JACOB SEALS HIS FATE.
“How do you feel this morning?” asked Helen, as she entered Martha’s
room.
Her question was addressed to Margaret, who, wan and pale, was seated at
a table eating some toast, which the compassionate seamstress in her
kindness had prepared for her.
“I am much better,” said Margaret, though her appearance did not bear
out the assertion.
“It will take some time yet for you to recover fully; you need rest and
freedom from care.”
“Freedom from care!” repeated Margaret, smiling bitterly. “Yes, that is
what I need, but where shall I find it?”
“With us,” answered Martha, gently.
“What!” exclaimed Margaret, fixing her eyes upon the seamstress in
surprise, “would you be burdened with me?”
“We shall not consider it a burden,” said Helen, “and I am sure we ought
to welcome an opportunity to be of service to any one of our
fellow-creatures.”
“Yet,” said Margaret, suffering her eyes to wander about the room, with
its plain and scanty furniture, “you cannot be rich—even one person
must——”
“No, we are far from rich,” said Helen, divining what she would have
said, “but neither are we very poor. I am paid quite a large salary for
singing, and—and you must not think of the expense.”
“But I am a stranger to you,” said Margaret; “why are you so kind to
me?”
“Because you are in trouble.”
“Perhaps I may make an ungrateful return. Suppose I should take the
opportunity to rob you?”
Helen laughed merrily.
“We are not afraid,” she said; “besides, I think you would be puzzled to
find anything worth taking.”
Margaret smiled faintly.
“I see you are not suspicious; I envy you that. There was a time when I
was as trustful, and as firm a believer in human goodness as you are.
But that time has passed, never to return.”
“I am afraid,” said Martha, “that your experience has not been an
agreeable one.”
“I have seen trouble,” said Margaret, briefly.
“There may be better times in store; I shall know soon.”
“Let us hope there will be,” said Martha, cheerfully.
“Amen!” said Margaret.
“I must go to rehearsal now,” said Helen. “When I return, I will call
in.”
“What is her name?” questioned Margaret, abruptly, as the door closed
upon Helen.
“Helen.”
“I mean the last name.”
“Her father goes by the name of Ford, but Helen has told me within a day
or two that his real name is Rand.”
“Rand!” repeated Margaret, starting in surprise.
“Yes.”
She remembered that this was the name which had been so many times
repeated on the paper which her husband had employed in trying his pen.
“Do you know anything of the name!” asked Martha, observing that her
companion seemed struck by it.
“I have heard of a man by the name—a rich man.”
“Probably Helen’s grandfather.”
“How comes it, then, that she is living here.”
“Some family estrangement. Her grandfather supposed until nearly the
last moment of his life that his son was dead. It was too late to alter
his will, and so Helen and her father are left penniless.”
“And who inherited the property then?” demanded Margaret, eagerly.
“A cousin of Mr. Ford’s—I mean of Mr. Rand’s.”
“And I know by what means he acquired it,” thought Margaret. “It may be
that—but I must see Jacob first.”
From this moment Margaret became restless. She felt that she could not
be at peace till the issue was decided. She determined once more to
appeal to Jacob, and ascertain beyond a doubt whether the statement
which he had made respecting their marriage was really true, or only
fabricated to vex her. This question must first be decided, and then—why
then she would be guided by circumstances.
She rose from her seat, and threw her shawl over her shoulders.
“Where are you going?” asked Martha, pausing in her work.
“I must go. I have something to do which cannot be delayed.”
“But are you able to go out?” questioned the seamstress.
“Perhaps not; but it would do me more harm to remain here, feeling that
I ought to be elsewhere, that things might go wrong without me, than the
exposure and exertion of going out.”
“You will come back here when you have accomplished what you desire?”
“I think so—I cannot tell—I will not promise,” returned Margaret, with
an air of indecision; “but at any rate, whether I come or not, I thank
you heartily for all your kindness to me, and for all that you have
offered to do for me. I am not so used to kindness that I can afford to
think little of it.”
“I am afraid it will be too much for her,” thought Martha, as Margaret
left the room with an unsteady step. “There is plainly some mysterious
sorrow which is preying upon her mind. If I could find out what it is, I
would try to comfort her.”
Margaret, on reaching the street got into an omnibus which set her down
at the corner of the street on which Jacob Wynne lived.
We will precede her.
The scrivener is seated at a small table. Before him are several small
piles of gold which he is counting out from a larger one before him. It
is the money which Lewis Rand paid him for his complicity in the
iniquitous scheme, the success of which has robbed Helen and her father
of a princely inheritance.
Jacob’s eyes sparkled as they rested on the glittering coins before him,
and in his heart, as in that of his employer on the day of his uncle’s
death, there springs up the exulting thought: “And all this is mine.”
But while he is thus engaged, there is a footfall on the stairs, the
step of one ascending slowly and with effort, but Jacob is too much
absorbed in his pleasing employment to heed or hear it.
A moment afterwards, and through the half-open door a woman’s face is
seen peering. Margaret’s face is thin and pale, the result of her recent
exhausting illness, and there is a look of weariness besides, induced by
the too great exertion of walking in her weakened state; but her eyes
are painfully bright, and her expression pale, thin, and weary as she
is, is one of stern determination.
“Seven hundred!” said Jacob, as he completed the seventh pile, and
commenced another, unconscious of the eyes that were fixed upon him.
Margaret paused a moment on the threshold. She saw before her a man who,
low and mean and ignoble as he was, had won her heart in the days of her
youthful freshness, and now in spite of the resentment which she felt at
his unworthy treatment, she could not look upon him without a
pang,—without a longing to become to him once more what she had been.
“Jacob!” she uttered in an uncertain voice.
Jacob Wynne turned round with a guilty start as though he had been
detected in some knavery, and half unconsciously drew his sleeve over
the pile of gold, as if to screen it from observation. When he saw who
it was that had so startled him, a frown gathered upon his face, and he
said, impatiently,—
“You here, Margaret?”
“You seem glad to see me after my long absence!” she said. “By your
leave I will take a seat, as I am somewhat tired.”
He looked uneasily at her, not feeling altogether certain of her purpose
in calling, and muttered, half to himself, “I wish you had waited till
next week.”
“Why should you wish that?” she asked, catching his words.
“Because I shall then be gone,” he said, coldly.
“Gone! Where?”
“Never mind! Why should you want to know?” he demanded, sulkily.
“Why, indeed?” echoed she, fixing her eyes upon his face; “what should
your motives be to me, who have only devoted ten years of my life to
your service? What should you be to me, Jacob Wynne?”
“Well,” he said. “I will no longer require such a sacrifice at your
hands. Ten years are quite enough to satisfy me. Henceforth you shall be
at perfect liberty to devote yourself to whom you will. I will promise
not to interfere.”
Margaret pressed her hand upon her heart as if to still its tumultuous
throbbing, at this cruel taunt from one whom she had so much loved, and
for whom, despite the discovery she had made of his baseness and
unworthiness, she could not altogether stifle the old affection.
“You say this because you are irritated, Jacob,” she returned. “You do
not, you cannot mean it. Tell me so. Tell me that you have been only
trying me all this time, and though it has made me very, very wretched,
although it has thrown me into a fever and rendered me as weak as you
now see me, I will forget it all, and will once more devote myself to
you with the same loving devotion as in the old times when we were
young, and—and happier than we are now, Jacob.”
In her earnestness she rose, and going towards the copyist, placed her
hand upon his arm.
“One often says in anger what he does not mean,” she continued, rapidly.
“I know that well. I have done so myself; and it is so with you, Jacob,
is it not? I knew it must be so when you spoke such cruel words to me at
the island so many weeks ago, and yet, Jacob, and yet it hurt me,” she
placed her hand upon her heart; “it hurt me here, when you said such
words even in jest. I was not strong enough to bear them, and they made
me sick. That very night I was attacked with a fever, and from that day
to this I have been stretched upon a sick-bed. Look at my face. See how
thin and pale it is. I ought not to be out to-day, and only succeeded by
an artifice in eluding the vigilance of my mother, who has been my
faithful nurse.”
“Why, then, did you come?” asked Jacob, coldly.
“Because I could not bear the intolerable weight of suspense. Those
words kept ringing in my ears, and I could not cease from anxiety until
I could see you and have them explained.”
Margaret looked imploringly in the face of the scrivener, as she
finished her appeal. She had spoken more confidently than she felt.
There was little in the sullen, cruel face before her to give her
encouragement. She felt that she had staked all her happiness upon a
single throw,—that the answer which he gave her then and there would
determine once and forever her future happiness or misery, and it might
be his.
Jacob regarded the anxious face before him with the triumph that a low
mind always feels when it has by any means gained an ascendency over a
stronger one. The nature of Margaret was superior to his, and he knew
it. It was the uneasy feeling of inferiority produced by this
circumstance, that led to a mean jealousy on his part which found its
gratification in any humiliation to which it was in his power to subject
her.
“I do not understand,” he said, deliberately, “why my words should stand
in need of explanation. I endeavored to make them sufficiently
intelligible.”
“You do not remember what you said, Jacob. I am sure that you cannot, or
you would not speak thus,” she said, earnestly.
“Perhaps your memory is better,” said the scrivener, sneeringly.
“Possibly you will do me the favor to repeat it.”
“Repeat it!”
“Yes, I said so,” triumphing as he spoke over her evident distress;
“come, I am listening.”
He drew his chair round so as to face Margaret, and fixed his eyes
cruelly upon her. Margaret was a creature of impulse. Hers was no calm,
equable temperament. Her features could express trustful, confiding
affection, or the intensity of scorn and hatred. She had come to make a
last appeal to Jacob Wynne. He did not deserve it, but it is hard for a
woman to resolve to injure a man who has been to her an object of
affection. Jacob had often treated her with harshness. This she could
bear, but the revelation of his perfidy, which she had heard from his
own lips at Staten Island, came upon her with the force of a sudden
blow, which at once prostrated her. This was an insult which she could
not forgive, if his words were indeed true. In the hope, slight as it
was, that it might prove to have been merely an outburst of Jacob’s
irritability, she had determined upon this interview that her doubts
might be set at rest. Had Jacob known the purpose which was in her
heart, and the precise character of the motive which had brought her to
him, he would have been more cautious in exasperating a woman who had
his ruin in her power. This, however, he did not know. He underrated
Margaret’s strength of mind; he regarded her as one whom he might
ill-treat with impunity, who might annoy him, to be sure, but was
incapable of doing him any serious injury; whom he could shake off at
any time, as he had resolved to do now.
When Margaret saw the triumphant smile upon his face, she felt that her
worst fears were likely to be realized. Still she resolved not to forego
her purpose. Dropping the pleading tone which she had hitherto employed,
she said, with an outward calmness which surprised Jacob, and which she
only assumed by a determined effort,—
“Be it so. Since you desire it, I will force myself to repeat those
words. You remember, Jacob, the occasion of my presenting myself before
you. Without my knowledge you had invited a young woman to accompany you
to Staten Island.”
“And did you think I was responsible to you? Would you have had me ask
your gracious permission?” asked Jacob, with a sneer.
“You can tell best,” said Margaret, steadily, “whether this excursion
was made accidentally or purposely, without my knowledge; if the latter,
it betrayed a consciousness on your part that I had a right to object.”
“But I told you——”
“Wait,” said Margaret, commandingly, “I will come to that by and by. I
learned your plan, it matters not in what manner, and followed you; I
marked your devoted attentions to your companion, and it deepened in me
the sense of wrong and neglect which I had noticed for a long time. You
believed me safe at home all this time.”
“I wish to heaven you had been,” muttered Jacob.
Unheeding the interruption, Margaret continued,—
“You will not be surprised that this should have excited some uneasiness
on my part. I followed you constantly, watching for an opportunity to
speak to you alone. At length you left your companion for a brief
period, and then I found the opportunity I had been seeking. I ventured
to expostulate with you on conduct which I considered inconsistent with
your duty as a husband. Then it was, Jacob, that in your anger, you told
me that I, who had lived with you for ten years as your wife, and had
never for a moment forfeited or doubted my full claim to the title, that
I was mistaken; that at the altar an infamous deception had been
practised upon me, and the office of the clergyman was usurped by one of
your own unprincipled associates, who had no legal right to perform the
marriage ceremony. Have I represented all this correctly?”
“You have a most accurate memory,” said Jacob. “I have no exceptions to
take to your account, except on the score of its length, and the use of
certain adjectives.”
“Then I am to understand that this _was_ no fabrication on your part,
Jacob Wynne, but the plain truth?”
“Most unquestionably.”
“You further gave me to understand,” continued Margaret, in the same
strangely calm tone, “and to-day you have repeated the intimation, that
my company is unwelcome; in short, that you are weary of my society, and
wish to be rid of me.”
“You would have made a capital judge, madam,” said Jacob; “you are
admirable at summing up. You express my meaning better than I could do
it myself. I congratulate you the possession of such a talent. It will
save me further trouble. Have you anything more to say?”
Jacob expected that Margaret would burst into a passion of tears and
reproaches, as she had done before, and he was already gloating over her
distress in anticipation. Already with cowardly malignity, he was
coining in his brain some new and clever taunts with which he might add
to her distress, and touch her to the quick. It was, therefore, with
some degree of disappointment as well as surprise, that he was able to
detect no change in her calm expression.
“Very well,” she said, “I wished this matter understood between us.”
Then, seeming to notice for the first time the gold upon the table, she
added, indicating it with her finger, “Your affairs appear to be in a
more flourishing condition than when I saw you last.”
“Eh! What?” said Jacob, changing color and looking embarrassed.
“You are richer than you were,” said Margaret, in the same tone. “It
must have been an important service which has been so liberally
rewarded.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Jacob, with the apprehension of guilt,
regarding her uneasily.
“Mean!” repeated Margaret, as if surprised at the question, “what should
I mean? I merely expressed my surprise at your having so large a sum by
you. I should judge,” she continued, carelessly, “that there might be a
thousand dollars there.”
Jacob’s agitation increased with every word that Margaret uttered.
Conscious that he had committed a crime which made him liable to severe
legal penalties, the significant words of the woman he had wronged
excited in his mind a fear that, in some manner unknown to him, she had
become cognizant of it.
So does “Conscience make cowards of us all.”
How much more so in the case of the scrivener, who was cowardly at the
best.
“I must insist upon knowing what you mean by these insinuations,” he
said, with ill-concealed anxiety.
“Insinuations, Jacob Wynne! What have I insinuated?”
“Why, then, do you speak in this manner?” said he, hesitatingly; “this
money—belongs to a friend.”
“Indeed!” said Margaret, looking at him steadily; “and I suppose you
merely offered to count it over for him.”
“Well, and if I did,” said the scrivener, plucking up a little courage;
“have you any objections to offer?”
“I! What objection could I possibly have? You know I have no longer a
right to object to anything which you may see fit to do. By the way, you
spoke of removing. When do you go?”
This cool self-possession and absence of emotion on Margaret’s part
puzzled Jacob, and alarmed him more than threats of vengeance would have
done. He found it impossible to understand her.
“I don’t know,” he said, evasively, “I can’t tell. Why do you ask?”
“Because,” she answered, with a meaning look, “I may wish to call upon
you again. There is nothing strange in my desiring occasionally to call
upon an old acquaintance; is there, Jacob?”
He muttered something which was inaudible.
“But I fear I am taking up too much of your time. You know I have no
further claim upon you. Farewell, Jacob, I shall not lose sight of you.”
“Stay,” said Jacob, who had been considerably alarmed, and who was still
apprehensive that she might know more than he desired, “have you any
money?”
“Yes,” said Margaret, “I have this.”
She displayed the half dollar, or rather what remained of it, after
discharging her fare in the omnibus.
“That is very little. Take this.”
He took a gold piece from the pile that lay on the table, and handed it
to her. “Come, let us part friends.”
“You forget, Jacob, that this gold is not yours. It belongs to a
friend.”
“Never mind,” he muttered, “I can replace it.”
“No,” said she, decidedly, “I will not take it. I have no claim upon
you.”
She rose and passed out of the room, Jacob looking after her with an air
of mingled doubt, apprehension, and perplexity.
“I wish I knew,” he said to himself, “whether she has discovered
anything. But it can’t be possible. She appears strangely enough.
Perhaps her mind is unhinged by what I have told her. But I never could
have got on with her weighing me down. We must not meet again if it can
be avoided.”
Jacob resolved to remove on the very next day to the more comfortable
room, which he considered suited to the improvement in his
circumstances.