MARGARET’S FLIGHT.
When Margaret left Staten Island after her stormy interview with Jacob
Wynne, it was with a fevered brain, and a heart torn with the fiercest
emotions. This man, whom despite his unworthiness, she had loved with
all the intensity of her woman’s nature, had spurned her affection, had
ruthlessly thrown it back upon her, and with a cold refinement of
cruelty had acknowledged without reserve the gross deception he had
practised upon her.
There are some of sensitive natures that would shrink and die under such
treatment. Margaret was differently constituted. The blow was terrible,
but she did not give way under it. It hardened her whole nature, and
excited in her a burning thirst for vengeance. Strong in hate as in
love, there sprang up in her soul a determined purpose, that, as Jacob
Wynne had ruthlessly laid waste the garden of her life, she would never
rest till she had made his as desolate as her own.
During the half-hour spent from wharf to wharf, she paced the deck of
the steamer with hasty strides, her shawl clasped tightly over her
throbbing bosom, and her face concealed as before by the capacious
sun-bonnet. She heeded not that she was the object of curious attention
on the part of her fellow-passengers. She never noticed how sedulously
the children avoided coming in her way—what glances, half of wonder,
half of awe, they cast upon the tall, stately, ill-dressed woman who
strode by them with such an impatient step. She had far other thoughts
to occupy her. She could not force herself to sit down. With her mind in
such a whirl, motion was absolutely necessary. Her hands were fiercely
clenched till the nails penetrated the skin, and caused the blood to
flow, but she neither saw the blood nor felt the injury.
At length they reached the slip. She disembarked with the other
passengers, and with the same quick, hasty, impatient strides hurried
through the streets, choosing instinctively the most obscure and
unfrequented, until she reached the lodgings occupied by Jacob and
herself.
Here she sat down for a few minutes, and looked about her.
The room was more ambitiously furnished than when first the reader was
introduced to it. Jacob’s connection with Lewis Rand had given him a
push upward, and enabled him to live more comfortably than before. But
in this prosperity Margaret had not been permitted to participate. She
had asked even humbly for money to provide herself with more comfortable
and befitting clothing, but Jacob, with cold selfishness, had refused
all her applications. He had grown tired of her, and, as we have seen,
had already formed a plan by which he hoped, through marriage, to get
possession of a small property which would place his new prosperity on a
more permanent footing. His treatment of Margaret, therefore, was only
part of a deliberate plan to rid himself of her, and thus remove the
only obstacle to the success of his suit. He had not indeed intended to
reveal his plans to her until marriage had secured the property he
coveted. We have seen how Margaret’s jealous espionage forced a
premature disclosure of his object, and even defeated it altogether.
Margaret looked about the room, which she had so long regarded as home.
Then her eye rested on herself disfigured by the faded and unsightly
garments which Jacob’s parsimony compelled her to wear, and she
smiled,—a smile of such bitter mockery, such deep and woful
despair,—that she almost shuddered to see it reflected in the mirror
opposite.
“There is no time to waste,” she muttered, slowly. “This can be my home
no longer. I must do what I have to do and be gone.”
She opened a small drawer in the bureau, and drew out a half sheet of
paper. It seemed to have been used for trying the pen, the same names
together with particular letters, being several times repeated on it.
Among the names that of Rand occurred most frequently.
Margaret smiled—this time a smile of triumph.
“Jacob Wynne! Jacob Wynne!” she repeated to herself, “what would you say
if you knew that I hold in my hand the evidence of your crime,—forgery!
forgery!”
Her eyes sparkled with vindictive joy.
“You would not sleep so quietly in your bed to-night, Jacob Wynne, if
you knew that I hold it in my power to hurl you into prison a convicted
forger! Why should I not do it? Tell me that, Jacob Wynne. Why, indeed;
shall I have compassion upon you who have had no pity for me? Never!
never!”
“When you are in prison,” she continued, in a tone of yet deeper
vindictiveness, “I will come and visit you, and taunt you with the
knowledge that it is to me you owe your disgrace. Think you that _she_
will smile upon you then; that she will be ready to stand before the
altar as I did?—Heaven help me!—and plight her faith to a convicted
forger?”
Margaret’s whole nature seemed changed. Her love seemed to have given
place to a deadly resentment.
She collected a few articles, and packed them in a small bundle.
Then she took one more glance—a farewell look at what, till now, had
been her home, and then pressed her hand upon her heart, while an
expression of pain distorted her features. But this was only for a
moment. By a powerful effort of self-control she checked her emotions,
and silently went out from the room.
Mile after mile walked Margaret through the crowded city streets,
turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. All gazed curiously
at her, all turned out for her. Now and then some one, more independent
than his neighbors, seemed inclined to oppose her progress, and compel
her to yield the way; but she moved steadily onwards, and he was obliged
to waive his independence, and make way for the singular woman whose
stately walk seemed so inconsistent with her miserable attire.
On, on, till the houses became farther and farther apart; on, till the
whirl of the great city is lost in the distance, and fields stretch out
on either side of the highway.
Still she moves on, never faltering, never showing signs of fatigue.
The skies grew suddenly dark. The rumbling of distant thunder was heard.
Vivid flashes of lightning played before her eyes, and dazzled her with
their blinding glare; still she moved steadily onward. A tree, shivered
by the lightning, fell across her path; she climbed over the trunk which
had been rent in twain, and continued her journey without exhibiting a
trace of surprise or alarm. There was a conflict raging in her own soul
fiercer than the conflict of the elements without; what was the
lightning that dazzled her sight to that which had seared her heart? And
why should she shrink from the shattered tree, whose own life had been
made a yet more fearful wreck?
And now the rain began to fall, not in a gentle shower, but in a fierce,
drenching deluge. It soaked through and through her miserable clothing,
and fell upon her hot skin. She did not seem to heed even that, but
still walked on—on with the same quick, steady pace, as before.
By the wayside was a small cottage, a very small one. There was but one
story, and two rooms were all it contained. It stood a few feet back
from the road. There was a small yard in front, and behind a small
garden, devoted to the cultivation of vegetables.
When Margaret came in sight of this cottage she paused,—paused a moment
irresolutely,—and then slowly entered through the open gate into the
path which led up to the front door.
She did not knock, but passing the door, stole to the window and looked
cautiously in.
The room revealed to her gaze was very plainly furnished. The floor was
clean, but had no carpet. A table and a few chairs, a clock, a stove,
and a rocking-chair, were all that the room contained.
In the rocking-chair sat an old lady, quietly engaged in knitting. Her
back was towards the window, and Margaret could therefore see nothing of
her features. At her feet reposed a gigantic cat, with her eyes half
closed, purring contentedly.
It was a picture of humble comfort and domestic happiness. The placid
look of the old lady seemed to indicate that she had no anxieties to
disturb her tranquillity. The cat, too, seemed to feel that dozing was
the great work of her existence, as, coiled up on the hearth, she
watched, with winking eyes, the rapid movements of the old lady’s
fingers.
Such was the general aspect of the room upon which the burning eyes of
Margaret now rested. She stood for brief space peering in with an air of
irresolution.
At length she opened the outer door. A moment more, and the door of the
inner room yielded to her touch, and she stood upon the threshold.
The old lady looked up from her knitting, and uttered a half exclamation
of terror as her eyes rested on the tall, forlorn woman standing before
her, with her clothes hanging in wet folds about her person, and her
hair falling in wild disorder about her face, from which she had now
removed her bonnet. The cat, too, who had been roused from her nap, and
who was as much unused to such company as her mistress, stood with her
back arched in terror, gazing in dismay at the stranger.
“Who are you?” asked the old lady, tremulously. “What do you want with
me?”
Margaret looked at her earnestly, and said, in a low voice:
“You do not know me?”
“No, I don’t know you,” said the old lady, shaking her head.
“Is it thus a mother forgets her own child?” asked Margaret, looking
fixedly at her.
The old lady trembled, she looked with an earnest glance of inquiry at
the wild, haggard face of her visitor, and then bursting into tears took
a step forward, and opening her arms exclaimed,—
“Margaret, my daughter!”
The hard heart melted for a moment, tears gushed from eyes dry before,
and the two were folded in a close embrace.
Then the old lady drew back a step, and gazed long and earnestly at her
daughter.
“You find me changed, mother,” said Margaret, abruptly.
“It is years since we met,” was the sad reply. “I might have expected to
find you changed.”
“But not _such_ a change,” replied Margaret. “It is not years alone that
have wrought the change in me. But you don’t—you cannot see the greater
change,” she continued with rapidity, “that has taken place in my heart.
It is a woful change, mother.”
Her mother marked, with alarm, the excitement of her manner, her quick
breathing, and the flush upon her cheeks.
“Your clothes are wet, Margaret,” she said, anxiously. “This terrible
storm has drenched you. You must change them instantly, or you will get
your death of cold.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said Margaret, waywardly, “you haven’t admired my
clothes yet. They are very rich and becoming, are they not? This shawl,”
and she lifted up the tattered rag and spread it out, while the rain
dropped from it upon the floor, “have you ever seen a more beautiful
one? And this dress,”—she held it up in her fingers,—“how much it
resembles the soft silk I wore at my wedding—yes, my _wedding_,” she
repeated, with startling emphasis.
“You are not well, Margaret,” said her mother, alarmed at her strange
conduct. “You have caught cold in this storm, and you will be sick if
you are not careful.”
“Sick! That matters little.”
“You might die,” urged the old lady, in a tone of mild reproach.
“Yes,” said Margaret, reflectively, “I might die, and that would prevent
my revenge. I must live for that; yes, I must live for that.”
“What do you mean, Margaret?”
“Never mind, mother,” said Margaret, evasively, “never mind. I will tell
you some time. Now I will place myself in your hands, mother, and try to
get well.”
“Now you are yourself again,” said the old lady, relieved by her calmer
tone. “You must take off those wet clothes directly, and put on some of
mine. You had better go to bed at once.”
Margaret yielded implicitly to her mother’s directions. Nevertheless,
she was very sick for many weeks. Often she was delirious, and her
mother more than once shuddered at the wild words which escaped her.