CHAPTER XX
FOUND AND LOST
"There are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead."
"An eagle with a broken wing,
A harp with many a broken string."
It was a pleasant morning in early spring. The sunshine lay in broad sheets of golden light over the fields, and tinted the tree-tops with a yellow luster. The fresh morning air came laden with the fragrance of sweet spring flowers, and the musical chirping of many birds from the neighboring forest was borne to Georgia's ears, as she stood on the veranda, her thoughts far away.
You would scarcely have recognized the flashing-eyed, blooming, wild-hearted Georgia Darrell in this cold, stately, stone-like Miss Randall, with cheek and brow cold and colorless as Parian marble, and the dark, mournful eyes void of light and sparkle.
It could scarcely be expected but that she would sink under the dreary monotony of her life here, so completely different in every way from what she had been accustomed to; and of late, she had fallen into a lifeless lethargy, from which nothing seemed able to arouse her. There were times, it was true, when, for an instant, she would awake, and her very soul would cry out under the galling chains of her intolerable bondage; but these flashes of her old spirit were few and far between, and were always followed by a lassitude, a languor, a dull, spiritless gloom, under which life, and flesh, and health seemed alike deserting her. Her "Hagar in the Wilderness" was finished, and she commenced drawing another, but lacked the energy to finish it.
It was an unnatural life for Georgia – the once wild, fiery, spirited Georgia, and it was probably a year or two, of such existence, would have found her in a lunatic asylum or in her grave, had not an unlooked-for discovery given a new spring to her dormant energies.
Nearly half a year had now elapsed since that sorrowful night when she had fled from home – six of the darkest months in all Georgia's life. For the first four she had heard no news of any of those she had left, not even of him who, sleeping or waking, was ever uppermost in her thoughts. But one morning, at breakfast, Mr. Leonard had read aloud that our "gifted young follow-citizen, Mr. Richmond Wildair, had returned from abroad, and having re-entered the political world, which he was so well fitted to adorn, had been elected to the legislature, where he had already distinguished himself as a statesman of extraordinary merit and profound wisdom, notwithstanding his extreme youth." Then there was another brief paragraph, in which a mysterious allusion was made to some dark, domestic calamity that had befallen the young statesman; but before Mr. Leonard could finish it he was startled to see the governess make an effort to rise from her seat and fall heavily back in her chair. Then there was a cry that Miss Randall was fainting, and a glass of water was held to her lips, and when, in a moment, she was her own calm, cold self again, she arose and hastily left the room.
But from that day Georgia made a point every morning, with feverish interest, to read the political papers in search of that one loved name. And in every one of them it continually met her eye, lauded to the skies by his friends and followers, and loaded with the fiercest abuse by his enemies. There were long, eloquent speeches of his, glowing, fiery, living, impassioned bursts of eloquence, that sent a thrill to the heart of all who heard him, and swept away all obstacles before the force of its own matchless logic.
A great question was then in agitation, and the young orator, as the champion of humanity and equal rights, flung himself into the thickest of the political melee and was soon the reigning demi-god of his party. It was well known he was soon to be sent as a Representative to Congress, and the knowing ones predicted for him the highest honors the political strife could yield – perhaps at some future day the Presidency of the United States. His name and fame were already resounding through the land, and morning, noon, and night, Mr. Leonard, who was the fiercest of politicians, was talking and raving of the matchless talents of this rising star.
And Georgia, how did she listen to all this. All she had hitherto endured seemed nothing in comparison to the anguish she felt in his evident utter forgetfulness of her. All the pride, and triumph, and exultation, she would have felt in his success was swallowed up in the misery of knowing she was forgotten – as completely forgotten as if she had never existed. And oh, the humiliation she felt, when in the papers of the opposition party, she saw herself dragged in as a slur, a disgrace, in his private life. The sneering insinuations that the wife of Richmond Wildair had deserted him – had eloped – had been driven from home by his ill-treatment; these were worse to her than death. She could almost fancy his cursing her in the bitterness of his heart when his eyes would fall on this, for having disgraced him as she had done.
On this morning, as she stood on the veranda, with a paper in her hand containing an unusually brilliant speech of the gifted young statesman, her thoughts wandering to the days long past when she had first known him, Miss Maggie came dancing out with sparkling eyes, and eagerly accosted her.
"Oh, Miss Randall! only think! papa is going to give a splendid dinner-party, and going to have lots of these political big-wigs here. You know, I suppose, that they, or rather that Mr. Wildair, has gained that horrid question about something or other the papers have been making such a time about?"
"Yes," murmured the white lips, faintly.
"Well, papa's been so dreadfully tickled about it, though why I can't see, that he is going to give this dinner-party, and have lots of those great guns at it, and at their head Mr. Wildair himself, the greatest gun of the lot. Only think of that!"
Georgia had averted her head, and Miss Maggie did not see the deadly paleness that overspread her face, blanching even her very lips, at the words. There was no reply, and shaking back her curls coquettishly, that young lady went on:
"I'm just dying to see Mr. Wildair, you know, everybody is making such a fuss about him; and I do like famous men, of all things. They say he is young and handsome, but whether he is married or not I never can rightly discover; some of the papers say he was, and that he didn't treat his wife well, and Mr. Brown from New York, who was here yesterday, says she committed suicide – isn't that dreadful? But I don't care; I'm bound to set my cap for him, and I guess I can manage to get along with him. I should like to see the man would make me commit suicide, that's all! But it may not be true, you know; these horrid papers tell the most shocking fibs about any one they don't like. I wish Dick Curtis were here; he knows all about him, I've heard, but he hasn't called for ever so many ages. Maybe I won't blow him up when I see him, and then I'll pardon him on condition that he tells me all about Mr. Wildair. He is going to be a senator one of these days, and a governor, and a president, and an ambassador, and ever so many other nice things, and there is nothing I would like better than being Madame L'Ambassadrice, and shining in foreign courts, though I am the daughter of a red-hot republican. Ha! ha! don't I know how to build castles in Spain, Miss Randall? Poor dear Signor Popkins! what would he say if he heard me?"
All this time Georgia had been standing as still and rigid, and coldly white as monumental marble, hearing as one hears not this tirade, which Miss Maggie delivered while dancing up and down the veranda like a living whirligig, too full of spirits to be still for an instant. All Georgia heard or realized of it was that Richmond was coming here – here! under the same roof with herself. Her brain was giddy; a wild impulse came over her to fly, fly far away, to bury herself in the depths of the forest, where he could never find her or hear her name again.
Miss Maggie, having waited in vain for some remark from the governess, was turning away, with a muttered "How tiresome!" when Georgia laid her hand on her arm, and with a face that startled her companion, asked:
"When – when do they come?"
"Who? Dear me, Miss Randall, don't look so ghastly! I declare you're enough to scare a person into fits."
"Those – those – gentlemen."
"Oh, the dinner-party. Thursday week. Papa's waiting till Mr. Wildair comes from Washington."
Georgia turned her face away and covered her eyes with her hand, with a face so agitated, that Maggie's eyes opened with a look of intense curiosity.
"Why, Miss Randall, you are so queer! What on earth makes you look so? Did you know Mr. Wildair, or any of them?"
With a gesture of desperation, Georgia raised her head, and then, through all the storm of conflicting feelings within, came the thought that her conduct might excite suspicion, and, without looking round, she said huskily:
"I do not feel well, and I do not like strangers – that is all. Don't mind me – it is nothing."
"Why, what harm can strangers do you? I never saw any one like you in my life, Miss Randall. Wouldn't you like to see Mr. Wildair? I'm sure you seem fond enough of reading about him. Papa told me to persuade you to join us at dinner that day."
"No! no! no! Not for ten thousand worlds!" cried Georgia, wildly. Then, seeing her companion recoil and look upon her with evident alarm, she turned hastily away, and sought refuge in the school-room.
Miss Maggie looked after her in comical bewilderment for a moment, and then setting it down to "oddity," she danced off to practice "Casta Diva," preparatory to taking Mr. Wildair's heart by storm singing it.
"I do hope he isn't married," thought Maggie, dropping on the piano stool, and commencing with a terrific preparatory bang; "he is so clever and such a catch! My! wouldn't Felice be mad!"
All the next week Miss Randall was more of a puzzle to the Leonards than ever before. Her moods were so changeable, so variable, so eccentric, that it was not strange that she startled them. Mrs. Leonard declared she was hysterical, or in the first stages of a brain fever; Miss Felice pooh-poohed the notion, and said it was only the eccentricity of genius, for Mr. Randall had said she was a genius, and he was infallible; while Miss Maggie differed from both, and set it down to "oddity." Fortunately, however, for Georgia, the whole house was in such an uproar of preparation, and new furnishing and cooking, and there was such distracting running up and down stairs from day-dawn till midnight, and the house was so overrun with milliners and dressmakers, and they were all so absorbed in those mysteries of flounces, and silks, and flowers, and laces wherein the female heart delighteth, that she was left pretty much to her own devices, and seldom ever disturbed.
At last the eventful day arrived. All the invitations had been accepted, and Mr. Wildair, and Mr. Curtis, and Mr. Randall, and all the rest were to come.
Through that whole day Georgia had seemed like one delirious. There was a blazing fire in her eye, and two dark crimson spots, all unusual there, burning on either cheek, bespeaking the consuming fever within. How she ever got through her school duties she could not tell, but evening came at last, and with it Georgia's excitement rose to a pitch not to be endured. She could not stay there and hear them, perhaps see them enter. She felt sure, even amid thousands, she would distinguish his step, hear his voice; and who knew what desperate act it might drive her to commit – perhaps to burst into the room, and in the presence of all to fall at his feet and sue for pardon.
Unable to sit still, with wild gusts of conflicting passions sweeping through her soul, she seized her hat and mantle and sought that panacea for her "mind deceased," a long, rapid, breathless walk.
It was a delightful May evening, soft, and warm, and genial as in June. There was an air of repose and deep stillness around; one solitary star hung trembling in the sky, and brought to her mind the nights long past, when she had sat at her little chamber window, and watched them shining in their tremulous beauty far above her. Everything seemed at peace but herself, and in her stormy heart was the Angel of Peace ever to take up his abode?
On, and on, and on she walked. It was strange the charm rapid walking had to soothe her wildest moods. Star after star shone out in the blue, cloudless sky, and the last ray of daylight had faded away before she thought of turning. Taking off her hat, and flinging back her thick, dark hair, that the cool breeze might fan her fevered brow, she set out at a more moderate pace for home.
It was a lonesome, unfrequented road especially after night. There was another, new road, which had of late been made the public thoroughfare, and this one was almost entirely deserted; therefore, Georgia was somewhat surprised to see a man approaching her at a rapid pace. He was a gentleman, too, and young and graceful – she saw that at a glance, but in the dim starlight she could not distinguish his features, shaded as they were by a broad-leafed hat. He stopped as he approached her, and hurriedly said:
"Can you tell me, madam, if this road leads to the Widow O'Neil's?"
That voice! it sent a thrill to Georgia's inmost heart, as, with her eyes riveted on his face, she mechanically replied:
"Yes; a little farther up there is a gate. Go through, and the road will bring you to it."
"Thank you; I shall take a shorter way," said the stranger, lifting his hat courteously, and turning rapidly away, but not before she had recognized the pale, handsome face and beautiful, dark eyes of Charley Wildair.
For an instant she stood, unable to speak. She saw him place one hand on the fence, leap lightly over, and disappear, then, with a sort of cry, she started after him. But ere she had taken a dozen steps some inward feeling arrested her, and she stopped. What would he think of her following him thus? He was no longer the boy Charley, any more than she was the child Georgia. Might he not think prying curiosity had sent her after him? Would he be disposed to renew the acquaintance? Perhaps, too, he had recognized her, as she had him, and gave no sign. The strange revelation of Richmond gave her a sort of dread of him, and after a moment's irresolution, she turned and walked back.
The whole house was one blaze of light when she reached it. On the dining-room windows were cast many shadows. Which among them was his? Did either brother dream he was so near the other? Did Richmond dream she was so near him, and yet so far off? She could not enter the house; her heart was throbbing so loudly that she grew faint and sick, and she staggered to a sort of summer-house, thick with clustering hop-vines, and sank down on a rustic bench, and buried her face in her hands.
How long she had sat there alone in her trouble, and yet so near him who had vowed to "cherish" her through all her trials until death, she could not tell. Footsteps coming down the graveled walk startled her. The odor of cigars came borne on the breeze, and then, with a start and a shock she recognized the voice of Dick Curtis saying, with a laugh:
"I wonder if Ringlets has got through that appalling howl on that instrument of torture, the piano, she was commencing when we beat a retreat? It's a mercy I escaped or I should have gone stark staring mad before the end."
"Come, now, Curtis, you're too severe," said a laughing voice, which Georgia recognized as Mr. Randall's. "Ringlets, as you are pleased to denominate Miss Felice, is only performing a duty every young lady considers she owes to society nowadays, deafening her hearers by those tremendous crashes and flourishes, and crossing her hands, and flying from one end of the piano to the other with dizzying rapidity."
"And it's a duty they never neglect, I'll say that for them," said Mr. Curtis. "And that's what they call fashionable music, my friend? Oh, for the good old days, when girls weren't ashamed to sing 'Auld Robin Gray' and the 'Bonnie Horse of Airlie.' The world's degenerating every day. Thank the gods, we have escaped the infliction, anyhow. Here's a seat; suppose we sit down, and, with our soul in slippers, take the world easy. Poor Wildair! he's in for being martyrized this evening."
"So much for being a lion," said Mr. Randall. "If he will persist in being a burning and shining light, he must expect to pay the penalty."
"Miss Maggie – little blue eyes, you know – has made a dead set at him. Did you observe?" said Mr. Curtis.
"Yes; but I can't say she has met with much success, so far. If report says true, she is not the only young lady who has tried that game of late."
"Poor Rich!" said Curtis. "If they knew but all, they would find how useless it was doing any thing of the sort. I suppose you heard of that sad affair that happened last winter?"
Oh, what would not Georgia have given to be a thousand miles off at that moment! She writhed where she lay; it was like tearing half-healed wounds violently open to sit there and listen to this. But move she could not without discovering herself to Curtis, so she was forced to remain where she was, and hear all.
"No, I can't say as I have," said Mr. Randall, in a tone of interest. "There are so many rumors afloat about his wife – suppose you allude to that – but one cannot even tell for certain whether he was ever married or not."
"Oh, he was; no mistake about it," said Curtis; "I was present – was groomsman, in fact. Such a magnificent creature as she was. I never saw a girl so splendid before or since! beautiful as the dream of an opium-eater, with a pair of eyes that would have made the fortune of half a dozen ordinary women. By George! that girl ought to have been an empress."
"Indeed! I should think Wildair would be fastidious in the choice of a wife. How came they to separate in so short a time? Did she not love him?"
"Yes, with her whole heart and soul; in fact, I believe, she loved nothing in earth or heaven but him, but then that is nothing strange, for Richmond is a glorious fellow, and no mistake! But you see, she was as poor as Job, and proud as Lucifer, with a high spirit that would dare and defy the Ancient Henry himself – one of that kind of people who will die sooner than yield an inch. Well, it appears his mother did not like the match, and persisted in snubbing her, and making little of her before folks and behind backs, in fact, treated her shamefully, until she drove the poor girl to the verge of madness."
"And Wildair allowed her to do this?" said Randall, indignantly.
"Well, I don't know how it was, but he was blind to all; but I think the truth of the matter is they deceived him, and only did it when he was absent. There was a cousin there, a little female fiend, whom I should admire to be putting in the pillory, who tried every means in her power to make him jealous, and succeeded; and you don't need to be told a jealous man will stop at nothing."
"Poor girl! poor Wildair! What an infernal shame."
"Wasn't it! You see, he had invited a party to his country-seat – Richmond Hall they called it – and I was there among the rest. Poor Mrs. Wildair had a wretched life of it, with them all set against her. If she had been one of your meek, spiritless little creatures, she would have drooped, and sunk under it, and died perhaps of a broken heart, and all that sort of thing; or if she had been a dull, spiritless young woman, she would have snapped her fingers in their faces, and kept on, never minding. Unfortunately, she was neither, but a sensitive, high-spirited girl, whom every slight wounds to the quick, and you would hardly believe me if I were to tell you the change one short week made in her – you would hardly have known her for the same person. What with her mother-in-law's insults, her cousin-in-law's sneers, her husband's jealousy and angry reproaches, and the neglects and slights of most of the company, a daily stretch on the rack would have been a bed of roses to it."
"Shameful! atrocious!" exclaimed Randall, impetuously. "How could Wildair have the heart to treat her so? He couldn't have cared much about her."
"Didn't he, indeed! That's all you know about it. If ever there was a man loved his own wife, that man was Rich Wildair; but when a man is jealous, you know, he becomes partially insane, and allowances must be made for him. One night, this little vixen of a cousin I mentioned somewhere before, began taunting Mrs. Wildair about her mother, telling her she was no better than she ought to be, and calling herself all sorts of scandalous names – one of the servants accidentally heard her – until she maddened the poor girl so that, in a fit of passion, she caught her and hurled her from her, with a shriek I will never forget to my dying day. Of course, there was the old – what's his name – to pay, immediately; but Freddy's injuries did not prove half so severe as she deserved, and a piece of court-plaster did her business beautifully for her. But you never saw any one in such a rage as Wildair was about it, knowing it would be all over town directly. Three or four of the mean crowd he had invited went off, declaring his wife was a lunatic, and that they were afraid to stay in the same house with her. Wasn't that pretty treatment, after his hospitality?"
"It's the way of the world, mon ami."
"And a very mean way it is. Well, Wildair went to his wife and said all sorts of cutting things to her, was as sharp as a bottle of cayenne pepper, in fact, and wound up by telling her he was going to apply for a divorce, which he had no more notion of doing than I have of proposing to one of the Misses Leonard to-morrow. She believed him, though, and, driven to despair by the whole of them, made a moonlight flitting of it, and from that day to this Richmond Wildair has never seen or heard of his wife."
"Poor thing! it was a hard fate. What do you suppose has become of her?"
"Heaven knows! She left a note saying she had gone and would never disgrace him more – these were her words – and bidding him an eternal farewell. Wildair nearly went crazy; he was mad, I firmly believe, for awhile, and it was as much as any one's life was worth to go near him. He searched everywhere, offered enormous rewards for the least trace of her, did everything man could do, in a word, to find her again; but it was of no use, no one had seen or knew anything of her."
"Could she have destroyed herself?"
"Just as likely as not; she was the sort of desperate person likely to do it, and she had no fear of death, or eternity, or anything that way. Well, he was frantic when he found she was lost forever, and would have given even every cent he was worth in the world for the least tidings of her, dead or alive, but it was all a waste of ammunition; and, maddened and despairing, he fled from the scene of disaster, sprang on board a steamship bound for Europe, and was off. But he couldn't stay away; he couldn't rest anywhere, so he came back, and plunged headlong into the giddy maelstrom of politics, and became the man of the people – the Demosthenes; the magnificent orator whose lips, to quote the Political Thunderbolt, 'have been touched with coals of living fire;' a pleasant simile, I should think. Poor Rich! they don't know the crucible of suffering from which this fiery, impassioned eloquence has sprung. Ambition will be to him for the rest of his mortal life, wife, and family, and home, for he is not the man to dream for a second of ever marrying again."
"A sad story! And yet he can smile, and jest, and talk gayly, as I heard him half an hour ago, when he was the very life and soul of the company."
"He must – it is expected of him; a man of the people must please the people; and besides, he does it to drown thought; he tries to forget for a time the gnawing remorse that, if indulged, would drive him mad. He lives two lives – the inward and outward – and both as essentially different as day from night. He believes himself the murderer of his wife; in fact, an old lady who brought her up – for the girl was an orphan – told him so, and would not look at him or let him in her house. His mother, touched with remorse, confessed what she had done, and thus he learned all his wife had so silently suffered. It was enough to drive a more sober man insane, and that's the truth. Ah! there was more than one sad heart after her when she went. Poor little Emily Murray! the nicest, and best, and prettiest girl from here to sundown, was nearly broken-hearted. I offered her my own hand and fortune, though I didn't happen to have such an article about me, and she gave me my dismissal on the spot. Heigho! Burnfield's done for poor old Rich and me."
"What! Burnfield, did you say?" exclaimed Randall, with a start.
"Yes, Burnfield. You have no objections to it, I hope?"
"You – did you know – did you ever happen to hear of a widow and a little girl by the name of Darrell there?" said Mr. Randall, in an agitated voice.
"Well, I should think I did – rather!" said Curtis emphatically. "The widow died one night, and the little girl was brought up by one Miss Jerusha Skamp of severe memory, and it's of her I have been talking for the last half-hour, if you mean Georgia Darrell."
"What!" exclaimed Randall, wildly, as he sprang to his feet. "Do you mean to tell me that Georgia Darrell grew up in Burnfield, and was the wretched wife of Richmond Wildair?"
"Indeed I do," replied Curtis, with increasing emphasis. "Why, what the dickens is the matter with you? What does all this mean?"
"Mean! Oh, man! man! Georgia Darrell was my sister!"