The Leavenworth Case (33 page)

Mary’s haughty lip took an ominous curve. “The same hand that raised you has raised me,” she cried bitterly.

“This is no time to speak of that,” returned Eleanore.

Mary’s countenance flushed. All the antagonism of her nature was aroused. She looked absolutely Juno-like in her wrath and reckless menace. “Eleanore,” she cried, “I am going to F— to marry Mr. Clavering!
Now
do you wish to accompany me?”

“I do.”

Mary’s whole manner changed. Leaping forward, she grasped her cousin’s arm and shook it. “For what reason?” she cried. “What do you intend to do?”

“To witness the marriage, if it be a true one; to step between you and shame if any element of falsehood should come in to affect its legality.”

Mary’s hand fell from her cousin’s arm. “I do not understand you,” said she. “I thought you never gave countenance to what you considered wrong.”

“Nor do I. Any one who knows me will understand that I do not give my approval to this marriage just because I attend its ceremonial in the capacity of an unwilling witness.”

“Then why go?”

“Because I value your honor above my own peace. Because I love our common benefactor, and know that he would never pardon me if I let his darling be married, however contrary her union might be to his wishes, without lending the support of my presence to make the transaction at least a respectable one.”

“But in so doing you will be involved in a world of deception—which you hate.”

“Any more so than now?”

“Mr. Clavering does not return with me, Eleanore.”

“No, I supposed not.”

“I leave him immediately after the ceremony.”

Eleanore bowed her head.

“He goes to Europe.” A pause.

“And I return home.”

“There to wait for what, Mary?”

Mary’s face crimsoned, and she turned slowly away.

“What every other girl does under such circumstances, I suppose. The development of more reasonable feelings in an obdurate parent’s heart.”

Eleanore sighed, and a short silence ensued, broken by Eleanore’s suddenly falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin’s hand. “Oh, Mary,” she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild entreaty, “consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as this. Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love—but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this. And you,” she continued, rising and turning toward me in a sort of forlorn hope very touching to see, “can you see this young motherless girl, driven by caprice, and acknowledging no moral restraint, enter upon the dark and crooked path she is planning for herself, without uttering one word of warning and appeal? Tell me, mother of children dead and buried, what excuse you will have for your own part in this day’s work, when she, with her face marred by the sorrows which must follow this deception, comes to you—”

“The same excuse, probably,” Mary’s voice broke in, chill and strained, “which you will have when uncle inquires how you came to allow such an act of disobedience to be perpetrated in his absence: that she could not help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait, and every one around must accommodate themselves to it.”

It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated up to fever point. Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing back, pale and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark:

“Then nothing can move you?”

The curling of Mary’s lips was her only reply.

Mr. Raymond, I do not wish to weary you with my feelings, but the first great distrust I ever felt of my wisdom in pushing this matter so far came with that curl of Mary’s lip. More plainly than Eleanore’s words it showed me the temper with which she was entering upon this undertaking; and, struck with momentary dismay, I advanced to speak when Mary stopped me.

“There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don’t you go and acknowledge that you are frightened, for I won’t hear it. I have promised to marry Henry Clavering to-day, and I am going to keep my word—if I don’t love him,” she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a way which caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was going to her bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was doing this, with very trembling fingers, she said, looking straight at Eleanore:

“You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the way to F—, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to dream upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon me such dreadful consequences?”

“If I go with you to F—,” Eleanore returned, “it is as a witness, no more. My sisterly duty is done.”

“Very well, then,” Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; “I suppose I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am so sorry to disappoint you, but the buggy
won’t
hold three. If you are good you shall be the first to congratulate me when I come home to-night.” And, almost before I knew it, the two had taken their seats in the buggy that was waiting at the door. “Good-by,” cried Mary, waving her hand from the back; “wish me much joy—of my ride.”

I tried to do so, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only wave my hand in response, and rush sobbing into the house.

Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when, seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the token of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the shape of Mary herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her beautiful face aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house just as I was beginning to despair.

A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having a dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my fancy that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her cloak, she displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned with snowy roses.

“Oh, Mary!” I cried, bursting into tears; “you are then—”

“Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I’m a bride, Auntie.”

“Without a bridal,” I murmured, taking her passionately into my embrace.

She was not insensible to my emotion. Nestling close to me, she gave herself up for one wild moment to a genuine burst of tears, saying between her sobs all manner of tender things; telling me how she loved me, and how I was the only one in all the world to whom she dared come on this, her wedding night, for comfort or congratulation, and of how frightened she felt now it was all over, as if with her name she had parted with something of inestimable value.

“And does not the thought of having made some one the proudest of men solace you?” I asked, more than dismayed at this failure of mine to make these lovers happy.

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “What satisfaction can it be for him to feel himself tied for life to a girl who, sooner than lose a prospective fortune, subjected him to such a parting?”

“Tell me about it,” said I.

But she was not in the mood at that moment. The excitement of the day had been too much for her. A thousand fears seemed to beset her mind. Crouching down on the stool at my feet, she sat with her hands folded and a glare on her face that lent an aspect of strange unreality to her brilliant attire. “How shall I keep it secret! The thought haunts me every moment; how can I keep it secret!”

“Why, is there any danger of its being known?” I inquired. “Were you seen or followed?”

“No,” she murmured. “It all went off well, but—”

“Where is the danger, then?”

“I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid; they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will or not. I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart. While the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now—oh, Auntie, I have done something that will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness.”

I was too aghast to speak.

“For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal white, and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if they were wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the compliments bestowed upon me—and they are only too numerous—were just so many congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use; Eleanore knew it was no use. She has gone to her room to pray, while I—I have come here for the first time, perhaps for the last, to fall at some one’s feet and cry,— ‘God have mercy upon me!’”

I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. “Oh, Mary, have I only succeeded, then, in making you miserable?”

She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of roses which had fallen from her hair to the floor.

“If I had not been taught to love money so!” she said at length. “If, like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been ours from childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped at the call of duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more! If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand luxurious longings after me. Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in her beautiful womanhood, haughty as she can be when the delicate quick of her personality is touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the hour in a low, chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a dirty child on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old woman whom no one else would consent to touch. Oh, oh! they talk about repentance and a change of heart! If some one or something would only change mine! But there is no hope of that! no hope of my ever being anything else than what I am: a selfish, wilful, mercenary girl.”

Nor was this mood a mere transitory one. That same night she made a discovery which increased her apprehension almost to terror. This was nothing less than the fact that Eleanore had been keeping a diary of the last few weeks. “Oh,” she cried in relating this to me the next day, “what security shall I ever feel as long as this diary of hers remains to confront me every time I go into her room? And she will not consent to destroy it, though I have done my best to show her that it is a betrayal of the trust I reposed in her. She says it is all she has to show in the way of defence, if uncle should ever accuse her of treachery to him and his happiness. She promises to keep it locked up; but what good will that do! A thousand accidents might happen, any of them sufficient to throw it into uncle’s hands. I shall never feel safe for a moment while it exists.”

I endeavored to calm her by saying that if Eleanore was without malice, such fears were groundless. But she would not be comforted, and seeing her so wrought up, I suggested that Eleanore should be asked to trust it into my keeping till such time as she should feel the necessity of using it. The idea struck Mary favorably. “O yes,” she cried; “and I will put my certificate with it, and so get rid of all my care at once.” And before the afternoon was over, she had seen Eleanore and made her request.

It was acceded to with this proviso, that I was neither to destroy nor give up all or any of the papers except upon their united demand. A small tin box was accordingly procured, into which were put all the proofs of Mary’s marriage then existing, viz.: the certificate, Mr. Clavering’s letters, and such leaves from Eleanore’s diary as referred to this matter. It was then handed over to me with the stipulation I have already mentioned, and I stowed it away in a certain closet up-stairs, where it has lain undisturbed till last night.

Here Mrs. Belden paused, and, blushing painfully, raised her eyes to mine with a look in which anxiety and entreaty were curiously blended.

“I don’t know what you will say,” she began, “but, led away by my fears, I took that box out of its hiding-place last evening and, notwithstanding your advice, carried it from the house, and it is now—”

“In my possession,” I quietly finished.

I don’t think I ever saw her look more astounded, not even when I told her of Hannah’s death. “Impossible!” she exclaimed. “I left it last night in the old barn that was burned down. I merely meant to hide it for the present, and could think of no better place in my hurry; for the barn is said to be haunted—a man hung himself there once—and no one ever goes there. I—I—you cannot have it!” she cried, “unless—”

“Unless I found and brought it away before the barn was destroyed,” I suggested.

Her face flushed deeper. “Then you followed me?”

“Yes,” said I. Then, as I felt my own countenance redden, hastened to add: “We have been playing strange and unaccustomed parts, you and I. Some time, when all these dreadful events shall be a mere dream of the past, we will ask each other’s pardon. But never mind all this now. The box is safe, and I am anxious to hear the rest of your story.”

This seemed to compose her, and after a minute she continued:

Mary seemed more like herself after this. And though, on account of Mr. Leavenworth’s return and their subsequent preparations for departure, I saw but little more of her, what I did see was enough to make me fear that, with the locking up of the proofs of her marriage, she was indulging the idea that the marriage itself had become void. But I may have wronged her in this.

The story of those few weeks is almost finished. On the eve of the day before she left, Mary came to my house to bid me good-by. She had a present in her hand the value of which I will not state, as I did not take it, though she coaxed me with all her prettiest wiles. But she said something that night that I have never been able to forget. It was this. I had been speaking of my hope that before two months had elapsed she would find herself in a position to send for Mr. Clavering, and that when that day came I should wish to be advised of it; when she suddenly interrupted me by saying: