TOM ACCEPTS THE SITUATION.
Lying upon a couch, over which that pale marble statue was bending with
its cold lilies in mocking purity, lay a pale little creature, covered
with a pink eider-down quilt, which but half concealed a morning dress
of faint azure; quantities of delicate Valenciennes lace fluttered, like
snowflakes, around her wrists and bosom, and formed the principal
material of a dainty little cap, under which her golden tresses were
gathered. She looked like a girl of twelve pretending womanhood.
When Tom came in she uttered a sudden cry, flung up her hands and
dropped them in a loose clasp over her face, which flushed under them
like a rose.
Tom walked straight to the couch, drew one of the fragile gilded chairs
close to it, and sat down.
"Don't--don't--go away. It's cruel. I shall faint with shame," she
cried, trembling all over.
"Not till you have answered me a few questions," said Tom, firmly.
"Questions that I have a right to ask and you must answer."
Elsie drew the little hands slowly from her face and looked at him. The
blue eyes--grown larger from illness--opened wide, her lips parted. That
was not the lover she had trifled with and domineered over. She was
afraid of him and shrunk away close to the wall.
"Elsie, one word," said Tom, pressing a hand firmly on each knee and
bending towards her.
Her lips parted wider, and she watched him with the glance of a
frightened bird when a cat looks in at the door of its cage.
"You have come to torment me," she faltered.
"Torment you! I! It isn't in me to do that. Torment! I do not know what
it is."
"Well, what do you want of me then?"
"What do I want, Elsie, dear? What do I want? Nothing but God's truth,
and that I will have!"
Elsie's eyes grew larger, and the flush of shame left her face.
"I can't--I can't tell you the truth, Tom Fuller, now. Elizabeth can say
enough to make you ready to kill me, but I would rather die than talk of
it."
"I know all that Elizabeth can tell me," said Tom, resolutely.
"What did you come for, then?"
"To ask this one question: Did you love that man?"
A shiver of disgust ran through her and broke out in her voice:
"Love him! No! At first it seemed as if I did; but after I saw what he
was and how he lived, it was dreadful, I hated him so."
"But how came you married to him?"
"I don't know; I never could tell. It was when we went on that picnic.
He asked me to walk with him. It was good fun to set you all wondering,
and I went. He took me down the hill and towards the beach, close by the
tavern. We had been flirting for weeks then in New York and here, for he
always met me when I went out to walk or ride, or anything; but I never
thought of marrying him in earnest, upon my sacred word. Well, that day,
just as we came to the tavern, he said, 'Let us stop a moment and get
married; there is a clergyman in here.'
"I didn't believe him, and said so. 'Come in and see for yourself,' was
his answer. I went in laughing. A gentleman sat in one of the rooms, and
Mr. North's mulatto servant, who was sauntering about the door when we
came up, followed us in. I don't know what possessed me. Perhaps for the
minute I loved him; it seemed to me that I must stand up when the
strange man rose. He only said a few words, and before I really believed
it was a true ceremony the man said I was Mr. North's wife, and wrote
out a paper, which I dropped, thinking that I should be really married
if I took it, but which Mr. North picked up, saying I did not know its
value."
"The scoundrel! The infamous, double-dyed scoundrel!" cried Tom. "But
you didn't love him--you didn't love him?"
"No," said Elsie, shaking her head. "I tried my best to get away from it
all, but it was of no use. Then he petted me so, and told me how
beautifully we would live somewhere in Europe, and I thought him so
rich. But it was my money he meant to use. He thought that half of
uncle's property was mine, and when I told him how it was, oh, I won't
tell you how rude he became. Just after he told me about that other
person."
Elsie broke off here, and covered her face with both hands again. Tom
saw the scarlet glow where it shot up to her temples and bathed her
white throat, and gave his hands one hard grip in a wild desire to
strike something.
"There comes a question," he said, hoarsely; "did you leave him?"
"Yes, yes; that very hour."
"And never saw him again?"
"Never but once; and then I ordered him out of the house."
"Because you hated him so?"
Tom seized both her hands as he asked this question, and wrung them till
she could scarcely keep from crying out with pain.
"Oh, how I did hate him!" she exclaimed, shuddering.
"Elsie," said Tom, "look into my face, straight into my eyes."
She obeyed him, with a look of piteous appeal.
"Did you ever love me?"
Her hands were locked together, she lifted them up with more of energy
than he had ever witnessed in her before.
"Did you?" repeated Tom, and a glow came into his face.
"Yes."
The word had scarcely left her lips when Tom flung the gilded chair back
and fell on his knees, gathering her up in his arms with a wild outburst
of feeling.
"Then I'll be d---- hung and choked to death if anything on God's
beautiful earth keeps me from marrying you!"
She clung to him, she lifted her quivering lips to his.
"Say it again, just once, darling?" cried Tom, shaking back his tawny
locks with energy. "Is this love downright, honest, whole-hearted love?"
"Yes, yes!"
"God bless you, darling! And when was it? about what time did it begin?"
She answered him honestly, but with a faltering voice:
"Oh, Tom, I'm afraid it wasn't till after you got so rich. Don't think
hard of it; I do love beautiful things so much--but indeed, indeed I
love you more."
"Then I'm glad the old covey left me all his money. I don't care a
d---- red cent why you love me, only I must be sure that it's a fixed
fact. Now I'll go straight out and tell Bessie."
Elsie turned cold.
"Oh, Tom, she'll never consent to it."
"Won't she! I'd just like to know why?"
"And my brother, he is so cold, so unforgiving."
"Is he? then I'll take you away to a warmer climate. But don't believe
it; he's proud as a race-horse, but you'll find him a trump in the end."
"Don't go yet, Tom, I am afraid they will--"
"No, they wont," cried Tom, and away he went into Elizabeth's
sitting-room, with tears sparkling in his eyes and a generous flush on
his face.
"Mellen," he said, wringing Grantley's hand, "I want to be married
to-morrow, and carry her away."
"Fuller, what is the meaning of this?" demanded Mellen, pained and
surprised, while Elizabeth stood up aghast at this sudden outburst.
"It means just this, Mellen, I don't care a tin whistle for what has
gone before, and I feel strong enough to take care of anything that may
come after. Your sister loves me, and I love her, that's enough. I am
satisfied, and--there--that's enough. The whole thing is a family
secret, and who is going to be the wiser. I only hope they have dug the
fellow's grave deep enough, that's all."
"But, Fuller, have you reflected?"
"Reflected! I've done nothing else for a week, and this is just what it
has brought me to. So give us your hand."
Elizabeth came up to Tom, put her arms around his neck, and burst into
tears.
"That's the time o' day," shouted Tom. "Silence gives consent; now just
give us a good brotherly grip of the hand, Mellen, and it's all right."
Tom folded one arm around his cousin, and held out the other a second
time. Mellen took it in his, wrung it warmly, and left the room.
"Just go in and comfort her a little, Bessie, poor darling, she's afraid
you won't consent."
"Generous, noble fellow," said Elizabeth, kissing him with warmth; "but
where will you go? what will you do? It is all so very sudden."
"Do! what on earth can I do but love her like distraction? Go! any place
where she can find life and fun, plenty of shopping. Paris, isn't that a
nice sort of place for pretty things? I think we'll go to Paris first.
But, I forgot, Rhodes's daughter, the old maid, is waiting for you
downstairs. Victoria would have told you if I hadn't shut her out."
Elizabeth went down, leaving Tom in the only spot he cared to occupy on
earth. She found Miss Jemima in a state of wild commotion, with her
riding-dress buttoned awry, and one of her gauntlets torn half off with
hard pulling.
"Did you know it? had you any suspicion?" she demanded, confronting
Elizabeth like a grenadier; "I could think it of your sister, but
you--you--"
"What is it? I know nothing," answered Elizabeth.
"They are married, absolutely married; my par and that painted lay
figure you introduced to him, that Mrs. Harrington."
"What, your father married to her!" cried Elizabeth; "you surprise me."
"It's a solemn truth, though a disgraceful truth, but she shall never
come into the house that shelters me. I'll burn it down first. Where's
your sister?"
"She is ill in her room."
"Yes, I dare say. But she's had a hand in this, and I'll pay her for it,
or my name isn't Jemima Rhodes. Tell her so, with my compliments. Good
morning!"
With this abrupt adieu the spinster took herself off, tugging away at
her gauntlet, or what was left of it, and diversifying the movement with
a vicious crack of her whip now and then.
Elizabeth smiled and went upstairs again. Thus the great events of the
day ended.
In less than a week Tom Fuller was quietly married, and took his wife at
once on board a steamer bound for Europe. She had come forth from her
sick room greatly subdued and changed in many respects, but able, from
her peculiar character, to put a veil between her and the past, which
would have been impossible to a woman like Elizabeth.
I am happy to state that Dolf's treachery met with its proper reward.
Clorinda succeeded in saving her money, and she married the parson,
leaving Dolf to his shame and remorse. Victoria gave him the cold
shoulder, and made herself so intimate with a new male Adonis, who came
to the house as domestic, that Dolf's days were full of misery and his
nights made restless with legions of nightmares.
The house by the sea shore stands up in its old picturesque stateliness,
and within the sunshine never fails, and the summer of content is never
disturbed.
Old Benson, a very short time after these events, became possessed of a
fine tract of land running back from the point where his house stood;
how he paid for it, and got a clear deed, no one could tell except
himself and Mr. Mellen. It is certain that both of these men knew how to
keep a secret, for to this day it is utterly unknown in the
neighborhood, that Elizabeth ever lay ill and suffering in that good
man's house. The servants speak of her visit to New York about that
time, and so this great family mystery ended.
THE END.
MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.
_A NOBLE WOMAN._
_PALACES AND PRISONS._
_MARRIED IN HASTE._
_RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY._
_THE CURSE OF GOLD._
_WIVES AND WIDOWS; OR, THE BROKEN LIFE._
_THE REJECTED WIFE._
_THE GOLD BRICK._
_THE HEIRESS._
_FASHION AND FAMINE._
_THE OLD HOMESTEAD._
_SILENT STRUGGLES._
_MARY DERWENT._
_THE WIFE'S SECRET._
_THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS._
_MABEL'S MISTAKE._
_DOUBLY FALSE._