THE RECTOR’S DIARY
The sweet-faced Miss Isabel did not try his patience long.
She had been deeply interested in the young and handsome stranger,
wondering who he was, and whence he came, as well as why he should seek
their quiet little chapel, and then the old sexton.
She had heard his last words to the old man, and knew that he was
desirous of speaking with her. She at once arose, and, as soon as she
came forth from the cottage, he immediately approached her.
“Pardon,” he said, courteously, lifting his hat, “but may I crave a
little conversation with you?”
“Certainly,” she answered, with a sweet graciousness that made him think
of his mother.
He then stated something of his object in coming there, and also the
startling revelation of the sexton, as well as what he had said
regarding the rector’s diary, and begged her, if it was in her power, to
let him know the truth of the matter.
Her face grew sad and full of pity as she listened to him, and realized
something of the wrong that had been suffered for so many years, and
when he had finished she said simply:
“Yes, I can give you comfort. Come with me.”
How his heart bounded at the words “I can give you comfort;” and,
heaving a breath that was almost a sob, a cry of thankfulness went up to
God from his heart for the light that was beginning to shine upon his
darkened life.
Miss Isabel Grafton, for that was the lady’s name, led the way toward a
small villa, built in the Gothic style, near by.
It was a charming little place, covered with vines and climbing roses,
and surrounded by noble trees with here and there a patch of gay flowers
adding brightness to the scene.
She invited him to enter, and ushered him into a cool and shady parlor,
when she excused herself for a few moments. She was not gone long, and
when she returned she carried two or three large books in her hand.
“These books,” she explained, laying them carefully upon the table, as
if they were a precious treasure, “comprise my father’s diary, and, I
think, never during his life did he omit the record of a single day. I
have taken a sad pleasure,” she continued, with a starting tear, “in
reading them since his death, and I also think that there is
considerable here regarding the events of which you speak. Now, if you
will please give me the date I will see if I can find it for you.”
He told her, and then sat in painful suspense while she turned those
pages penned by a hand long since palsied in death, and which might
contain so much of hope for him.
“Yes,” she said at last, “here is one entry—the first, I think, since it
corresponds with the date you gave me;” and she passed him the book to
let him read for himself.
His emotion was so great that at first the words seemed blurred and
indistinct, and it was a minute or two before his vision became clear
enough to read.
Then he read this:
“August 11th, 18—. A strange thing occurred to-day. Thomas Wight, the
sexton of St. John’s chapel, came to me in evident distress, and
confessed a conspiracy in which he was concerned, or rather a wrong into
which he had been tempted by the offer of gold, and which lay exceeding
heavy on his heart. A young man had hired him to leave the chapel open
after dark that evening, that he might come to be married secretly to a
young and beautiful girl, and he told him, moreover, that he would bring
his own clergyman with him to perform the ceremony. He paid the sexton a
golden eagle to do him the service, which the poor fellow,
conscience-smitten like Judas of old, came and delivered up to me for
the poor. I resolved at once to investigate the affair, for it appeared
to me as if a wrong of some kind was being perpetrated, wherein a young,
trusting and perhaps motherless girl, like my own fair Isabel, was being
deceived. The result proved even as I thought—a romance begun, a wrong
beheaded.
“An hour before the time that Thomas Wight told me was set apart for the
strange couple to come to the chapel, I repaired thither and concealed
myself behind the drapery of a curtain in the robing-room. It was nearly
dark, but not so dark but that I could distinguish objects quite
distinctly, and I had not been there long before a young man, of perhaps
thirty years, quietly entered, and immediately proceeded to disguise
himself with a white wig and a full, flowing white beard. I knew then,
beyond a doubt, that a great wrong was contemplated, for the hair and
beard was an exact counterpart of my own. He then approached my private
closet, took down the robe and surplice, and was about to put them on,
when I stepped forth from my hiding-place and addressed him thus:
“‘Friend, what art thou about to do with these emblems of a sacred
office? Those are holy vestures which none but a priest unto God has a
right to wear.’
“The robe dropped from his nerveless hand upon the floor, and he turned
a white, startled face to me.
“‘Who are you?’ he at length demanded, with an effort to recover
himself.
“‘I am Bishop Grafton, and rector of St. John’s parish. Who are you?’ I
asked mildly, in return.
“‘It does not matter who I am,’ he muttered, angrily, and standing
before me with an exceedingly crest-fallen air; and I proceeded with
solemn gravity:
“‘Friend, I learned this afternoon that a great wrong was to be
committed here this evening, and I came here to stop it, if possible.’
“I spoke the words at a venture—and not so, either, for the man’s manner
had convinced me of the fact already—and my words took immediate effect,
for, with a muttered imprecation, he tore the wig and beard from his
head and face and threw them also upon the floor beside the robe and
surplice.
“‘Friend,’ I then demanded, sternly, ‘are you a minister of Jesus
Christ?’
“‘No,’ he muttered, with a vile oath.
“‘Then you were about to personate a bishop of the church and commit
sacrilege. I will relieve you from both the mockery and the sin. I will
myself perform this marriage ceremony.’
“‘But——’ he began, in an excited manner.
“‘You will please give me the names of the parties about to be united,
and the _correct ones_,’ I interrupted, peremptorily.
“He gave them, and, lighting a taper, I inserted them in the blanks of
the certificate with which I had provided myself before leaving home.
“‘Now you can go,’ I added, and pointed to the rear door, which led into
the church-yard.
“He hesitated, and began to stammer something about some one being very
angry at the turn affairs were taking.
“‘Enough!’ I cried, sternly. ‘Do not dare to interfere with me; you can
quietly retire and leave things to take their course; or, since I now
recognize you as one of the strangers visiting Rye for the summer, I
will cause you to be arrested on the morrow for sacrilege, and having
tampered with things belonging to the house of God. Hark!’ I added, as
we heard steps entering the chapel; ‘they have come; choose quickly and
go; or, if you fear to do that, acknowledge, in the presence of yonder
couple, the fraud you were about to commit. I will not have so foul a
wrong perpetrated; if a young and trusting maiden believes she is about
to become a lawful wife, a wife she _shall_ be; I will not allow her to
be deceived.’
“A moment longer he hesitated, as if undecided which course to pursue,
then, with a terrible imprecation upon me and the whole proceeding, he
turned away and glided forth into the darkness, and I saw him no more.
“It was but the work of an instant for me to don the robe and surplice
which he had dropped in his fright, and I was at the altar in time to
receive the strange couple, one of whom I was now convinced was a
designing villain, the other his victim.
“The maiden was apparently very young, and my heart was pained for her;
her voice was sweet and childish as she made the responses, and I felt
in my soul that she must be motherless, or she would not be there in any
such way as that.
“The propriety of my adopting the course I did might be questioned by
some, and the thought arise why I did not instead denounce the villain
and save the child. I had reasoned all that within myself, and was
convinced that if she was so infatuated with her lover that he had won
her consent to a secret marriage, it would not be difficult for him to
win her again to his will, and, even in the face of my revelation, to do
her the foul wrong he had planned. I judged that the greatest kindness I
could do her would be to make her really a wife.
“In less than ten minutes the vows which made them one were pronounced,
and they were as truly man and wife as any who ever took upon themselves
the vows of matrimony; and, putting the certificate of the transaction
in the young bride’s hand, I saw them go forth into their new life,
feeling that whatever happened, I had done what I could.
“I did not believe that with that certificate in her possession, whereon
my name was written in my boldest hand, to prove the transaction, that
any very great harm could come to that child-wife. I returned to the
robing-room, removed my vestures, picked up the wig and beard which
still lay there, and brought them home with me as trophies of a strange
adventure. They are locked within the third drawer of the old Grafton
bureau. God bless and spare that innocent maiden; my heart yearneth over
her.”
Thus ended the bishop’s first entry regarding that strange adventure,
and a long, deep sigh, as if some heavy burden had rolled from his
heart, burst from Marion Vance’s son as he finished reading it and laid
down the book.
“Thank God!” he said, devoutly.
“Amen!” murmured the sweet-faced Miss Isabel, who had sat silently
watching him as he read, and who seemed to comprehend and sympathize
with all that that burst of thanks meant.
“There is something more, I believe, a little farther on,” she said,
after a moment of silence, and reaching for the book. “Here it is,” she
added, after turning several pages. “I have read it a great many times,
and _hoped_ that that young girl might have been happy; and yet I feared
for her—there is _so much_ that is sad in the world,” she concluded,
with a sigh.
The excited youth again seized the book eagerly, and read:
“September 10th, 18—. My heart has been unaccountably heavy to-day for
that young maiden whom I so strangely wedded about a month ago. Perhaps
the event was recalled by my meeting the villain who was to perform the
mock ceremony. He avoided me with a blush of shame, turning short in his
tracks as he saw me approaching. It is well that he can feel even shame
for his sin. But something impressed me that that young wife might some
time need even stronger evidence than the certificate I gave her—it
might be lost, destroyed, or _stolen_, and then there would be nothing
to prove her position if I should die; and so, I resolved to make a
record here of their names, and the date of their marriage:
“MARRIED—In St. John’s Chapel, Winchelsea, August 11th, 18—, by the
Reverend Joshua Grafton, bishop, and rector of St. John’s parish,
George Sumner, of Rye, to Miss Marion Vance, also of Rye. I take my
oath that this is a true statement.
“September 10th, 18—. JOSHUA GRAFTON, Rector.”
That was all; but was it not enough?
The book dropped from the youth’s nerveless hand, and his involuntary
cry smote heavily the heart of the gentle woman sitting so silently in
the gathering twilight near him.
“Oh, mother—mother!”
It was as though he could not bear it, and she not there to share it
with him—this tardy justice, this blessed revelation. His heart was
filled almost to bursting with grief that she should have suffered all
those long years, bearing so patiently her burden of shame, when she
might even now be living, honored and respected.
She was only thirty-four when she died—just the time when life should
have been at its prime.
She was beautiful, and so constituted that she could have enjoyed to
their fullest extent all the good things that belonged to her high
position in life; and it seemed too cruel, when they might all have been
hers—when they _were_ hers by right—that she should have been so
crushed, and her life so corroded and early destroyed by this foul
wrong.
But Marion Vance had learned submission and humility from her life of
trial—she had learned to _trust_ where the way was so dark that she
could not _see_, and she had told her son on her death-bed that
notwithstanding she could not fathom the wisdom of the lesson of sorrow
that she had had to learn, yet she did not doubt that it would all
result for good in the end.
“You may perhaps be a nobler man,” she had said, with her hand resting
fondly on his chestnut curls, “for having been reared in obscurity,
instead of an heir to great possessions; you will, at all events,
realize that a noble character is more to be desired than a mere
noble-sounding name, and if you should ever rise to eminence by your own
efforts, you will not forget the teachings of your mother, and they will
help to keep you in the path of rectitude and honor.”
He remembered those last words now, and though he was always comforted
when he thought of them, yet he could not keep down the wish that she
might have lived, and he been permitted to see her face light up with
hope and joy that there was no stain resting upon her or him.
But doubtless she knew it all in Heaven now, and was rejoicing on his
account.
He was no longer a nameless outcast from society; he could now hold his
head aloft with the proudest in the land—he had no cause for shame, save
the knowledge that his father had been one of the vilest villains who
walked the face of the earth.
“Where was he now?” he wondered, a hot flush of anger mounting his brow,
as it always did when he thought of him.
Was he living or dead?
_Dead_, he hoped, but that was a thing he had yet to find out.
He wondered how the Marquis of Wycliffe would receive the knowledge that
he had gained to-day.
He could now seek him and claim his inheritance if he chose—there was no
reason why he should not do so, except that his heart shrank with
indignation and bitterness from the stern man who, with a face of flint,
had sent his mother, a tender, suffering woman, so cruelly into the
world to wrestle with life’s stern realities, with neither sympathy nor
love to smooth its rough way.
He knew that he should claim his inheritance some time; it belonged to
him as Marion’s legitimate son, and according to the conditions of the
old marquis’ will.
He would go and rule Wycliffe some day, and show the world how Marion
Vance, the despised and scorned, had reared her son. Oh, if she could
but have lived to be proud of him and enjoy the good that was coming to
him! This was ever the burden of his thought, but it could not be, and
he could only strive to remember and follow her pure teachings, and win
for himself the respect that had been denied her.
But first he had a work to do. He could not go to Wycliffe yet, much as
he desired to re-establish his mother’s reputation. He must first find
the man who had sought her ruin, to “pass away a summer holiday and to
have a jolly good time.” If he were dead he would find his grave and be
satisfied. If he was living, he would search until he found him, brand
him with his traitorous designs, and prove to him that in his wickedness
he had overreached himself.
Then, and not until then, could he present himself before the Marquis of
Wycliffe, and demand to be acknowledged as his heir.