mr. Blake, Nathalie. You remember Val Blake, don't you, my darling?"
"Yes," she said; but the smile she turned upon him was meaningless, and as cold as moonlight in snow. "Good-night!"
Something was choking Val's voice, and his answering good-night was very husky. Paul Wyndham led her into the inner room, and Midge bustled in after the old fashion, and Nathalie was left in her charge to be undressed for the night. Mr. Wyndham left the room and returned presently, bearing wine and cigars.
"If I am what you called me a while ago, Blake," Mr. Wyndham said, with a smile that had very much of sadness in it, "there are extenuating circumstances that may lighten my guilt."
"Wrong is wrong," said Mr. Blake, gravely, "and no extenuating circumstances can make it right. You are a bigamist, by your own confession, and you know how the civil law punishes that."
"Yes, Blake, I know it," said Mr. Wyndham, "and, knowing it, I have risked all to win her, my poor lost darling within that room! Heaven knows, I have hardly had a day's peace since. The broad road may be strewn with roses, as preachers say it is, but the thorns in the flowers sting very sharply sometimes, too."
Mr. Blake made no reply to this aphorism, he was lighting his cigar, with a listening face, waiting for the story his companion had to tell. Midge came out of the bed-room while he waited, threw more coal on the fire, and left the room. But still Paul Wyndham did not begin. He was smoking, and looking thoughtfully into the red fire and the falling cinders, and the ticking of an ormolu clock on the chimney-piece, and the dreary sighing of the night-wind without alone broke the silence. The clock struck eight, and Val lost patience.
"Well, Wyndham, why wait? Go on. I am waiting to hear this most extraordinary affair explained."
"You all here in Speckport thought Nathalie Marsh committed suicide – did you not?" said Mr. Wyndham, looking up. "It is such a charitable place this town of yours, and your good people are so wonderfully ready to place the worst construction on everything, that you never thought she might have fallen in by accident – did you?
"It looked very suspicious," said Val. "Heaven knows how some of us pitied her, poor girl! but still – "
"But still you gave her credit for suicide. Let me restore her character. She never for a moment thought of self-destruction. I have her own solemn word for it. She was heart-broken, – despairing – my own injured darling! – but all the teachings of her life told her suicide was the only crime for which God has no mercy. She never thought of suicide on the night she wandered down to the old wharf. Most miserable she was. Perhaps the wretched night was in harmony with her great trouble; but she did not go there to look for death. She missed her footing on the slimy, rotten plank, and fell in, and from that moment her story – as far as you know it – ends."
Val nodded. He was smoking, and it was too much trouble to remove the cigar to speak.
"She was saved almost by a miracle. A passing boat heard the splash and her cry for help, and rowed to the spot. They saw her as she arose, and saved her, and one man on board recognized her. The man's name was Captain Locksley. Do you remember it?"
"Locksley!" cried Val. "Captain Frank Locksley of the 'Southern Cross?' Know him? Yes, as well as I know you! He was over head and ears in love with Nathalie, himself."
"Yes, I know. He recognized her, and would have returned with her to the shore; but she positively refused to go. She would die, she cried out, if she did not get away from this horrible place. Captain Locksley took her on board of his ship. There was a woman there, the wife of the steward, and she took charge of the poor, deranged girl. Captain Locksley sailed that night. He was off on a three-years' voyage; but on his way he was to touch at New York. The evening before they reached that city, he made an offer of his hand to the poor girl he had saved. He knew her story. He loved her and pitied her; but she refused. She only wanted to be away from Speckport. She would remain in New York. One place was as good as another, and a great city the best of all; but her lot was dust and ashes. She would never marry, she told him. Captain Locksley had a cousin, the wealthy manager of a fashionable Broadway theater, and, as a favor, the manager consented to receive Nathalie into his corps. Her rôle was a very simple one – walking lady at first, coming on only to stare at the audience at first. But my poor girl's beauty, though the shadow only of the brightness that had been, made her rise. She took minor parts, and they made her sing when they found what a superb voice she possessed. Her voice, the manager told me once, might make her fortune – at least it would have made the fortune of any other woman; but my darling had lost life, and with it all ambition. She never would be a good actress, but the audience looked at her a great deal; and the mournful melody of her voice, whether she talked or sang, had a charm for all. It paid the manager; so he kept her, and doled out her weekly pittance, and she took it uncomplainingly. I have sometimes wondered since how it was no one from Speckport ever saw and recognized her; but, I dare say, if they did, they would merely set it down as an odd chance resemblance. They were all so certain of her death, and then the false name and the disguising stage-dresses helped to baffle them. It was at the theater I first met her. They took my dramas when I turned dramatist, and I was always there. She attracted me from the beginning. She interested me strongly the first time I saw her, and I found myself pitying her somehow without knowing anything about her. I could not cease thinking of her after. The pale face and mournful blue eyes haunted me wherever I went. I found out she was called Miss Johnson, and that she lodged in a shabby house in a shabby street; and that was all any one heard. But of my own knowledge I knew she was good and fair, and that great sorrow, not sin, had darkened her young life. Why it was I loved her, I never could tell. It way my fate, I suppose; for my struggles were vain, and only left me more helplessly entangled. The manager laughed at me; my friends talked of acts of lunacy and genteel private lunatic asylums for me; but it was all useless. I loved her, and was not to be laughed out of it, and one night the truth broke from me. I begged her to tell me who she was and to become my wife; but she refused. She refused, Blake, to do either; but she was very gentle and womanly saying the cruel words. She was very grateful to me, she said, my poor dear! but she could not be unjust enough to take me at my word. The fancy for her would soon leave me. She was not worthy to be the wife of any good man. I must forget her. I must never speak to her like this again. Blake, I went home that night in a sort of despair. I hated and despised myself for my pitiful weakness. I tried to conquer myself, and failed miserably. I could not stay away from the theater. I could not forget her. I could not do anything I ought to do. I went to the house where she lodged, and found out all they knew about her there. It was very little; but it was all good. I made the manager tell me again what his cousin, Captain Locksley, had told him of her, and I ascertained that Captain Locksley was an honorable and truthful man. He had said she had undergone a great deal of trouble, and had met with heavy reverse of fortune, but that she was the best and purest of beings, and he trusted his cousin would always be her true friend. He told him he had long loved her, and that he had asked her to be his wife, and she had refused. I knew, therefore, there was nothing worse than worldly misfortune in the past life of the woman I had loved. Once again I sought her out, and implored her to leave her hard life and be my wife, keeping her past life secret if she chose; and once again I was refused.
"After that second refusal," Mr. Wyndham said, throwing his smoked-out cigar in the fire, and lighting another, "I gave up hope entirely. There was such a steady, inflexible resolution on her poor, pale, worn face, that a despairing conviction of the uselessness of all further attempts came upon me. Still I could not go away – I despised myself for my pitiful weakness – but I could not, Blake, I could not! I loved her, and I was a weak, irresolute coward, and lingered about the theater only to get a word from her, a look at her, as she went past, or follow her at a distance through the city streets, to see that she got safely home. I despaired, but I could not fly. And one cold March morning, as I sat at the window of my hotel, staring dreamily out, she passed by; trying to fix my thoughts on the manuscript before me, and unable to think of anything but the pale actress, a waiter came in and handed me a letter. It was a very large letter, in a strange female hand I had never seen before; but I knew it was from her – my darling! I tore off the envelope; it contained half a dozen closely-written sheets, and was signed "Nathalie Marsh." I knew the actress only as Miss Johnson; but I never thought it was her real name. I knew now what it was. It was a very long letter; she told me where she came from, and why she was here, an actress. She told me her whole story; her sad, pitiful story of wrong and suffering; the fortune she had lost; the brother wrongfully condemned; and the treachery – the false, cruel, shameful treachery – of the man she had loved and trusted. She told me all, in a simple, truthful, earnest way that went to my heart; and then she told me her reasons for telling it. I was her only friend, she said. I had always been good and kind to her – my poor, little, forlorn lamb! – and she trusted and believed in me. She did not love me; she never could love any one again; but she honored and esteemed me, and if I could be content with that, she would be my wife – faithful and true until death – on one condition."
Paul Wyndham paused. He had been gazing dreamily into the fire whilst talking, but now he looked hesitatingly at Val Blake.
"I hardly know how to go on," he said, "without involving others, whom I have no right to name, but I must, I suppose; there is no alternative after the discovery you have made to-night. Another had become possessed of the fortune that should have been hers; a fortune that was hers by every law of right and justice. Another, who had no claim upon it, except, perhaps, that of mere chance – and the new heiress had been a fellow-lodger of hers in Minetta street. She was young and handsome, and had been a lady. I knew her by sight, for she had accompanied my darling often to the theater. She would go to Speckport; she would possess the thousands that should have been my Nathalie's – the fatal thousands for which her heart had been broken, her young life ruined. She would be honored and flattered and happy; she would marry, perhaps, the very man who had so wronged herself. He was a notorious fortune-hunter; she was sure he would be at her feet in a month, and was almost equally sure he would be accepted. She could not endure the thought – not that she loved him now – that had all gone long ago; but she wanted to baffle him, to make him suffer as he had made her suffer, and to possess after all a portion of the wealth which should have been all hers. She would be my wife, she said, if I would bring this about. She knew a secret in the life of this new heiress that placed her completely in her power, and she confided that secret to me. She would be my wife as soon as I pleased, if I would only help her in this scheme – if, after our marriage, I would go to Speckport, compel the heiress into a formal union with myself that should mean nothing but a business compact on either side, and so battle Captain Cavendish, and win for my lawful wife after all the fortune that was hers by right. You stare, Blake; it sounds very extraordinary and improbable, but it is the simple truth, nevertheless, and I saw no reason to see why it could not be carried out. The secret I held placed the heiress utterly in my power and would force her to comply with my every wish. Mind, Blake, it was not the sort of secret that causes divorce cases; it was a crime committed, no doubt; a crime of falsehood and ambition, not of shame, else that woman at Redmon would never for one poor instant, under any temptation whatever, have borne my name.
"I read the strange letter over a half a dozen times, and Val, old boy, I consented. You don't need to tell me how miserably weak and despicable it was. I know it all, and knew it then just as well. But I want you to think of me at my best. If the heiress had been a good woman, I would have lain down and died sooner than disturb her; but I knew she was not. I knew she was a bad, bold, crafty, ambitious creature, without a heart; with only a cold, calculating brain, capable of committing a great crime for her own ends; and I had no pity for her. I consented, for I loved my poor, pale girl with a passionate devotion you never can realize, and felt all her wrongs burning in my own breast, and longed to take them upon myself and go forth and avenge her. I did not know then, as I do now, that it was a diseased brain that prompted that letter. I did not know that reason had left her throne, with that constant brooding on one theme, and that my love was mad when she asked me to commit a crime. I did not know. I wrote her a long answer, promising anything, everything, if she would be my wife. My poor girl! My poor, poor Nathalie!"
Mr. Blake sat staring stoically at the coals, making no comment whatever on anything he heard, even when Paul Wyndham made that pause, with a face full of tender pity and love.
"We were married, Val," he said, looking up again, "and the month that followed was the happiest I ever knew. Our marriage was very recent, and I took my darling on a Southern tour, hoping that would make her forget the past and be happy. But it did not. Nothing could ever make her happy, she said, but seeing retribution fall on the unjust, and returning to her native town. Not openly, that was out of the question – but in secret, where she could know for herself that her wrongs had been avenged. So I left her in New York, and came here, and, Blake, you know the rest. I did frustrate that bad man, of whom I do not wish to speak since he is dead. I did marry the heiress, or we went through the ceremony that our friends took to be such. We understood each other perfectly from the first. I found her precisely what I had thought her – a bold, ambitious woman, reveling in wealth that was the birthright of another; ready to marry a man for whom she did not care a jot, because she hoped he would some day place a coronet on her head. I had little pity for such a woman, and besides, I was bound by a solemn promise to my dear one, who never would see me again if I failed. I married the heiress of Redmon, and had a legal right to share the wealth that should have been all my own true wife's. I purchased this cottage – I brought Nathalie here – I secured the services of her faithful old servant, and Speckport thought it was my sick mother!
"Very slowly some dim shadow of the truth came into my mind – very slowly – for I turned cold with horror only at the thought. Her mind was going – I saw it now – and the horror and anguish and despair of that discovery is known only to Heaven and myself. I had been so happy in spite of all – happy in this cottage with my darling wife – and now my punishment was coming, and was heavier than I could bear. My own act brought on the crisis. I was always urging her to let me take her out – I knew it would do her good; but she had such a dread of discovery that I never could persuade her. You remember the Sunday you saw us at the cathedral. She had often said she would like to go there, and that day I persuaded her to go, to hear the popular preacher. The sermon was a fearful one – you recollect it – and it completed the work remorse and suffering had begun. My wife was a hopeless lunatic from that day. O my love! my love! surely your punishment was greater than your sin!"
Val did not speak. The white anguish on Paul Wyndham's face was beyond all wordy consolation.
"It was after that she took to wandering out. She was haunted by one idea now – the sin she had committed against Olive; and tormented by a ceaseless desire to find her out, and kneel at her feet for forgiveness. She wandered to the Redmon road on the night you saw her first, with some such idea, and fled in terror at Laura's scream. Midge had followed and found her, and led her home. From that time, Midge had to watch her ceaselessly to keep her in; but sometimes, in spite of all, she would make her way out. She went to the cemetery to see her own grave, poor child! and Midge found her there, too; she went to the cathedral this evening in the same way. All the old familiar places drew her to them with an irresistible power of attraction, and I knew this discovery must come, sooner or later. I am deeply thankful you were the first to make it, for I can trust you, dear old Val! I dare not call in medical service, but I know her case is quite hopeless. She is never otherwise than gentle and patient – she is like a little child, and I know reason has gone forever. Blake, I know I have done wrong. I know I have deserved this, but it breaks my heart!"
"And this is the end of your story," said Val, looking at him with a stony face.
"This is the end – a pitiful story of weakness and wrong-doing, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Val, rising, and flinging his smoked-out cigar in the fire, "it is. A bad and cruel story as ever I heard. A story I never should have given you the credit of being the hero of, Paul Wyndham. You have profaned a holy rite – you have broken the laws of God and man – you have committed a felony, for which life-long imprisonment is the penalty. You are a bigamist, sir. The laws of this matter-of-fact land recognize no romantic glossing over of facts. You have married two wives – that humbug about one marriage meaning nothing, being only a business arrangement, is only bosh. You are a bigamist, Mr. Wyndham, and you cannot expect me to hoodwink your crime from the eyes of the land."
"No," said Mr. Wyndham, bitterly, "I expect nothing. You will turn Rhadamanthus, and have justice, though the heavens fall, I dare say. You will publish my misdoings on the house-tops, and at the street-corners. It will be a rare treat for Speckport, and Mr. Val Blake will awake all at once, and find himself famous!"