SUSPENSE.
Let us now revisit the country seat of Mr. Graham. The old gentleman,
wearied with travels and society not congenial to his years, is pacing
up and down his garden walks; his countenance denoting plainly enough
how glad he is to find himself once more in his cherished homestead. It
is supposed that such satisfaction arose from the circumstance that the
repose of his household is rendered complete by the absence of its
excitable mistress, whom he has left in New York. This was like the good
old times.
Emily and Gertrude, too, are closely associated with those good old
times; and it adds greatly to the delusion of his fancy to dwell upon
the certainty that they are both in the house, and that he shall see
them both at dinner. Yes, Gertrude is there, as well as the rest,
saved--she hardly knew how--from a watery grave that almost engulfed
her, and established once more in the peaceful and endeared spot, now
the dearest to her on earth.
When, with some difficulty, restored to consciousness, she was informed
that she had been picked up by some humane persons who had pushed a boat
from the shore to rescue the sufferers; that she was clinging to the
chair, which she had probably grasped when washed away by the sudden
rushing of the water, and that her situation was such that, a moment
more, and it would have been impossible to save her from the flames,
close to which she was drifting. But of all this she had herself no
recollection. From the moment when she committed her light weight to the
frail tenure of the rope until she opened her eyes in a quiet spot, and
saw Emily leaning anxiously over the bed upon which she lay, all had
been a blank to her senses. A few hours from the time of the terrible
catastrophe brought Mr. Graham to the scene, and the next day restored
all three in safety to the old mansion-house in D----. This venerable
habitation, and its adjoining grounds, wore nearly the same aspect as
when they met the admiring eyes of Gerty on the first visit that she
made Miss Graham in her early childhood--that long-expected and
keenly-enjoyed visit, which proved a lasting topic for her young mind to
dwell upon.
The old house had a look of contentment and repose. The hall door stood
wide open. Mr. Graham's arm-chair was in its usual place; Gertrude's
birds, of which Mrs. Ellis had taken excellent care, were hopping about
on the slender perches of the great Indian cage which hung on the wide
piazza. The old house-dog lay stretched in the sun. Plenty of flowers
graced the parlour, and all was very comfortable. Mr. Graham thought so
as he came up the steps, patted the dog, whistled to the birds, sat down
in the arm-chair, and took the morning paper from the hand of the neat
housemaid. The dear old place was the dear old place still.
Mr. Graham has been having new experiences; and he is, in many respects,
a changed man. Emily is sitting in her own room. She is paler than ever,
and her face has an anxious expression. Every time the door opens she
starts, trembles, a sudden flush overspreads her face, and twice during
the morning she has suddenly burst into tears. Every exertion, even that
of dressing, seems a labour to her; she cannot listen to Gertrude's
reading, but will constantly interrupt her to ask questions concerning
the burning boat, her own and others' rescue, and every circumstance
connected with the late terrible scene of agony and death. Her nervous
system is shattered, and Gertrude looks at her and weeps.
Gertrude withdrew, but returned in an hour to help her to dress for
dinner--a ceremony which Miss Graham would never omit, her chief desire
seeming to be to maintain the appearance of health and happiness in the
presence of her father. Gertrude retired to her own room, leaving Emily
to bow her head upon her hands, and utter a few hysterical sobs.
Gertrude is followed by Mrs. Ellis, who seats herself, and in her
exciting style adds to the poor girl's fear and distress by stating the
dreadful effect the recollection of that shocking accident is having
upon poor Emily. "She's completely upset, and if she don't begin to mend
in a day or two there's no knowing what the consequences may be. Emily
is feeble, and not fit to travel; I wish she had stayed at home."
Gertrude is again interrupted. The housemaid brought her a letter! With
a trembling hand she receives it, fearing to look at the writing or
post-mark. Her first thought is of Willie; but before she could indulge
either a hope or a fear on that score the illusion is dispelled, for,
though the post-mark is New York, and he might be there, the handwriting
is wholly strange. She breaks the seal, and reads:--
"MY DARLING GERTRUDE,--My much-loved child--for such you indeed
are, though a father's agony of fear and despair alone wrung from
me the words that claimed you. It was no madness that, in the dark
hour of danger, compelled me to clasp you to my heart, and call you
mine. A dozen times before had I been seized by the same emotion,
and as often had it been subdued and smothered. And even now I
would crush the promptings of nature, and depart and weep my poor
life away alone; but the voice within me has spoken once, and
cannot again be silenced. Had I seen you happy, gay, and
light-hearted, I would not have asked to share your joy, far less
would I have cast a shadow on your path; but you are sad and
troubled, my poor child, and your grief unites the tie between us
closer than that of kindred, and makes you a thousand times my
daughter; for I am a wretched, weary man, and know how to feel for
others' woe.
"You have a kind and a gentle heart, my child. You have wept once
for the stranger's sorrows--will you now refuse to pity, if you
cannot love, the solitary parent, who, with a breaking heart and a
trembling hand, writes the ill-fated word that dooms him, perhaps,
to the hatred and contempt of the only being on earth with whom he
can claim the fellowship of a natural tie? Twice before have I
striven to utter it, and, laying down my pen, have shrunk from the
cruel task. But, hard as it is to speak, I find it harder to still
the beating of my restless heart; therefore, listen to me, though
it may be for the last time. Is there one being on earth whom you
shudder to think of? Is there one associated only in your mind with
deeds of darkness and of shame? Is there one name which you have
from your childhood learned to abhor and hate; and, in proportion
as you love your best friend, have you been taught to shrink from
and despise her worst enemy? It cannot be otherwise. Ah! I tremble
to think how my child will recoil from her father when she learns
the secret, so long preserved, so sorrowfully revealed, that he is
"PHILLIP AMORY!"
As Gertrude finished reading this strange and unintelligible letter her
countenance expressed complete bewilderment--her eyes glistened with
tears, her face was flushed with excitement; but she was evidently at a
total loss to account for the meaning of the stranger's words. She sat
for an instant wildly gazing into vacancy; then, springing suddenly up,
with the letter grasped in one hand, ran to Emily's room, to read the
wonderful contents, and ask her opinion of their hidden meaning. She
stopped, however, when her hand was on the door-lock. Emily was already
ill--it would not do to distress or even disturb her; and, retreating to
her own room, Gertrude sat down to re-peruse the singular letter.
That Mr. Phillips and the letter-writer were identical she at once
perceived. It was no slight impression that his exclamation and conduct
during the time of their imminent danger on board the boat had left upon
the mind of Gertrude. During the three days that succeeded the accident
the words, "My child! my own darling!" had been continually ringing in
her ears, and haunting her imagination. Now the blissful idea would
flash upon her, that the noble, disinterested stranger, who had risked
his life in her own and Emily's cause, might indeed be her father; and
every fibre of her being had thrilled at the thought, while her head
grew dizzy and confused with the strong sensation of hope that almost
overwhelmed her brain.
Her first inquiries, on recovering consciousness, had been for the
preserver of Emily and Isabel, but he had disappeared; no trace of him
could be obtained, and Mr. Graham arriving and hurrying them from the
neighbourhood, she had been compelled to abandon the hope of seeing him
again. The same motives which induced her not to consult Emily
concerning the mysterious epistle had hitherto prevented her from
imparting the secret of Mr. Phillips' inexplicable language and manner;
but she had dwelt upon them none the less.
The first perusal of the letter served only to excite and alarm her. But
as she sat for an hour gazing upon the page, which she read and re-read
until it was blistered with the varying expression of her face denoted
the emotions that, one after another, possessed her; and which at last,
snatching a sheet of paper, she committed to writing with a feverish
rapidity that betrayed how she staggered beneath the weight of
contending hopes and gloomy fears.
"MY DEAR, DEAR FATHER,--If I may dare to believe that you are so,
and if not that, my best of friends--how shall I write to you, and
what shall I say, since all your words are a mystery? Father!
blessed word. Oh, that my noble friend were indeed my father! Yet
tell me, tell me, how can this be? Alas! I feel a sad presentiment
that the bright dream is all an illusion, an error. I never before
remember to have heard the name of Phillip Amory. My sweet, pure,
and gentle Emily has taught me to love all the world; and hatred
and contempt are foreign to her nature, and, I trust, to my own.
Moreover, she has not an enemy in the wide world, never had, or
could have. One might as well war with an angel of heaven as with a
creature so holy and lovely as she.
"Nor bid me think of yourself as a man of sin and crime. It cannot
be. It would be wronging a noble nature to believe it, and I say
again it cannot be. Gladly would I trust myself to repose on the
bosom of such a parent; gladly would I hail the sweet duty of
consoling the sorrows of one so self-sacrificing, so kind, so
generous; whose life has been so freely offered for me, and for
others whose existence was dearer to me than my own. When you took
me in your arms and called me your child, your darling child, I
fancied that the excitement of that dreadful scene had for the
moment disturbed your mind and brain so far as to invest me with a
false identity--perhaps confound my image with that of some loved
and absent one. I now believe that it was no sudden madness, but
rather that I have been all along mistaken for another, whose glad
office it may perhaps be to cheer a father's saddened life, while I
remain unrecognized, unsought--the fatherless, motherless one, I am
accustomed to consider myself. If you have lost a daughter, God
grant she may be restored to you, to love you as I would do, were I
so blessed as to be that daughter! And I--consider me not a
stranger; let me be your child in heart; let me love, pray, and
weep for you; let me pour out my soul in thankfulness for the kind
care and sympathy you have already given me. And yet, though I
disclaim it all, and dare not, yes, dare not, dwell for a moment on
the thought that you are otherwise than deceived in believing me
your child, my heart leaps up in spite of me, and I tremble and
almost cease to breathe as there flashes upon me the possibility,
the blissful God-given hopes! No, no! I will not think of it, lest
I could not bear to have it crushed! Oh, what am I writing? I know
not. I cannot endure the suspense long; write quickly, or come to
me, my father--for I will call you so once, though perhaps never
again.
"GERTRUDE."
Mr. Phillips--or rather Mr. Amory, for we shall call him by his true
name--had neglected to mention his address. Gertrude did not observe
this circumstance until she was preparing to direct her letter. She for
a moment experienced a severe pang in the thought that her communication
would never reach him. But she was reassured on examining the post-mark,
which was evidently New York, to which she addressed her missive; and
then, unwilling to trust it to other hands, tied on her bonnet, caught
up a veil with which to conceal her agitated face, deposited the letter
herself in the village post-office.
Gertrude's case was a peculiarly trying one. She had been already, for
a week past, struggling in suspense which agitated her almost beyond
endurance; and now a new cause of mystery had arisen, involving an
almost equal amount of self-questioning and torture. It seemed almost
beyond the power of so sensitive, and so inexperienced a girl to rally
such self-command as would enable her to control her emotions, disguise
them from observation, and compel herself to endure alone and in silence
this cruel destiny. But she did do it, and bravely too.