BURDENED WITH A SECRET.
"I turned away without answering, only ordering Zillah to have done with
such nonsense, and go to her mistress. She walked on a little behind me,
with more meekness than was natural to her; but I was troubled with a
sort of dread, which nothing in the circumstances could explain.
"It was all natural enough. In the name of heaven, what had I suspected?
I did not know--I do not now! but I felt faint and sick with some
horrible dread, to which I could give neither name or reason.
"'Miss Mabel,' said Zillah, coming to my side. 'I suppose you think I
told you a story this morning.'
"'Yes,' I said, 'I saw you give that money to the old woman.'
"'I was ashamed to tell you what I really wanted, for fear you would
laugh at me,' she replied, 'I never do tell the least bit of a fib that
I'm not found out.'
"'That ought to teach you not to tell any,' I said, rather severely.
"'Indeed I don't, Miss Mabel--unless it's about some foolishness like
this. I'm not a big story teller--don't think I am.'
"'I shall not unless you force me to,' I answered. 'Come, we must find
your mistress now.'
"I walked quickly on, and she followed me in silence. Once I glanced
back at her--there was an expression on her face which puzzled me, yes,
almost made me afraid. I could imagine Clytemnestra holding her midnight
watch, with a face like that--Lady Macbeth waiting for her husband's
return, with eyes like those--oh, I had grown so fanciful and silly
during those past days.
"We found Mr. James Harrington with his mother, who was just driving
away in the carriage.
"When it came back, I saw him return to the Eatons, who seemed to occupy
him entirely. Feeling myself completely unregarded, I wandered off by
myself, interested in the strange people that surrounded me.
"I looked about and found that I had lost sight of the whole party. I
was not frightened, because the fair grounds were in full view, and I
could find my way back easily enough, but I was a little amazed to think
that my presence had been of so little consequence to the gentlemen of
the party, that I had been permitted to steal away unnoticed.
"I walked on among the tents--nobody looked at me unpleasantly or spoke
rudely to me, and when my first feeling of pique had subsided, I was not
sorry to have an opportunity of examining more closely these strange and
incomprehensible people who, during so many ages, have kept up their
distinctive manners and customs, as much a mystery now as when they
first made their appearance among the inhabitants of Europe.
"Such picturesque looking men, lazily basking in the noon-tide sun--such
groups of lovely children, that would have sent Murillo into
ecstacies--such beautiful girls, whose every movement had a willowy,
sensuous grace that the women of no other people ever possessed--weird,
witch-like old crones, with such depths of wickedness in their fiery
eyes, that in looking at them one could easily have believed in the
old-time evidence of those who made bargains for their souls with the
Evil One. On I wandered, sometimes stopping to admire the children, or
speak a few words to the young girls.
"While I was thus occupied, James Harrington joined me, and began
speaking of his mother.
"'She is getting worse,' he said, 'and I can do nothing for her. It
seems as if the presence of this slave girl has a baleful influence on
every one she approaches!'
"I looked at him wonderingly. Why had he opened that subject with me. I
had no wish to discuss it, even in reference to his mother. Before I
could answer him, General Harrington and the Eatons joined us, and we
all walked back to the hotel together.
"I went at once to Mrs. Harrington's room. She was lying on a couch near
the window, with her hands clasped, and her eyes closed; but I saw the
lids quivering, and discovered heavy tears dropping one by one, on the
cushion beneath her head.
"'Are you so ill,' I said, sitting down on the edge of the couch and
kissing her troubled forehead.
"'Ill!' she sobbed, lifting both arms toward my neck, like an unhappy
child, 'Oh Mabel, my heart is broken. I shall never, never be well
again!'
"She trembled all over, and seemed ready to go into convulsions in my
arms.
"'What is it,' I said. 'What could have happened to distress you so?'
"She looked into my face so helplessly, that my soul yearned toward her.
"'Tell me, oh tell me of the trouble, for it _is_ trouble, and nothing
else,' I said, holding her close in my arms, for I felt that we were
fellow-sufferers, and that my heart must ache with something more
painful than sympathy.
"She began to tremble again, and clung closer to me.
"'It was foolish. I did wrong, but who would have thought what would
follow. I--I saw him going toward that large tent, where the music was.
Zillah had gone in just before, while I was buying some embroidery of a
woman. You had all walked on--I wanted to speak with Zillah, and
followed him.'
"'Go on,' I said, as well as the pain at my heart would permit of
speech--for she stopped suddenly, and made a faint effort to leave the
clasp of my arms. 'Go on, you cannot feel this more than I do.'
"'Ah, you love me so, thank God for that.'
"'And you can trust me, I would not speak of this, dear friend, to a
living soul, not to save my own life.'
"'It is not that, Mabel, but I have loved him so,--been so proud of him.
Never, till this day, have I known what it was to suspect any one dear
to me. Now it is not suspicion, but certainty. He loves her, Mabel! My
own servant! I saw her clinging to his arm, while those wild girls were
dancing before them. I heard him tell her how much more beautiful she
was than any woman he had ever seen. Don't look at me so wildly, Mabel!
I cannot repeat the words, but they are buried in here.'
"'And you heard this, there is no mistake.'
"'Mistake, oh if there could be!'
"'Still this man is--'
"'I know it--the shame and disgrace must be buried here. I dare not
speak of it, dare not reproach him--for there is one who loves me so
dearly that he would take revenge, and there might be bloodshed as well
as perfidy. Oh Mabel, I am glad you did not make yourself a slave by
loving as I wished. All this is terrible.'
"'Yes,' I said hoarsely, 'It is terrible, but it does not take me by
surprise.'
"'Then you have suspected something--oh Mabel, keep that girl away from
me. I will be silent, I will do anything a good woman ought, but the
sight of her will be too great a torment.'
"I promised to keep Zillah away if that were possible, without giving a
reason, and again pledged my word to hold all that she had said, secret
as the grave. But I went to my own room, fell upon the bed, and passed
into an agony of jealous shame.
"During the last two weeks Mrs. Harrington is much worse. All her old
complaints have come back, and she lies upon her sofa all day long,
weary and languid. Nothing can equal the devotion of her husband; as for
the son, his attentions are unremitting; does he guess why she is so
much worse, and is he striving by kindness to silence her unspoken
reproaches? She gives no sign of the trouble that is sapping away her
life, not a word has passed between us since that day. The Eatons have
left us. The atmosphere of a sick room disturbs them. Worse and
worse--alas! I greatly fear this gentle lady will never leave Seville
alive. The last remnant of strength seems to be dying out of that
fragile form.
"Zillah is most attentive--always by her door--always ready to be of
service, yet I loathe and fear the girl. There are times when her eyes
have a look that makes me shudder, and I long to remove that pale,
gentle creature from her care. But, strange enough, General Harrington
has taken a singular liking to the girl, and insists upon it that no one
can prepare his wife's medicines, or soothe her, so well. Poor lady, she
must submit, or destroy all her husband's respect for the son who has
wounded her so.
"Weaker and weaker--alas! poor lady, she seems to have no real illness,
but fades away calmly and softly, like a flower that the frost had
kissed to death.
"Harrington watches the gentle decline with silent anguish, that I can
feel, while I bitterly condemn him. How cold and distant this trouble
renders me! He speaks sometimes of his fears as she grows worse and
worse, but it is with mournful restraint, and when I lift my look to
his, or attempt those broken words of comfort that spring naturally to
the lips, he turns away without reply, as if my attempt at consolation
had only deepened his remorse. Was that wild confession on the raft all
a dream? Had terror and privation rendered me delirious? Could these
words, so deeply written in my memory, have been only a wild
hallucination? Is this man the same being I almost worshiped then?
"She is dead--oh, heavens! She died last night, with no one near but the
slave, and, as the girl Zillah said, without a struggle or a sigh.
"The slave came to my room just at daylight, weeping and wringing her
hands in such distress, that she fairly terrified me, when I saw her
standing in the open door.
"'Oh,' she said, tossing her arms on high, 'she is gone, she is gone.' I
watched her, young mistress, just like a mother hangs over her sick
child. She made a motion with her hand,--I thought she wanted more
drink, but she turned her face on the pillow, and looked at me so wild,
I couldn't turn my eyes away, but sat watching, watching, watching till
her face turned gray under my eyes, and I could see the white edges of
the teeth, between her lips, as they fell more and more apart. I reached
out my hand to touch hers. It was cold as snow, but her eyes were wide
open, looking straight into mine, dull and heavy, as if they had been
filling with frost.
"In the gray light of that morning, I went down to the death chamber.
General Harrington and James received me in mournful silence. I had no
heart even for unspoken reproaches, there. If ever forgiveness was
glorified, I saw it on that sweet, dear face.
"We passed a gloomy day. The shock has been terrible to James, terrible
to us all--for the General is greatly disturbed, and, as for the
slave-girl, her grief is fearful; she raves rather than weeps, and
trembles like an aspen at the mention of her dead lady's name.
"With the solemn burial services of the Catholic Church, we have
consigned the remains of this lovely woman to her grave, and now my
loneliness is complete. My own poor heart seems to have partaken of the
chill that has quenched her life. I am weary of this beautiful
land--weary of everything--alone and unloved; for now I am almost sure
my own wild brain coined the words that seemed to come from his lips in
the storm--alone, unloved--what remains for me but----
"A great disappointment has fallen upon General Harrington. A will is
found, and every dollar of his wife's property is left to her son. All
this seems incomprehensible. I pity the proud old man.
----"It is all over now! Oh, Heaven, that I should have so deceived
myself! Harrington loves another--Lucy whom he has known almost since
childhood, and from whom a series of untoward circumstances separated
him. There is, there can be no doubt--no room for a single hope--the
General himself informed me of it to-day.
"I cannot write--I cannot even think! There is a strange confusion in my
brain--a fever in my heart which give me no rest. I long for some one to
advise me--some one to whom I can look for sympathy--but I have no
counsellor. Kindred--mine are in the grave! Friends--the last one sleeps
in the cemetery yonder--in the wide world I am utterly alone. The
General grows kinder to me daily, but to him how could I speak of all
these things? No! I must bury the secret deep, deep in my own
heart--must endure this suffering in silence and alone.
"I have but one wish now--could I but be the means of uniting James
Harrington with the woman he loves. The only consolation left to me,
would be to know that he was happy, and that it was to me he owed that
happiness. But I can do nothing; the General only hinted at some
mysterious history, and he requested me to consider all that he had
revealed as sacred. Is this the secret? Does Lucy Eaton suspect the
unworthiness which it kills me to know?
"Six months in a convent. It is too late to look back, or to retract
anything I have promised. I have consented to become General
Harrington's wife--to fill the place of one who took me to her heart as
if I had been her own child, bestowing upon me the fondness which I
could have no right to claim, except from a mother.
"The change I had remarked in the General's manner was not fancy, as I
strove to think. He desires to make me his wife. He alluded to it
yesterday for the first time, and to-night I gave him my answer. I can
but confess that the arguments he employed were just; a young girl could
not remain in the house with a man no older than he without being
connected to him by a nearer tie than that which binds us. He spoke to
me very kindly, more gently and tenderly than I had thought he could do.
He believes that I have formed no other attachment, or, if not entirely
heart free, it was but a girlish fancy, which had no real basis. He
assures me that I shall be happy as his wife, but my heart answers how
impossible that is! I do not ask happiness--let me but find quiet and
contentment--I seek no more.
"A year has gone by. We are in America again. General Harrington will
join me to-morrow. Ay, it is better thus--I would have it over. Perhaps,
in the peaceful home I shall find in my native land, I may learn to
still this poor heart to rest. I long to return.
"_He_ is not here. He left us when we reached Madrid, for the purpose of
entering France through the Basque countries; but this month the
General received another letter from him--he is staying in Italy. The
General, it seems, had written that he had obtained my consent to become
his wife, and the answer is--'Whatever will conduce to your happiness,
and that of the lady, must be acceptable to me.'
"Nothing more--not even an expression of astonishment! Yes, it is better
thus! I will marry General Harrington--he is the only being on earth who
cares for me--the only one who would seek to render me happy. In a few
years he will be an old man, and the trust and friendship I now feel,
will be sufficient to his contentment. This firm and trusting friendship
I shall always be willing to give. If I do not accept him, where am I to
turn for a protector--of what avail is my great wealth, since it cannot
win for me a home in any human heart?
"I marvel at my own calmness--pray Heaven that when too late, I do not
find that it has been only the apathy of despair. I _will_ be calm--my
hushed and trembling heart shall at least be silent--by-and-by it will,
perhaps, be numbed into insensibility. I can expect nothing more; for I
know that the uprooted flowers of a love like mine can have no
second-blossom, the sweet fountain of affection once wasted, its waters
may never flow again.
"I will write no more in my journal for a season--why should I make this
record of my weary life--this plaint of my troubled soul?
"I have suffered the one terrible grief of a lifetime; of what avail to
inscribe upon these pages a memento of a lasting wretchedness!"