GREAT PROSPERITY.
Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us anything.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Alden Lytton prospered wonderfully. Not once in a thousand instances can
a young professional man get on as fast as he did.
Usually the young lawyer or doctor has to wait long before work comes to
him, and then to work long before money comes.
It was not so with Alden Lytton.
As soon as he opened his office business came in at the door.
His first brief was a success.
His second, and more difficult one, was a still greater victory.
His third, and most important, was the greatest triumph of the three.
And from this time the high road to fame and fortune was open to him.
The astonishing rapidity of his rise was explained in various ways by
different persons.
Emma Cavendish, who loved and esteemed him, ascribed his great
prosperity to his own splendid talents alone.
Alden Lytton himself, full of filial respect, attributed it to the
prestige of his late father's distinguished name.
And the briefless young lawyers, his unsuccessful rivals at the bar,
credited it to the "loud" advertisement afforded by his handsome office
and the general appearance of wealth and prosperity that surrounded him.
No doubt they were all right and--all wrong.
Not one of these circumstances taken alone could have secured the young
barrister's success. Neither his own talents nor his father's name, nor
the costly appointments of his office, could have done it; yet each
contributed something, and all together they combined to insure his
rapid advancement in his profession.
While Alden Lytton was thus gaining fame and fortune, Mary Grey was
engaged in mystifying the minds and winning the sympathy and compassion
of all her acquaintances.
From the time of her return from Philadelphia she had exhibited a deep
and incurable melancholy.
Everybody pitied her deeply and wondered what could be the secret sorrow
under which she was suffering.
But when any friend more curious than the rest ventured to question her,
she answered:
"I have borne and am still bearing the deepest wrong that any woman can
suffer and survive. But I must not speak of it now. My hands are bound
and my tongue is tied. But the time _may_ come when a higher duty than
that which restrains me now may force me to speak. Until then I must be
mute."
This was extremely tantalizing to all her friends; but it was all that
could be got from her.
Meanwhile her face faded into a deadlier pallor and her form wasted to a
ghastlier thinness. And this was real, for she was demon-haunted--a
victim of remorse, not a subject of repentance.
The specter that she had feared to look upon on the fatal night of her
crime--the pale, dripping form of her betrayed and murdered lover--was
ever before her mind's eye.
If she entered a solitary or a half-darkened room the phantasm lurked in
the shadowy corners or met her face to face.
It came to her bedside in the dead of night and laid its clammy wet hand
upon her sleeping brow. And when she woke in wild affright it met her
transfixed and horrified gaze.
Her only relief was in opium. She would stupefy herself every night with
opium, and wake every morning pale, haggard, dull and heavy.
She must have sunk under her mental suffering and material malpractices
but for the one purpose that had once carried her into crime and now
kept her alive through the terror and remorse that were the natural
consequences of that crime. She lived only for revenge--
"Like lightning fire,
To speed one bolt of ruin and expire!"
"I will live and keep sane until I degrade and destroy both Alden Lytton
and Emma Cavendish, and then--I must die or go mad," she said to
herself.
Such was her inner life.
Her outer life was very different from this.
She was still, to all appearance, a zealous church woman, never missing
a service either on Sundays or on week-days; never neglecting the
sewing-circles, the missionary meetings, the Sunday-schools, or any
other of the parish works or charities, and always contributing
liberally to every benevolent enterprise from the munificent income paid
her quarterly by Miss Cavendish.
Since her return from Philadelphia she had not resumed her acquaintance
with Alden Lytton.
They did not attend the same church, and were not in the same circle. It
was a very reserved "circle" in which Mary Grey "circulated;" while
Alden Lytton sought the company of professional and scholarly men.
Thus for months after their return to Richmond they did not meet.
Alden Lytton in the meanwhile supposed her to be still in Philadelphia,
filling a position as drawing-mistress in the ladies' college.
It was early in the winter when they accidentally encountered each other
on Main Street.
On seeing her form approach, Alden Lytton stepped quickly to meet her,
with an extended hand and a bright smile; but the next instant he
started in sorrowful surprise, as his eyes fell on her pallid face, so
changed since he had seen it last.
"My dear Mrs. Grey, I am so glad to see you! I hope I see you well," he
added, as he took her hand, but his looks belied his "hope."
"I am not well, thank you," she answered plaintively, and her looks did
not belie her words.
"I am very sorry to hear it. How long have you been in the city?" he
next inquired, holding her hand and looking at her with eyes full of
pity.
"I have been back some time," she answered, vaguely. "I was forced to
leave my situation from failing health."
"I did not know that you had returned or I should have called on you
before this. But," he added, perceiving her physical weakness, "I am
wrong to keep you standing here. I will turn about and walk with you
while we talk. Which way are you going? Will you take my arm?"
"Thanks, no, Mr. Lytton. I can not take your arm; and neither, if you
will forgive me for saying it, can I receive a visit from you. The world
is censorious, Alden Lytton. And in my lonely and unprotected position I
dare not receive the visits of gentlemen," she answered, pensively.
"That seems hard, but doubtless it is discreet. However, that will all
be changed, I hope, in a little while. In a very few months, I trust,
your home will be with my beloved wife and myself. I know it is Emma's
desire that you should live with us," he said, still kindly holding her
thin hand.
"Is your wedding to come off so soon?" she inquired.
"Yes, in a few weeks, and then we are to go to Europe for a short
holiday, and afterward take a house in the city here," said Alden,
smiling.
"I wish you every joy in your wedded life. And now, Mr. Lytton, you must
let me go," she said, wearily.
"One moment. You do not write to Emma often, do you? I ask because only
a week ago, in one of her letters to me, Miss Cavendish wrote that she
had not heard from you for nearly three months, and requested me to find
out your address, if possible. I wrote back in reply that I believed you
to be at the Ladies' College, in Philadelphia," he said, still detaining
her hand.
"I am a bad correspondent. My hand is still lame. Just before I left
here for Philadelphia I sent Miss Cavendish an acknowledgment of the
last quarterly sum she sent me. I told her then that I was about to go
to Philadelphia on particular business. I have not written to her
since."
"And that was nearly three months ago. That is just what the matter is.
She wishes to find out your address, so as to know where to send the
next quarterly instalment of your income, which will soon be due."
"Tell her that I have returned to this city, and that my address is the
same as that to which she last wrote."
"I will; but do you write to her also. I know she is anxious to hear
directly from you."
"I will do so," she replied; "though I am the worst possible
correspondent. Now good-day, Mr. Lytton."
"If I may not call to see you, at least I hope that you will let me know
if ever I can serve you in any manner," he said, gently, as he pressed
the pale hand he had held so long and relinquished it.
They parted then, and saw no more of each other for some days.
Alden went on his office, full of pity for the failing woman, who, he
said to himself, could not possibly have many months to live.
But his feelings of painful compassion were soon forgotten in his
happiness in finding a letter from Emma Cavendish lying with his
business correspondence on his desk.
There was really nothing more in it than appeared in just such letters
that he received two or three times a week; only she told him that she
had written to Mrs. Grey at the Ladies' College, Philadelphia, and had
not received any answer to her letter.
Before doing any other business, Alden Lytton took a half-quire of
note-paper and dashed off an exuberant letter to his lady-love, in
which, after repeating the oft-told story of her peerless loveliness and
his deathless devotion, he came down to practical matters, and spoke of
their mutual friend Mary Grey. He told Emma that Mrs. Grey was in the
city again, where she had been for some weeks, although he had not been
aware of the fact until he had met her that morning on Main Street while
on the way to his office.
He told her of "poor Mary Grey's" failing health and spirits and ghastly
appearance, and suggested those circumstances as probable reasons why
she had not written to her friends during the last three months.
Then he went back to the old everlasting theme of his infinite, eternal
love, etc., etc., etc., and closed with fervent prayers and blessings
and joyful anticipations.