CHAPTER XXI
CHARLEY'S CRIME
"By the strong spirit's discipline,
By the fierce wrong forgiven,
By all that wrings the heart of sin,
Is woman won to heaven."
With every nerve strained, every feeling wrought to the highest pitch of excitement, Georgia had listened; but at this last moment the overstrung tension gave way, and, for the first time in her life, she fainted.
On the wet grass where she had fallen she still lay when life and memory came back. She raised herself on her elbow and looked wildly around, passed her hand across her forehead, and tried to think. Gradually recollection returned; one by one the broken chains of memory were reunited, and all she had heard came back, flooding her soul with ecstatic joy. Beloved still, no longer a cast-off wife, and her long-lost brother Warren restored!
She remembered him now; she wondered she had not done so at first, for every tone of his voice was familiar. It was the name that had deceived her, and yet he had his mother's name, too – Warren Randall Darrell. She rose up, to find herself stiff and cold, lying on the wet ground, and her dress soaked with the heavy dew. The garden was deserted, the house all dark, and with an overpowering sense of loneliness she found herself locked out.
It would not do to disturb the family; she must wait till morning where she was, so she resumed her seat and crouched down shivering with cold. The new-born joy in her heart could not keep her from being chilled through and through; and as the long hours dragged on, it seemed to her that never was night so long as that. Benumbed with cold, sick, and shivering, she sank into an uneasy slumber at last, with her head on the hard, wooden bench.
It was morning when she awoke. With difficulty she arose to her feet, and saw a servant with lazy step and lack luster eyes come out and approach the stables. As she arose, she found herself hardly able to walk from cold and exposure, but she managed to stagger to the door and enter unobserved. It was well for her she met no one, as they might have taken her for one newly risen from the dead – for never did eye rest on such a deathly face as she wore that morning. How she reeled to her room she did not know; how she managed to take off her saturated garments and fling herself on her bed she could not tell; but there she was lying, weak, prostrate, helpless, and chilled to the very heart.
As the morning passed and she did not appear, a servant was sent to see what was the matter. Georgia tried to lift her head, but such a feeling of deadly sickness came over her that, weak and blinded, she fell back on her pillow. Every care was taken of her, but before night a raging fever had set in, and with burning brow and parched lips Georgia lay tossing and raving wildly in delirium. Alarmed now, the family physician was sent for, who pronounced it a dangerous attack of brain fever, from which he was extremely doubtful she could ever recover.
For days and days after that Georgia lay helpless as a child, with liquid flame burning in every vein. Sometimes she raved and shrieked madly of Freddy Richmond, calling herself a murderess, and trying to spring from those who held her. Sometimes she would plead pitifully with Richmond and implore him to forgive her, and she would never, never offend him again; and now she would forget all the past, and fancy herself talking to the children in the school-room, seemingly with no memory of anything but the present.
It was a golden, sunshiny June morning when consciousness returned, and she opened her eyes to find herself lying in her own room, with a strange woman sitting beside her. Youth, and a naturally strong constitution, had finally triumphed over the disease, but she lay there weak and helpless as an infant. She had a vague, confused memory of the past few weeks, and she turned with a helpless, bewildered look to the nurse.
"What is it? What is the matter? Have I been ill?" she asked, feebly.
"Yes, very ill; but you are better now," said the nurse, coming over and softly adjusting the pillow.
"How – how long have I been sick?" she said, passing her wasted hand across her forehead as if to dispel a mist.
"Three weeks," was the reply.
"So long!" said Georgia, drearily, and still struggling to recall something that had escaped her memory. "Who are you? I don't know you."
"I am your nurse," said the woman, smiling. "Mrs. Leonard hired me to take care of you, and look after things generally until she came back."
"Came back! Has she gone away, then?"
"Oh, dear, yes! the whole family, children and all; they were afraid of the fever, although the doctor said there was no danger."
"Where have they gone?" said Georgia, faintly.
"To New York. It's my opinion the young ladies were glad of any chance of getting back to town, and it was they, particularly Miss Felice, who insisted on leaving. Don't disturb yourself about them, my dear; you will soon be as well as any of them."
"Tell me," said Georgia, catching the woman's wrists in her thin, transparent hands, and looking earnestly in her face with the great black eyes so sunken and melancholy now – "tell me if you know whether a certain Mr. Randall who used to come here went with them? Perhaps you have heard?"
The woman shook her head.
"No, my dear, I have not. I have heard of him, though, often; they say he is very clever and going to be married to Miss Felice, but I don't know myself. Don't talk so much, Miss Randall; it is not good for you."
"One thing more," said Georgia. "I – I raved when I was out of my mind; will you tell me what it was I said?"
"That would be pretty hard to do," said the nurse, smiling; but then, seeing the look of desperate earnestness on her patient's face, she added: "Why, you know, my dear, you talked a great deal of nonsense – fever patients always do – about some one you called Richmond, and Freddy Richmond – some gentlemen, I expect," said the woman, with a meaning glance; "and you called yourself a murderess, and then you kept begging some one not to be angry with you, and you would never do so any more; and sometimes you would talk to the children, and fancy yourself in the school-room with them. In short, you know, you said all sorts of queer things; but that was to be expected."
From that day Georgia rapidly recovered, and in less than a fortnight was able to get up and sit for a few hours each day in an easy chair by the window, inhaling the fragrant summer air. Her first request was to call for the latest papers; but for some time the doctor said she was not equal to the exertion of reading them, and, in spite of her passionate eagerness, she had to wait.
To ask about Richmond she did not dare; but how eagerly she scanned the first paper she got, in search of his name! And there she learned that he had gone South on a summer ramble, wandering about from place to place with the strange restlessness that characterized him.
It was a blow to her at first, but when she came to think it over, she was almost glad of it. Somehow, she scarcely could tell why she did not wish to meet him yet; if ever she returned to him, it must be in a way different from what she had left. She wanted to find her brother first; she had a vehement desire to win wealth and fame, and return to Richmond Wildair as his equal in every way. During the long weary hours of her convalescence she had made up her mind to go to the city.
The monotonous life of the last six months here grew unendurable to her now; she would not have taken uncounted wealth and consented to spend six more like them. Life at least was not stagnant in the uproar and turmoil of the city, and solitude is not always a panacea for all sorts of people in trouble.
She had money – her half-year's salary had been untouched, and it was no inconsiderable sum, for Mr. Leonard had been as generous as he was rich. She had a vague idea of winning fame as an artist. She felt an inward conviction that her "Hagar in the Wilderness" would create a sensation if seen. She took it out from its canvas screen, and gazed long and earnestly upon it.
It was a wild, weird, unearthly thing, but strangely beautiful withal, and possessing a sort of fascination that would have chained you before it for hours. Never did eye look on a more gloriously beautiful face than that of the pictured Egyptian in its dark splendor and unutterable anguish. The posture, as she half-lay, half-writhed in her inward torture, spoke of the darkest depth of anguish and despair; the long, wild, purplish black tresses streamed unbound in the breeze, and the face that startled you from the canvas was white with woman's utmost woe. And the eyes that caught and transfixed yours, sending a thrill of awe and terror to most stoical heart – those unfathomable eyes of midnight blackness, where despairing love, fiercest anguish, and maddest desperation seem struggling for mastery. Oh! never could any, but one in the utmost depths of despair herself, have painted eyes like these. Lucifer hurled from heaven might have cast back one last look like that, so full of conflicting passion, but the superhuman agony shining and surmounting them all – eyes that would have haunted you like a frightful nightmare, long after you had first beheld them, eyes that would have made you shudder, and yet held you spell-bound, breathless, riveted to the spot.
All unknown to herself she had painted her own portrait; those flowing, lustrous tresses, that dark, oriental face, those appalling eyes, that posture of utter woe and unspeakable desolation, all were hers. The face was almost the fac-simile of the one that had once so startled Richmond Wildair that morning on the sea-shore, only the passionate, tortured form was wanting.
At a little distance lay the boy Ishmael, with all his mother's dark beauty in his face, but so serenely calm and childishly peaceful that the contrast was all the more startling.
It was a wonderful picture, and no wonder that Georgia's eyes fired up, and her color came and went and her countenance glowed with power, and triumph and inspiration as she gazed.
"It must succeed – it will succeed – it shall succeed," she vehemently exclaimed. "There has been a prize offered by the Academy of Art for the best painting from a native artist, and mine shall go with the rest. And if it succeeds – "
She caught her breath, and her whole face for an instant grew radiant with the picture she conjured up of the glory and fame that would be hers.
"Mr. Leonard shall take it for me; he has always been my friend, and the artist's name shall be unknown until the decision is announced. Yes, it shall be so; the paper says that all pictures for the prize must be delivered in three days from this, as the decision shall be given and the prize awarded in a fortnight. Yes, I will go at once."
And with her characteristic impulsive rapidity, Georgia made her preparations, and that very afternoon bade farewell to the house where the last six wretched months had been spent, and took the cars for New York.
Arrived there, her first destination was the widow's, where she had stopped before, and early next morning she set out for the hotel where the Leonards were stopping.
Mr. Leonard and his family were still there, and seemed quite overjoyed to see her. It was fortunate, Mrs. Leonard said, she had come when she did, for early in the next month she, and Mr. Leonard, and the girls were off for Cape May for a little tossing about in the surf, and would not return until quite late in the season, as, having been cooped up so long, they were determined to make the most of their holiday now. The children were to go back, and she, Miss Randall, was expected to go back with them, and oversee the household generally in their absence.
Great was the worthy lady's surprise when Georgia quietly and firmly declined. At first she was disposed to stand upon her dignity and be offended, but when Mr. Leonard declared emphatically Miss Randall was right, that she was by no means strong enough to resume the labor of teaching, that she needed rest and relaxation and amusement, and that the city, among her friends, was for the present decidedly the best place for her, she cooled down, and consented to listen to reason.
"And now, how are all your friends, Miss Leonard?" said Georgia, with a smile, yet with a sudden throbbing at her heart at the hope of hearing something of her brother.
"All well enough when we saw them last," said Miss Felice, in a dreary tone; "everybody's going away out of the city, but papa will insist on staying after every one else."
"Whom do you call everybody else, my dear?" said Mr. Leonard, looking over his paper good-humoredly. "If I don't mistake, you may see some thousands of people in New York every day still."
"Oh, yes, the nobodies stay, of course. I don't mean them," said Miss Felice, pettishly. "I hate people. Anybody that pretends to be anybody is going away."
"You're a nice republican – you are!" said Master Royal, who in one corner of the room was making frantic efforts to stand on his head, as he had seen them do in the circus the night before.
"Has your friend Mr. Randall gone, too?" said Georgia, still trying to smile, though there was a slight agitation in her voice in spite of all.
"Yes, of course he has. I wonder you didn't hear of it," said Miss Felice, looking dissatisfied.
"Hear of it! how could she?" broke in Maggie. "You see, Miss Randall, the queerest thing occurred while you were sick – just like a thing in a play, where everybody turns out to be somebody else. Mr. Randall had a sister once upon a time, and lost her somehow, and she grew up and married Mr. Richmond Wildair, and he lost her somehow, the lady evidently having a fancy for getting lost, and it was all found out through Dick Curtis. So Mr. Randall and Mr. Wildair had a great time about it, and now they have both gone to look for her again – one North and the other South, so if they don't find her it will be a wonder. Is it not romantic? I would give the world to see her – the wife and sister of two such famous men. Oh, Miss Randall! Mr. Curtis says she was quite splendid – so beautiful, you know, and," – here Maggie lowered her voice to a mysterious whisper – "he thinks she has gone and killed herself."
"Oh, ma, look how pale Miss Randall is; she's going to faint if you don't look sharp," cried out Master Royal.
"No, it is nothing; pray do not mind," said Georgia faintly, motioning them away. "I am not very strong yet; allow me to wish you good-morning. Mr. Leonard, can I see you in private for a few minutes?"
"Certainly, certainly," responded Mr. Leonard, while the rest looked up, rather surprised, as they left the room.
In as few words as possible Georgia made known her request, and obtained from him a promise of secrecy. Mr. Leonard was not in the least surprised; he was perfectly confident about her taking the prize, and, having obtained her address, told her he would call for it on the morrow.
But when the old gentleman saw it he fairly started back, and gazed on it in a sort of terror and consternation that amused Georgia, breaking out at intervals with ejaculations of extreme astonishment.
"Eh? what? Lord bless my soul! Why, it's quite frightful – upon my life it is! Good gracious! what a pair of eyes that young woman has got! 'Hagar in the Wilderness.' Je-ru-sa-lem! I wouldn't be Abraham for a trifle, with such a desperate-looking wild-cat as that about the house. She's the born image of yourself, too; one would think you and Hagar were twin sisters. Well, Lord bless me! if it isn't enough to give a man fits to look at it! It's well I'm not nervous, or I'd never get over the shock of looking at it. Upon my honor, Miss Randall, I don't know what to make of you. You're the eighth wonder of the world – that's what you are!"
The painting was accordingly sent in, and three days after, the whole Leonard family departed – the children for home, and the elders of the house for Cape May – and now Georgia was left to solitude and suspense once more, until, as day after day was passed, and the day approached, she began her old fashion of working herself up into one of her fevers of impatience and excitement. Her usual antidote of a long, rapid walk was followed in the city as well as in the country, and often did people pause and look in wonder after the tall, dark-robed figure that flitted so rapidly by them, whose vailed face no one ever saw.
One night, as darkness was falling over the city, Georgia found herself suddenly among a crowd of people who were passing rapidly into a church. Borne along by the throng, she was carried in, too, and half-bewildered by the crowd, and by the crash of a grand organ, and the glitter of many lights, she found herself in a pew, among thousands of others, before she quite realized where she was. She looked, and, with a half-startled air, saw she was in one of the largest churches of the city, and that it was already filled to suffocation.
She heard some persons in a seat before her whisper that an eloquent young divine (she could not catch the name) was going to address them. While they yet spoke, a tall, slight figure, robed in black, came out of the vestry, passed up the stairs, and ascended the pulpit. A silence so profound that you could have heard a pin drop in that vast multitude reigned, broken at last by a clear, thrilling voice that rang out in deep tones with the awful words from Holy Writ:
"You shall seek Me and you shall not find Me, and you shall die in your sins."
A death-like pause ensued, and every heart seemed to stand still to catch the next words. But why does Georgia start as if she had received a spear thrust? Why do her lips spring white and quivering apart? Why are her eyes fixed so wildly, so strangely on the preacher? In that moment the mystery was solved, the secret revealed – the brother of her husband stands before her. The gay, the careless, the elegant, the thoughtless Charley Wildair is a clergyman. For awhile she sat stunned by the shock, conscious that he was speaking, yet hearing not a word. Then her clouded faculties cleared, and her ears were greeted by such bursts of resistless eloquence as she had never dreamed of before. In that moment rose before her, with terrific vividness, the despairing death-bed of the sinner and the awful doom that must follow. Shuddering and terrified, she sank back, shading her face with her hands, appalled by the awful fate that might have been hers. What – what was all earthly trouble compared with that dread eternity of misery she had deserved – that awful doom that might yet be hers? Still it arose before her in all its frightful horrors, exhibited by the clarion voice of the speaker, until, wrought up to the pitch of frenzy, her trembling lips strove to form the word "Mercy." And still, as if in answer, rang out that thrilling voice with that terrific sentence of eternal doom:
"You shall seek Me and you shall not find Me, and you shall die in your sins."
The sermon was over, the people were crowding out, and she found herself half senseless kneeling in the pew, with her face hidden in her hands. An uncontrollable desire to see, to speak to him she had just heard seized her, and she sprang up, and grasping some one who stood near her, said, incoherently:
"Where is he? I must see him! Where is he gone?"
"Who?" said the startled personage she addressed.
"He who has just preached."
"In there," said the man, pointing to the vestry. "Go in that way and you will see him."
Forcing her way through the throng, Georgia hurried on, passed into the sanctuary, and from thence to the vestry.
There she paused – restored to herself. Nearly a dozen clergymen were there, standing in groups, conversing with several ladies and gentlemen, who had come too late to get into the church, and had been forced to remain there to listen. All eyes were turned on the new-comer, whose pale, wild beauty made her an object of deep interest, as she stood startled and hesitating in the door-way. A little boy, standing near, looked up and said, curiously:
"Did you want anybody, ma'am?"
"Yes – Mr. Wildair. Is he here?" said Georgia, hurriedly.
"Yes'm, there he is," said the boy, pointing to where stood the man she was in search of, standing by himself, his forehead leaning on his hand, and a look of utter fatigue and weariness on his face.
All Georgia's eagerness returned at the sight. Passing rapidly through the wondering spectators she approached him, and, with an irrepressible cry of "Charley!" she stood before him.
Looking very much surprised, as well he might, the young clergyman lifted up his head and fixed his eyes full on her face; but there was no recognition in that look, nothing but the utmost wonder.
"Oh, Charley! don't you know me? – don't you know Georgia?" she cried out, passionately.
Instantly he started up.
"What! Georgia Darrell – little Georgia, my brother's wife!" he cried, eagerly.
Her eyes answered him.
"Is it possible? Why, Georgia, how little I expected to meet you here!" he said, holding out his hand, with a smile of mingled remorse and pleasure. "How came you here?"
"I do not know. Chance – Providence – something sent me here to-night."
"I would never have known you, it is so long since we met."
"Not so long as you think," she said, with one of her old rare smiles.
"No! How is that?"
"Do you remember the person you met on a country road, one night about a month ago, and asked the way to Widow O'Neil's?"
"Yes."
"I was that person."
"Indeed! And did you know me?"
"Certainly I did."
"Well, I never for an instant dreamed it was you; but no wonder – I never saw any one so changed," he said, looking in the pale wasted face, and contrasting it with the blooming happy one he had last seen.
"Trouble seldom changes people for the better, I believe," she said, with a sigh.
"Ah, I heard what you allude to; Curtis told me. I am very, very sorry indeed, Georgia; but do you know they imagine you dead?"
"Yes, I know it," she said, averting her face.
"And that Richmond has searched for tidings of you everywhere?"
"Yes."
"Well, Georgia," he said, anxiously, "what do you intend to do? You should return to your husband."
"I intend to," she said, looking up with a sudden bright smile, "but not just yet. And you – how little I ever expected to see you a clergyman – you, who, if your reverence will excuse my saying it, used to be such a rattlepate."
He laughed, the happy, careless laugh that reminded her of the Charley of other days, and shook back, with the old familiar motion, his thick, clustering, chestnut hair.
"Time works wonders, Georgia. Thank God for what it has done for me," he said, reverentially. "Did you know I was a clergyman?"
"Not until to-night. They never would tell me what became of you. They said you disgraced the family, committed some awful crime, but what it was I never could learn. Surely they did not mean that by becoming a clergyman you had disgraced your family?"
"They meant that, and nothing else," he said, emphatically.
"Ah, how much you gave up for the dictates of conscience – friends and family, wealth and worldly honors, and all that makes life dear; and yet you look happy," said Georgia, in a sort of wonder.
He laid his hand on hers and pointed up, while he said, in a low voice:
"'Amen, I say to you, there is no man that hath left home, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive much more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.'"
She lifted her eyes in a sort of awe at the inspired tones. And his face was as the face of an angel.
A silence fell on them both, broken first by him.
"You must come to see me again, Georgia. I have a good deal to say to you that I have no time to say now. Here is my address while I remain in the city, which will not be long. You have suffered wrong, Georgia, but 'forgive that you be likewise forgiven.' I must go now. Good-night, and Heaven bless you!"
In her unworthiness she felt as if she could have sunk at his feet and kissed the hem of his garment. She bowed her once haughty head to receive his parting benediction, and hurried out.
Sitting in her room that night, she sank down to pray for the first time in years – almost for the first time in her life. Fervently, earnestly was that prayer offered; and a calmness, a peace hitherto unknown, stole into her heart. In the sighing of the wind she seemed to hear an angel voice softly saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and dropping her forehead in her clasped hands, she sank down in the calm light of high, bright, solemn stars, and meekly murmured:
"Hear me, oh, Lord!"