FOUND AND LOST.
"There are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead."
"An eagle with a broken wing,
A harp with many a broken string."
It was a pleasant morning in early spring. The sunshine lay in broad
sheets of golden light over the fields, and tinted the tree-tops with a
yellow luster. The fresh morning air came laden with the fragrance of
sweet spring flowers, and the musical chirping of many birds from the
neighboring forest was borne to Georgia's ears, as she stood on the
veranda, her thoughts far away.
You would scarcely have recognized the flashing-eyed, blooming,
wild-hearted Georgia Darrell in this cold, stately, stone-like Miss
Randall, with cheek and brow cold and colorless as Parian marble, and
the dark, mournful eyes void of light and sparkle.
It could scarcely be expected but that she would sink under the dreary
monotony of her life here, so completely different in every way from
what she had been accustomed to; and of late, she had fallen into a
lifeless lethargy, from which nothing seemed able to arouse her. There
were times, it was true, when, for an instant, she would awake, and her
very soul would cry out under the galling chains of her intolerable
bondage; but these flashes of her old spirit were few and far between,
and were always followed by a lassitude, a languor, a dull, spiritless
gloom, under which life, and flesh, and health seemed alike deserting
her. Her "Hagar in the Wilderness" was finished, and she commenced
drawing another, but lacked the energy to finish it.
It was an unnatural life for Georgia--the once wild, fiery, spirited
Georgia, and it was probably a year or two, of such existence, would
have found her in a lunatic asylum or in her grave, had not an
unlooked-for discovery given a new spring to her dormant energies.
Nearly half a year had now elapsed since that sorrowful night when she
had fled from home--six of the darkest months in all Georgia's life. For
the first four she had heard no news of any of those she had left, not
even of him who, sleeping or waking, was ever uppermost in her thoughts.
But one morning, at breakfast, Mr. Leonard had read aloud that our
"gifted young follow-citizen, Mr. Richmond Wildair, had returned from
abroad, and having re-entered the political world, which he was so well
fitted to adorn, had been elected to the legislature, where he had
already distinguished himself as a statesman of extraordinary merit and
profound wisdom, notwithstanding his extreme youth." Then there was
another brief paragraph, in which a mysterious allusion was made to some
dark, domestic calamity that had befallen the young statesman; but
before Mr. Leonard could finish it he was startled to see the governess
make an effort to rise from her seat and fall heavily back in her chair.
Then there was a cry that Miss Randall was fainting, and a glass of
water was held to her lips, and when, in a moment, she was her own calm,
cold self again, she arose and hastily left the room.
But from that day Georgia made a point every morning, with feverish
interest, to read the political papers in search of that one loved name.
And in every one of them it continually met her eye, lauded to the skies
by his friends and followers, and loaded with the fiercest abuse by his
enemies. There were long, eloquent speeches of his, glowing, fiery,
living, impassioned bursts of eloquence, that sent a thrill to the heart
of all who heard him, and swept away all obstacles before the force of
its own matchless logic.
A great question was then in agitation, and the young orator, as the
champion of humanity and equal rights, flung himself into the thickest
of the political _melee_ and was soon the reigning demi-god of his
party. It was well known he was soon to be sent as a Representative to
Congress, and the knowing ones predicted for him the highest honors the
political strife could yield--perhaps at some future day the Presidency
of the United States. His name and fame were already resounding through
the land, and morning, noon, and night, Mr. Leonard, who was the
fiercest of politicians, was talking and raving of the matchless talents
of this rising star.
And Georgia, how did she listen to all this. All she had hitherto
endured seemed nothing in comparison to the anguish she felt in his
evident utter forgetfulness of her. All the pride, and triumph, and
exultation, she would have felt in his success was swallowed up in the
misery of knowing she was forgotten--as completely forgotten as if she
had never existed. And oh, the humiliation she felt, when in the papers
of the opposition party, she saw _herself_ dragged in as a slur, a
disgrace, in his private life. The sneering insinuations that the wife
of Richmond Wildair had deserted him--had eloped--had been driven from
home by his ill-treatment; _these_ were worse to her than death. She
could almost fancy his cursing her in the bitterness of his heart when
his eyes would fall on this, for having disgraced him as she had done.
On this morning, as she stood on the veranda, with a paper in her hand
containing an unusually brilliant speech of the gifted young statesman,
her thoughts wandering to the days long past when she had first known
him, Miss Maggie came dancing out with sparkling eyes, and eagerly
accosted her.
"Oh, Miss Randall! only think! papa is going to give a splendid
dinner-party, and going to have lots of these political big-wigs here.
You know, I suppose, that they, or rather that Mr. Wildair, has gained
that horrid question about something or other the papers have been
making such a time about?"
"Yes," murmured the white lips, faintly.
"Well, papa's been so dreadfully tickled about it, though why I can't
see, that he is going to give this dinner-party, and have lots of those
great guns at it, and at their head Mr. Wildair himself, the greatest
gun of the lot. Only think of that!"
Georgia had averted her head, and Miss Maggie did not see the deadly
paleness that overspread her face, blanching even her very lips, at the
words. There was no reply, and shaking back her curls coquettishly, that
young lady went on:
"I'm just dying to see Mr. Wildair, you know, everybody is making such a
fuss about him; and I do like famous men, of all things. They say he is
young and handsome, but whether he is married or not I never can rightly
discover; some of the papers say he was, and that he didn't treat his
wife well, and Mr. Brown from New York, who was here yesterday, says she
committed suicide--isn't that dreadful? But I don't care; I'm bound to
set my cap for him, and I guess _I_ can manage to get along with him. I
should like to see the man would make me commit suicide, that's all! But
it may not be true, you know; these horrid papers tell the most shocking
fibs about any one they don't like. I wish Dick Curtis were here; he
knows all about him, I've heard, but he hasn't called for ever so many
ages. Maybe I won't blow him up when I see him, and then I'll pardon him
on condition that he tells me all about Mr. Wildair. He is going to be a
senator one of these days, and a governor, and a president, and an
ambassador, and ever so many other nice things, and there is nothing I
would like better than being Madame L'Ambassadrice, and shining in
foreign courts, though I _am_ the daughter of a red-hot republican. Ha!
ha! don't I know how to build castles in Spain, Miss Randall? Poor dear
Signor Popkins! what _would_ he say if he heard me?"
All this time Georgia had been standing as still and rigid, and coldly
white as monumental marble, hearing as one hears not this tirade, which
Miss Maggie delivered while dancing up and down the veranda like a
living whirligig, too full of spirits to be still for an instant. All
Georgia heard or realized of it was that Richmond was coming here--here!
under the same roof with herself. Her brain was giddy; a wild impulse
came over her to fly, fly far away, to bury herself in the depths of the
forest, where he could never find her or hear her name again.
Miss Maggie, having waited in vain for some remark from the governess,
was turning away, with a muttered "How tiresome!" when Georgia laid her
hand on her arm, and with a face that startled her companion, asked:
"When--when do they come?"
"Who? Dear me, Miss Randall, don't look so ghastly! I declare you're
enough to scare a person into fits."
"Those--those--gentlemen."
"Oh, the dinner-party. Thursday week. Papa's waiting till Mr. Wildair
comes from Washington."
Georgia turned her face away and covered her eyes with her hand, with a
face so agitated, that Maggie's eyes opened with a look of intense
curiosity.
"Why, Miss Randall, you are so queer! What on earth makes you look so?
Did _you_ know Mr. Wildair, or any of them?"
With a gesture of desperation, Georgia raised her head, and then,
through all the storm of conflicting feelings within, came the thought
that her conduct might excite suspicion, and, without looking round, she
said huskily:
"I do not feel well, and I do not like strangers--that is all. Don't
mind me--it is nothing."
"Why, what harm can strangers do you? I never saw any one like you in
my life, Miss Randall. Wouldn't you like to see Mr. Wildair? I'm sure
you seem fond enough of reading about him. Papa told me to persuade you
to join us at dinner that day."
"No! no! no! Not for ten thousand worlds!" cried Georgia, wildly. Then,
seeing her companion recoil and look upon her with evident alarm, she
turned hastily away, and sought refuge in the school-room.
Miss Maggie looked after her in comical bewilderment for a moment, and
then setting it down to "oddity," she danced off to practice "Casta
Diva," preparatory to taking Mr. Wildair's heart by storm singing it.
"I do hope he isn't married," thought Maggie, dropping on the piano
stool, and commencing with a terrific preparatory bang; "he is _so_
clever and _such_ a catch! My! wouldn't Felice be mad!"
All the next week Miss Randall was more of a puzzle to the Leonards than
ever before. Her moods were so changeable, so variable, so eccentric,
that it was not strange that she startled them. Mrs. Leonard declared
she was hysterical, or in the first stages of a brain fever; Miss Felice
pooh-poohed the notion, and said it was only the eccentricity of genius,
for Mr. Randall had said she was a genius, and he was infallible; while
Miss Maggie differed from both, and set it down to "oddity."
Fortunately, however, for Georgia, the whole house was in such an uproar
of preparation, and new furnishing and cooking, and there was such
distracting running up and down stairs from day-dawn till midnight, and
the house was so overrun with milliners and dressmakers, and they were
all so absorbed in those mysteries of flounces, and silks, and flowers,
and laces wherein the female heart delighteth, that she was left pretty
much to her own devices, and seldom ever disturbed.
At last the eventful day arrived. All the invitations had been accepted,
and Mr. Wildair, and Mr. Curtis, and Mr. Randall, and all the rest were
to come.
Through that whole day Georgia had seemed like one delirious. There was
a blazing fire in her eye, and two dark crimson spots, all unusual
there, burning on either cheek, bespeaking the consuming fever within.
How she ever got through her school duties she could not tell, but
evening came at last, and with it Georgia's excitement rose to a pitch
not to be endured. She could not stay there and hear them, perhaps see
them enter. She felt sure, even amid thousands, she would distinguish
_his_ step, hear _his_ voice; and who knew what desperate act it might
drive her to commit--perhaps to burst into the room, and in the presence
of all to fall at his feet and sue for pardon.
Unable to sit still, with wild gusts of conflicting passions sweeping
through her soul, she seized her hat and mantle and sought that panacea
for her "mind deceased," a long, rapid, breathless walk.
It was a delightful May evening, soft, and warm, and genial as in June.
There was an air of repose and deep stillness around; one solitary star
hung trembling in the sky, and brought to her mind the nights long past,
when she had sat at her little chamber window, and watched them shining
in their tremulous beauty far above her. Everything seemed at peace but
herself, and in her stormy heart was the Angel of Peace ever to take up
his abode?
On, and on, and on she walked. It was strange the charm rapid walking
had to soothe her wildest moods. Star after star shone out in the blue,
cloudless sky, and the last ray of daylight had faded away before she
thought of turning. Taking off her hat, and flinging back her thick,
dark hair, that the cool breeze might fan her fevered brow, she set out
at a more moderate pace for home.
It was a lonesome, unfrequented road especially after night. There was
another, new road, which had of late been made the public thoroughfare,
and this one was almost entirely deserted; therefore, Georgia was
somewhat surprised to see a man approaching her at a rapid pace. He was
a gentleman, too, and young and graceful--she saw that at a glance, but
in the dim starlight she could not distinguish his features, shaded as
they were by a broad-leafed hat. He stopped as he approached her, and
hurriedly said:
"Can you tell me, madam, if this road leads to the Widow O'Neil's?"
That voice! it sent a thrill to Georgia's inmost heart, as, with her
eyes riveted on his face, she mechanically replied:
"Yes; a little farther up there is a gate. Go through, and the road will
bring you to it."
"Thank you; I shall take a shorter way," said the stranger, lifting his
hat courteously, and turning rapidly away, but not before she had
recognized the pale, handsome face and beautiful, dark eyes of Charley
Wildair.
For an instant she stood, unable to speak. She saw him place one hand on
the fence, leap lightly over, and disappear, then, with a sort of cry,
she started after him. But ere she had taken a dozen steps some inward
feeling arrested her, and she stopped. What would he think of her
following him thus? He was no longer the boy Charley, any more than she
was the child Georgia. Might he not think prying curiosity had sent her
after him? Would he be disposed to renew the acquaintance? Perhaps,
too, he had recognized her, as she had him, and gave no sign. The
strange revelation of Richmond gave her a sort of dread of him, and
after a moment's irresolution, she turned and walked back.
The whole house was one blaze of light when she reached it. On the
dining-room windows were cast many shadows. Which among them was _his_?
Did either brother dream he was so near the other? Did Richmond dream
_she_ was so near him, and yet so far off? She could not enter the
house; her heart was throbbing so loudly that she grew faint and sick,
and she staggered to a sort of summer-house, thick with clustering
hop-vines, and sank down on a rustic bench, and buried her face in her
hands.
How long she had sat there alone in her trouble, and yet so near him who
had vowed to "cherish" her through all her trials until death, she could
not tell. Footsteps coming down the graveled walk startled her. The
odor of cigars came borne on the breeze, and then, with a start and a
shock she recognized the voice of Dick Curtis saying, with a laugh:
"I wonder if Ringlets has got through that appalling howl on that
instrument of torture, the piano, she was commencing when we beat a
retreat? It's a mercy I escaped or I should have gone stark staring mad
before the end."
"Come, now, Curtis, you're too severe," said a laughing voice, which
Georgia recognized as Mr. Randall's. "Ringlets, as you are pleased to
denominate Miss Felice, is only performing a duty every young lady
considers she owes to society nowadays, deafening her hearers by those
tremendous crashes and flourishes, and crossing her hands, and flying
from one end of the piano to the other with dizzying rapidity."
"And it's a duty they never neglect, I'll say that for them," said Mr.
Curtis. "And that's what they call fashionable music, my friend? Oh, for
the good old days, when girls weren't ashamed to sing 'Auld Robin Gray'
and the 'Bonnie Horse of Airlie.' The world's degenerating every day.
Thank the gods, we have escaped the infliction, anyhow. Here's a seat;
suppose we sit down, and, with our soul in slippers, take the world
easy. Poor Wildair! he's in for being martyrized this evening."
"So much for being a lion," said Mr. Randall. "If he will persist in
being a burning and shining light, he must expect to pay the penalty."
"Miss Maggie--little blue eyes, you know--has made a dead set at him.
Did you observe?" said Mr. Curtis.
"Yes; but I can't say she has met with much success, so far. If report
says true, she is not the only young lady who has tried that game of
late."
"Poor Rich!" said Curtis. "If they knew but all, they would find how
useless it was doing any thing of the sort. I suppose you heard of that
sad affair that happened last winter?"
Oh, what would not Georgia have given to be a thousand miles off at that
moment! She writhed where she lay; it was like tearing half-healed
wounds violently open to sit there and listen to this. But move she
could not without discovering herself to Curtis, so she was forced to
remain where she was, and hear all.
"No, I can't say as I have," said Mr. Randall, in a tone of interest.
"There are so many rumors afloat about his wife--suppose you allude to
that--but one cannot even tell for certain whether he was ever married
or not."
"Oh, he was; no mistake about it," said Curtis; "I was present--was
groomsman, in fact. Such a magnificent creature as she was. I never saw
a girl so splendid before or since! beautiful as the dream of an
opium-eater, with a pair of eyes that would have made the fortune of
half a dozen ordinary women. By George! that girl ought to have been an
empress."
"Indeed! I should think Wildair _would_ be fastidious in the choice of a
wife. How came they to separate in so short a time? Did she not love
him?"
"Yes, with her whole heart and soul; in fact, I believe, she loved
nothing in earth or heaven but him, but then that is nothing strange,
for Richmond is a glorious fellow, and no mistake! But you see, she was
as poor as Job, and proud as Lucifer, with a high spirit that would dare
and defy the Ancient Henry himself--one of that kind of people who will
die sooner than yield an inch. Well, it appears his mother did not like
the match, and persisted in snubbing her, and making little of her
before folks and behind backs, in fact, treated her shamefully, until
she drove the poor girl to the verge of madness."
"And Wildair allowed her to do this?" said Randall, indignantly.
"Well, I don't know how it was, but he was blind to all; but I think the
truth of the matter is they deceived him, and only did it when he was
absent. There was a cousin there, a little female fiend, whom I should
admire to be putting in the pillory, who tried every means in her power
to make him jealous, and succeeded; and you don't need to be told a
jealous man will stop at nothing."
"Poor girl! poor Wildair! What an infernal shame."
"Wasn't it! You see, he had invited a party to his
country-seat--Richmond Hall they called it--and I was there among the
rest. Poor Mrs. Wildair had a wretched life of it, with them all set
against her. If she had been one of your meek, spiritless little
creatures, she would have drooped, and sunk under it, and died perhaps
of a broken heart, and all that sort of thing; or if she had been a
dull, spiritless young woman, she would have snapped her fingers in
their faces, and kept on, never minding. Unfortunately, she was neither,
but a sensitive, high-spirited girl, whom every slight wounds to the
quick, and you would hardly believe me if I were to tell you the change
one short week made in her--you would hardly have known her for the same
person. What with her mother-in-law's insults, her cousin-in-law's
sneers, her husband's jealousy and angry reproaches, and the neglects
and slights of most of the company, a daily stretch on the rack would
have been a bed of roses to it."
"Shameful! atrocious!" exclaimed Randall, impetuously. "How could
Wildair have the heart to treat her so? He couldn't have cared much
about her."
"Didn't he, indeed! That's all you know about it. If ever there was a
man loved his own wife, that man was Rich Wildair; but when a man is
jealous, you know, he becomes partially insane, and allowances must be
made for him. One night, this little vixen of a cousin I mentioned
somewhere before, began taunting Mrs. Wildair about her mother, telling
her she was no better than she ought to be, and calling herself all
sorts of scandalous names--one of the servants accidentally heard
her--until she maddened the poor girl so that, in a fit of passion, she
caught her and hurled her from her, with a shriek I will never forget
to my dying day. Of course, there was the old--what's his name--to pay,
immediately; but Freddy's injuries did not prove half so severe as she
deserved, and a piece of court-plaster did her business beautifully for
her. But you never saw any one in such a rage as Wildair was about it,
knowing it would be all over town directly. Three or four of the mean
crowd he had invited went off, declaring his wife was a lunatic, and
that they were afraid to stay in the same house with her. Wasn't that
pretty treatment, after his hospitality?"
"It's the way of the world, _mon ami_."
"And a very mean way it is. Well, Wildair went to his wife and said all
sorts of cutting things to her, was as sharp as a bottle of cayenne
pepper, in fact, and wound up by telling her he was going to apply for a
divorce, which he had no more notion of doing than I have of proposing
to one of the Misses Leonard to-morrow. She believed him, though, and,
driven to despair by the whole of them, made a moonlight flitting of it,
and from that day to this Richmond Wildair has never seen or heard of
his wife."
"Poor thing! it was a hard fate. What do you suppose has become of her?"
"Heaven knows! She left a note saying she had gone and would never
disgrace him more--these were her words--and bidding him an eternal
farewell. Wildair nearly went crazy; he was mad, I firmly believe, for
awhile, and it was as much as any one's life was worth to go near him.
He searched everywhere, offered enormous rewards for the least trace of
her, did everything man could do, in a word, to find her again; but it
was of no use, no one had seen or knew anything of her."
"Could she have destroyed herself?"
"Just as likely as not; she was the sort of desperate person likely to
do it, and she had no fear of death, or eternity, or anything that way.
Well, he was frantic when he found she was lost forever, and would have
given even every cent he was worth in the world for the least tidings of
her, dead or alive, but it was all a waste of ammunition; and, maddened
and despairing, he fled from the scene of disaster, sprang on board a
steamship bound for Europe, and was off. But he couldn't stay away; he
couldn't rest anywhere, so he came back, and plunged headlong into the
giddy maelstrom of politics, and became the man of the people--the
Demosthenes; the magnificent orator whose lips, to quote the _Political
Thunderbolt_, 'have been touched with coals of living fire;' a pleasant
simile, I should think. Poor Rich! they don't know the crucible of
suffering from which this fiery, impassioned eloquence has sprung.
Ambition will be to him for the rest of his mortal life, wife, and
family, and home, for he is not the man to dream for a second of ever
marrying again."
"A sad story! And yet he can smile, and jest, and talk gayly, as I heard
him half an hour ago, when he was the very life and soul of the
company."
"He must--it is expected of him; a man of the people must please the
people; and besides, he does it to drown thought; he tries to forget for
a time the gnawing remorse that, if indulged, would drive him mad. He
lives two lives--the inward and outward--and both as essentially
different as day from night. He believes himself the murderer of his
wife; in fact, an old lady who brought her up--for the girl was an
orphan--told him so, and would not look at him or let him in her house.
His mother, touched with remorse, confessed what she had done, and thus
he learned all his wife had so silently suffered. It was enough to drive
a more sober man insane, and that's the truth. Ah! there was more than
one sad heart after her when she went. Poor little Emily Murray! the
nicest, and best, and prettiest girl from here to sundown, was nearly
broken-hearted. I offered her my own hand and fortune, though I didn't
happen to have such an article about me, and she gave me my dismissal on
the spot. Heigho! Burnfield's done for poor old Rich and me."
"What! Burnfield, did you say?" exclaimed Randall, with a start.
"Yes, Burnfield. You have no objections to it, I hope?"
"You--did you know--did you ever happen to hear of a widow and a little
girl by the name of Darrell there?" said Mr. Randall, in an agitated
voice.
"Well, I should think I did--rather!" said Curtis emphatically. "The
widow died one night, and the little girl was brought up by one Miss
Jerusha Skamp of severe memory, and it's of her I have been talking for
the last half-hour, if you mean Georgia Darrell."
"What!" exclaimed Randall, wildly, as he sprang to his feet. "Do you
mean to tell me that Georgia Darrell grew up in Burnfield, and was the
wretched wife of Richmond Wildair?"
"Indeed I do," replied Curtis, with increasing emphasis. "Why, what the
dickens is the matter with you? What does all this mean?"
"Mean! Oh, man! man! Georgia Darrell was my _sister_!"