THE LETTER RECEIVED.
It was baking-day at Mrs. Burt’s, and the good lady bustled in and
out—her cap strings pinned over her head, her sleeves tucked up above
her shoulders, and her face, hands and apron covered with flour.
Occasionally as she rolled out the short pie crust, or sliced the juicy
apple, she glanced at the rain-drops pattering against the window, and
said encouragingly, “I don’t care for the rain, for I’ve get a big
umbrella and the best kind of overshoes;” and as often as she related
the cheering words, they brought a smile to the thin, white face of the
young girl who sat in the large, stuffed easy chair, and did not offer
to share the labors of her aunt, as she called her.
Marian was sick. Strong excitement had worn her strength away, and since
she had sent the letter to Frederic, her restless anxiety for the answer
had made her so weak that she kept her bed nearly all the time, counting
the days which must elapse ere she could possibly hope to hear, and
then, when the full time was out, bidding Mrs. Burt wait one more day
before she went to the office, so as to be sure and get it. She had made
due allowance for delays, and now she was certain that it had come. She
would sit up that day, she said, for she felt almost well; and if
Frederic told her to come home, she should start to-morrow and get there
Saturday night, and she fancied how people would stare at her, and be
glad to see her, too, on Sunday, when she first went into church, for
she “should go, any way.” Alice, too, would be delighted, and kiss her
so many times; and then she wondered if Frederic wouldn’t kiss her,
too—she thought he might just once, she’d been so long away, and she
said to herself that “she would draw back a little, and let him know she
wasn’t so very anxious.”
Poor Marian, how little was she prepared for the cruel blow awaiting
her! The pies were made at last, as was the gingerbread and crispy
snaps; the apple dumplings, Marian’s favorite dessert, were steaming on
the stove; the litter was cleared away, the carpet swept, the oil-cloth
washed, the chairs set back; and then exchanging her work dress for a
more respectable delaine, Mrs. Burt put over the kettle to boil, “for
after her wet walk, she should want a cup of tea,” she said, and,
leaving Marian to watch the pie baking in the oven, she started on her
errand.
“I mean to have the table ready when she gets back,” said Marian—“for if
I don’t make her think I’m well, she won’t let me start so soon;” and,
exerting all strength, she set the table for dinner in the neatest
possible manner, even venturing upon the extravagance of bringing out
the best white dishes, which Mrs. Burt only used on great occasions.
“When I get some, I’ll send her a new set with gilt bands,” the little
girl said, as she arranged the cups, and then stepped back to witness
the effect. “Oh! I wish she’d come,” she continued, glancing at the
clock; but it was not time yet, and, resuming her rocking-chair, she
tried to wait patiently.
But it seemed very long and very tiresome, sitting there alone,
listening to the rain and the ticking of the clock. It is strange how
the most trivial circumstance will sometimes stamp itself indelibly upon
the memory. The steam from the dumplings, which Marian thought she
should enjoy so much, filled the room with a sweet, sickly odor, and for
many, many years she remembered how faint it made her feel. But ’twas a
pleasant faintness now; everything was pleasant, for wasn’t she going
home, back to Redstone Hall—back to Frederic, who, if he didn’t love her
now, would learn to love her, for Mrs. Burt said so; Mrs. Burt, who knew
almost as much as Dinah, and who, even while she thought of her, was
coming up the narrow stairs. Marian heard her put her dripping umbrella
beside the door, but for her life she could not move. If she should be
disappointed after all, she said, and she tried to see how many she
could count before she knew for certain.
“A letter—oh, have you a letter for me?” she attempted to say, when Mrs.
Burt came in, but she could not articulate a word, and the good lady,
wishing to tease her a little, leisurely took off her overshoes, hung up
her shawl, wiped her damp bonnet with a handkerchief, and looked at the
dumplings and then said, as indifferently as if the happiness of a young
life was not to be crushed by what she had in her pocket, “it rains
awfully down street!”
“I know—but the letter—was there a letter?” and Marian’s blue eyes
looked dark with excitement. “Yes, child, there was, but where it was
mailed I don’t know. ’Tis directed to me, and is from Kentucky, but I
can’t make out the post-mark mor’n the dead. It’s some kind of Forks,
but the postmaster will never set the Hudson on fire with his writing.”
“Forks of Elkhorn,” cried Marian, snatching at the letter. “It’s
Frederic’s superscription, too, and dated ever so many days ago. Dear
Frederic, he didn’t wait a minute before he wrote,” and she pressed to
her lips the handwriting of Isabel Huntington!
The envelope was torn open—the enclosed sheet was withdrawn, but about
it there was a strangely familiar look. Was there a film before Marian’s
eyes? Was she growing blind, or did she recognize her own letter—the one
she had sent to Redstone Hall? It was the same—for it said “Dear
Frederic” at the top, and “Marian” at the bottom! And he had returned it
to her unanswered—not a word—not a line—nothing but silence, as cold, as
hard and as terrible as the feeling settling down on Marian’s heart. But
yes—there was one line—only one, and it read—oh, horror, could it be
that he would mock her thus—that he would tear out her bleeding heart
and trample it beneath his feet, by offering her this cruel insult.
“_Isabel Huntington is now the mistress of Redstone Hall._”
This was the drop in the brimming bucket, and if she had suffered death
when the great sorrow came upon her once before, she suffered more now a
hundred fold. In her ignorance she fancied they were married, for how
else could Isabel be mistress there, and she comprehended at once the
shame—the disgrace such a proceeding would bring to Frederic, and the
wrong, the dishonor, the insult it brought to her. There was a look of
anguish in her eye and a painful contraction of the muscles about her
mouth. There were purple spots upon her flesh, which seemed wasting away
while she sat there, and a note of agony, rarely heard by human ear, was
in her voice, as she cried, “No, no, no—it is too soon—too soon—anything
but that,” and the little Marian who, half an hour before, had heard the
ticking of the clock and listened to the rain, lay in the arms of Mrs.
Burt, a white, motionless thing, unconscious of pain, unconscious of
everything. She had suffered all she could suffer, and henceforth no
sorrow which could come to her would eat into her heart’s core as this
last one had done.
Mrs. Burt thought she was dead, as did those who came at her loud call,
but the old physician said there was life, adding, as he looked at the
blue pinched lips and shrunken face: “The more’s the pity, for she has
had some awful blow, and if she lives she’ll probably be a raving
maniac.”
Poor Marian! As time passed on the physician’s words seemed likely to be
verified. For days she lay in the same deathlike stupor, and when at
last she roused from it, ’twas only to tear her hair and rave in wild
delirium. At first, Mrs. Burt, who had examined the letter, thought of
writing to Frederic and telling him the result of his cruel message, the
truth of which she did not believe; but she seldom acted without advice,
so she wrote first to Ben, who came quickly, crying like a very child,
and wringing his great rough hands when he saw the swaying, tossing form
upon the bed and knew that it was Marian.
“No, mother,” he said, “we won’t write. It’s a lie the villain told her,
but we will let him be till she’s dead. God will find him fast enough,
the rascal!” and Ben struck his fist upon the bureau as if he would like
to take the management of Frederic into his own hands.
It was a long and terrible sickness which came to Marian, and when the
delirium was on, the very elements of her nature seemed changed. For her
hair she conceived an intense loathing; and clutching at her long
tresses, she would tear them from her head and shake them from her
fingers, whispering scornfully:
“Go, you vile red things! He hates you, and so do I.”
“Better shave the hull concern and not let her yank it out like that,”
said Ben; and when she became more and more ungovernable, he passed his
arms around her and held fast her little hands, while her head was shorn
of the locks once so displeasing to Frederic Raymond.
Ben’s taste, however, was different, and putting them reverently
together, he dropped great tears upon them, and then laid them carefully
away, thinking: “’Twill be something to look at when she’s gone. Poor
little picked bird,” he would say as he watched by her side and listened
to her moaning cries for home, “you’ll be out of your misery afore long,
and go to a’nough sight better hum than Red stun Hall; but I hev my
doubts ’bout meetin’ him there. Poor little girl if you hadn’t been born
a lady and I hadn’t been born a fool, and we’d been brung up together,
mabby you wouldn’t be a lyin’ here a biting your tongue and wringin’
your hands, with your head shaved slick and clean,” and the sweat
dropped from Ben’s face, as he thought of what under widely different
circumstances might have been. “But it can’t be now,” he said, “for even
if she wan’t jined to this villain she loves so much, she’s as far above
Ben Burt as the stars in Heaven.”
This, however, did not lessen Ben’s attentions in the least, or stay his
tears when he thought that she would die. “She should be buried in
Greenwood,” he said; “he’d got more’n two hundred dollars in the bank at
Ware, all arnt honest, with hard work; and if there was such a thing as
a stun forty feet high she should have it, and he’d get som o’ them that
scribbled for a living to write a piece; there should be a big funeral,
too—he could hire carriages as well as the best of ’em—and he’d have a
procession so long that folks would stop and stare, and Frederic Raymond
wouldn’t be ashamed on’t either, the _scalliwag_—he hoped when he and
Isabel came to die they’d be pitched into the _canal_ where the water
was considerable kind o’ dirty, too!”
This long speech relieved Ben somewhat, and fully determined to carry
out his promise, he staid patiently by Marian, nor experienced one
feeling of regret when he heard that, owing to his prolonged absence,
his place in Ware had been given to another.
“Nobody cares,” he said, “I can find something to do if it’s nothin’ but
sawin’ wood.”
So he remained at home through all the winter days, and watched by the
sick girl, who talked piteously of her home, of Alice, and _that man_
who hated her so. She never spoke his name, but she sometimes begged of
him to come and take her away where it didn’t thunder all the time. The
roar of the city disturbed her, and she frequently besought Ben to go
and stop it so that she could sleep and be better in the morning; and
Ben, had it been in his power, would have stayed the busy life around
them, and let the weary, worn-out sufferer sleep. But this could not be,
and so, day after day the heavy, incessant roar came through the
curtained window into the darkened room, where Marian lay moaning in her
pain. Once in her unconsciousness she folded meekly her thin hands and
prayed, “Will God stop that noise and let me sleep just once?” then with
an expression of childish trust upon her face, she said to those around
her, “He _will_ stop it to-morrow, I reckon.”
And when the winter snows all were fallen, and the early March sun shone
upon the kitchen walls, the _to-morrow_ so much longed for came, and
Marian woke at last to consciousness. She was out of danger, the
physician said, though it might be long ere her health was fully
restored. To Marian, this announcement brought but little joy. “She had
hoped to die,” she said, “and thus be out of the way,” and then she
spoke of Redstone Hall, asking if any tidings had come from there since
the dreadful message she had received. There was none, for Isabel
Huntington guarded her secret well, and Frederic Raymond knew nothing of
the white, emaciated wreck which prayed each day that he might be happy
with the companion he had chosen.
“If he had only waited,” she said to Mrs. Burt and Ben, one day when she
was able to be bolstered up in bed, “if he had waited and not taken her
so soon, I shouldn’t care so much, but it’s awful to think of his living
with her after I wrote that letter.”
“Marian,” said Ben, a little impatiently, “I’m naturally a fool, so
every body says, but I’ve sense enough to know that Mr. Raymond never
went and married that woman so quick after you came away; ’taint
reasonable at all. Why, they’d mob him—tar and feather him—for you ain’t
dead, and he’s no business with two wives.”
Marian’s, face was whiter than ever when Ben finished speaking, and a
bright red spot burned on her cheek as she gasped, “You didn’t,—you
can’t believe she’s there and not his wife. That would be worse than
everything else.”
“Of course I don’t,” returned Ben. “My ’pinion is that she ain’t there
at all, and he only writ that to make a clean finish of you, or ’tany
rate, so’t you wouldn’t be coming back to bother him. He calkerlates to
have her bimeby. I presume—say in seven years.”
“Oh, I wish I knew,” said Marian, and Ben replied, “Would you rest any
easier nights if you did?”
“Yes, a heap,” was the answer, and the great, blue eyes looked wistfully
at Ben, as if anxious that he should clear up the mystery.
“You might write,” suggested Mrs. Burt; but Marian shook her head,
saying, “I wrote once, and you know my success.”
“You certainly wouldn’t go back,” continued Mrs. Burt; and Marian
answered indignantly, “Never! I am sure he hates me now, and I shall not
trouble him again. Perhaps he thinks me mean because I read the letter
intended for him, and so found it all out. But I thought it was mine
until I read a ways, and then I _could not_ stop. My eyes wouldn’t leave
the paper. Was it wrong in me, do you think?”
“It is what anybody would have done,” answered Mrs. Burt, and, changing
the subject entirely, Marian rejoined, “Oh, I do wish I knew about this
Isabel.”
For a time Ben sat thinking; then striking his hands together, he
exclaimed, “I’ve got it, and it’s jest the thing, too. I don’t want no
better fun than that. I’ve lost my place to Ware, and though I might get
another, I’ve a notion to turn _peddler_. I allus thought I should like
travellin’ and seein’ the world. I’ll buy up a lot of jimcracks and take
a bee line for Redstun Hall, and learn just how the matter stands. I can
put on a little more of the Down East Yankee, if you think I hain’t got
enough, and I’ll pull the wool over their eyes. What do you say, wee
one?”
“Oh, I wish you would,” said Marian, adding in the same breath, “what
will you do, if you find him the husband of Isabel?”
“Do!” he repeated. “String ’em both up by the neck on one string. What
do you ’spect I’d do? Honest, though,” he continued, as he saw her look
of alarm; “if she _is_ his wife, which ain’t at all likely, ’tis because
he s’posed you’re dead, but he knows better now, and I shall tell the
neighbors that you’re alive and breathin’, and they can do with him what
they choose—and if they ain’t married, nor ain’t nothin’, I’ll just do
what you say.”
“Come back, and don’t tell Frederic you ever saw or heard of me,” said
Marian. “I shall not live a great while, and even if I do, I’d rather
not trouble him. It would only make him hate me worse, and that I
couldn’t bear. He knows now where I am, and if he ever wants me, he will
come. Don’t tell him, nor any one, a word of me, Ben, but do go, for I
long to hear from home.”
To Mrs. Burt this project seemed a wild and foolish one, but she rarely
opposed her son, and when she saw that he was determined, she said
nothing, but helped him all she could.
“You’ll be wantin’ to send some jimcrack to that, blind gal, I guess,”
he said to Marian one day, and she replied, “I wish I could, but I
havn’t anything, and besides you mustn’t tell her of me.”
“Don’t you worry,” answered Ben. “I’ve passed my word, and I never broke
it yet. I can manage to give her somethin’ and make it seem natural.
What do you say to makin’ her a bracelet out o’ them curls of yourn that
we shaved off?”
“That red hair! Frederic would know it at once,” and Marian shook her
head ruefully, but Ben persisted. “’Twould look real pretty, just like
gingerbread when ’twas braided tight,” and bringing out the curls, he
selected the longest one, and hurried off.
The result proved his words correct, for when a few days after he
brought home the little bracelet, which was fastened with a neat golden
clasp, Marian exclaimed with delight at the soft beauty of her hair:
“Darling Alice,” she cried, kissing the tiny ornament, “I wish she could
know that my lips have touched it—that it once grew on my head—but it
wouldn’t be best. She couldn’t keep the secret, and you mustn’t tell.”
“Don’t worry, I say,” returned Ben. “I’ve got an idee in my brains for a
wonder, and I’m jest as ’fraid of tellin’ as you be. So cheer up a bit
and grow fat, while I’m gone, for I want you to be well when I come
back, so as to go to school and get to be a great scholar, that Mr.
Raymond won’t be ashamed on when the right time comes,” and Ben spoke as
cheerfully as if within his heart there was no grave where during the
weary nights when he watched with Marian he buried his love for her, and
vowed to think of her only as a cherished sister.
Marian smiled pleasantly upon him, watching him with interest as he made
up his pack, consisting of laces, ribbons, muslin, handkerchiefs, combs
and jewelry, a little real, and a good deal brass, “for the niggers,” he
said. Many were the charges she gave him concerning the blacks, telling
him which ones to notice particularly, so as to report to her.
“Jehoshaphat!” he exclaimed at last, “how many is there? I shall never
remember in the world,” and taking out a piece of paper, he wrote upon
it, “Dinah, Hetty, Lid, Victory, Uncle Phil, Josh, and the big dog.
There!” said he, reading over the list, “if I don’t bring you news of
every one, my name ain’t Ben Burt. I’ll wiggle myself inter their good
feelin’s and get ’em to talkin’ of you, see if I don’t.”
Marian had the utmost confidence in Ben’s success, and though she knew
she should be lonely when he was gone, she was glad when, at last, the
morning came for him to leave them. Ben, too, was equally delighted, for
the novelty lent a double charm to the project; and, bidding his mother
and Marian good-by, he gathered up his large boxes, and whistling a
lively tune, by way of keeping up his spirits, started for Kentucky.