I have trusted you, Astra, even to blindness,--else I should not have
been indebted to others for the first intimations of things that I
ought to have seen for myself. I should have discovered what sort of
game you were playing, before the knowledge was forced upon me at the
hands of public rumor. I suppose that I ought to take shame to myself
for being so easily deceived;--I do,--nevertheless your shame is
certainly the greater for having so deceived me."
The flame in Astra's eyes was kindling brightly now, and her breath
came quick and short; nevertheless, it was in a tone of the coldest and
quietest dignity that she answered;--
"I am not quick at reading riddles--be so good as to tell me, plainly,
what you mean."
"As plainly as the subject allows," returned Doctor Remy, in a tone
that was in itself a taunt. "I mean that the names of Astra Lyte and
Bergan Arling are ringing together from one end of the town to the
other, in a way which, it may readily be believed, is not pleasant to
my ears. It is confidently asserted--and believed--that a secret
engagement exists between them. That is to say; the lady has long
admitted the gentleman to a degree of daily intimacy and familiarity,
which she could not with propriety have accorded to any other than her
promised husband;--some say, not even to him. Mr. Arling has been
observed to be in her studio for hours together; he has been seen
strolling with her in the outskirts of the town; the twain have been
noticed talking earnestly together in that out-of-the-way spot known as
the oak amphitheatre. On all these occasions the lady has been
observed to be so much the more demonstrative of the two, as to give
rise to the suspicion that the gentleman's sudden journey westward has
been taken, mainly, for the purpose of freeing himself from
entanglements not approved by his better judgment."
As these atrocious sentences fell, one by one, with distinct and
cutting emphasis, from Doctor Remy's lips, Astra rose to her feet; the
flush on either cheek settled into a vivid crimson spot, in the midst
of a deadly pallor; her eyes darted fire; her lips trembled with the
rush of an indignation too tumultuous, as yet, for word or action.
Noting these signs, Doctor Remy congratulated himself upon the
successful progress of his experiment. Already, the lioness was at
bay; with a little more provocation, she would think only of vengeance.
He resumed his statement. "At first, of course, I paid no attention to
these rumors; my ears and eyes were closed against them by that blind,
foolish trust in you, of which I have spoken. By and by, they came
thicker and faster, and in a shape to compel my consideration. I began
to understand that the possible heir of Bergan Hall possessed an
immense advantage over the humble physician;--although it might be well
to keep a hold on the latter until the former was secure, and his
inheritance certain. By way of two strings to the bow, there might be
two secret engagements. I commenced an investigation. I traced the
reports which I have mentioned back to their source--"
"You did!" interrupted Astra, with indignation that she could no longer
repress. "Instead of sending these foul slanders back down the throats
which invented them, you--" She stopped, choked by her bitter sense of
indignity and wrong.
"--took the pains to verify them," rejoined Doctor Remy, coolly
finishing her sentence. "Every accusation was established in the
mouths of several witnesses. Arling himself had spoken frankly, as
well as lightly, of his engagement, to more than one person."
"It is false, and you know it!" exclaimed Astra. "Mr. Arling is
incapable of such baseness."
"Never mind defending _him_," said Doctor Remy, with a curl of the lip.
"What have you to say for yourself?"
Astra walked to the door, and flung it wide open. "I have _that_ to
say," she replied, turning upon him with a look of ineffable scorn, and
a queenly gesture of dismissal. "Go!"
Doctor Remy stood for a moment irresolute, with an unwonted flush of
shame rising to his brow. The climax had not only come sooner than he
anticipated, but in an unexpectedly embarrassing shape,--a shape that
gave him a sudden, startling perception of the vileness of the task
which he had set himself to do. Naturally, he was inclined to be angry
with Astra for the action to which he owed this moment of
self-recognition; yet, on the whole, it was the most bewitching thing
that he had ever seen her do. Never had she attracted him so strongly
as while she thus stood pointing him to the door. Her free and noble
attitude, the wonderful vividness of her expression, the maidenly
dignity of her tacit refusal to descend for one moment to his level,
and discuss with him the points that he had raised, thrilled him with
involuntary admiration. It irked him to think that he must needs give
her up. Was there really no way to keep her, and at the same time win
Bergan Hall? He sent his thoughts back over the road which they had
trodden so often, during the past fortnight, and decided once more that
the risk was too great. He must persevere in the course upon which he
had entered. Nor did a little present mortification matter, in
comparison with hopeful progress. Astra was only helping him forward
in the way that he wished to go. How easily the affections and
passions of others became the puppets of his will!
Nevertheless, it was not without a softened, almost regretful, tone
that he finally said,--"If I go, Astra, you understand that our
engagement is at an end."
"Our engagement!" repeated Astra, looking at him with a kind of
scornful amaze. "How dare you insult me thus? I was never engaged to
you,--never!"
Doctor Remy stood aghast. For one moment, he believed that her senses
were taking leave of her.
"Never!" repeated Astra, with proud emphasis. "I was engaged," she
went on, after a moment, in an altered and tremulous tone, "to a
MAN,--a calm, wise, noble man,--not a monster, nor a piece of
mechanism. I was engaged to an earnest seeker after truth, a
courageous grappler with problems that other men shunned, an honest
speaker of his own thoughts and moulder of his own opinions,--a man
who, though he might be temporarily led astray by the very excess of
his virtues of candor, boldness, and integrity, would be sure to come
right in the end. He is dead,--or he never lived, except in my
imagination,--_requiescat in pace_. But to _you_,--a body without a
soul, an intellect without a heart, a will without a faith, a kind of
human beast of prey, intent on nothing but the gratification of his own
selfish ends,--to you I was never pledged. I would as soon have bound
myself to a corpse, or a calculating machine."
"This is plain talk, Astra," said Dr. Remy, growing pale with anger and
mortification. "If you were not a woman, it would be easier to answer
it."
"It is not only plain talk, but plain sight," replied Astra. "The
scales have fallen from my eyes; at last, I see you as you are. The
most that can be said for you, as well as in excuse for my late
infatuation (for I would not seem altogether despicable in my own
eyes), is that great and rich capabilities have been miserably
perverted, in your person. A grand soul has somehow been strangled
within you. Some hidden canker--beginning I know not when nor where,
but to which your surgeon's knowledge ought to have impelled you long
ago to put the surgeon's knife--has slowly eaten out everything that
was sound and good, in your moral system, and left nothing but
rottenness. And it is now too late for remedy. If it were not,--if
there were any hope that I could help to save you, by clinging to
you,--I think I have the strength and courage to do it. As it is, I
should only corrupt myself. Indeed, I fear it will be long ere I get
rid of the virus of doubt and captiousness, which, I find, you have
already introduced into my mind; and of which that figure" (she pointed
to the statue of clay) "is the legitimate outcome. You have given a
bias to my mode of thought, which has already shaken my faith to its
foundations,--and might, in time (but for the scathing commentary of
your life upon your opinions), have destroyed it. Leave me now. We
have done with each other."
Perhaps Dr. Remy's good angel, absent from his side for many years,
hovered, at that moment, above his head, with a wistful--almost a
hopeful--face. For, at last, the strong man was visibly affected.
Some chance word of Astra's had found a joint in his iron armor, and
penetrated to the living flesh. His lip trembled,--it may have been
with an unshaped prayer to Astra to make that effort to save him, of
which she had declared herself capable,--it may have been with a sudden
perception of the barrenness of his life, and the valuelessness of its
ends, disposing him, for a moment, to try whether any richer realities
were to be reaped from an unselfish human affection and an
unquestioning heavenly faith.
But not thus easily and quickly was the whole bent of a life to be
changed, not thus the holding of the cords of evil to be loosed!
Suddenly, between him and Astra, rose a vision of Bergan Hall, with its
immense revenues, its ancient and aristocratic _prestige_, the vast
power and influence that it would impart to capable hands, the abundant
means and leisure that it would allow for scientific pursuits. For, if
Doctor Remy lived for anything besides himself, it was for science. He
had managed to persuade himself that the interests of the two were
identical. He had embodied his selfishness, as it were, in a theory;
for the development, confirmation, and proclamation, of which, he
believed that he desired leisure and wealth, far more than for himself;
and through which he meant to be a benefactor to his race, as well as
to wreathe his own name with undying laurels. On the one hand, then,
was this wide prospect of wealth, freedom, usefulness, and fame; on the
other, Astra, and a life of restrictions and limitations, narrowed down
to the daily necessity of daily bread. Quickly he made his choice.
The angel spread his white wings, and flew upward,--never to return!
Doctor Remy turned to Astra, and held out his hand. "Let us part
friends," said he.
"Not so," replied Astra; "let us part--as we are to remain--strangers.
No need to mock the sacred past with the commonplace civilities of
ordinary intercourse. The relation that once existed between us is
simply dead, not changed into something else."
"As you will," returned Doctor Remy, after a pause. "At least let me
wish you a short mourning, and a bright thereafter. Adieu."
He went out as he spoke, closing the door behind him. In his
excitement, he used more force than he was aware of, and it fell to
with a clangor that reverberated loudly through the large, uncarpeted
room, and jarred painfully upon Astra's nerves. She shivered, and her
eyes fell upon the clay figure. Apparently, it was trembling with
sympathetic emotion; it even bent toward her, as if suddenly endued
with life; for one moment, the old fable of Pygmalion seemed coming
true, in her modern experience. Then, the limbs gave way, the trunk
fell forward, down went Bearer and Child together, the faces of each
giving her one last, distorted look of malign meaning, ere they crushed
into fragments on the platform.
"It is not the only ruin that he has left behind him," murmured Astra
to herself, with a sad and bitter smile.
In another moment, she too began to sink. The long fever of suspense
was ended; the excitement that had carried her through the late trying
interview was over; the inevitable time of reaction and depression had
come. The thought of the terrible blank left in her heart and life, of
the woful loss of affection, faith, and hope, that she had suffered, of
the miserable waste in her past, and of the chaotic emptiness in her
future, came over her with awful force. Slowly she sank, as if an
invisible weight were pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her
knees, she leaned her head on the ruins of her statue, and shook with
sobs of tearless agony.
She knew not how long a time went by thus; it seemed to her to stretch
its slow length over an age. But it is a merciful provision that acute
sorrow soon exhausts itself. The mind, like the body, has beneficent
limits to its power of endurance. In due time, Astra exchanged the
anguish of wretchedness for its torpor. Her sobs died away, the
convulsive trembling of her frame ceased, she sat up and looked around
her with a face of quiet misery. Perhaps it was a little hard, too.
Her pride was coming to her aid in bearing the burden for which, she
told herself, she was largely accountable, and must therefore struggle
along with as best she could. It was miraculously heavy, it would tax
all her strength and resolution, she saw that plainly enough; but she
forgot to look into it for any sign of divine origin, or promise of
divine help. The baleful effect of Doctor Remy's influence still
followed her, making God an overhanging Law, instead of a surrounding
Love. She could not even read aright the lesson of her own fragments
of clay!
She was struggling up to her feet, when Mrs. Lyte hurriedly entered,
holding an open letter in her hand, and looking both frightened and
bewildered. Perhaps nothing could have been better for either mother
or daughter, at that moment, than to see the other's troubled face. In
both countenances, there was a quick change of expression,--something
of sorrow and anxiety gone, something of loving sympathy in its
place,--as each uttered the eager inquiry;--
"What is the matter?"
Fortunately, Astra was not obliged to answer. Mrs. Lyte instantly
discovered the fallen statue, and connected it, though not without a
degree of surprise, with her daughter's woe-begone face. For Astra had
been wont to bear disaster with more fortitude! Still, this was the
largest work that she had yet undertaken; besides, she had seemed so
far from well, of late! Mrs. Lyte's heart thrilled with motherly
sympathy.
"I am so sorry!" she said, pityingly. "Is it an utter ruin?"
"Utter," replied Astra, with dreary emphasis. "But never mind about it
now. What has happened to distress you?"
Mrs. Lyte put the letter into Astra's hand. "Read that," said she,
"and see what you can make of it."
It was not without difficulty, under the pressure of her own misery,
that Astra made herself comprehend the purport of the document before
her, through the disguise of the legal terms wherein it had duly been
couched by the lawyer employed by Major Bergan. With enlightenment,
however, strange to say, came a quick sense of relief. Here, at least,
was a necessity for action; and the trouble which is attended by that,
is never so great as one which calls only for patient endurance.
Besides, how glad would she be to leave Berganton at this juncture, to
escape at once from its curiosity, its sympathy, or its censure, to be
spared the pain of meeting Doctor Remy's altered face, and the
irksomeness of going on with the old life, in the old scene, after it
had lost all the old color and substance. Her face brightened so much,
as she looked up from the letter, that Mrs. Lyte gave a sigh of relief.
"Then it is not so bad as I thought," said she.
Astra's heart smote her for her selfishness. She reflected what grief
it would cause her mother to be thrust out from the home endeared to
her by so many and sacred associations. Her face fell, and her heart
sank again. Covering her eyes with her hands, she burst into a sudden
passion of tears,--a softer agony than had shaken her before, but still
so plainly an agony disproportionate to the occasion, that Mrs. Lyte's
eyes suddenly opened to the perception of some hitherto unsuspected
sorrow. She put her arms round her daughter, and drew her head on to
her bosom, as in the days of her childhood.
"What is it, darling?" she asked.
The soft tone, the affectionate touch, the motherly sympathy, were
irresistible. Before she well knew what she was doing, Astra was
pouring forth all her sad story.
"Oh, mother!" she moaned, as she finished, "if we could only go
away,--just for a time, at least, until I have recovered myself a
little! If we could only go at once, too, without explanations or
farewells!"
"We will, my child," returned Mrs. Lyte, soothingly,--"that is, if I
can manage it."
Then followed a long consultation.
VIII.
A BUSINESS LETTER.
From Astra's studio, Doctor Remy went to his office, and devoted an
hour to the task of writing a letter; which seemed to make an unusual
demand upon his skill, either of composition or penmanship. Three
different sheets were defaced and destroyed, ere the work was
accomplished to his mind. The epistle was addressed to Mrs. Lyte,
enclosing what purported to be the amount of an old, outlawed debt to
her deceased husband; of which the debtor, having recently met with a
stroke of good fortune, was glad to relieve his conscience. In good
time, after making a short _détour_, it arrived at its destination; and
played an important part in events, by furnishing Mrs. Lyte with an
opportune sum of ready money.
Five days afterward, as Major Bergan was about to sally forth for his
customary morning visit to his beloved rice fields, a letter was put
into his hands. It ran as follows:
"DEAR MAJOR BERGAN: I duly received your notice of foreclosure, and I
thank you for the measure of forbearance that you have hitherto
exercised toward me. As you are doubtless aware, I have no means of
paying off the mortgage, except by the sale of the property which it
covers. As I am about to leave Berganton, for a time, on account of my
daughter's health, I hereby surrender my house and grounds into your
hands, to be sold, or otherwise disposed of, as you may deem best for
our mutual interests. If they sell for more than the amount of the
mortgage (as I hope they will), I know I may safely trust to you, as a
man of honor, and a good friend of my late husband, to hold the balance
subject to my order. You will find the house in charge of my old and
faithful servant, Cato; whom I also venture to commend to your kind
care, until I shall be able to send for him. I cannot find it in my
heart to sell him; besides, he is too old to be of much value, though
still quite able to earn his bread, on your plantation.
"This is not a man's way of doing business, I am well aware; it is only
a woman's way of shirking responsibility, in matters that she does not
understand. I know that my interests are safer in your hands than in
my own. As soon as I am comfortably settled anywhere, I will let you
know my address. Till then, believe me,
"Very truly yours,
"CATHERINE LYTE."
It will be seen that this epistle was a masterpiece of diplomacy, in
its way. Though it proved Mrs. Lyte to be a most unbusiness-like
woman, it none the less evinced her thorough knowledge of the one-sided
and contradictory character of the man with whom she had to deal.
Grasping and impracticable as Major Bergan would be sure to be, with a
surly and obstinate debtor who met him squarely on his own ground, she
believed that he would not fail to show himself scrupulously just, and
even generous, to the woman who, without a word of reproach or
remonstrance, quietly resigned herself and her affairs into his hands,
to be dealt with according to his good pleasure.
In this conclusion, she was justified by the event. A more astonished
and disgusted man than Major Bergan, after he had mastered the contents
of her letter, it would be hard to find. For once, even his brandy
bottle was empty of comfort. He could only partially relieve his mind,
while his horse was being saddled, by pouring forth volley upon volley
of curses; distributed, impartially, at first, among Mrs. Lyte, Doctor
Remy, his nephew, his frightened servants, and himself. Later, his
wrath began to concentrate itself on Doctor Remy. That personage had
undoubtedly influenced him to the commission of the act which he now
stigmatized, in his most emphatic manner, as unworthy a Bergan and a
gentleman. In return, he threatened to break every bone in the
doctor's body, and grimly consigned the fragments to a place of deposit
always much in favor with men of his habits. Finally, he mounted his
horse, and trotted rapidly toward Berganton.
His first visit was, of course, to Doctor Remy. With the most
imperturbable good humor, that gentleman listened to the flow of his
oaths and objurgations, until it had partially exhausted itself by its
own fury. He then assured the Major that his surprise and regret at
Mrs. Lyte's departure were fully equalled by his own. The thing had
been managed so quietly and adroitly, that he had not suspected it,
until his attention had been attracted by the deserted look of the
house. At the same time, he must acknowledge that it was only a short
time since he had advised Mrs. Lyte to try a change of air, both for
herself and her daughter; and doubtless that had had its share in
influencing her action. Besides, it was on the whole the best thing
that could do to take Miss Astra out of the way, until the present
cloud of gossip had blown over. Finally, he threw out a suggestion
that the twain had possibly gone to join Mr. Arling.
Hereupon, Major Bergan's wrath broke out afresh. It was not in human
nature--certainly not in that particular species of human nature
represented by the Major--to hear with equanimity that the very measure
which he had taken to prevent what he considered to be an unsuitable
marriage, had possibly availed to hasten it forward. The walls of the
doctor's office trembled with the oral thunderbolts launched at the
offenders. In due time, however, these also subsided into the low
growl of the exhausted tempest; dying away, at last, in muttered
imprecations upon that curious turn of events--the grim humor of which
the Major was now quite capable of appreciating--which had made him the
trustee of Mrs. Lyte's affairs, and the guardian of her interests.
To the Major's credit be it spoken, that he was incapable of betraying
the trust thus committed to him. Quitting Doctor Remy's office, he
went in search of old Cato, put the premises in his charge during the
absence of his mistress, promised him an occasional visit of inspection
(and a sound thrashing if all was not found in complete order), made
due provision for his maintenance, and then took himself grumblingly
home, to drown the remnant of his chagrin in the Lethean glass that had
already swallowed up so many of his better thoughts, impulses, and
characteristics.
Of course, Mrs. Lyte's departure--or flight, as it was not infrequently
termed--made the nine days' wonder of Berganton. Some few gentle,
charitable souls there were, no doubt, who, judging their neighbor by
themselves, saw no harm either in the fact or the manner of her going.
She was ill; so was her daughter; they had neither time nor heart for
leavetakings. But there were others, wise in the crooked ways of the
human heart through much practice therein, who scrupled not to find
motives and objects for the course of the pale-faced widow and her
gifted daughter, with which it is not necessary to stain this page.
There was the more room for this, inasmuch as Major Bergan, partly out
of consideration for Mrs. Lyte, and partly out of shame on his own
account, had taken care that the existence of the mortgage should not
transpire. Yet Mrs. Lyte had depended upon the ultimate disclosure of
this fact, to furnish that explanation of her departure which she had
shunned to give herself, and to turn the current of popular sympathy in
her favor. In yielding to Astra's morbid desire not only to leave the
scene of her untoward love behind, but to do it in such swift and
silent wise that neither curiosity, nor sympathy, nor malevolence,
could immediately follow them, to inflict their various torture upon
her sore heart, Mrs. Lyte had looked confidently forward to this
forthcoming justification of her step. Her old friends, she thought,
would be sure to understand the feeling that led her to flee from the
sight of the sale of her lifelong home (it might be under the
auctioneer's hammer), and to shut off all means of communication
between herself and the painful transaction, until time had given her
strength to bear it.