LOUIS DE MARKE’S CONFESSION.
Louis de Marke sat for some moments, with a hand to his forehead,
perplexed, and, at heart, reluctant to speak. It is true he had been
months and months pining for the company of his elder brother, resolving
to give him all confidence, and to ask for both counsel and help, at his
hands, but now he shrunk from speaking. At last he dropped his hand, and
began, abruptly enough:—
“It was a sad romance to her, and to me. I have told you, my wife was an
orphan and the ward of her only brother. Her father had been the
intimate friend of Mrs. Judson, who I have since learned was Louisa’s
godmother. The brother, after his father’s death, placed Louisa under
this woman’s care.”
“And you became acquainted with her?” inquired George, deeply
interested.
“Yes! Our gardens adjoined; the fences were open and low, and an arbor
ran from one to the other. I was often in our side of this arbor, and
the young ladies came down to the portion upon their grounds, with their
books and music. You have never seen Mrs. Judson’s daughter. She was one
of the loveliest creatures eyes ever dwelt upon, serene and gentle as an
angel, a sort of moonlight beauty which one loves to dream over.”
“You are speaking of Miss Judson now, not of the girl you loved?”
questioned George, surprised at his eloquence.
“I will be truthful with you, George, even to my own shame. It was Miss
Judson whom I first loved—Louisa was a secondary object with me then; in
fact, I considered her as a spoiled child. It was a mad passion,
something less than idolatry, my love for the other; a madness that—yes,
let me confess it—that holds me yet.”
“And did she know of this passion?”
“How could she help it? I was too young for concealment, but no words of
love ever passed between us. We met frequently, in the way I speak of,
and would stand on a pleasant moonlight evening, screened by the
clustering vines, leaning on the light fence which separated their arbor
from ours, saying little, but filled with a world of sweet thoughts that
made these stolen hours the most delicious of my life. Yes, George, she
must have known that I loved her, but I did not speak. How could I, with
every dollar I expected to have in the hands of my mother, and she so
grasping and avaricious that I could scarcely persuade her to give me
enough money to purchase food, for she had fairly starved me out of her
house.
“Mrs. Judson, you remember, bought the house she lived in of our father,
just before he died, and did not move into it until Madame had abandoned
all attempts at respectable life, taking that poor girl Catharine with
her. First, she went into an inferior dwelling, then to the garret where
she is to be found now.
“I refused to give up my room in the old home, and she consented that I
should board with the tenant to whom it was rented. In this way it
happened that I was saved the shame of her interference, and kept our
domestic troubles a secret from this proud girl, and as far as possible
from the world. But you will understand that the dread of this exposure
would keep me silent. I dared not tell this splendid girl that I was the
legal dependant and slave of a woman who did not give herself the common
decencies of life, out of the great wealth my father left, and that two
years must pass before I could come to her mother as an independent
gentleman and ask her hand. Now I could do a thing like that, though the
very idea of my mother’s life makes me shrink, but then I was
inexperienced, shy, and terribly depressed by the course my mother was
pursuing. The great terror of my life was that those two persons should
meet.
“I loved this noble girl to distraction, and, brother George, I am sure
that she loved me, though all this time she was engaged to another man.”
“Engaged to another man, and knew in her heart that you loved her?”
“Do not blame her; had I spoken out, she might have found courage to
break an engagement which, I am sure, was made at the persuasion of her
mother. Yet I am told that Oakley was a noble young fellow, and loved
her dearly. She was not unhappy with him.”
“How do you know that, brother Louis?”
“Because she has told me so since his death.” George De Marke crushed
the wide-awake in his hand, while a low whistle expressed the new light
that was dawning upon him.
“Well, go on,” he said, with a gleam of humor in his eyes.
“All this time, while I was lavishing the first thoughts of my youth
upon her, she was engaged. I was nothing to her; Louisa told me this.
Her own brother was betrothed to Miss Judson; on his return they were to
be married.
“I do not think Louisa saw my anguish, or my despair, when she gave me
this information, for deep feelings are seldom the most demonstrative. I
felt myself growing pale, my very lips were chilled through and felt
like marble as I closed them. She did not observe it. The very warmth
was quenched in my veins, and she only said, as we shook hands in
parting,—
“‘How cold your hands are, but the night _is_ a little chilly.’
“As if influenced by some strange sympathy unexplained to her own heart,
she bent down and kissed my hand; but I shrunk from the touch of her
lips—they sent a pang through and through me. At such times even the
most delicate sympathy is painful. How could this be otherwise than
bitter?
“Those few words had blasted all the hopes of my life; but how could she
understand this? I must have seemed strangely cold and ungrateful to
that poor girl, who loved me all the time, but, in the egotism of my
anguish, I was unconscious that she was made to suffer also.
“I saw Miss Judson after this, and with her own lips she told me of her
engagement. She was white and trembling all the time, while I stood
taking the death-blow of my hopes, in dead silence. I think now, that
she hoped for some protest, and in her heart longed for an explanation,
which I had no power to give. The expression of her eyes haunted me
afterward, so wistful, so tender—oh! if I had spoken then. But I did
not—could not. The image of my mother, in all her grim avarice, was
standing before that young creature so pure, so exquisite in her
refinement, made a coward of me.
“We parted that evening in mute anguish. Her hand was cold as snow when
I dropped it from mine, and even in the moonlight I could see that her
bosom swelled with proud grief. She never came to the garden after that,
though I haunted it like a ghost.
“Oakley came at last to claim his bride. I heard of this through Louisa,
who wandered into the arbor more frequently than ever, where she was
almost certain to find me in sight. I was very wretched in those days,
and, in the egotism of a first great sorrow, never thought to ask why
this girl sought the old haunt so often. My object in seeking her was to
obtain news of the woman I loved. In my thoughtless selfishness, I led
the gentle girl into interviews that she might have misunderstood.
“Louisa was a sweet, kind girl, innocent as a child, and as confiding.
Her society became a great relief to me, and I lost no opportunity of
meeting her. Miss Judson was her superior in age, and in everything that
goes toward making up a grand character; but a more affectionate,
truthful, and kind creature never lived, than Louisa Oakley.