SCENE. _A Chamber partly darkened, the morning air steals faintly
through the half-open shutters. Helen before the mirror,
leaning upon the toilette, her face buried in her hands,
her long hair unbound, and flowing on her shoulders_.
(_Annie enters_.)
_Annie_. Helen! Why, Helen, are you asleep there? Come, we are going
now. After keeping us on tiptoe for hours, the summons has come at last.
Indeed, there is hardly time for you to dress. Shall I help you?
_Helen_. (_Rising slowly_.) God help me. Bid my mother come here, Annie.
_Annie_. What ails you, Helen?--there is no time,--you do not understand
me,--there is not one moment to be lost. Let me wind up this hair for you.
_Helen_. Let go!--Oh God----
_Annie_. Helen Grey!
_Helen_. It was a dream,--it was but a foolish dream. It must not be
thought of now,--it will never do. Bid my mother come here, I am ready
now.
_Annie_. Ready, Helen!--ready?--in that dressing-gown, and your
hair--see here,--are you ready, Helen?
_Helen_. Yes,--bid her come.
_Annie_. Heaven only knows what you mean with this wild talk of yours,
but if you are not mad indeed, I intreat you, sister, waste no more of
this precious time.
_Helen_. No, no,--we must not indeed. It was wrong, but I could
not--go,--make haste, bid her come.
_Annie_. She is crazed, certainly!
[_Goes out_.
(_Helen stands with her arms folded, and her eye fixed on the door_.)
(_Mrs. Grey enters_.)
_Mrs. G_. My child! Helen, Helen! Why do you stand there thus?
_Helen_. Mother----
_Mrs. G_. Nay, do not stay to speak. There--throw this mantle around
you. Where is your hat?--not here!--Bridal gear!
(_George enters_.)
_George_. On my word! Well, well, stand there a little longer, to dress
those pretty curls of yours, and--humph--there's a style in vogue in
yonder camp for rebels just now; we'll all stand a chance to try, I
think.
_Helen_. George!--George Grey!--Be still,--be still.--We must not think
of that. It was a dream.
_George_. Is my sister mad?
_Helen_. Mother--
_Mrs. G_. Speak, my child.
_Helen_. Mother--my blessed mother,--(_aside_.) 'Tis but a brief
word,--it will be over soon.
_Mrs. G_. Speak, Helen.
_Helen_. I cannot go with you, mother.
_Mrs. G_. Helen?
_George_. Not go with us?
_Mrs. G_. Helen, do you know what you are saying?
_George_. You are in jest, Helen; or else you are mad,--before another
sunset the British army will be encamping here.
_Helen_. Hear me, mother. A message from the British camp came to me
last night,--
_Mrs. G_. The British camp?--Ha!--ha! Everard Maitland! God forgive him.
_Helen_. Do not speak thus. It was but a few cold and careless lines he
sent me,--my purpose is my own.
_Mrs. G_. And--what, and he does not know?--Helen Grey, this passes
patience.
_Helen_. He does, Here is the answer that has just now come; for I have
promised to meet him to-day at the hut of the missionary in yonder
woods.--I can hardly spell these hasty words; but this I know, he will
surely come for me,--though he bids me wait until I hear his signal,--so
I cannot go with you, mother.
_Mrs. G_. Where will you go, Helen?
_Helen_. Everard is in yonder camp;--where should the wife's home be?
_Mrs. G_. The wife's?
_Helen_. These two years I have been his bride;--his wedded wife I shall
be to-day. Yonder dawns my bridal day.
_George_. What does she say? What does Helen say? I do not understand
one word of it.
_Mrs. G_. She says she will go to the British camp. Desertions thicken
upon us. Hark!--they are calling us.
_George_. To the British camp?
_Mrs. G_. Go down, George, go down. Your sister talks wildly and
foolishly, what you should not have heard, what she will be sorry for
anon; go down, and tell them they must wait for us a little,--we will be
there presently.
_George_. Hark! (_going to the door_.)--another message. Do you
hear?--Helen may be ready yet, if she will.
_Mrs. G_. Blessed delay! Go down, George; say nothing of this. There is
time yet. Tell them we will be there presently.
(_George goes out_.)
_Mrs. G_. Did you think I should leave you here to accomplish this
frantic scheme?--Did you dream of it, and you call me mother?--but what
do you know of that name's meaning? Do not turn away from me thus, my
child; do not stand with that fixed eye as though some phantom divinity
were there. I shall not leave you here, Helen, never.
Come, come; sit down with me in this pleasant window, there is time
yet,--let us look at this moonlight scheme of yours a little. Would you
stay here in this deserted citadel, alone? My child, our army are
already on their march. In an hour more you would be the only living
thing in all this solitude. Would you stay here alone, to meet your
lover too?--Bethink yourself, Helen.
_Helen_. This Canadian girl will stay with me, and----
_Mrs. G_. A girl!--Helen, yesterday an army's strength, the armies of
the nation, the love of mother, and brothers, and sisters, all seemed
nothing for protection to your timid and foreboding thought; and now,
when the enemy are all around us,--do you talk of a single girl? Why,
the spirit of some strange destiny is struggling with your nature, and
speaks within you, but we will not yield to it.
_Helen_. You have spoken truly, mother. There is one tie in these hearts
of ours, whose strength makes destiny, and where that leads, there lie
those iron ways that are of old from everlasting. This is Heaven's
decree, not mine.
_Mrs. G_. Do not charge the madness of this frantic scheme on Heaven, my
child.
_Helen. Everard!_--no, no, I cannot show to another the lightning flash,
that with that name reveals my destiny,--yet the falling stone might as
soon--question of its way. Renounce him?--you know not what you ask! all
there is of life within me laughs at the wild impossibility.
Mother, hear me. There is no danger in my staying here,--none real. The
guard still keep their station on yonder hill, and the fort itself will
not be wholly abandoned to-day. Everard will come for me at noon.--It is
impossible that the enemy should be here ere then; nay, the news of this
unlooked-for movement will scarce have reached their camp.--_Real_
danger there is none, and--Do not urge me. I know what you would say;
the bitter cost I have counted all, already, all--_all_. That Maitland
is in yonder camp, that--is it not a strange blessedness which can
sweeten anguish such as this?--that he loves me still, that he will come
here to-day to make me his forever,--this is all that I can say, my
mother.
_Mrs. G_. Will you go over to the British side, Helen? Will you go over
to the side of wrong and oppression? Would you link yourself with our
cruel and pursuing enemy? Oh no, no no,--that could not be--never, Amid
the world of fearful thoughts that name brings, how could we place your
image? Oh God, I did not count on this. I knew that this war was to
bring us toil, and want, and fear, and haply bloody death; and I could
have borne it unmurmuringly; but--God forgive me,--that the child I
nursed in these arms should forsake me, and join with our deadly foes
against us--I did not count on this.
_Helen_. Yes--that's the look,--the very look--all night I saw it;--it
does not move me now, as it did then. It is shadows of these things that
are so fearful, for with the real comes the unreckoned power of
suffering. Mother, this dark coil hath Heaven wound, not we. The tie
which makes his path the way of God to me, was linked ere this war
was,--and war cannot undo it now. It is a bitter fate, I know,--a bitter
and a fearful one.
_Mrs. G_. Ay, ay,--thank God! You had forgotten, Helen, that in that
army's pay, nay, all around us even now are hordes and legions.
_Helen_. I know it,--I know it all. I do indeed.
_Mrs. G_. Helen, will you place yourself defenceless amidst that savage
race, whose very name from your childhood upwards, has filled you with
such strange fear? Yesterday I chid you for those fancies,--I was
wrong,--they were warnings, heaven-sent, to save you from this doom.
What was that dream you talked of then?
_Helen_. Dreams are nothing. Will you unsay a life's lessons now when
most I need them?
_Mrs. G_. Yesterday, all day, a shadow as of coming evil lay upon me,
but now I remember the forgotten vision whence it fell. Yesternight I
had a dream, Helen, such as yours might be; for in my broken and fevered
slumbers, wherever I turned, one vision awaited me. There was a savage
arm, and over it fell a shower of golden hair, and ever and anon, in the
shadowy light of my dream, a knife glittered and waved before me. We
were safe, but over one,--some young and innocent and tender one it
was--there hung a hopeless and inexorable fate. Once methought it seemed
the young English girl that was wedded here last winter, and once she
turned her eye upon me--Ha!--I had forgotten that glance of
agony--surely, Helen, it was _yours_.
_Mrs. G_. Helen! my child--(_Aside_.) There it is, that same curdling
glance,--'twas but a dream, Helen. Why do you stand there so white and
motionless--why do you look on me with that fixed and darkening
eye?--'twas but a dream!
_Helen_. And where were you?--tell me truly. Was it not by a gurgling
fountain among the pine trees there? and was it not noon-day in your
dream, a hot, bright, sultry noon, and a few clouds swelling in the
western sky, and nothing but the trilling locusts astir?
_Mrs. G_. How wildly you talk; how should I remember any thing like
this?
_Helen_. I will not yield to it; tempt me not. 'Tis folly all, I know it
is. Danger there is none. Long ere yonder hill is abandoned, Everard
will be here; and who knows that I am left here alone, and who would
come here to seek me out but he? Oh no, I cannot break this solemn faith
for a dream. What would he give to know I held my promise and his love
lighter than a dream? I must _stay_ here, mother.
_Mrs. G_. No, my child. Hear me. If this must be indeed, if all my holy
right in you is nothing, if you will indeed go over to our cruel enemy,
and rejoice in our sorrows and triumph in our overthrow----
_Helen_. Hear her----
_Mrs. G_. Be it so, Helen,--be it so; but for all that, do not stay here
to-day. Bear but a little longer with our wearisome tenderness, and wait
for some safer chance of forsaking us. Come.
_Helen_. If I could--Ah, if I could----
_Mrs. G_. You can--you will. Here, let me help you, we shall be ready
yet. No one knows of this wild scheme but your brother and myself, no
one else shall ever know it. Come.
_Helen_. If I could. 'Tis true, I did not know when I sent him this
promise you would leave me alone ere the hour should come. Perhaps--no,
it would never do. When he comes and finds that, after all, I have
deserted him, once with a word I angered him, and for years it was the
last between us;--and what safer chance will there be in these fearful
times of meeting him? No, no. If we do not meet now, we are parted for
ever;--if I do not keep my promise now, I shall see him no more.
_Mrs. G_. See him no more then. What is he to us--this stranger, this
haughty, all-requiring one? Think of the blessed days ere he had crossed
our threshold. You have counted all, Helen? The anguish that will bring
tears into your proud brother's eyes, your sister's comfortless
sorrow?--did you think of her lonely and saddened youth? You counted the
wild suffering of this bitter moment,--did you think of the weary years,
the long sleepless nights of grief, the days of tears; did you count the
anguish of a mother's broken heart, Helen? God only can count that.
You did not--there come the blessed tears at last. Here's my own gentle
daughter, once again. Come, Helen, see, they are waiting for us. There
stands the old chaise under the locust tree. You and I will ride
together. Come, 'tis but a few steps down that shady path, and we are
safe--a few steps and quickly trod. Hark! the respite is past even now.
Do you stand there marble still? Helen, if you stay here, we shall see
you no more. This lover of yours hates us all. He will take you to
England when the war is over if you outlive its bloody hazards, and we
are parted for ever. I shall see you no more, Helen, my child; my child,
I shall see you no more. (_She sinks upon the chair, and weeps aloud_.)
_Helen_. Has it come to this? Will you break my heart? If it were
continents and oceans that you bade me cross, but those few steps--Ah,
they would sever me from him for ever, and I cannot, I cannot, I
can _not_ take them,--there is no motion so impossible. Yes, they are
calling us. Do not stay.
(_Annie enters_.)
_Annie_. Mother, will you tell me what this means?
_Mrs. G_. Yes, come in. We will waste no more time about it. She will
stay here to meet her lover, she will forsake us for a traitor. We have
nursed an enemy among us. The babe I cherished in this bosom, whose
sleeping face I watched with a young mother's love, hath become my
enemy. Oh my God--is it from thee?
_Annie_. Helen! my sister! Helen!
_Mrs. G_. Ay, look at her. Would you think that the spirit which heaves
in that light frame, and glances in those soft eyes, held such cruel
power? Yesterday I would have counted it a breath in the way of my
lightest purpose, and now--come away, Annie--it is vain, you cannot move
her.
(_George enters_.)
_George_. Mother, if Helen will not go now, we must leave her to her
fate or share it with her. Every wagon is on the road but ours. A little
more, and we shall be too late for the protection of the army. Shall I
stay with her?
_Mrs. G_. No, never. That were a sure and idle waste of life. Helen,
perhaps, may be safe with them. Oh. yes, the refugees are safe, else
desertion would grow out of fashion soon.
_Annie_. Refugees! Refugee! Helen!
_Mrs. G_. It sounds strange for one of us I know. You will grow used to
it soon. Helen belongs to the British side, she will go over to them
to-day, but she must go alone, for none of us would be safe in British
hands, at least I trust so--this morning's experience might make me
doubtful, but I trust we are all true here yet beside.
_Annie_. Have I heard aright, Helen?--or is this all some fearful dream?
You and I, who have lived together all the years of our lives, to be
parted this moment, and for ever,--no, no!
(_A young American Officer enters hastily_.)
_Capt. Grey_. Softly, softly! What is this? Are you in this conspiracy
to disgrace me, mother? Oh, very well; if you have all decided to stay
here, I'll take my leave.
_Annie_. Oh, Henry, stay. You can persuade her it may be.
_Capt. G. Persuade_! What's all this! A goodly time for rhetoric
forsooth! Who's this that's risking all our lives, waiting to be
persuaded now?
_Mrs. G_. That Tory, Henry! We should have thought of this. Ah, if we
had gone yesterday,--that haughty Maitland,--she will stay here to meet
him! She will marry him, my son.
_Capt. G_. Maitland!--and stay here!
_Helen_. Dear Henry, let us part in kindness. Do not look on me with
that angry eye. It was I that played with you in the woods and meadows,
it was I that roamed with you in those autumn twilights,--you loved me
then, and we are parting for ever it may be..
_Capt. G_. (_To the children at the door_.) Get you down, young ones,
get you down. Pray, mother, lead the way, will you?--break up this ring.
Come, Helen, you and I will talk of this as we go on, only in passing
give me leave to say, of all the mad pranks of your novel ladies, this
caps the chief. You have outdone them, Helen; I'll give you credit for
it, you have outdone them all.
Why you'll be chronicled,--there's nothing on record like it, that ever
I heard of; I am well-read in romances too. We'll have a new love-ballad
made and set to tune, under the head of "Love and Murder," it will come
though, if you don't make haste a little. Come, come.
_Helen_. Henry!
_Capt. G_. Are you in earnest, Helen? Did you suppose that we were mad
enough to leave you here? You'll not go with us? But you will, by
Heaven!
_Helen_. Henry! Mother!--Nay, Henry, this is vain. I shall stay here, I
shall--I shall stay here,--so help me Heaven.
_Capt. G_. Helen Grey! Is that young lioness there my sometime
sister?--my delicate sister?--with her foot planted like iron, and the
strength of twenty men nerving her arm?
_Helen_. Let go.--I shall stay here.
_Capt. G_. Well, have your way, young lady, have your way; but--Mother,
if you choose to leave that mad girl here, you can,--but as for this
same Everard Maitland, look you, my lady, if I don't stab him to his
heart's core, never trust me.
(_He goes out--Mrs. Grey follows him to the door_.)
_Mrs. G_. Stay, Henry,--stay. What shall we do?
_Capt. G_. Do!--Indeed, a straight waistcoat is the only remedy I know
of, Madam, for such freaks as these. If you say so, she shall go with us
yet.
_Mrs. G_. Hear me. This is no time for passion now Hear me, Henry. This
Maitland, _Tory_ as he is, is her betrothed husband, and she has chosen
her fate with him; we cannot keep her with us; nay, with what we have
now seen, it would be vain to think of it, to wish it even. She must go
to him,--it but remains to see that she meets him safely. Noon is the
hour appointed for his coming. Could we not stay till then?
_Capt. G_. Impossible. Noon?--well.--Oh, if its all fixed upon;--if you
have settled it between yourselves that Helen is to abandon us and our
protection, for Everard Maitland's and the British, the sooner done, the
better. She's quite right,--she's like to find no safer chance for it
than this. Noon,--there is a picket left on yonder hill till after that
time, certainly, and a hundred men or so in the fort. I might give Van
Vechten a hint of it--nay, I can return myself this afternoon, and if
she is not gone then, I will take it upon me she is not left a second
time. Of course Maitland would be likely to care for her safety. At all
events there's nothing else for us to do, at least there's but one
alternative, and that I have named to you.
[_They go out together_.
_Helen_. (_She has stood silently watching them_.) He has gone, without
one parting look--he has gone! So break the myriad-tied loves, it hath
taken a life to weave. This is a weary world.
(_She turns to her sister, who leans weeping on the window-seat_.)
Come, Annie, you and I will part in kindness, will we not? No cruel
words shall there be here. Pleasant hath your love been unto me, my
precious sister. Farewell, Annie.
_Annie_. Shall I never hear your voice again, that hath been the music
of my whole life? Is your face henceforth to be to me only a remembered
thing? Helen, you must not stay here. The Indians,--it was no idle fear,
the half of their bloody outrages you have not heard; they will murder
you, yes, _you_. The innocence and loveliness that is holy to us, is
nothing in their eyes, they would as soon sever that beautiful hair from
your brow----
_Helen_. Hush, hush. There is no danger, Annie. The dark things of
destiny are God's; the heart, the heart only, is ours.
(_Mrs. Grey re-enters_.)
_Mrs. G_. (_to Annie_.) Come, come, my child. This is foolish now. All
is ready. Janette will stay with you, Helen.
(_Laughing voices are heard without, and the children's faces
are seen peeping in the door_.)
_Willy_. Dear mother, are you not ready yet? We have been in the wagon
and out a hundred times. Oh, Helen, make haste. The sun is above the
trees, and the grass on the roadside is all full of diamonds. The last
soldiers are winding down the hollow now. Is not Helen going, Mother?
_Mrs. G_. Your sister Helen is going from us forever. Come in and kiss
her once, and then make haste--you must not all be lost.
(_They enter_.)
_Willy_. Ah, why don't you go with us, sister?--Such a beautiful ride we
shall have. You never heard such a bird-singing in all your life.
_Frank_. We shall go by the Chesnut Hollow, George says we shall. Smell
of these roses, Helen. Must she stay here? Hark, Willy, there's the
drum. Good-bye, How sorry I am you will not go with us.
_Willy_. So am I. What makes you stand so still and look at us so? Why
don't you kiss me? Good-bye, Helen.
_Helen_. (_Embracing them silently_.)
_Annie_. Will you leave her here alone, mother? Will you?
_Mrs. G_. No. There is a guard left on yonder hill, and the fort is not
yet abandoned wholly. Besides, the army encamp at the creek, and Henry
himself will return this afternoon. She will be gone ere then, though.
_Helen_. Those merry steps and voices, those little, soft clinging hands
and rosy lips, have vanished forever. For all my love I shall be to them
but as the faint trace of some faded dream. This is a weary world.
Come, George, farewell. How I have loved to look on that young brow. Be
what my dreams have made you. Fare you well.
_George_. Farewell, Helen.
[_He goes out hastily_.
_Helen_. Will he forget me?
_Mrs. G_. And farewell, Helen. Fare ye well.
_Helen_. Will she leave me thus?
_Mrs. G_. Do not go to the hut--do not leave this door until you are
sure of the signal you spoke of, Helen.
_Helen_. She will not look at me,--Mother!
_Mrs. G_. Farewell, Helen; may the hour never come when you need the
love you have cast from you now so freely.
_Helen_. Will you leave me thus? Is not our life together ending here?
In that great and solemn Hereafter our ways may meet again; but by the
light of sun, or moon, or candle, or underneath these Heavens, no more.
Oh! lovely, lovely have you been unto me, a spirit of holiness and
beauty, building all my way.--Part we thus?
_Mrs. G_. Farewell, Helen.
_Helen_. Part we thus?
_Mrs. G_. Fare ye well, Helen Grey, my own sweet and precious child, my
own lovely, lovely daughter, fare ye well, and the Lord be with you. The
Lord keep you, for I can keep you now no more. The Lord watch over you,
my helpless one, mine, mine, mine, all mine, though I leave you thus; my
world of untold wealth, unto another. Nay, do not sorrow, my blessed
child,--you will be happy yet. Fear nothing,--if this must be, I say,
fear nothing. You think that you are doing right in forsaking us
thus;--it may be that you are. If in the strength of a pure conscience
you stay here to-day,--be not afraid. When you lay here of old, a
lisping babe, I told you of One whose love was better than a mother's.
Now farewell, and trust in Him. Farewell, mine eye shall see thee yet
again. Farewell.
_Helen_. No, no; leave me not.
_Mrs. G_. Unclasp these hands, I cannot stay.
_Helen_. Never--never.
_Mrs. G_. Untwine this wild embrace, or, even now,--even now----
_Helen_. Farewell, mother. Annie Grey, farewell.
[_They go_.
_Helen_. This is a weary world. Take me home. To the land where there is
no crying or bitterness, take me home.
(_The noise of retreating steps is heard, and the sound
of the outer door closing heavily_.)
_Helen_. They are gone,--not to church,--not for the summer's ride. I
shall see them no more.--In heaven it may be; but by the twilight
hearth, or merry table, at morn, or noon, or evening, in mirth or
earthly tenderness, no more.
Hark! There it is!--that voice,--I hear it now, I do. A dark eternity
had rolled between us, and I hear it yet again. They are going now.
Those rolling wheels, oh that that sound would last. There is no music
half so sweet. Fainter--fainter--it is gone--no--that was but the
hollow.--Hark----
Now they are gone, indeed. So breaks the sense's last link between me
and that world.
* * * * *