BARBARA STAFFORD'S STORY.
Barbara Stafford covered her face with both hands, for a moment pressing
her temples hard, as if she hoped thus to still the crowd of thoughts
under which her brain struggled.
"Let me begin years back when you performed the marriage rite which has
been the glory and bitterness of my life," she commenced at last, in a
low, forced voice that betrayed the painful effort she was making. "My
father was a proud man, as you know, but how much reason he had for this
lofty ancestral pride no one on this side of the Atlantic ever guessed.
He was, in fact, when we came to this country, the next heir to one of
the richest earldoms in England--one of those few titles that fall alike
to male and female heirs. My paternal grandmother was then living, and
his near connection with her honors was but little known. After my
mother's death--her maiden name was Barbara Stafford, that which I now
bear as a disguise--we came to America, urged by curiosity to see a
country so grand and wild, so full of wonderful promise.
"I was young then, scarcely more than sixteen. We were thrown
together--you know who I mean--even here I would not mention his name
and wound the honor for which I am ready to die. We loved each other
with the first bright passion of youth, with the enduring love which
fills a whole life with bliss or a perpetual weight of pain. We were
young, rash, mad. I knew how hopeless it was to attempt winning my
father's consent. The noble youth your solemn voice made my husband was
his equal or the equal of any man who ever drew breath; but he was
poor--a man of the people, a working man, though educated with the best,
in intellect and energy equal to those who build up dynasties. My father
was struck dumb with his audacity, when he asked my hand in marriage. So
embittered was he with this outrage to his pride that he hastened to
leave the country. But for a few days, contrary winds held him
weather-bound. Then driven to despair, we fled to you, my husband's old
friend.
"Do not shrink and moan so. It was a holy union you sanctified that
night. I have suffered, oh, how terribly, since, but never regretted it,
never shall regret it even in my death-throes.
"During three weeks after that ride through the forest when I returned
to Boston a happy bride--for, spite of all, I was happy--we met in
secret and arranged that he should follow me to England, and there,
before the whole world, demand me of my father. We sailed. Hidden away
in an inferior part of the vessel, he went with us, never appearing on
deck till after night-fall and keeping his presence in the ship a secret
from my father.
"We reached England at last and went up to London, where my father threw
me into a whirl of fashionable life, hoping thus to win my thoughts from
the man who was my husband. I resisted: the pleasures of society were
worse than nothing to me, and I thus once more incurred my father's
anger. Samuel Parris, you know the man who was my husband, his pride of
character, his indomitable integrity. Holding my father's objections
trivial and insulting to his manhood, he had swept them aside in scorn:
it was only for my sake that he consented to concealment for a single
hour. When he saw that the result of this secrecy was my
humiliation--that I was forced to act a falsehood before the world--he
put every other thought aside and resolved to declare our marriage and
endure its consequences as he best might.
"I remember the morning well. My father was at home in our town
residence, surrounded by all the pomp of state and subserviency of
well-trained menials. The knowledge that my young husband had a painful
duty to perform excited all that was courageous or noble in my nature,
and I felt a certain sublime animation in the thought of standing by his
side while he proclaimed me his lawful wife. I was young, and loved my
husband so dearly that the disobedience of which we had both been guilty
seemed trivial compared with the complete happiness of our union. Since
then I have learned how fatally domestic rebellion may root itself into
a human life. The day came. My father was in his library. Every thing
had gone well with him since our return. He stood high at court, was a
favorite in society, and all his projects of aggrandizement, some of
them bearing upon my fate in life, seemed to promise a happy fulfilment.
He did not dream of the impediment my marriage would cast in the way of
his ambition. Up to that time he had no idea that William was in
England, or that my liking for him had amounted to more than a passing
folly.
"Half an hour before the time appointed for our mutual declaration, my
father sent for me. I found him in brilliant spirits and almost
caressingly kind. He met me with unusual affection, kissed me with
smiling lips, and proclaimed triumphantly that a noble suitor had just
left him, and that it was my own fault if I did not become a duchess
within the month.
"I might have met this announcement with some courage had my husband
been there with his strong will and calm self-reliance; as it was I
could only tremble in my father's arms and shrink guiltily from his
caresses. He looked for blushes and found me pale as snow, for I knew
that this offer, so gratifying to his pride, would give tenfold
bitterness to his disappointment.
"While I stood mute and cold, dreading to speak, William was announced.
I dared not look at my father, but knew, from his suppressed breathing,
that he was silent only from intense rage. You saw William in his youth,
and know how grand was his presence, how distinguished his bearing. If
nobility was ever written upon a human form, it shone out in native
splendor there. Approaching me as if he had been an emperor and I his
mate, this man of humble birth took my hand in his, and, with simple but
most touching earnestness, confessed his fault in making me his wife.
"Dumb and white with wrath, my father attempted to annihilate him with a
look, at which my heart rose in proud rebellion, and I felt the hot
blood in my cheek. But William was self-poised, and bore himself with a
sort of brave humility that should have disarmed even rage itself.
"'If I have done wrong in stealing this dear one from you,' he said, 'we
have both suffered more than you will believe. If there is any penalty
that you can impose--any probation that will atone for an act, which
though wrong we cannot repent of--name it, and if human effort can win a
blessing from your lips it shall yet be deserved.'
"My father stood before us, towering haughtily upward in his outraged
pride; his face was ashen with the white heat of smothered wrath. He was
always a man of few words, but those which fell from his lips then
burned into my memory like living coals.
"'Go, earn a station high as that of my daughter; back it with wealth
such as makes her one of the richest women in England. Then, and not
till then, ask her at my hands.'
"'If I do earn a title, and honorably gain such wealth, will you give
her to me with a free will and generous blessing?' asked the young man
in a voice that vibrated with intense feeling. 'In the brave acts or
persistent efforts of some strong man, once unknown, the nobility of
every illustrious house in England is rooted. To win her, and know that
she is mine without dishonor, I will undertake impossibilities; if I
succeed, or fail, you shall yet acknowledge, proud sir, that I deserved
your daughter.'
"'When that time comes, claim her at my hands,' answered my father, with
cutting unbelief in his look and voice. 'But till then she remains under
my authority, and bearing the name she has secretly dishonored. Barbara,
if this young man is your husband, take leave of him now, for never,
till his boasted promise is fulfilled, shall you meet again.'
"I fell at that haughty man's feet, shivering with dread, cold with
terror.
"'Not that--oh, father! father! not that!' I cried out in the depths of
my anguish. 'Have mercy upon us. If we part I shall perish. Give me any
punishment you will, but let us suffer together.'
"But for a haughty sense of high breeding my father would have spurned
me from his feet. Still I clung around his knees, and without violence
he could not fling me off. My arms were softly unclasped from those iron
limbs. For one blissful moment I was strained to my husband's bosom. His
tears fell upon my face.
"'Barbara, take hope. I will claim you, even as this proud noble
mockingly suggests. Be patient! Have faith in me! One kiss; one more,
and now farewell!'
"My heart gave a frightened leap in my bosom. A cry froze on my lips,
and all was dark.
"This was in broad daylight; the sun streamed in upon us through the
gold and crimson tints of stained glass. When I became conscious, stars
were shining dimly through the curtains of my chamber window. I was
alone; faint, weary, and almost dead. Samuel Parris, I never saw my
husband again till he stood before the altar of that church taking the
sacrament from your hands."
The minister groaned heavily, but did not speak.
"He had left me insensible--left England, and gone no one would tell me
where. My father was dumb regarding him. If he wrote letters, they never
reached me."
"But he wrote them. As God liveth, William Phipps wrote to his young
wife again and again, but received no answer. He told me so with his own
lips," cried the minister. "It was for her he toiled and thought ever on
the broad ocean, and while wresting treasures from the deep where they
had been engulfed for centuries. He went back to England, possessed of
enormous wealth, and received a title at the king's hand for the
wonderful energy with which he had dragged silver and gold from the
bosom of the ocean, discovering their hiding-place almost by a miracle.
But all that he had done turned to dust in his hands, for when he went
to that proud old man and demanded his wife, the stern father answered
that she was dead."
"Did he mourn her, Samuel Parris? tell me, truly, did William Phipps
mourn the death of his wife, or had he learned to live without her?"
Parris looked up, with rebuking fire in his eyes.
"Woman, thou knowest that he loved thee, even to human sinfulness. When
William Phipps came back to this country, broken-hearted and alone, he
was but the shadow of the brave youth whose hand I joined with thine
that fatal night."
"Forgive me," pleaded Barbara, with plaintive humility. "I loved him,
and am but a weak woman. Think how hard it was to yearn so for one word
of comfort, and never dare ask it."
"Unhappy woman! thine has been a hard lot," cried the minister, clasping
both her hands in his, and weeping over them like a child.
"Tell me again, kind old man--for I am so near death that it cannot harm
me to know--did he in truth mourn my loss?"
"Poor martyr! he has never ceased to grieve over the ruin of his love."
"Then he did love me, dearly?"
"So dearly, that I thought he would have died deploring thy loss."
Barbara drew a deep breath, and tears swelled heavily under her drooping
eyelids.
"But he married another!" she said, with an effort.
"Yes; but he was still faithful to the love of his youth. It was but the
ruin of a heart which William Phipps gave in his second marriage. He
said this to me on the night when I was summoned to perform the
ceremony."
"Did he say this?"
"Of a verity he did. It was like whispering it to his own heart, for I
alone held his secret. In the future he hoped that tender friendship
might warm into love; but I had buried the wife of my bosom, and knew
how vain was the hope."
Barbara's eyes were fastened on the old man's face. She drank up his
words eagerly. A smile parted her lips; a flush of roses warmed her
cheeks. Then a shadow swept over her, and bending her head in gentle
humility she murmured:
"Poor, poor lady!"
For a moment both Parris and the lady sat together in silence. Then
Barbara looked up with a sad smile, and went on with her story.