LOVE IS BITTER AND THE WHOLE WORLD GOES WRONG WHEN TWO LOVERS PART IN
ANGER FOREVER.
We must return to our beautiful heroine, little Jessie Bain.
When she turned her face from the Varrick mansion toward the cold and
desolate world, the girl's very heart seemed to stop still in her bosom.
Jessie Bain knew little of traveling--she had not the least idea how to
get to her uncle's, although she had made that trip once before. She
walked one street after the other in the vain hope of finding the depot.
At last, fairly exhausted, she found herself just outside the entrance
to Central Park.
Jessie entered the park, and sunk down on the nearest seat.
Among those sauntering past in the crowd was a tall, broad-shouldered
young man, who stopped abruptly as his bold black eyes fell upon the
lovely young face.
"Heavens! what a beauty!" he muttered, stopping short, under the
pretense of lighting a cigarette, and watching her covertly from under
his dark brows.
Seating himself unconcernedly on the further end of the bench, the
stranger continued to watch Jessie, who had not even the slightest
intimation of his presence.
He waited until the crowd thinned out, until only an occasional
straggler passed by; then he edged nearer the pretty little creature.
"Ahem!" he began, with a slight cough. After several ineffectual
attempts to attract her attention in this way, the stranger spoke to
her.
"A lovely day, isn't it?" he remarked.
"Are you speaking to me, sir?" asked Jessie Bain, in great displeasure.
"I am indeed so bold," he answered. "May I hope that you are not
offended with me for so doing, for I have a fancy to know such a pretty
young girl as yourself."
"I am offended!" cried Jessie Bain, indignantly. "I always supposed
before this that people could sit down in a public park without being
molested; but it seems not; so I shall move on!"
"So young, so beautiful, but so unkind," murmured the stranger, in a
melo-dramatic voice.
"I can not think that we are strangers. I must have seen you somewhere,
believe me," he went on, rising suddenly and walking close by her side
as she started down the path.
Jessie was now thoroughly frightened. She uttered a little, shrill cry.
"What are you doing that for?" hissed the man, clutching her arm. "You
will have the police after us. Walk along quietly beside me, you little
fool; I have something to say to you."
Terrified, Jessie only cried the louder and shriller, wrenching her arm
free from the stranger's grasp.
At that instant a young man, who had happened along, and who had heard
the cry, sprang with alacrity to the young girl's rescue.
"What is the matter?" he cried. "Is this fellow annoying you?"
Jessie knew the voice at once, and sprang forward. She had recognized
the voice of the young architect.
"Oh, save me--save me!" she cried.
Even before she had time to utter a word the young man had recognized
Jessie Bain; and that very instant the man who had dared thus annoy her
was measuring his full length on the grass, sent there by the young
architect's vigorous arm.
"I will have your life for this!" yelled the fellow, as he picked
himself up, but taking good care to keep well out of the reach of the
young girl's defender.
"What in the world are you doing in the park, and so far away from home,
Miss Jessie?" Moray, the young architect, asked.
Her lips quivered and her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"Varrick Place isn't home to me any longer, Mr. Moray," she sobbed. "I
have just left it to-day--left it forever. I wish I had never seen the
place. It has caused me no end of sorrow."
"I do not wish to pry into any of your affairs," he said, gently, as he
took her hand and walked slowly down the path with her; "but if you will
confide in me and tell me why you left, I might be able to help you."
Little by little he drew from the girl the whole terrible story, until
she had told him all.
Frank Moray's indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly restrain
himself from ejaculations of anger.
"Of course, if you have friends, it would ill become me to persuade you
not to go to them; but if you ask my advice, I would say: remain here
for a little while and look about you. Come home with me. I have a dear
old mother who will receive you with open arms. My cousin Annabel, too,
will be glad to welcome you. Come home and talk to mother and let her
advise you what to do. Will you come with me, Miss Jessie?"
The girl was only too glad to assent.
When Jessie had finished her story, the impulse was strong within the
young architect's breast to ask the girl to marry him, then and there.
He had never ceased caring for her from the first moment he had seen her
pretty face. But he told himself that it would seem too much like taking
an unfair advantage to say anything of love or marriage to her now.
Mrs. Moray received the stranger with motherly kindness.
"I have heard my son speak of you so often that I feel as though I were
well acquainted with you," she said, untying the girl's bonnet and
removing her mantle.
"Come here, Annabel, my dear," she said, turning to a young girl who sat
in a little low rocker by the sewing machine, "and welcome Miss Bain."
A slim, slight girl, in a jaunty blue cloth dress edged with white,
rose and came curiously forward, extending a little brown hand to
Jessie.
"I am very glad to see you, Miss Bain," she said; "for Frank has talked
of you so much."
"Won't you please call me Jessie?" returned the other. "No one has ever
called me Miss Bain before."
"Nothing would please me better," returned Annabel.
They spent a very pleasant evening, and then Annabel took Jessie off to
her room with her for the night.
Long after the two girls had retired Mrs. Moray and her son sat talking
the matter over, and it was not long before Mrs. Moray discovered that
her boy was deeply in love with pretty Jessie Bain.
Of course, like himself, she felt perfectly sure that the girl was
entirely innocent of what she had been accused of by Mrs. Varrick.
But the very idea of the theft sent a thrill of horror through her
heart. She must discourage her son's love for the girl, for she would
rather see him dead and buried than wedded to one upon whose fair name
ever so slight a stain rested. She said to herself that the girl's stay
beneath their cottage roof must be cut as short as possible.
It was decided that Jessie Bain should remain at the cottage of the
Morays until she had ample time to write to her uncle and receive his
reply.
Jessie mailed her letter before she went to sleep that night. Annabel
easily dropped off to slumber, but it was not so with Jessie; for had
not this been the most eventful day of her life?
How she wished Mrs. Varrick had not exacted a promise from her that she
would never again hold any communication with her son Hubert! Would he
believe her guilty when he returned home and his mother told him all
that had transpired?
She could imagine the horror on his face as he listened; and this
thought was so bitter to Jessie that she cried herself to sleep over it.
The third day of her stay a letter from her uncle came to her. Her
cousin was married and gone away, he wrote, and he would be only too
glad to forget and forgive by-gones.
Two days later, Frank Moray saw her safely on the train which would take
her as far as Clayton, where her uncle promised to meet her.
"If I write to you sometimes, will you answer my letters, little
Jessie?" asked Frank Moray, as he found her a seat in a well-crowded
car, and bent over her for the last glance into the girl's beautiful,
wistful face.
"Yes," she answered, absently.
For a moment his hand closed over hers; he looked at her with his whole
soul in his honest eyes, then he turned and quickly left her.
He stood on the platform and watched her sweet face at the window until
the train was out of sight, then he moved slowly away.
Jessie stared hard through the window, but she never saw any of the
scenes through which she was whirling so rapidly. Her thoughts were with
Hubert Varrick.
It was dusk when she reached her destination, and according to his
promise her uncle was at the depot to meet her.
It was with genuine joy that he hurried forward to greet the girl,
though they had parted but a few short months ago in such bitter anger.
"I am glad to get you back again, little Jessie," he declared, eagerly;
"and, as I wrote to you, we will let by-gones be by-gones, little girl,
and forget the past unpleasantness between us by wiping it out of our
minds as though it had never been. I missed you awfully, little one, and
I've had a lonesome time of it since your cousin went away. Home isn't
home to a man without a neat little woman about to tidy things up a bit
and make it cheerful."
How good it seemed to Jessie to have some one speak so kindly to her! He
was plain and homely, and coarse of speech, but he was the only being in
the whole wide world who really cared for her and offered her a shelter
in this her hour of need. But how desolate the place was, with its
little old-fashioned, low-ceiling kitchen, the huge fire-place on one
side, the cupboard on the other, whose chintz curtains were drawn back,
revealing the rows of cups and saucers and pile of plates of blue china,
more cracked and nicked than ever, and the pine table, with its
oil-cloth cover, and the old rag mat in the center of the floor!
The girl's heart sank as she looked around.
Could she make this place her home again? Its very atmosphere, redolent
with tobacco smoke and the strong odor of vegetables, took her breath
away.
Ah! it was very hard for this girl, whose only fortune was a dower of
poverty, and who had had a slight taste of wealth and refinement, to
come back to the old life again and fall into the drudgery of other
days.
She could not refuse her uncle when he pleaded to know where she went
and where she had been since the night he had driven her, in his mad
frenzy, out into the world.
He listened in wonder. The girl's story almost seemed like a fairy tale
to him. But as he listened to the ending of it--surely the saddest story
that ever was told by girlish lips--of how she had left the Varrick
mansion, and of what Mrs. Varrick had accused her of doing, his rage
knew no bounds.
"You might have known how it would all turn out!" he cried. "A poor
little field wren has no business in the gilded nest of the golden
eagle! You are at home again, little one. Think no more of those
people!"
How little he realized that this was easier said than done. Where one's
heart is, there one's thoughts are also.
The neighbors flocked in to see her. Every one was glad to have pretty,
saucy Jessie Bain back once more. But there was much mystery and silent
speculation as to where she had been.
The girls of the neighborhood seemed to act shy of her. Even her old
companions nodded very stiffly when they met her, and walked on the
other side of the street when they saw her coming.
The antagonism of the village girls was never so apparent until the
usual festivities of the autumn evenings approached.
It was the custom of the village maidens of Alexandria Bay to
inaugurate the winter sports by giving a Halloween party, and every one
looked forward to this with the wildest anticipation.
Jessie Bain had always been the moving spirit at these affairs, despite
the fact that they were generally held in the homes of some of the
wealthier girls, their houses being larger and more commodious.
The party, which was to be on a fine scale this year, was now the talk
of the little town.
But much to the sorrow and the amazement of Jessie Bain, day by day
rolled by without bringing her the usual invitation.
It wanted but two days now to the all-important party. Jessie had gotten
her dress ready for the occasion, thinking that at the last moment some
of the girls would come in person and invite her. Not that she cared so
much for the fun, after all, but her uncle was anxious that she should
go more among the young folks, as she used to do. It was simply to
please him that she would mingle among the crowd of youths and maidens.
At last the day of the Halloween party rolled round.
"Well," said her uncle, as he sat down to the breakfast table and waited
for her to set on the morning meal, "I suppose you're getting all your
fixings ready to have a big time with the young folks to-night?"
Before she could answer, there was the postman's whistle at the door. He
handed in a large, thick letter, and it was addressed to Jessie Bain.
Jessie turned the letter over and over, looking in wonder at the
superscription. The envelope contained something else besides the
letter--a newspaper clipping. This Jessie put on the table to look over
after she had finished the letter. It was a bright, newsy epistle,
brimming over with kindly wishes for her happiness, and ending with a
hope that the writer might see her soon.
"Who is it from?" asked her uncle.
The girl dutifully read it out for him.
"He seems to be a right nice young man, and quite taken up with you,
little Jess," he said, laughingly.
He saw by the distressed look on her face that this idea did not please
her.
"He would have to be a mighty nice fellow to get my consent to marry
you, my lass."
"Do not fear, uncle," she said; "you will never be called upon to give
your consent to that. He is very nice indeed, but not such a one as I
could give my heart to, I assure you."
"Then let me give you a word of advice; don't encourage him by writing
letters to him. But isn't there another part of the letter on the table
yonder you haven't read yet?"
"I had almost forgotten it," returned Jessie.
One glance as she spread it out at full length, then her face grew white
as death.
"Bless me! I shall be late!" declared her uncle, putting on his hat and
hurrying from the room.
She never remembered what he said as he passed out of the room. Her
heart, ay, her very soul, was engrossed in the printed lines before her.
In startling headlines she read the words:
"A NOTABLE MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE--MR. HUBERT VARRICK AND MISS NORTHRUP
WEDDED AT LAST."
Then followed an account of the grand ceremony; of a mansion decorated
with roses; a description of the marriage; the elaborate
wedding-breakfast served in a perfect bower of orchids and ferns; and
then the names of the guests, who numbered nearly a thousand.
Jessie Bain never finished the article. With a bitter cry she fell face
downward on the floor in a deep swoon.
It was an hour or more ere she returned to consciousness. With trembling
hands the girl tore the newspaper clipping into a thousand shreds, lest
her eyes should ever fall on it again.
"He is married--married!" she murmured; and the words seemed to fall
like ice upon her heart.
How strange it seemed! She remembered but too well the last time she had
looked upon his face.
Captain Carr did not come home for supper, and one of the neighboring
women dropped in to tell Jessie that he might not get home until far
into the night, for there had been a terrible accident on the river the
evening before, and his services were needed there.
Night came on, darkness settled down over the world; then one by one the
stars came out, and a full moon rose clear and bright in the heavens.
The sound of far-off strains of music and the echo of girlish laughter
suddenly fell upon her ears. Then it occurred to her that it must be
near midnight, that her companions of other days were in the midst of
their Halloween games in the big house on the hill.
Only the little brook at the rear of her uncle's garden separated the
grounds. Some subtle instinct which she could not follow drew Jessie's
steps to the brook.
The moon for a moment was hidden behind a cloud, but suddenly it burst
forth clear and bright in all its glory. For one brief instant the heart
in her bosom seemed to stand still.
Was she mad, or did she dream? Was it the figure of a man picking his
way over the smooth white rocks that served as stepping-stones across
the shallow stream, and coming directly toward her?
Midway he paused, and looked toward the cottage and the light which she
always placed in the window. Then the moon shone full upon his face, and
Jessie Bain looked at him with eyes that fairly bulged from their
sockets. His features were now clearly visible in the bright moonlight.
It was Hubert Varrick in the flesh, surely, or his wraith!
In that first rapid glance she seemed to live an age; then, for the
second time that day, a merciful unconsciousness seized her.
It was gray dawn when she regained her senses and crept back,
terror-stricken, to the house.
Was it the idle fancy of her own vivid imagination, or did she really
see the image of Hubert Varrick confronting her by the brook as the
midnight bells of All-Halloween rang out slowly and solemnly on the
crisp, chilly night air?
"I must be going mad--my brain must be turning," thought the girl,
shivering in every limb as she walked slowly back to the house.
The sun was up high in the heavens ere her uncle returned.
"Such a time as we've had, lass!" he cried, throwing down his cap. "A
steamer was wrecked the night before last, and all day yesterday and all
last night we were busy doing our utmost for the poor creatures who
barely escaped with their lives. We saved a good many who were in the
water for many hours, holding on to planks or life-preservers, and there
are many lost. It was the steamer 'St. Lawrence,' heavily laden, that
was to have connected with the boat for Montreal, for which most of the
passengers were bound. There is one woman whom they are bringing here. I
came on ahead to have you prepare a bed for her. Every house has been
called upon to give shelter to some one. It will make you a little more
work, lass, but it will only be for a little while."
"I shall be glad of the work, for it will occupy my time and attention,"
declared Jessie.
She had scarcely uttered the words ere the men were seen approaching
with their burden. They brought the woman in and placed her on Jessie's
little cot.
"Oh, how beautiful she is!" murmured Jessie, little dreaming who it was
that she was sheltering beneath that roof.