THE BURDEN GROWS HEAVIER.
Of the days which followed, Maddy had no distinct consciousness. She
only knew that other hands than hers cared for the dead; that in the
little parlor a stiff, white figure lay; that neighboring women stole
in, treading on tiptoe, and speaking in hushed voices as they consulted,
not her, but Mrs. Noah, who had come at once, and cared for her and hers
so kindly. That she lay all day in her own room, where the summer breeze
blew softly through the window, bringing the perfume of summer flowers,
the sound of a tolling bell, of grinding wheels, the notes of a low, sad
hymn, sung in faltering tones and of many feet moving from the door.
Then friendly faces looked in upon her, asking how she felt, and
whispering ominously to each other as she answered:
“Very well; is grandpa getting better?”
Then Mrs. Noah sat with her for a time, fanning her with a palm-leaf fan
and brushing the flies away. Then Flora came up with a man whom they
called “Doctor,” and who gave her sundry little pills and powders, after
which they all went out and left her there with Jessie, who had been
crying, and whose soft little hands felt so cool on her hot head, and
whose kisses on her lips made the tears start, and brought a thought of
Guy, making her ask, “if he was at the funeral.” She did not know whose
funeral she meant, or why she used that word, only it seemed to her that
Jessie had just come back from somebody’s grave, and she asked if Guy
was there.
“No,” Jessie said; “mother wanted to write and tell him, but we don’t
know where he is.”
And this was all Maddy could recall of the days succeeding the night of
her last watch at her grandfather’s side, until one balmy August
afternoon, when on the Honedale hills there lay that smoky haze so like
the autumn time hurrying on apace, and when through her open window
stole the fragrance of the later summer flowers. Then, as if waking from
an ordinary sleep, she woke suddenly to consciousness, and staring about
the room, wondered if it were as late as the western sun would indicate,
and how she came to sleep so long.
For a while she lay thinking, and as she thought, a sad scene came back
to her, a night when her hot hands had been enfolded in those of the
dead, and that dead her grandfather. Was it true, or was she laboring
under some hallucination of the brain? If true, was that white, pallid
face still to be seen in the room below, or had they buried him from her
sight? She would know, and with a strange kind of nervous strength she
rose, and throwing on the wrapper and slippers which lay near, descended
the stairs, wondering to find herself so weak, and half shuddering at
the deep stillness of the house—a stillness broken only by the ticking
of the clock and the purring of the house cat, which at sight of Maddy
arose from its position near the door and came forward, rubbing its
sides against her dress, and trying in various ways to evince its joy at
seeing one whose caresses it had missed so long. The little bed-room off
the kitchen, where grandpa slept and died, was vacant; the old-fashioned
coat was put away, as was every vestige of the old man, save the
broad-rimmed hat which hung upon the wall just where his hands had hung
it, and which looked so much like its owner that with a gush of tears
Maddy sank upon the bed, moaning to herself, “Yes, grandpa is dead. I
remember now. But Uncle Joseph, where is he? Can he too have died
without my knowledge?” and she looked around in vain for the lunatic,
not a trace of whom was to be found.
His room was in perfect order, as was everything about the house,
showing that Flora was still the domestic goddess, while Maddy detected
also various things which she recognized as having come from Aikenside.
Who sent them? Did Guy, and had he been there too while she was sick?
The thought brought a throb of joy to Maddy’s heart, but it soon passed
away as she began again to wonder if Uncle Joseph, too, had died, and
where Flora was. It was not far to the Honedale burying-ground, and
Maddy could see the head-stones gleaming through the August sunlight;
could discern her mother’s, and knew that two fresh mounds at least were
made beside it. But were there three? Was Uncle Joseph there? By
stealing across the meadow in the rear of the house the distance to the
graveyard was shortened more than half, and could not be more than the
eighth part of a mile. She could walk so far, she knew. The fresh air
would do her good, and hunting up her long unused hat, the impatient
girl started, stopping once or twice to rest as a dizzy faintness came
over her, and then continuing on until the spot she sought was reached.
There were three graves, one old and sunken, one made when the last
winter’s snow was on the hills, the other fresh and new. That was all.
Uncle Joseph was not there, and vague terror entered Maddy’s heart lest
he had been taken back to the asylum.
“I will get him out,” she said; “I will take care of him. I should die
with nothing to do; and I promised grandpa——”
She could get no further, for the rush of memories which came over her,
and seating herself upon the ground close to the new grave, she laid her
face upon it, and sobbed piteously:
“Oh, grandpa, I’m so lonely without you all; I almost wish I was lying
here in the quiet yard.”
Then a storm of tears ensued, after which Maddy grew calm, and with her
head still bent down did not hear the rapid step coming down the grassy
road, past the marble tomb-stones, to where she was crouching upon the
ground. There it stopped, and in a half whisper some one called, “Maddy!
Maddy!”
Then she started, and lifting up her head saw before her Guy Remington.
For a moment she regarded him intently, while he said to her, kindly,
pityingly:
“Poor child, you have suffered so much, and I never knew of it till a
few days ago.”
At the sound of that loved voice speaking thus to her, everything else
was forgotten, and with a cry of joy Maddy stretched her hands toward
him, moaning out:
“Oh, Guy, Guy, where have you been, when I wanted you so much?”
Maddy did not know what she was saying, or half comprehend the effect it
had on Guy, who forgot everything save that she had missed him, had
turned to him in her trouble, and it was not in his nature to resist her
appeal. With a spring he was at her side, and lifting her in his arms
seated himself upon her mother’s grave; then straining her tightly to
his bosom, he kissed her again and again. Hot, burning, passionate
kisses they were, which took from Maddy all power of resistance, even
had she wished to resist, which she did not. Too weak to reason, or see
the harm, if harm there were, in being loved by Guy, she abandoned
herself for a brief interval to the bliss of knowing that she was
beloved, and of hearing him tell her so.
“Darling Maddy,” he said, “I went away because you sent me, but now I
have come back, and nothing shall part us again. You are mine, I claim
you here at your mother’s grave. Dear Maddy, I did not know of all this
till three days ago, when Agnes’s letter found me almost at the Rocky
Mountains. Then I traveled day and night, reaching Aikenside this
morning, and coming straight to Honedale. I wish I had come before, now
that I know you wanted me. Say that again, Maddy. Tell me again that you
missed and wanted me.”
He was smoothing her hair, as her head still lay pillowed upon his
breast, so he could not see the spasm of pain which contorted her
features as he thus appealed to her. Half bewildered, Maddy could not at
first make out whether it were a blissful dream or a reality, that she
was there in Guy’s arms, with his kisses on her forehead, lips and
cheek, his words of love in her ear, and the soft summer sky smiling
down upon her. Alas, it was a dream from which she was awakened by the
thought of one across the sea, whoso place she had usurped, and this it
was which brought the grieved expression to her face as she answered
mournfully:
“I did want you, Guy, when I forgot; but now—oh, Guy—Lucy Atherstone!”
With a gesture of impatience Guy was about to answer, when something in
the heavy fall of the little hand from his shoulder alarmed him, and
lifting up the drooping head he saw that Maddy had fainted. Then back
across the meadow Guy bore her to the cottage, where Flora, who had just
returned from a neighbor’s, whither she had gone upon an errand, was
looking for her in much affright, and wondering who had come from
Aikenside with that wet, tired horse, which showed so plainly how hard
it had been driven.
They carried Maddy again into her little chamber, which she never left
until the golden harvest sheaves were gathered in, and the hot September
sun was ripening the fruits of autumn. But now she had a new nurse, a
constant attendant, who during the day seldom left her except to talk
with and amuse Uncle Joseph, mourning below because no one sang to him
or noticed him as Maddy used to do. He had not been sent to the asylum,
as Maddy feared, but by way of relieving Flora had been taken to Farmer
Green’s, where he was so homesick and discontented that at Guy’s
instigation he was suffered to return to the cottage, crying like a
little child when the old familiar spot was reached, kissing his
arm-chair, the cook-stove, the tongs, Mrs. Noah and Flora, and timidly
offering to kiss the Lord Governor himself, as he persisted in calling
Guy, who declined the honor, but listened quietly to the crazy man’s
promise “not to to spit the smallest kind of a spit on the floor, or
anywhere except in its proper place.”
Guy had passed through several states of mind during the interval in
which we have seen so little of him. Furious at one time, and reckless
as to consequences, he had determined to break with Lucy and marry
Maddy, in spite of everybody; then, as a sense of honor came over him,
he resolved to forget Maddy, if possible, and marry Lucy at once. It was
in this last mood, and while roaming over the Western country, whither
after his banishment he had gone, that he wrote Lucy a strange kind of
letter, saying he had waited for her long enough, and sick or well he
should claim her the coming autumn. To this letter Lucy had responded
quickly, sweetly reproving Guy for his impatience, softly hinting that
latterly he had been quite as culpable as herself in the matter of
deferring their union, and appointing the bridal day for the —— of
December. After this was settled Guy felt better, though the old sore
spot in his heart, where Maddy Clyde had been, was very sore still, and
sometimes it required all his powers of self-control to keep from
writing to Lucy and asking to be released from an engagement so irksome
as his had become. He had neglected to answer Agnes’s letters when he
first left home, and she did not know where he was until a short time
before his return, when she wrote apprising him of grandpa’s death and
Maddy’s severe illness. This brought him at once, and Maddy’s
involuntary outburst when she met him in the graveyard, changed the
whole current of his intentions. Let what would come, Maddy Clyde should
be his wife, and as such he watched over her constantly, nursing her
back to life, and by his manner effectually silencing all remark, so
that the neighbors whispered among themselves what Maddy’s prospects
were, and, as was quite natural, were a very little more attentive to
the future lady of Aikenside. Poor Maddy! it was a terrible trial which
awaited her, but it must be met, and so with prayers and tears she
fortified herself to meet it, while Guy hung over her, never guessing of
all that was passing in her mind, or how, when he was out of sight, the
lips he had longed so much to kiss, but never had since that day in the
graveyard, quivered with anguish as they asked for strength to do right;
crying often, “Help me, Father, to do my duty, and give me, too, a
greater inclination to do it than I now possess.”
Maddy’s heart failed her sometimes, and she might have yielded to the
temptation but for a letter from Lucy, full of eager anticipations of
the time when she should see Guy, never to part again.
“Sometimes,” she wrote, “there comes over me a dark foreboding of evil—a
fear that I shall miss the cup now just within my reach; but I pray the
bad feelings away. I am sure there is no living being who will come
between us to break my heart, and as I know God doeth all things well, I
trust him wholly and cease to doubt.”
It was well the letter came when it did, as it helped Maddy to meet the
hour she so much dreaded, and which came at last on an afternoon when
Mrs. Noah had gone to Aikenside, and Flora had gone on an errand to a
neighbor’s two miles away, thus leaving Guy free to tell the story, so
old, yet always new to him who tells it and to her who listens, the
story which, as Guy told it, sitting by Maddy’s side, with her hands in
his, thrilled her through and through, making the sweat-drops start out
around her lips and underneath her hair; the story which made Guy
himself pant nervously and tremble like a leaf, so earnestly he told her
how long he had loved her, of the picture withheld, the jealousy he felt
each time the doctor named her, the selfish joy he experienced when he
heard the doctor was refused; of his growing dissatisfaction with his
engagement, his frequent resolves to break it, his final decision, which
that scene in the graveyard had reversed, and then asked if she would
not be his—not doubtfully, but confidently, eagerly as if sure of her
answer.
Alas for Guy! he could not believe he heard aright when, turning her
head away for a moment while she prayed for strength, Maddy’s answer
came, “I cannot, Guy, I cannot. I acknowledge the love which has stolen
upon me, I know not how, but I cannot do this wrong to Lucy. Away from
me you will love her again. You must. Read this, Guy, then say if you
can desert her.”
She placed Lucy’s letter in his hand, and Guy read it with a heart which
ached to its very core. It was cruel to deceive that gentle, trusting
girl writing so lovingly of him, but to lose Maddy was to his
undisciplined nature more dreadful still, and casting the letter aside
he pleaded again, this time with the energy of despair, for he read his
fate in Maddy’s face, and when her lips a second time confirmed her
first reply, while she appealed to his sense of honor, of justice, of
right, and told him he could and must forget her, he knew there was no
hope, and, man though he was, bowed his head upon Maddy’s hands and wept
stormily, with mighty, choking sobs, which shook his frame, and seemed
to break up the very fountains of his life. Then to Maddy there came a
terrible temptation. Was it right for two who loved as they did to live
their lives apart?—right in her to force on Guy the fulfillment of vows
he could not literally keep? As mental struggles are always the more
severe, so Maddy’s took all her strength away, and for many minutes she
was so white and still that Guy roused himself to care for her, thinking
of nothing then except to make her better.
It was a long time ere that interview ended, but when it did there was
on Maddy’s face a peaceful expression, which only the sense of having
done right at the cost of a fearful sacrifice could give, while Guy’s
bore traces of a great and crushing sorrow, as he went out from Maddy’s
presence and felt that to him she was lost forever. He had promised her
he would do right; had said he would marry Lucy, and be to her what a
husband should be; and he had listened while she talked of another
world, where they neither marry or are given in marriage, and where it
would not be sinful for them to love each other, and as she talked her
face had shone like the face of an angel. He had hold one of her hands
at parting, bending low his head, while she laid the other on it as she
blessed him, letting her fingers thread his soft brown hair for a moment
and linger caressingly among his curly locks. But that was over now.
They had parted forever. She was lying where he left her, cold and
white, and faint with dizzy pain. He was riding swiftly toward
Aikenside, his heart-beats keeping time to the swift tread of his
horse’s feet, and his mind a confused medley of distracted thoughts,
amid which two facts stood out prominent and clear—he had lost Maddy
Clyde, and had promised her to marry Lucy Atherstone.
For many days after that Guy kept his room, saying he was sick, and
refusing to see any one save Jessie and Mrs. Noah, the latter of whom
guessed in part what had happened, and imputing to him far more credit
than he deserved, petted and pitied and cared for him until he grew
weary of it, and said to her, savagely:
“You needn’t think me so good, for I am not. I wanted Maddy Clyde, and
told her so, but she refused me and made me promise to marry Lucy; so
I’m going to do that very thing. I am going to England in a few weeks,
or as soon as Maddy is better, and before the sun of this year sets I
shall be a married man.”
After this all Mrs. Noah’s influence was in favor of Maddy, and the good
lady made more than one pilgrimage to Honedale, where she expended all
her arguments trying to make Maddy revoke her decision; but Maddy was
firm in what she deemed right, and as her health began slowly to
improve, and there was no longer an excuse for Guy to tarry, he started
for England the latter part of October, as unhappy and unwilling a
bridegroom, it may be, as ever went after a bride.