CONCLUSION.
A man lay sick almost unto death in that stone farm-house. Hot fever was
preying upon his brain; an awful sorrow gnawed at his heart. He did not
even know that sweet-voiced, gentle sister, who watched over him so
faithfully, or the wild-eyed boy, who stood hours together at the foot
of his bed, praying for him as only good, true-hearted youth can pray.
Virginia Lander, too, came and went among them with kindly soothing,
though her own heart was filled with gloomy anxieties; for she knew that
an inquest had been held in her father’s house, and that her cousin, the
young girl she had once loved so dearly, lay cold and dead, shrouded in
the marriage garments that had been prepared for her wedding. She knew
that Cora’s own account of the death had been received unquestioned by
the jury. Indeed, what other reason could be given for the violent death
of a young creature, so richly endowed, whose path of life seemed
altogether of roses—a creature who did not seem to have an enemy on
earth.
Neither Clarence Brooks nor Alfred Nolan were questioned, but the
servants confirmed the account that unhappy woman gave of her death.
Having a little time, while the dressmaker was letting out her
wedding-robe, she had put on another and gone out, doubtless, as she
said, to take leave of a place made dear by loving associations. There
she had met her death. It was a strange fancy for a young bride to
indulge in; but the evening was beautiful, and she had loved that place
from childhood, when it had been her play-house. Some said it was in
this little cabin she had first seen Clarence Brooks. So, in place of a
scandal, the crowd of persons who had gone up to a wedding and found a
death-bed, went home weaving out beautiful romances, which no one ever
contradicted. Cora Lander had besought those she had wronged to spare
her memory, and they did spare it, with religious sacredness.
While Seymour lay in his first illness, and Virginia shared Ellen’s
duties in the sick room, Lawyer Stone came down from the marble house
and besought her to go home. The will, he said, left Amos Lander’s
property to his niece, after the daughter’s death, so there was no need
of the question of identity being opened at all. He had brought her a
letter from Clarence Brooks, the gentleman to whom her cousin would have
been married, but for the sad accident which had sent her so suddenly
out of life. Would she read the letter before they started?
Virginia took the letter into her own room, and read it alone, with
tears and prayers and mournful thanksgiving. It told her everything that
the reader knows. It told her more; though there was not one word of
love in all those closely written pages, she knew, as well as if it had
been printed there in letters of gold, that in Clarence Brooks’ heart
there had been no real unfaithfulness. He did not say this in words; but
it pervaded the whole letter as if it had been lying close to his heart
for a year.
So Virginia, feeling this her higher duty, went back to the home which
was now all her own. There Clarence Brooks met her at the door. They
looked into each other’s faces in mournful silence, and, without a word,
he led her up stairs into the room from which Cora had driven her so
rudely, little more than a year ago. There, upon a bed pure and cold as
a snowbank, she found all that was left of this haughty woman. The
mother, ignorant of that other marriage, which made the bridal dress a
mockery, had insisted that the satin robe, in all its rich amplitude,
should go with her down to the grave. She lay there, calm, and still,
like a young bride sleeping. The rich folds of her hair had been drawn
in waves over the wound on her temple, concealing it entirely. The veil
fell over her face, like frost-work on the white rose. All that had been
bright and blooming about her had vanished into dead whiteness.
Up to that time, a bitter sense of wrong still lingered in Virginia’s
heart against Cora Lander. But it melted into tender forgiveness, when
she saw her lying there in the tired repose of death. She lifted the
veil, which cast its faint shadows over her face, and kissed the lips
that had wronged her so. When she turned away, holy tears trembled in
the network of that shrouding lace.
She was about to leave the room, when her progress was stopped by Eunice
Hurd, who came in, supporting Mrs. Lander with one arm, and followed by
Joshua, whose eyes were red with weeping.
“Miss Virginia, we have come here to say how wrong—”
“Hush!” said Virginia, pointing to the bed. “Spare her; we know
everything. Do not be troubled, Eunice; I can never forget how truly you
were my friend when I needed one so much. Aunt Lander, for her sake let
us be friends. But we must not talk here.”
Mrs. Lander looked piteously into that sweet face. She saw nothing but
forgiveness there, and the tears began to tremble from her eyes. She
cast a glance at the bed, and, in a low, broken voice, tried to take
blame on herself.
“It was me. My child! my poor child! It was for my sake she did it.”
“Eliza, don’t say that; don’t say nothing. Let the dead bury the dead.
But there is one thing that she did not know, and couldn’t have told.
Miss Virginia, that poor young cretur, that they seem to have buried in
a snowbank, is my own niece, and Joshua is her uncle. Eliza Lander here,
is our youngest sister, and she wants us to say so. This awful trouble
has took all the pride out of her. She ain’t ashamed to own her poor
relations now. She wanted to live with us and we wanted to live with
her, but she was a lady born, though it was in a house where you could
see daylight through the clapboards, and we wasn’t. But we wasn’t mean
enough nuther to want to mortify her amongst her husband’s connections,
so we jest came here and hired out. All she asked was that we should
take some other name, so that we shouldn’t be found out; and we did it.
“Arter this, it’s sister Eliza Lander’s wish that we should take back
the old name, but I wont. She’s a lady, and I’m proud of it. But I ain’t
nothing of that sort, nor is Joshua. We’ve told you the truth, because
secrets in a family lie awful heavy on the mind; but, as to the rest of
the world, it’s none of their business. So my name is Eunice Hurd and
his name is Joshua Hurd. Hers is Eliza Lander, and we two are her
servants. Where she goes we mean to go, where she lives we shall be
chasing after, and we mean to be buried in the same graveyard with her,
as that young woman in the Bible said to her husband’s marm. If she’s
sent out of this house poor we’ll work for her. She’s the only lady our
family ever had in it, and we’ll work our fingers to the bone, before
she shall want her lace cap and silk gown, jest as she allers had ’em
when Amos Lander was alive, and you two cousins little girls.”
“She shall never want anything that I can give her, not shall you my
faithful friend. Aunt Lander, do be comforted; it breaks my heart to see
you looking so old and worn.”
She wiped away the tears from those heavy eyes, and kissed that poor,
grieving mouth, with more than a daughter’s tenderness. “Take good care
of her, Eunice, and tell her that, while we can help it, she shall have
no more troubles.”
Here Joshua came forward.
“Miss Jinia, I can’t do much for you. It ain’t in me but I’d—I’d die to
please you. Yes, I think it ed come tough; but, if you want me to, I’ll
give up licker—never taste another drop of punch in my born days, if you
say the word.”
“But I wish you to give up nothing, Joshua.”
“Well then, I’ll take sich care of Snowball; litter her down with roses,
if you say so. I’ll take good care of the black horse too, for her sake,
for, arter all, she was my own niece.”
When this conversation commenced, Brooks and Virginia had quietly
withdrawn from the chamber of death and closed the door, but Joshua
spoke low when he alluded to the young creature lying within, and took
off the hat, which had been returned to his head, in that natural
reverence which even ignorant men pay to death.
After this, the group went down stairs, but directly Eunice returned
again.
“About the mourning,” she said. “Eliza Lander is dreadfully anxious, and
wants to know if anything has been done.”
“Tell her to please herself. I have no need of change,” said Virginia,
almost smiling. “Take charge of everything, Eunice, for, when all is
over, I must go back to the farm-house. Ellen has a brother there, very
sick.”
He was indeed very sick, nigh unto death, and so he lay for many a weary
week. Ellen’s book came out, while he was at the worst, and she scarcely
knew of it, though its fame went far and wide, reaching distant lands,
and critics on both sides the Atlantic pronounced it a work of wonderful
promise. She had no thoughts to give from that sick bed, where the son
her father had charged her to save, with his last words, lay suffering.
Clarence Brooks found his way to that farm-house, and strove to comfort
the young man who lay there with more than his old friendliness.
One day when Alfred Nolan was in his right mind and gazing with wistful
observation in Brian’s face, the boy crept close to his bed, and took
the hand his brother held out.
“Brother,” he said; “it was I who brought all this upon you. I followed
you up the railway—saw you go into that cabin—saw her come down the
ravine. This frightened me. I was afraid that some trouble would happen.
I heard the threats in her voice and went after Mr. Brooks. He was in a
chamber of the house, ready and waiting to be called by pleasanter
messengers than I was. But, when I told him that a man was in peril, he
seized his hat and followed me. If his coming caused what happened
afterward, I am to blame. Forgive me, Alfred, I intended no wrong.
Forgive me.”
“My poor boy,” said the invalid, faintly; “there was no fault in what
you did. God was working out our punishment and it came. It was better
to have our lives end so than in deeper sin. I thought these things over
very solemnly in the stone tomb down yonder. I have thought them over
here since our sister gave me, word for word, that last message from our
father. _She_ is dead, but God is merciful, and who shall say that the
last moments of her young life were not spent in asking for that Divine
forgiveness which is not limited by time or space.”
Nolan lay still, and with his eyes closed some minutes after he uttered
these words. When he spoke again it was more calmly.
“Brian.”
“Well, brother.”
“This is no place for us. I could never be at rest here. But far away,
beyond the Rocky Mountains, lie vast countries, rich in minerals,
fertile in soil, and so far from what we call social life, that a man
can live by himself and learn to grow strong. God is giving me back
life, Brian. I am young, and must no longer be an idle and useless man.
Will you go with me to this country, Brian?”
“I will go with you anywhere, brother,” answered Brian.
Ellen came in just then bringing a cup of tea for the invalid.
Brian, with all a boy’s eagerness, asked her if she would go with them.
“Nay,” interposed Alfred; “she is feeble. She must be left behind.”
She looked at her elder brother, and quick tears came into her eyes,
while she repeated, with sweet, impressive earnestness, the words of
Ruth to her mother:
“Ask me not to leave thee, or cease from following after thee. Where
thou goest, I will go. Where thou livest, I will live; thy people shall
be my people; thy God shall be my God; and where thou diest, there will
I be buried.”
No more was said that day, for neither Alfred nor Brian could speak,
their voices were too full of tears. But it was agreed that the brothers
should go first, and prepare a home for Ellen, who would get the money
her book was bringing in for their use, write another, and make
arrangements with the publishers for more, that were yet to come out of
her new life. She thanked Heaven that her work could be done anywhere.
Alfred wondered at the prompt business way in which all this was said;
but he had yet to learn that real, absolute genius is comprehensive as
Nature itself. Those who confine it to simple romance dwarf God’s
greatest gift to man.
When Clarence Brooks heard what Alfred Nolan had decided on, he resolved
to go with him, for Nolan absolutely refused to accept the money which
Brooks had almost forced upon him, and he resolved to invest it there,
hoping that it would at last find acceptance. So, after a few weeks,
these two men, who had travelled over the Old World in company, bridged
the awful chasm that had separated them, and went Westward, taking Brian
with them. Ellen went back to the marble house, and joined Virginia in
the tranquil life she led there.
About a year from this time Brooks came back again, strengthened and
rendered cheerful by the constant change and excitement of a frontier
life. A month after that, there was a quiet little wedding in that
marble mansion, so quiet that the daily journals brought the first news
of it to those who had been invited to that other sumptuous affair which
ended so fatally.
At many a breakfast table that morning the news was read aloud, and more
than once it was followed by this exclamation: “So Clarence Brooks has
married Amos Lander’s heiress, after all. So much alike, they say. The
bridesmaids—why, there was only one, the author of that book everybody
is talking about! Would you believe it? She is a hunchback, but _so_
talented and _petite_. Such lovely eyes and hair too. Mrs. —— had it
from her publishers.”
The next month Ellen Nolan went West with her brother, who had used his
scientific learning to great purpose, and was opening sources of
prosperity in the wilderness, with his knowledge, which many a
hard-working man availed himself of, working the same mines and
gathering the same gold, which was fast lifting him into that
respectability and independence which honorable labor, either of mind or
hands alone can bring.
Ellen keeps his house; she has plenty of mountain flowers all around
that neat log cabin, and so many vines clambering over it, that it looks
more like a mammoth bird’s nest than a human habitation. But, though she
loves flowers, and seeks to cover up coarser things with them, back of
that house you may find a well kept vegetable garden, which Brian takes
care of, and which the colored girl, who went West with her, sometimes
vigorously works in, when there is nothing to be done indoors.
Especially she goes out when her young mistress is writing by that
little window, curtained with morning glories; for then it seems almost
wrong to tread hard upon the floor, and she feels like holding her
breath as she moves about.
Just now Ellen is reading a letter from Mrs. Clarence Brooks, who
proposed, during the summer, to take that Western trip with her husband.
She wrote just then to know if there was an unoccupied room in the cabin
for them.
Ellen has taken up her pen, which shakes and quivers in her hand; but
she makes out to write, that unoccupied rooms are unheard of in that
part of the country, but a new cabin, opening into theirs, will be up
long and long before her friends can get there. In fact, Alfred will
have the log-rolling at once, that she can have flowers growing over it
when they come.
THE END
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
57 As a general thing, I don’t As a general thing, I don’t
think peaking and listening think peeking and listening
329 think Amos Lander was cute think Amos Lander was ’cute
enough to find out the enough to find out the
difference difference
355 She’s a darned sight more likely She’s a darned sight more likely
to kid the hoss than to kill the hoss than
446 space shut in by the curtains. space shut in by the curtains.
In this position he heard In this position she heard
446 was making strenuous efforts to was making strenuous efforts to
repay the money she had repay the money he had
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.