A STRANGE STORY.
Eugene and his friend dined on the Ledge, and discussed plans and
projects for the future. No doubt they enjoyed the dinner, the sea
air having given them sharp appetites, and the conversation was very
interesting, for they were in full sympathy with each other. Dick
desired to know whether his friend had made any progress in his love
affair, and Eugene, fully believing that he had said enough to make an
impression upon the mind and heart of Mary, assured him that he had
taken his first step, and had accomplished all that could be expected
in one brief interview.
They returned to the cottage, and the evening was devoted to the
contemplated European tour, in which Eugene was to be accompanied by
his mother and sister. It was arranged that the family should depart
about the first of September. The next day, the young men tried the
trout in the brooks, and continued for a week to divide their time
between the sea and the land--riding and walking, fishing, gunning,
and sailing. Although it was vacation to the lawyer, and the hours
were given up to amusement, the future, with its stupendous projects,
could not be avoided; and when the week was ended, the details of
the enterprise before them had been so well elaborated that it only
remained to do what had been agreed upon.
During this period of relaxation, Eugene had twice been to The Great
Bell; but on both occasions he found Mr. Eliot Buckstone there, walking
on the beach with Mary. Now, Eugene, without any positive prejudice
against the artist, had but a very indifferent opinion of him. He did
not think Mr. Buckstone was a person who could be agreeable to Mary;
and so far from being disturbed by the intimacy which had grown up
between them, he rather pitied the fair girl because she was compelled
to endure so much of the painter’s society. He concluded that the
fellow, as he contemptuously called him, was taking advantage of the
service he had rendered to Mary, and was making the most of it, while
she, poor girl, was actually undergoing his persecution rather than
subject herself to the charge of ingratitude by declining to see him.
This week had been a stormy one in the dilapidated mansion on The Great
Bell. Though the artist had kept away from the house, he could not
conceal himself from the vengeance of Captain Kingman, who was drinking
even more deeply than usual. He saw that his daughter was meeting her
new-found friend every day in some part of the island, and the wretched
girl was consequently subjected to the severest and most brutal
treatment. He had even struck her; and human nature could endure no
more. On the day after the first visit of Mr. Buckstone at the house,
her brother Ross had sailed upon a fishing voyage, and she had no one
to stand between her and the wrath of her drunken father.
Captain Kingman was so incensed against her, that all his thoughts
seemed to be centred in wreaking his vengeance. He was maddened by the
demon of the cup, and there was no limit to his fury. On the night
which completed Dick Birch’s week of vacation with his friend, Mary had
retired at her usual hour. Her father was not in the house at the time;
he was carousing in a low groggery at the Port. It appeared that some
one, who had seen Mary with the artist on the beach that afternoon,
informed him of the fact. He was heard to swear that he would kill
her as soon as he got home; but those present at these drunken orgies
regarded the words only as a threat.
At midnight, Captain Kingman reached his miserable home. Whether
he intended to execute his threat or not, he went up stairs to the
chamber of his daughter. The door was fastened; but he broke it open,
and seizing the poor girl by the hair, he dragged her from the bed,
and with horrid imprecations repeated his threat. Mary was fearfully
alarmed; she screamed in mortal terror, and Mrs. Kingman came to her
assistance. His wife, by drawing the vengeance of the brute upon
herself, enabled Mary to escape. He pursued her, but in his present
condition, it was not difficult to avoid him. As soon as he had given
up the chase, she returned to her room, and dressed herself. She
suffered agonies which cannot be described. Her power of endurance had
reached its utmost limit.
Kneeling down by her bed, she prayed for strength and guidance. There
was no friend but God upon whom she could throw herself in her sorrow
and fear. She could no longer remain in the house, for her life was in
peril. Her father had threatened to kill her in his insane passion. It
would be tempting him and exposing herself to stay another hour; it
would be cruel to both of them. Packing up her scanty wardrobe in a
bundle, and taking the few valuables she possessed, including a small
sum of money, she crept softly down the stairs. She had decided to
leave her wretched home, never more to return while her father lived.
In the entry below she met Mrs. Kingman, who was hardly less terrified
than the daughter. The poor woman was suffering almost as much as
Mary--not as much, for her nature was less gentle and sensitive.
Without a word which might be overheard by the drunken father, they
left the house, and walked towards the landing-place.
“Where are you going to, Mary?” sobbed Mrs. Kingman, glancing uneasily
at the house in the gloom of the night.
“I hardly know, mother; I cannot spend another night in that house.”
“I don’t blame you, child; it ain’t in natur to stand sich treatment.
If it wan’t for the children, I’d go too.”
“I wish Ross were at home, mother; he could tell me what to do,” moaned
poor Mary, gazing vacantly at the stars, which looked so bright and
happy, while she was so sad and miserable.
“I wish he was. I don’t think I can stand it much longer; but the Lord
knows, what can I do?”
“I will tell you, mother. You must have him taken care of. It is
terrible, I know, and I have always struggled against the thought.”
“What do you mean, Mary?”
“You must have him arrested.”
“Arrested! My gracious! It would be as much as my life is worth. I
should no more dare to do it than I should to cut my head off.”
“I’m sorry to leave you, mother; and I wouldn’t do so, if I didn’t
think it was best for you as well as for me. He is terribly incensed
against me.”
“I know he is, child. Perhaps he will behave better if you go off for a
while.”
“I hope he will. I am willing to suffer if it will do any good; but my
presence here only makes him worse. I must go.”
“But where are you goin, child?”
“I don’t know, mother. I suppose I shall find a place.”
“Can’t you find some place to stop over to the Port?”
“Perhaps I can.”
“Well, God bless you, child. You’ve allus been a good gal, and deserve
to be well used.”
Mrs. Kingman, still weeping, returned to the house to pass the rest of
the night in terror and misery, as she had passed many a night before.
Mary walked to the landing-place, and sat down upon a rock by the
shore. The present and future were full of darkness and she knew not
whither to turn. She was a lone wanderer in the desert, and there was
no friendly oasis to welcome her. By turns she wept and prayed, but
there seemed to be no healing balm in her tears or her prayers. She
knew not where to go. She had friends, as the world calls them,--many
friends, perhaps,--but none to whom she felt like appealing in her
present desperate condition. Her pride revolted at the thought of
becoming a supplicant before those with whom she had walked as an
equal, though there were hundreds in yonder slumbering villages, who
would gladly have taken her to their hearts, and poured out of their
plenty into her lap. There were hundreds who would joyfully have given
her a home, and protection from her wrathful parent, beneath their
roofs. Mary was too proud to ask favors of this kind. She was capable
and self-reliant, and loathed the thought of dependence.
The gloomy hours wore slowly away, and the daylight gleamed in the
east. She had determined to take the morning train for a large town,
a few miles distant from Poppleton, where she hoped to procure a
situation as a teacher, or at least as an employee in one of the
factories.
As soon as it was light enough, she got into the boat, to row across
the channel to the village. She intended to carry her bundle to the
house of a poor woman, whom she had served in the past, and having
purchased a travelling-bag, pack her things in readiness for the
journey. She could then take the stage, and depart respectably, without
exciting idle remarks among her acquaintances, if she met any of them.
Her pride was not conquered even by her intense anguish.
She had not rowed half way across the channel which divides The Great
Bell from the main land, before she heard the voice of Mr. Buckstone.
He was an early riser during his vacation, if at no other time, and
had taken a boat for his morning exercise. Mary trembled when she
recognized him. Many times had she thought of him during her lonely
vigil on the shore. He had been a kind and tender friend, and he
knew more of what happened at her father’s house than any other
person outside of the family. He had not spoken to her so gently and
so lovingly without producing in her heart an impression--just the
impression he intended to produce. But, in spite of the interest, and
even affection, with which she regarded the artist, she would have
preferred to leave Poppleton without his knowledge.
He had spoken of love to her; he had uttered the vows and protestations
of an enthusiastic admirer. He had pleaded with her, as a lover pleads,
for her heart and hand; but she had made him no definite answer. Though
she was not insensible to his love, though she was even deeply moved
by his earnest devotion, she did not feel that she yet loved him well
enough to be his wife. Eugene Hungerford, all hopeless and distant as
he now was to her, could not be wholly forgotten, though she had ceased
to think of him as she had thought before he so prudently proclaimed
himself to be only her “friend.”
Mary was in that state of terror, doubt, and agony which rendered a
near and dear friend almost a necessity to her. Her sorrows were too
weighty to be borne alone. Under the smile of prosperity, with no
boding clouds threatening her, she might never have favored the suit
of Eliot Buckstone. As it was, she was disposed to do so; and now, as
she was fleeing in grief and misery from the home of her childhood,
and from the wrath of him who should have been her strongest friend,
he stepped into her path. Not thus, borne down by the shadow of all
earth’s calamities, would she have met him; not here and now would she
have listened to his impassioned eloquence, for her heart was weak with
suffering, her strength was exhausted by the pressure of misery; not
thus would she have heard and decided the question upon which hung all
the issues of the unseen future. She was weak in body, but weaker in
spirit under the accumulated trials and terrors that beset her.
“You are an early bird, Mary, as well as myself,” said Mr. Buckstone,
as he threw his skiff alongside her boat.
She made no reply, for her sorrows choked her utterance. Without
ceremony, he leaped into the boat, securing the skiff astern.
“Are you going to the Port, Mary?” he asked, as he gently took the oars
from her grasp, and assisted her to a seat farther aft.
“Yes.”
“You are up very early.”
She could not speak.
“What is the matter, Mary? You can tell me, you know, for I am familiar
with affairs over at the house,” he continued. “Something has happened,
Mary.”
His gentleness, his tenderness were more than she could bear, and she
bent down her head, and wept like a child.
“Won’t you tell me what it is, Mary?”
“I cannot, Mr. Buckstone,” she sobbed. “Don’t go to the village now. I
cannot be seen as I am.”
He turned the boat’s head towards the Point, and waited till the
torrent of her grief had spent itself.
“O, Mr. Buckstone!” exclaimed she, suddenly raising her head, and
gazing earnestly at him.
“What has happened, Mary? Won’t you tell me?”
“I cannot stay at home any longer. I shall not dare to enter my
father’s house again.”
“I feared it would come to this. Where are you going?”
“To Newington.”
“Have you friends there?”
“I shall find friends,” she answered, evasively.
Then she told him what had occurred during the night; and for an hour,
until the sun had risen far above the heaving waters, they talked of
the past and the present. There was a future which was still nearer to
the thoughts of Eliot Buckstone. What he had spoken before, he spoke
again. Once more he told his story of love, and begged her, in her
present extremity, to give him the legal right to become her friend
and protector. Now he spoke to more willing ears than ever before.
Without saying that she loved him with her whole heart and soul, she
accepted his proffered love; and when she had done so, the great black
clouds seemed to be rolled back, and she smiled upon him.
“Mine, mine, forever!” said the rapturous artist, as he seated himself
by her side in the boat, and passing his arm around her waist, he
imprinted upon her lips the first kiss.
“Will you always love me thus?” she replied, feeling that, if he did,
he would soon become to her more than all the world beside, if he was
not now.
“Always, Mary, always! There shall be no change, or suspicion of
change, in me--never, Mary! I have loved you with all my heart from the
first moment I saw you. When I looked into the boat, still struggling
for breath, I was almost petrified by the vision of loveliness which
greeted me. Mary, I had seen you thousands of times before.”
“Seen me before?”
“In my dreams of paradise! In my visions of the glorious and the
beautiful of earth! I have seen you on my canvas ere the pencil had
traced a line, and I would have given my life for the power to transfer
my bright ideal upon its waiting surface. But even fairer than the
thought is the loving, breathing being I press to my heart;” and he
suited the action to the word.
“I am afraid this is too poetic to be real,” replied she, her
confidence in the man she had accepted not increased by the glowing
strains in which he spoke.
“It is all real. I see you; I touch you. Mary, you know not what I have
felt, what I have hoped and feared, how I have trembled for myself,
since I first saw you. Mary, let me live for you. I ask nothing better
of this world; and if I have you in the next, I can dream of no purer
happiness.”
“But I am a wanderer and an outcast now,” she said, looking sad again.
“Not a wanderer, and you can never be an outcast from my heart, Mary.”
“I have no place to lay my head. Let us go to the village now. I would
have gone without your knowledge, but Providence has thrown you into my
path. Let us return now, Mr.----”
“Eliot,” he interposed.
“Eliot! I will go on my way rejoicing now. When I reach Newington, I
will write to you, and then----”
“No, Mary, you shall not go to Newington, or anywhere else, without
me,” protested Mr. Buckstone, earnestly. “I should be a villain if I
permitted you, in our present relations, to expose yourself to the
perils and privations which would surround you in a strange place,
where you had none to care for you.”
“But what shall I do? I cannot go home. My father would kill me if he
knew what has just transpired,” added she, as she glanced inquiringly
into his face.
“Neither go home, nor go to Newington alone,” he continued; and it was
evident from his look and his manner, that he had a proposition to
make, though there was some embarrassment about mentioning it.
“I must do something.”
“Of course you must, Mary.”
“What shall I do?”
“You shall be my wife before the sun goes down to-night, Mary!”
exclaimed he, rapturously.
She shrank from him, apparently offended, while her cheeks were redder
than the sun when he rose from his watery bed.
“Don’t shrink from me, Mary. I meant no harm.”
It was some time before he could restore her to her former
self-possession.
“Mary, I love you with all my soul. I could die for you this moment,
even without possessing you for a single instant. You don’t think I
would propose anything which I did not believe was best for you?”
“No, Eliot, I do not.”
“If you had even the humblest home, I could wait without a murmur whole
years. But you are alone in the world, without a roof to cover you,
without a friend to comfort you. You are mine; but what can I do for
you? I cannot even give you a shelter. I cannot even conduct you to a
place of safety, without subjecting you to the breath of slander.”
It was kind of him, harsh and abrupt as the proposition had seemed.
He meant well, she thought, and she did not reproach him when he
again brought up the subject. Mr. Buckstone argued the question like
a lawyer, and in the end he overcame all her maidenly scruples. Her
situation was a desperate one, and if she was to be the wife of this
man, it might as well be to-day, as a year hence. She consented,
unwillingly, shrinkingly, almost revoltingly, but she consented.
“We shall reach Boston by half past two, and Providence by six. I have
friends there, and you shall be a bride before the sun goes down,”
he added, exultingly, pressing her to his bosom. “We have no time to
spare;” and he took up the oars, and pulled up the river again.
Landing, he carried her bundle to the hotel. A valise was purchased for
her use, and she was soon employed in packing it with her clothing.
Her breakfast was sent to her room. A private vehicle was procured,
and they hastened to the railroad station at Poppleton Mills. But they
were seen together; seen to depart together, with the valise and other
baggage; seen together at the hotel. If the whole truth was not known
to the busybodies of Poppleton, it was fully surmised.
And on this morning, as Eliot Buckstone and his intended bride were
speeding on their way to Providence, Eugene and his friend commenced
the work which they had planned during the week of vacation. All the
laborers that could be procured at the Port and at the Mills were
employed upon the projected roads through Pine Hill. A practical man
had been engaged to superintend the operations.
Eugene was not content with this beginning: he and Dick were hastening
down to the Port, intent upon purchasing a ruined mansion, in which
swarmed a dozen Irish families. There was no great difficulty in the
way, and the estate was at once secured. Half of one night during the
preceding week had been spent in perfecting a plan for the model house,
and our practical philanthropist was impatient to have the building in
progress. The parties next went to the office of Squire Perkins to have
the deeds drawn.
“There is a strange story circulating through the place this morning,
Mr. Hungerford,” said the squire, after he had satisfactorily ridiculed
the fancy of his former student for purchasing Irish shanties.
“There are always strange stories circulating,” replied Eugene,
indifferently, for he was too intent upon the business before him to be
moved by the reports of the village gossips.
“They say that Mr. Buckstone, the artist, left town rather suddenly
this forenoon,” continued the squire.
“Indeed? Where has he gone?”
“Nobody knows. They say Captain Kingman’s oldest daughter has gone with
him.”
“Mary?” gasped Eugene, starting back with horror.
“So they say.”
“So they say! Who says so?” demanded Eugene, fiercely.
“Well, perhaps twenty people saw them go. Why, what’s the matter, Mr.
Hungerford?”
“Nothing, nothing,” replied he, struggling to recover his
self-possession. “Is that a fact?”
“I didn’t see them go; but that’s what they all say, and I suppose
there can be no doubt of it.”
Eugene felt giddy and sick. The story was too terrible and revolting
for him to believe, and while he struggled with the tumultuous
emotions that rolled up from his heart, he refused to credit it.
“They say this Buckstone isn’t any better than he ought to be,”
proceeded the matter-of-fact squire, opening the old deed by which he
was to draw the new one. “There was a gentleman from New York up here
last week who said he was a notorious rascal. I think he said Buckstone
ran away with another man’s wife, and there was----”
“My God!” groaned Eugene, rushing madly out of the office, followed by
Dick Birch.
“What’s the matter with him?” demanded the honest squire, with no
little perturbation, as he jumped out of his chair; and he had not a
suspicion that he was rending the very soul of Eugene by his words.
“He seemed to be struck up all in a heap,” replied the late owner of
the Milesian hovel.
“Bless me! now I think of it, Hungerford was rather fond of that
Kingman girl. I’m sorry,” continued the squire, rubbing his bald head
vigorously. “She was a nice girl, and it’s a pity any harm should come
to her;” and sadly worried by the shock he had given the young man, he
turned again to the deed.