The flowers in the garden and the leaves on the trees were withered and
dead. The luxuriant hop-vine, which grew about the farm-house door, had
yielded its bountiful store, and loosened from its summer fastening
trailed upon the ground. The cows no longer fed among the hills, the
winter stores had been gathered in, there was a thin coating of ice upon
the pond, and a dark, cold mist upon the mountain. There was a pallid
hue upon Ellen's cheek, and a look of strange unrest in her eyes as day
after day, all through the autumn time, she watched for the coming of
one who had said, "I will be with you when the forest casts its leaf."
The time appointed had come, and the brown leaves were "heaped in the
hollow of the wood" or tossed by the autumn wind, and the pain in
Ellen's heart grew heavier to bear, as morning after morning she said:
"He will come to-day," and night after night she wept at his delay.
But there came a day at last, a bright November day, when she saw him in
the distance, and with a cry of joy she buried her face in the pillows
of the lounge, saying to her mother:
"I am faint and sick."
She lay very white and still, while kind Aunt Debby chafed her clammy
hands, and when they said to her, "Mr. Bellenger is here," she simply
answered, "Is he?" for she had never told them that she expected him.
He said he was passing through the town, and for old acquaintance sake
had stopped over one train, and the unsuspecting family believed it all,
and when he said that Ellen stayed too much indoors, that a ride would
do her good, they offered no remonstrance, but wrapping her up in warm
shawls sent her out with him upon the mountain, where he told her how,
through all the dreary months of his absence, one face alone had shone
on him, one voice had sounded in his ear, and that the voice which now
said to him so mournfully:
"I almost feared you had forgotten me, and it seemed so dreadful after
all were gone, Walter, Jessie, and everybody. Forgive me, William, but
when I remembered Jessie's sparkling beauty and knew she was a belle, I
feared you would not come."
William Bellenger was conscious of a pang, for he knew how terribly he
was deceiving the trusting girl sitting there upon the rock beside him,
the color coming and going upon her marble cheek, and a tear dimming the
luster of her eyes. On his way thither he had resolved to rouse her from
the dream, to tell her she must forget him, but when he looked upon her
unearthly beauty, and saw how she clung to him, he could not do it. So
when she spoke of Jessie as one who might rival her, he said:
"Yes, Miss Graham is charming, but believe me, Nellie, I can love but
one, and that one you."
The bright round spot deepened on her cheek, and William felt for an
instant that had he the means, he would bear the poor invalid away to a
sunnier clime, and by his tender care nurse her back to health. But he
had not. There were bills on bills which he could not pay. His father,
too, was straitened, for old Mr. Bellenger had left his entire fortune
by will to his wife, who had refused to sanction the reckless
extravagance of her son's family. A rich bride, then, must cancel
William's debts, and as Ellen was not rich, he dared not talk to her of
marriage, but whispered only of the love he felt for her. And Ellen grew
faint and chill listening to this idle mockery, for the November wind
blew cold upon the bleak mountain side. It was in vain that William
wrapped both shawl and arm about her, hugging her closer to him until
her golden hair rested on his bosom. He could not make her warm, and at
last he took her home, telling her by the way that he would come again
ere long and stay with her a week.
"I will explain to your mother then," he said, "and until that time
you'd better say nothing of the matter, lest it should reach the ears of
my proud family. I would write to you, but that would create surprise.
So you'll have to be content with knowing that I do most truly love
you."
And Ellen tried to be content, though after he was gone she cried
herself to sleep, and for a time forgot her wretchedness. She had taken
a severe cold upon the mountain, and for many weeks she stayed indoors,
thinking through all the long winter evenings of William, and wishing he
would come again, or send her some message.
At last, as her desire to see him grew stronger, she resolved to write
and bid him come, for she was dying.
"I know that it is so," she wrote. "I see it in the faces of my friends,
I hear it in my mother's voice, I feel it in my failing strength. Yes, I
am surely dying, won't you come? It is but a little thing for you, and
it will do me so much good. Do you really love me, William? I have
sometimes feared you didn't as I loved you. I sometimes thought you
might be glad when the grass was growing on my grave, because you then
would have no dread lest your proud relatives should know how you paused
a moment to look at the frail blossom fading by the wayside. If it is
so, William, don't tell it to me now; let me die believing that you
really do love me. Come and tell me so once more, let me hear your voice
again; then when I am dead, and they go to lay me down in the very spot
where you found me sleeping that summer afternoon, you needn't join the
mourners, for the world might ask why you were there. But when I'm
buried, William, and the candles are lighted in my dear old home, then
go alone where Nellie lies. It will make you a better man to pray above
my grave, and if you know in your secret heart that you have been
deceiving me, God will forgive you then. I am growing tired, William,
there's a blur before my eyes and I cannot see. Come quickly, William,
do."
This letter Ellen carried to the office herself, for she sometimes rode
as far as the village with her grandfather, and thus none of the family
knew that it was sent, or guessed why, for many days, her face grew
brighter with a joyous, expectant look, which Aunt Debby said "came
straight from Heaven." The letter reached William just as he was
dressing for Charlotte Reeves' party, and tearing open the envelope, he
read it with dim eye and quivering lip, for the writer had a stronger
hold on his affections than he had at first supposed.
"I will go and see her," he said to himself, "though I can carry her no
comfort unless I fabricate some lie. Poor, darling Nellie! It will not
be a falsehood to tell her that I love her best of all the world, even
though I cannot make her my wife. Perhaps she don't expect me to do
that," and crushing into his pocket the letter, stained with Nellie's
tears and his, he went, as we have seen, to the house of festivity,
mingling in the gay scene, and letting no opportunity pass for showing
to those around that Jessie Graham was the chosen one, though all the
while his thoughts were away in Deerwood, where the dying Nellie waited
so anxiously his coming, and whither in a few days he went, taking care
to say to Jessie that he was going into the country, and might possibly
visit the farm-house before he returned.