COUSIN TOM VISITS PINEY COVE.
Grantley Mellen was still a young man, only thirty-three, though the
natural gravity of his character, increased by certain events in his
life, made him appear somewhat older.
His father had died many years before, and as Elsie had told his bride,
an uncle had left him in the possession of a fine property, which had
increased in value, till he was now a very wealthy man.
His mother died when Elsie was a girl of about fourteen, and on her
death-bed Grantley Mellen had promised to act the part of parent as well
as brother to the young girl. He had never once wavered in his trust,
and the love and tenderness he felt for her were beautiful and touching
to witness.
He was never suspicious, never severe with her, though these were the
worst failings of his character. Elsie was to be treated as a child; be
petted, and indulged, and allowed to live in the sunshine, whatever else
might befall himself or others.
Although her health was good, she had always been rather delicate in
appearance, and that made him more careful of her. He was haunted with
the fear that she was to fade under their family scourge, consumption,
though in reality she was one of those frail looking creatures who are
all nerves--nerves, too, elastic as tempered steel; and who always
outlive the people who have watched them so carefully.
It was true Grantley Mellen had met with a humiliating disappointment in
his early youth, which had embittered all his after years, and increased
the natural jealousy of a reticent disposition almost to a monomania.
These were the facts of his history:
He had a college friend of his own age, a cousin twice removed, whom
from boyhood he had loved with all the strength and passion which made
the undercurrent of his grave, reserved character. He had helped this
young man in every way--befriended him in college, been to him what few
brothers ever are.
The time came when Mellen found the realization of those dreams which
fill every youthful soul: he loved, with all the fire and intensity of a
first passion. His cousin was made the confidant of this love; he shared
Mellen's every thought, and seemed heartily to sympathize with his
feelings.
It is an old story, so I need not dwell upon it. Both friend and
betrothed wife proved false. There came a day when Grantley Mellen found
himself alone with a terrible misery, with no faith left, no trust in
humanity to give a ray of light in the darkness of his betrayal.
The friend whom he had trusted eloped with his affianced bride, and
cheated him out of a large sum of money. With that sudden treachery and
bitter grief, Mellen's youth ended.
He left Elsie at school and went away to Europe, wandering about for
years, and growing more saddened and misanthropic all the while.
He returned at last. Elsie was eighteen then. She had a school-friend,
to whom she had been greatly attached; a girl older than herself, and so
different in every respect, that it was a wonder Elsie's volatile
character had been attracted to her, or that her liking had been
reciprocated.
This was the state of events when Mellen returned from Europe. Elsie's
account of her friend interested him in the unfortunate girl. When he
made her acquaintance that sympathy deepened into a feeling which he had
never thought to have for any woman again,--he loved her, and she was
now his wife.
It was a restless, craving affection, which threatened great trouble
both to himself and its object. He had no cause for jealousy, but his
suspicious mind was always on the alert--he was jealous even of her
friends, her favorite studies--he wanted every look and thought his own,
yet he was too proud to betray these feelings.
Elizabeth's character was not one easy to understand, nor shall I enter
into its details here. The progress of my story must show her as she
really was, and leave you to judge for yourself concerning it, and the
effect it had upon her life.
She was singularly reticent and reserved, but impetuous and warm-hearted
beyond any thing that the man who loved her dreamed of. He saw her gay,
brilliant, fond of society, yet apparently content with the quiet life
he was determined to lead. Still there was something wanting. He felt in
the depths of his heart that he was not master of her whole being. That
sometimes his very kisses seemed frozen on her lips, and she turned from
his protestations of love with sad smiles, that seemed mocking him. And
she, alas, the woman who believes herself unloved by her husband, is
always in danger--always unhappy.
The first weeks of this strange honeymoon had passed, and Tom Fuller was
able to gratify the chief desire of his honest soul, and rush down to
the island to bewilder himself more hopelessly in the spell of Elsie's
fascinations, like a great foolish moth whirling about a dazzling light.
She had never scrupled to laugh at him and his devotion, even to
Elizabeth herself; but just now she was not sorry to see him. The
stillness of the house and the seclusion of those slow love weeks, was
not at all in unison with her taste, and she was already regretting that
Mellen had not allowed her to accept Mrs. Harrington's invitation to
remain with her during the first period of that dreary honeymoon.
Mellen and Elsie were standing on the porch when Fuller drove up to the
house, and dashed in upon them with such an outpouring of confusion and
delight that it might have softened the most obdurate heart.
"I couldn't stop away another day," he cried, wringing Mellen's hand
till it ached for half an hour after.
"We are very glad to see you," replied Mellen; "very glad."
"I am much obliged, I'm sure," exclaimed Tom, "and you're just a trump,
that's the truth."
"I suppose that's the reason you keep him so carefully in your hand,"
interposed Elsie, laughing.
Tom was instantly covered with confusion, and let Mellen's hand drop. He
knew there was a joke somewhere, but for the life of him he could not
see where it come in.
"You are beginning to laugh at me before you have even said 'How do you
do?'" cried he, ruefully.
"And am I not to laugh at you, if I please?" exclaimed Elsie. "Shake
hands, you cross-grained old thing, and don't begin to quarrel the
moment we meet."
Tom blushed like a girl while he bent over the little hand she laid in
his, holding it carefully, and looking down on it with a sort of
delighted wonder, as if it had been some rare rose-tinted shell that his
fingers might break at the slightest touch.
But Mellen was not looking at them; he stood there wondering if this man
could have been of any consequence in Elizabeth's past. Could she have
loved him, and been prevented from marrying him in some way? No, it was
impossible; he felt, he knew that it was so; but the idea would come
into his mind nevertheless.
"When you have done examining my hand, Mr. Tom Fuller, please give it
back," said Elsie. "It don't amount to much, but, as the Scotchwoman
observed of her clergyman's head, 'it's some good to the owner.'"
Tom dropped the little hand as if the pink fingers had burned his palm.
"I'm always the awkwardest fellow alive!" cried he, dismally. "And how
is Bessie, dear girl?"
Mellen roused himself.
"I will call her," he said; "she is quite well, and will be delighted to
see you."
He went into the house in search of his wife, and Elsie began to tease
her unfortunate victim, a pastime of which she never wearied. It seemed
to her the funniest thing in the world to make that great creature blush
and stammer, to lead him on to the perpetration of absurd things, to
laugh at him, to bewilder his honest head; for any pain he might suffer,
she considered it no more than she did the sorrows of a Fejee Islander,
or the chirp of her canary.
"Have you come down here prepared to be agreeable?" she asked.
"Remember, I expect you to devote yourself completely to my service--to
wait on me like the most devoted of knights."
"I'd stand on my head if you asked it," answered Tom, impetuously.
"How deliciously odd you would look!" cried Elsie; "you shall try it
some day; I only hope it won't leave you with a brain fever, but then it
couldn't, Tom,--where is the capital for such a disease to come from?"
"You may tease me as much as you like," said Tom, "if you'll only say
you are glad to see me."
"Oh, you will be invaluable," replied Elsie; "I was getting bored with
watching other people's love-making. Can you row a boat and teach me to
play billiards, and be generally nice and useful?"
"Just try me, that's all!" said Tom.
"Don't be afraid. I shall put you to every possible use; you may be
quite certain that your position will not be a sinecure."
"Then you'll make me the happiest fellow alive!"
"You don't know what you are saying; you don't know what your words
mean," cried Elsie, with one of her bewildering glances.
"Indeed I do! Oh, Miss Elsie, if you only could--"
Elsie interrupted him, as her sister came out on the portico, followed
by Mellen. "There is Bessie!"
Elizabeth was rejoiced to see honest Tom; he was the only relative she
possessed, and she loved him like a sister. She was thoroughly
acquainted with his character, and honored him for the sterling goodness
concealed by eccentricities of manner which made him so open to laughter
and misconception.
"I'm so glad to see you!" cried Tom, shaking hands all round again, and
growing redder and redder, to Elsie's intense delight. "I've been like a
fish out of water since you all came away; I just begin to feel like
myself again. Bessie, old girl, are you glad to see me?"
"We shall always be glad to see you, Tom," Elizabeth said, glancing at
her husband.
"Indeed we shall," he said; "you will always find a room at your
service, and a sincere welcome."
No, Elizabeth never could have cared for him--the idea was simply
absurd--he would never think of it again, never!
"I can't tell you how much obliged I am," said Tom, twisting about as if
his joints were out of order, and he was trying to set them straight.
"Your chamber is ready," said Elizabeth; "we expected you to-day."
"He doesn't need to go up now," interposed Elsie; "that checked coat is
bewitching, and he is going to take me out to row. Come along, Don
Quixote--come this instant!"
Elsie ran off, and he followed, obedient as a great Newfoundland dog.
Elizabeth looked after them a little sadly, and smothered a sigh of
anxiety. She saw what Elsie was so heedlessly doing, and knew Tom well
enough to understand how acute his sufferings would be once roused from
his entrancing dream.
So things went on during the whole time of his stay, and there was no
help for it. Elsie made him a perfect slave, and Tom no more thought of
disputing her wildest caprice, than if he had been some untutored fawn,
made captive to the spells of a Dryad.
Elsie saw plainly enough that he loved her, but she regarded that part
of the affair very lightly. She was accustomed to being loved and
petted--it was her right. The idea that it could be cruel or
unprincipled to encourage this young fellow as she did, never entered
her mind. Indeed, if the misery she was bringing upon him had been
pointed out to her, she would only have laughed at it as a capital jest,
a source of infinite amusement.
When Tom Fuller went back to town, Elsie was taken with a strong desire
to visit dear Mrs. Harrington. Tom was a sort of cousin, now, and would
make a capital escort. Besides, she was sure Grantley and Elizabeth
would be much happier alone. Perhaps Mellen thought so too. At any rate,
he made no objections, and Elsie went.
The husband and wife were alone. The days were so pleasant--those long,
golden, June days!--they might have been so happy in the solitude of
that beautiful spot, but for the chasm which lay between the souls of
these married people, scarcely perceptible as yet, but widening every
hour!
Elizabeth watched her husband incessantly. She tortured every evidence
of affection into a forced kindness, an attempt to hide his want of
love; he was trying to make all the atonement in his power, to give her
everything that could make life pleasant, except the place in his heart
which was her right. How her soul revolted against the thought!
She was mortally hurt and grieved that he could have deceived her. If he
had only spoken the truth, only left her to decide whether she could be
content to accept an outer place in his regard, to make his home happy,
to guard and cherish his sister--if he had only left this decision in
her hands, the matter would have worn a different aspect.
But that he should have been silent--that even now he should guard his
secret, practising this daily deception, and meaning to let it lie
between them all through life--was a never-ceasing thorn in her heart.
Mellen, in turn, was watching her; watching her with that morbid
suspicion which made the groundwork of his character. Observant of the
change in her manner, and trying always to account for it, but only
making himself restless and anxious to no purpose.
He had loved her, he did love her, and the only reason she was, as he
supposed, ignorant of the humiliating story of his past, was because he
had put it resolutely out of his mind; and it hurt his pride too much to
go over the detail of the deceit and treachery from which he had
suffered, even in his own thoughts.
Elsie's absence was prolonged to a fortnight, and when she returned,
Mrs. Harrington and Tom Fuller came back with her.
The girl was in more joyous spirits than ever; more bewitching and
beautiful, if possible; and Elizabeth could see plainly that Mellen's
love for her fell little short of absolute idolatry.
She was not jealous. If Elsie had been her own sister, she could not
have become more attached to her than she had grown during their year of
companionship. But it was very hard to see of what love her husband was
capable, and to remember that no part of it could be won for her; that
between her soul and his, rose the image of that false woman, whose
treachery had steeled his heart against such love as she thirsted for.
Tom Fuller was a more hopeless lunatic than ever; but Elsie had begun to
grow impatient of his devotion. She often treated him cruelly now. The
poor fellow bore it all with patience, and still clung to his beautiful
dream, unable to realize that it was a baseless delusion, which must
pass away with the summer that had warmed it to its prime.
The weeks passed on with all-seeming pleasantness, and in many respects
they were pleasant to both husband and wife, though the secret thoughts
in the minds of both, kept them aloof from the perfect rest and
happiness to which they had looked forward during that brief courtship.
But a sudden change and a great break were nearing their lives, and
unexpectedly enough they came.
Mellen owned a large mining property in California, an immense fortune
in itself, and ever since his return from Europe, he had been much
occupied with a lawsuit that had sprung up concerning the title. He had
sent out his man of business, but the case did not go on satisfactorily,
and letters came which made his presence there appear absolutely
imperative.
He could not take his wife and sister; the discomforts to which they
would be exposed, the dreadful fears where Elsie was concerned, from her
apparent delicacy, entirely prevented that idea.
He informed them that he might be obliged to go; he had written other
letters by the steamer; the answer he might receive would decide.
Elizabeth pleaded to go with him, but Elsie frankly owned that she could
not even think of a sea voyage without deathly horror. Mellen pointed
out to his wife the necessity there was that she should remain with
Elsie, and she submitted in silence.
"He married me to take care of her," she thought; "I will do my duty--I
will stay. Perhaps this absence will change him: but no, I am mad to
hope it. Elsie says he never changes. That woman's memory must always
lie between his heart and mine." So she turned to her dull weary path of
duty, and gave no sign.