"So you won't go with me," William said to Jessie, next morning, when
she met him at the depot and gave him the note intended for her
grandmother.
"No," she replied. "The city is dull as yet, and I'd rather remain here
with Ellen."
"Oh, yes, Ellen," and William spoke quite indifferently. "Why didn't she
come to bid me good-by?" and he looked curiously at Jessie to see how
much she knew.
But Jessie suspected nothing, and replied at once:
"She has a headache this morning and was still in bed when I left her."
The heartless man was conscious of a pleasurable sensation,--a feeling
of gratified vanity,--for he knew that headache was for him. But he
merely said:
"Tell her that I'm sorry she's sick; she is a pleasant, quiet little
girl, quite superior to country girls in general."
"There's the train," cried Jessie, and in a moment the cars rolled up
before them.
"It will seem a young eternity until you come home," said William,
clasping Jessie's hand. "Good-bye," he added, as "all aboard" was
shouted in his ear, and as he turned away his place was taken by
another, who had witnessed the parting between the two, and at whom
Jessie looked wonderingly, exclaiming:
"Why, Walter, I didn't expect you to-day."
"And shall I infer that I am the less welcome from that?" the young man
asked, for with his inborn jealousy, which no amount of discipline could
quite subdue, he thought he detected in Jessie's tone and manner
something cold and constrained.
Nor was he wholly mistaken, for Jessie did not feel toward him just as
she had done before. Still she greeted him cordially,--thought how
handsome he was, and came pretty near telling him so,--but told him
instead, that she thought he resembled his cousin William. This brought
the conversation to a point Walter longed to reach, and as they walked
slowly towards home he questioned her of William,--asking when he came,
and if she had seen much of him previous to his visit there.
"I saw him almost every day before he went to Europe," she replied. "You
know he lives in New York now, and grandma thinks there's nobody like
him."
"Yes," returned Walter, "I remember your father told me once that she
had set her heart upon your marrying him."
"People would think it a splendid match," returned Jessie, a little
mischievously, for as she had known that William disliked Walter, so she
now felt that Walter disliked William, and she continued: "Charlotte
Reeves would give the world to have him spend a week in the country with
her," and the saucy black eyes looked roguishly up at Walter, who
frowned gloomily for an instant, and then rejoined:
"Shall I tell you what your father said about it?"
"Yes, do. I think everything of his opinion."
"He said, then, that he would rather see you buried than the wife of any
of that race," and Walter laid a great stress upon the last two words.
For a time Jessie walked on in silence, then stopping short and looking
up from under her straw hat, she said:
"Ain't _you_ one of that race?"
"I suppose I am," answered Walter, smiling at a question which admitted
of two or three significations.
Jessie thought of but one. Her father liked Walter very much, even
though his mother was a Bellenger; consequently it must be something
about William himself which prompted that remark, and as Jessie usually
echoed her father's sentiments, she felt, the old disagreeable sensation
giving way, and before they reached the farm-house she was chatting as
gayly with Walter, as if nothing had ever come between them.
That night Walter and Jessie sat together in the little portico, which
was securely shaded from the sun by Aunt Debby's thrifty hop vines.
Walter was telling Jessie of his recent visit, and how his grandfather
cried when he stood in the room where he was married nearly fifty years
before.
"I supposed old people outlived all their romance," said Jessie, adding
laughingly, as she plucked the broad green leaves growing near her head,
"I don't think I could love any body but father fifty years,--could
you?"
"It would depend a good deal upon the person I loved," returned Walter,
and the look he gave Jessie seemed to say that it would not be a hard
matter to love her through all time.
Jessie saw the look, and while it thrilled her with a sudden emotion of
pleasure, it involuntarily reminded her of what William had said of the
valedictory, and abruptly changing the conversation she said:
"Mr. Bellenger told me your speech was very good. May I see it for
myself?"
Walter was a fine orator, and knew that the favor with which his speech
had been received was in a great measure owing to the manner in which it
was delivered. He was willing for Jessie to have heard it, but he felt a
natural reluctance in permitting her to read it. Jessie saw his
hesitancy, and it strengthened the suspicion which before had hardly
existed.
"Yes, let me see it," she said. "You are surely not afraid of me!" and
she persisted in her entreaties until he gave it into her hands, and
then joined his grandfather, while she returned to her room, and
striking a light, abandoned herself to the reading of the valedictory;
and as she read it seemed even to her that she had heard some portion of
it before.
"Yes, I have!" she exclaimed, as she came upon a strikingly expressed
and peculiar idea. "I have read that in print," and in Jessie's heart
there was a sore spot, for the losing confidence in Walter was terrible
to her. "He is not strictly honorable," she said, and laying her face
upon the roll of paper, she cried to think how she had been deceived.
The next morning Walter was not long in observing her cold distant
manner, and he accordingly became as cold and formal toward her,
addressing her as Miss Graham, when he spoke to her at all, and after
breakfast was over, going to the village, where he remained until long
past the dinner hour, hearing that which made him in no hurry to return
home and make his peace with the little dark-eyed beauty. Everybody was
talking of Miss Graham's city beau, who had taken her to ride so often,
and who, when joked by his familiar landlord, had partially admitted
that an engagement actually existed between them.
"So you've lost her, sleek and clean," said the talkative Joslyn to
Walter, who replied that "it was difficult losing what one never had,"
and said distinctly that "he did not aspire to the honor of Miss
Graham's hand."
But whether he did or not, the story he had heard was not calculated to
improve his state of mind, and his dejection was plainly visible upon
his face when he at last reached home.
"Jessie was up among the pines," Aunt Debby said, advising him "to join
her and cheer her up a bit, for she seemed desput low spirited since Mr.
Bellenger went away."
Had Aunt Debby wished to keep Walter from Jessie, she could not have
devised a better plan than this, for the high spirited young man had no
intention of intruding upon a grief caused by William Bellenger's
absence, and hour after hour Jessie sat alone among the pines, starting
at every sound, and once, when sure a footstep was near, hiding behind a
rock, "so as to make him think she wasn't there." Then, when the
footstep proved to be a rabbit's tread, she crept back to her seat upon
the grass, and pouted because it was not Walter.
"He might know I'd be lonesome," she said, "after receiving so much
attention, and he ought to entertain me a little, if only to pay for all
father has done for him. If there is anything I dislike, it is
ingratitude," and having reached this point, Jessie burst into tears,
though why she should cry, she could not tell.
She only knew that she was very warm and very uncomfortable, and that it
did her good to cry, so she lay with her face in the grass, while the
rabbit came several times very near, and at last fled away as a heavier,
firmer step approached.
It was not likely Jessie would stay in the pines all the afternoon,
Walter thought, and as the sun drew near the western horizon, he said to
his grandfather:
"I will go for the cows to-night just as I used to do," and though the
pasture where they fed lay in the opposite direction from the pines, he
bent his footsteps toward the latter place, and came suddenly upon
Jessie, who was sobbing like a child.
"Jessie," he exclaimed, laying his hand gently upon her arm, "what _is_
the matter."
"Nothing," she replied, "only I'm lonesome and homesick, and I wish I'd
gone to New York with Mr. Bellenger."
"Why didn't you then?" was Walter's cool reply, and Jessie answered,
angrily:
"I would, if I had known what I do now."
"And pray what do you know now?" Walter asked, in the same cold, calm,
tone, which so exasperated Jessie that she replied:
"I know you hate me, and I know you didn't write all that valedictory,
and everything."
"Jessie," Walter said, sternly, "what do you mean about that
valedictory. Come, sit by me and tell me at once."
In Walter's voice there was a tone which, as a child, Jessie had been
wont to obey, and now at his command she stole timidly to his side upon
the rustic bench, and told him all her suspicions, and the source from
which they originated.
There was a sudden flash of anger in Walter's eye at his cousin's
meanness, and then, with a merry laugh, he said:
"And it sounded familiar to you, too, did it? Some parts of it might,
I'll admit, for you had heard them before. Do you remember being at any
examination in Wilbraham, when I took the prize in composition, or
rather declamation? It was said then that my essay was far beyond my
years, and I am inclined to think it was; for I have written nothing
since which pleased me half so well. I was appointed valedictorian, as
you know, and in preparing my oration I selected a few of those old
ideas and embodied them in language to suit the occasion. I am hardly
willing to call it plagiarism, stealing from myself, and I am sure you
would never have recognized it either if Mr. Bellenger had not roused
your suspicions. Is my explanation satisfactory?"
It was perfectly so, for Jessie now remembered where she had heard
something like Walter's valedictory, and with her doubts removed she
became much like herself again, though she would not admit that
William's insinuations were mere fabrications of his own. He never heard
it before, she knew, but some of Walter's old Wilbraham associates might
have been present and said in his hearing that it seemed familiar, and
then it would be quite natural for him to think so too.
Walter did not dispute her, but said:
"What else did my amiable cousin say against me?"
Clasping her hands over her burning face, Jessie answered faintly:
"He told me that your father had done a horrible thing, though he didn't
explain what it was. I knew before that there was something unpleasant,
and once asked father about it, but he wouldn't tell, and I want so much
to know. What was it, Walter?"
For a moment Walter hesitated, then drawing Jessie nearer to him, he
replied:
"It will pain me greatly to tell you that sad story, but I would rather
you should hear it from my lips than from any other," and then,
unmindful of the cows, which, having waited long for their accustomed
summons, were slowly wending their way homeward, he began the story as
follows:
"You know that old stone building on the hill near the village, and you
have heard also that it was a flourishing high school for girls. There
one pleasant summer my mother came. She was spending several months with
a family who occupied what is now that huge old ruin down by the river
side. Mother was beautiful, they say, and so my father thought, for
every leisure moment found him at her side."
"But wasn't she a great deal richer than he," Jessie asked, unconscious
of the pang her question inflicted upon her companion, who replied:
"Yes, he was poor, while Ellen Bellenger was rich, but she had a soul
above the foolish distinction the world will make between the wealthy
and the working class. She loved my father, and he loved her. At last
they were engaged, and then he proposed writing to her parents, as he
would do nothing dishonorable; but she begged him not to do it, for she
knew how proud they were, and that they would take her home at once. And
so, in an unguarded moment, they went together over the line into New
York, where they were married. The Bellengers, of course, were fearfully
enraged, denouncing her at once, and bidding her never cross their
threshold again. But this only drew her nearer to her husband, who
fairly worshiped her, as did the entire family,--for she lived in the
old gable-roofed house,--and was happy in that little room which we call
yours now. Father was anxious that she should have everything she
wanted, and it is said was sometimes very extravagant, buying for her
costly luxuries which he could not well afford."
"But _my_ father," said Jessie. "What had he to do with it?"
"Everything," returned Walter, with bitterness. "Old Mr. Graham had a
bank in Deerwood. Your father was cashier, while mine was teller, and in
consideration of a large remuneration, performed a menial's part, such
as sweeping the rooms, building the fires in winter, and of course he
kept the keys. They were great friends, Richard Graham and Seth
Marshall, and people likened them to David and Jonathan. At last one of
the large bills my father had made came due, and on that very night the
bank was robbed of more than a thousand dollars."
"Oh, Walter, how could he do it?" cried Jessie, and Walter replied:
"He didn't! He was as innocent as I, who was then unborn. Listen while I
tell you. There was in town a dissipated, good-natured fellow, named
Heyward, who had sometimes taught singing-school, and sometimes fiddled
for country dances. No one knew how he managed to subsist, for he
dressed well, traveled a great deal, and was very liberal with his
money, when he had any. Still none suspected him of dishonesty; he did
not know enough for that, they said. Everybody liked him, and when on
that night he came to our house, apparently intoxicated, and asked for a
shelter, grandfather bade him stay, and assigned him a back room in
which was an outer door. In the morning he was, or seemed to be, still
in a drunken sleep. Your father brought the news of the robbery, and
while he talked he looked suspiciously at mine, especially when my
mother said innocently:
"'The burglars must have tried this house, too, for I woke in the night,
and finding my husband gone, called to him to know where he was.
Presently he came in, saying he thought he heard a noise and got up to
find what it was.'
"When she said this Mr. Graham changed color, and pointing to my
father's shoes, which stood upon the hearth, he asked:
"'How came these so muddy? It was not raining at bedtime last night.'
"This was true. A heavy storm had arisen after ten and subsided before
twelve, so that the shoes must have been worn since that hour, as there
was fresh dirt still upon them. The robber had been tracked to our door,
while there were corresponding marks from our door to the bank. My
father's shoes just fitted in these tracks, for they measured them with
the wretched man looking on in a kind of torpid apathy, as if utterly
unable to comprehend the meaning of what he saw; but when Richard, his
best friend, whispered to him softly, 'Confess it, Seth. Give up the
money and it won't go so hard against you,' the truth burst upon him,
and he dropped to the ground like one scathed with the lightning's
stroke. For hours he lay in that death-like swoon, and when he came back
to consciousness he was guarded by the officers of the law. They led him
off in the care of a constable, he all the time protesting his
innocence, save at intervals when he refused to speak, but sat with a
look upon his face as if bereft of reason.
"The examination came on, and the upper room, where the court was held,
was crowded to overflowing, all anxious to gain a sight of my father,
though they had known him from boyhood up. Grandpa was there, and close
behind sat or rather crouched my wretched mother. She would not be kept
back, and with a face as white as marble, and hands locked firmly
together, she sat to hear the testimony. Once the counsel for my father
thought to clear him by throwing suspicion upon Heyward, who with a most
foolish expression upon his face had declared that he heard nothing
during the night. People would rather it had been he than Seth Marshall,
and the tide was turning in favor of the latter when Richard Graham was
called to the stand. He was known to be my father's dearest friend, and
the audience waited breathlessly to hear what he would say. He testified
that, having been very restless, he got up about two o'clock in the
morning, and as his window commanded a full view of the bank, he
naturally looked in that direction. The moon was setting, but he could
still discern objects with tolerable distinctness, and he saw a man come
out of the bank, lock the door, put the key in his pocket, and hurry
down the street. My father then wore a light gray coat and cap of the
same color, so did this man, and thinking it must be he, Mr. Graham
called him by name; but if he heard he did not stop. Mr. Graham then
remembered that the day before my father had procured some medicine for
my mother, and had forgotten to take it home. This threw some light upon
the matter, and thinking that mother had probably been taken suddenly
ill and my father had gone for the medicine, Mr. Graham retired again to
rest, and gave it no further thought until the robbery was discovered.
"'Do you believe the man you saw leaving the bank to have been the
prisoner?' asked the lawyer, and for an instant Mr. Graham hesitated,
for with the white stony face of his early friend upturned to his and
the supplicating eyes of the young wife fixed upon him, how could he
answer yes? But he did, Jessie,--he did it at last. He said, 'I do,' and
over the white face there passed a look of agony which wrung a groan
even from your father's lips, while the pale young creature not far away
rocked to and fro in her hopeless desolation."
"Oh, Walter, Walter!" cried Jessie, "don't tell me any more. I see now
so plain that fair girl-wife crouching on the floor and my father
testifying against her. How could he?"
Walter had asked himself that question many a time, and his bosom had
swelled with resentment at the act; but now, when Jessie, too,
questioned the justice of the proceeding, he answered:
"It was right I suppose,--all right. Mr. Graham believed that to which
he testified, and when he left the stand he wound his arms around my
father's neck and said:
"'God forgive me, Seth, I couldn't help it.'"
"But he could," said Jessie; "he needn't have told all he knew."
Walter made no reply to this; he merely went on with his story:
"Then the decision came. There was proof sufficient for the case to be
presented before the grand jury, and unless bail could be found to the
amount of one thousand dollars, my father must go to jail, there to
await his trial at the county court, which would hold its next session
in three weeks. When the decision was made known, my father pressed his
hands tightly over his heart for a moment, and then he clasped them to
his ears as the deep stillness in the room was broken by the plaintive
cry:
"'Save my husband, somebody. Oh, save my darling husband!'
"The next moment my mother fell at his feet, a crushed, lifeless thing,
her hair falling down her face and a blue, pinched look about her lips,
while my father bent over her, his tears falling like rain upon her
face. Everybody cried, and when the question was asked, 'Who will go the
prisoner's bail?' your father answered aloud:
"'I will.'"
"Oh, I am so glad!" gasped Jessie, while Walter continued:
"With Mr. Graham for security, they let my poor father go home; but a
mighty blow had fallen upon him, benumbing all his faculties; he could
neither think, nor talk, nor act, but would sit all day with mother's
hands in his, gazing into her face and whispering sometimes:
"'What will my darling do when I am in State prison?'
"Such would be his fate, everybody said. It could not be avoided, and in
a kind of feverish despair he waited the result. Your father was with
him often, 'keeping watch,' the villagers said; but if so, he was not
vigilant enough, for one dark, stormy night, the last before the
dreadful sitting of the court, when the wind roared and howled about the
old farm-house, and the heavy autumnal rain beat against the windows, my
father drew his favorite chair, the one which always stands in that dark
corner, and which none save you has ever used since then, he drew it, I
say, to my mother's side, and winding his arms about her neck, he said:
"'Ellen, do you believe me guilty?'
"'No, never for a moment,' she replied, and he continued:
"'Heaven bless you, precious one, for that. Teach our child to think the
same, and give it a father's blessing.'
"My mother was too much bewildered to answer, and with a kiss upon her
lips, my father turned to his father and standing up before him, said:
"'I know what's in your heart; but, father, I swear to you that I am
innocent. Bless me, father--bless your only boy once more.'
"Then grandpa put his trembling hand upon the brown locks of his son and
said:
"'I would lay down my life to know that you are not guilty; but I bless
you all the same, and may God bless you too, my boy!'
"In the bedroom grandmother lay sick, and kneeling by her side, my
father said to her:
"'Do you believe I did it?'
"'No,' she answered faintly, and without his asking it, she gave him her
blessing.
"He kissed his sister,--kissed Aunt Debby, and then he went away. They
saw his face, white as a corpse, pressed against the window pane, while
his eyes were riveted upon his beautiful young wife,--then the face was
gone, and only the storm went sobbing past the place where he had stood.
All that night the light burned on the table, and they waited his
return, but from that hour to this he has not come back. He could not go
to prison, and so he ran away. Mr. Graham paid the bail, and was heard
to say that he was glad poor Seth escaped. I did not quite understand
the matter when I was a boy, and I almost hated your father for
testifying against him, but I know now he did what he thought was right.
It is said he loved my Aunt Mary, Ellen's mother, and that she loved him
in return, but after this sad affair there arose a coolness between
them. He went to New York and married a more fashionable woman, while
she, too, chose another."
"Did they ever find the money?" Jessie asked, and Walter replied:
"Never, though Aunt Debby says that Heyward indulged in a new suit of
clothes soon after, and gave various other tokens of being abundantly
supplied. No one knows where he is now, for he left Deerwood years ago."
"And your mother," interrupted Jessie, "tell me more of her."
The night shadows were falling, and she could not see the look of pain
on Walter's face as he replied:
"For a few days she watched to see father coming back, for suspense was
more terrible than reality, and those who were his friends before said
his going off looked badly. From Boston her proud relatives sent her a
double curse for bringing this disgrace upon them, and then she took her
bed, never to rise again. The first October frosts had fallen when they
laid me in her arms and bade her live for her baby's sake. But five days
after I was born she lay dead beneath that western window where you so
often sit. Then the proud mother relented and came to the funeral, but
she has never been here since. Your father was present, too,--he bought
the monument; he cried over me, and wished that he could fill my
father's place."
"I wish he could, too," cried the impulsive Jessie, "I wish you were my
brother," and she involuntarily laid her hand in his. "Have you never
heard from your father?" she asked, and Walter replied:
"Only once. Six months after mother died he wrote to Mr. Graham from
Texas, and that is the very last. But, Jessie, I shall find him. I shall
prove him innocent, and until then there will always be a load in my
heart,--a something which makes me irritable, cross and jealous of those
I love the best, lest they should despise me for what I cannot help."
"And is that why you speak so coldly to me sometimes when I don't
deserve it?" Jessie asked, twining her snowy fingers about his own.
Oh, how Walter longed to fold her in his arms and tell her how dear she
was to him, and that because he loved her so much he was oftenest harsh
with her. But he dared not. She would not listen to such words, he knew.
She thought of him as her brother, and he would not disturb the dream,
so he answered her gently:
"Am I cross to you, Jessie? I do not mean to be, and now that you know
all, I will be so no longer. You do not hate me, do you, because of my
misfortune?"
"Hate you, Walter! Oh, no! I love,--I mean I like you so much better
than I did when I came up here this afternoon and cried with my face in
the grass. I pity you, Walter, for it seems terrible to live with that
disgrace hanging over you."
Walter winced at these last words, and Jessie, as if speaking more to
herself than him, continued:
"I hope Will won't tell grandma who you are, for she is so proud that
she might make me feel very uncomfortable by fretting every time I spoke
to you. Walter," and the tone of Jessie's voice led Walter to expect
some unpleasant remark, "you know father has intended to have you live
with us, but if William tells grandma, it will be better for you to
board somewhere else,--grandma can be very disagreeable if she tries,
and she would annoy us almost to death."
Jessie was perfectly innocent in all she said, but in spite of his
recent promise Walter felt his old jealousy rising up, and whispering to
him that Jessie spoke for herself rather than her grandmother. With a
great effort, however, he mastered the emotion and replied:
"It will be better, I think, and I will write to your father at once."
Jessie little dreamed what it cost Walter thus deliberately to give up
seeing her every day, and living with her beneath the same roof. It had
been the goal to which he had looked forward through all his college
course, for when he entered on his first year Mr. Graham had written:
"After you are graduated I shall take you into business, and into my own
family, as if you were my son."
And Jessie herself had vetoed this,--had said it must not be.
For an instant Walter felt that he would not go to New York at all; but
when he saw how closely Jessie nestled to his side, and heard her say,
"You can come to see me every day, and when I am going to concerts, or
the opera, I shall always send word to you by father," he rejected his
first suspicions as unjust.
She was not ashamed of him,--she only wished to screen him from her
grandmother's ill nature, and, winding his arm around her, he said:
"You are a good girl, Jessie, and I'm glad you think of me as a
brother."
But he was not glad. He did not wish her to be his sister, but he tried
to make himself believe he did, and as in the pines where they sat it
was already very dark, he proposed their returning home. Jessie was
unusually silent during the walk, for she was thinking of Walter's young
mother, and as they passed the grave-yard in the distance, she sighed:
"Poor dear lady! I don't wonder you are often sad with that memory
haunting you."
"I should not be sad," he returned, "if I could bring the world to my
opinion; but nearly all except Aunt Debby believe him guilty."
"Does my father?" asked Jessie, and as Walter replied, "Yes," she
rejoined: "Then I'm afraid I think so too, for father knows; but," she
hastily added, as she felt the gesture of impatience Walter made, "I
like you just the same,--yes, a great deal better than before I heard
the story. It isn't as bad as I supposed, and I am so glad you told it.
Will Bellenger won't make me distrust you again."
By this time they had reached the house, where the deacon sat smoking
his accustomed pipe, and saying to Walter as he entered:
"Where are the cows you went after more than three hours ago?"
Walter colored, and so did Jessie, while the matter-of-fact Aunt Debby
rejoined:
"Why, Amos, the cows is milked and the cream is nigh about riz."
That night, after all had retired except the deacon and Walter, the
former said to his grandson:
"What kept you and Jessie so late?"
"I was telling her of my father, and why he went away," returned Walter.
The deacon groaned as he always did when that subject was
mentioned,--then after a moment he added:
"I am glad it was no worse,--that is, I'm glad you are not betraying Mr.
Graham's trust by making love to his daughter."
Walter was very pale, but he did not speak, and his grandfather
continued:
"I am old, Walter, but I have not forgotten the days when I was young;
and remembering my disposition then, I can see why you should love
Jessie Graham. God bless her! She's worthy of any man's best love, and
she's wound herself round my old heart till the sound of her voice is
sweet to me almost as Ellen's; but she isn't for you, Walter. I know Mr.
Graham better than you do. He's noble and good, but very proud, and the
daughter of a millionaire must never marry the son of a poor----"
"Don't!" cried Walter, catching his grandfather's arm. "I understand it
all,--I know that I am poor, know what the world says of my father, and
I will suffer through all time sooner than ask the bright-faced Jessie
to share one iota of our shame. But were my father innocent, I would
never rest until I made myself a name which even Jessie Graham would not
despise, for I love her, grandpa,--love her better than my life," and as
after this confession he could not look his grandfather in the face, he
stared hard at the candle dying in its socket, as if he would fain read
there some token that what he so much desired would one day come to
pass.
And he did read it too, for with a last great effort the expiring flame
sent up a flash of light, which shone on Walter's face and that of the
gray-haired man regarding him with a look of tender pity. Then it passed
away, and the darkness fell between them just as the old man said,
mournfully:
"There is no hope, my boy,--no hope for you."