“how do you feel this morning?” asked helen, as she entered martha’s room.
her question was addressed to margaret, who, wan and pale, was seated at a table eating some toast, which the compassionate seamstress in her kindness had prepared for her.
“i am much better,” said margaret, though her appearance did not bear out the assertion.
“it will take some time yet for you to recover fully; you need rest and freedom from care.”
“freedom from care!” repeated margaret, smiling bitterly. “yes, that is what i need, but where shall i find it?”
“with us,” answered martha, gently.
“what!” exclaimed margaret, fixing her eyes upon the seamstress in surprise, “would you be burdened with me?”
“we shall not consider it a burden,” said helen, “and i am sure we ought to welcome an opportunity to be of service to any one of our fellow-creatures.”
“yet,” said margaret, suffering her eyes to wander about the room, with its plain and scanty furniture, “you cannot be rich—even one person must——”
“no, we are far from rich,” said helen, divining what she would have said, “but neither are we very poor. i am paid quite a large salary for singing, and—and you must not think of the expense.”
218“but i am a stranger to you,” said margaret; “why are you so kind to me?”
“because you are in trouble.”
“perhaps i may make an ungrateful return. suppose i should take the opportunity to rob you?”
helen laughed merrily.
“we are not afraid,” she said; “besides, i think you would be puzzled to find anything worth taking.”
margaret smiled faintly.
“i see you are not suspicious; i envy you that. there was a time when i was as trustful, and as firm a believer in human goodness as you are. but that time has passed, never to return.”
“i am afraid,” said martha, “that your experience has not been an agreeable one.”
“i have seen trouble,” said margaret, briefly.
“there may be better times in store; i shall know soon.”
“let us hope there will be,” said martha, cheerfully.
“amen!” said margaret.
“i must go to rehearsal now,” said helen. “when i return, i will call in.”
“what is her name?” questioned margaret, abruptly, as the door closed upon helen.
“helen.”
“i mean the last name.”
“her father goes by the name of ford, but helen has told me within a day or two that his real name is rand.”
“rand!” repeated margaret, starting in surprise.
“yes.”
she remembered that this was the name which had been so many times repeated on the paper which her husband had employed in trying his pen.
“do you know anything of the name!” asked martha, observing that her companion seemed struck by it.
219“i have heard of a man by the name—a rich man.”
“probably helen’s grandfather.”
“how comes it, then, that she is living here.”
“some family estrangement. her grandfather supposed until nearly the last moment of his life that his son was dead. it was too late to alter his will, and so helen and her father are left penniless.”
“and who inherited the property then?” demanded margaret, eagerly.
“a cousin of mr. ford’s—i mean of mr. rand’s.”
“and i know by what means he acquired it,” thought margaret. “it may be that—but i must see jacob first.”
from this moment margaret became restless. she felt that she could not be at peace till the issue was decided. she determined once more to appeal to jacob, and ascertain beyond a doubt whether the statement which he had made respecting their marriage was really true, or only fabricated to vex her. this question must first be decided, and then—why then she would be guided by circumstances.
she rose from her seat, and threw her shawl over her shoulders.
“where are you going?” asked martha, pausing in her work.
“i must go. i have something to do which cannot be delayed.”
“but are you able to go out?” questioned the seamstress.
“perhaps not; but it would do me more harm to remain here, feeling that i ought to be elsewhere, that things might go wrong without me, than the exposure and exertion of going out.”
“you will come back here when you have accomplished what you desire?”
“i think so—i cannot tell—i will not promise,” returned margaret, with an air of indecision; “but at any rate, 220whether i come or not, i thank you heartily for all your kindness to me, and for all that you have offered to do for me. i am not so used to kindness that i can afford to think little of it.”
“i am afraid it will be too much for her,” thought martha, as margaret left the room with an unsteady step. “there is plainly some mysterious sorrow which is preying upon her mind. if i could find out what it is, i would try to comfort her.”
margaret, on reaching the street got into an omnibus which set her down at the corner of the street on which jacob wynne lived.
we will precede her.
the scrivener is seated at a small table. before him are several small piles of gold which he is counting out from a larger one before him. it is the money which lewis rand paid him for his complicity in the iniquitous scheme, the success of which has robbed helen and her father of a princely inheritance.
jacob’s eyes sparkled as they rested on the glittering coins before him, and in his heart, as in that of his employer on the day of his uncle’s death, there springs up the exulting thought: “and all this is mine.”
but while he is thus engaged, there is a footfall on the stairs, the step of one ascending slowly and with effort, but jacob is too much absorbed in his pleasing employment to heed or hear it.
a moment afterwards, and through the half-open door a woman’s face is seen peering. margaret’s face is thin and pale, the result of her recent exhausting illness, and there is a look of weariness besides, induced by the too great exertion of walking in her weakened state; but her eyes are painfully bright, and her expression pale, thin, and weary as she is, is one of stern determination.
221“seven hundred!” said jacob, as he completed the seventh pile, and commenced another, unconscious of the eyes that were fixed upon him.
margaret paused a moment on the threshold. she saw before her a man who, low and mean and ignoble as he was, had won her heart in the days of her youthful freshness, and now in spite of the resentment which she felt at his unworthy treatment, she could not look upon him without a pang,—without a longing to become to him once more what she had been.
“jacob!” she uttered in an uncertain voice.
jacob wynne turned round with a guilty start as though he had been detected in some knavery, and half unconsciously drew his sleeve over the pile of gold, as if to screen it from observation. when he saw who it was that had so startled him, a frown gathered upon his face, and he said, impatiently,—
“you here, margaret?”
“you seem glad to see me after my long absence!” she said. “by your leave i will take a seat, as i am somewhat tired.”
he looked uneasily at her, not feeling altogether certain of her purpose in calling, and muttered, half to himself, “i wish you had waited till next week.”
“why should you wish that?” she asked, catching his words.
“because i shall then be gone,” he said, coldly.
“gone! where?”
“never mind! why should you want to know?” he demanded, sulkily.
“why, indeed?” echoed she, fixing her eyes upon his face; “what should your motives be to me, who have only devoted ten years of my life to your service? what should you be to me, jacob wynne?”
222“well,” he said. “i will no longer require such a sacrifice at your hands. ten years are quite enough to satisfy me. henceforth you shall be at perfect liberty to devote yourself to whom you will. i will promise not to interfere.”
margaret pressed her hand upon her heart as if to still its tumultuous throbbing, at this cruel taunt from one whom she had so much loved, and for whom, despite the discovery she had made of his baseness and unworthiness, she could not altogether stifle the old affection.
“you say this because you are irritated, jacob,” she returned. “you do not, you cannot mean it. tell me so. tell me that you have been only trying me all this time, and though it has made me very, very wretched, although it has thrown me into a fever and rendered me as weak as you now see me, i will forget it all, and will once more devote myself to you with the same loving devotion as in the old times when we were young, and—and happier than we are now, jacob.”
in her earnestness she rose, and going towards the copyist, placed her hand upon his arm.
“one often says in anger what he does not mean,” she continued, rapidly. “i know that well. i have done so myself; and it is so with you, jacob, is it not? i knew it must be so when you spoke such cruel words to me at the island so many weeks ago, and yet, jacob, and yet it hurt me,” she placed her hand upon her heart; “it hurt me here, when you said such words even in jest. i was not strong enough to bear them, and they made me sick. that very night i was attacked with a fever, and from that day to this i have been stretched upon a sick-bed. look at my face. see how thin and pale it is. i ought not to be out to-day, and only succeeded by an artifice in eluding 223the vigilance of my mother, who has been my faithful nurse.”
“why, then, did you come?” asked jacob, coldly.
“because i could not bear the intolerable weight of suspense. those words kept ringing in my ears, and i could not cease from anxiety until i could see you and have them explained.”
margaret looked imploringly in the face of the scrivener, as she finished her appeal. she had spoken more confidently than she felt. there was little in the sullen, cruel face before her to give her encouragement. she felt that she had staked all her happiness upon a single throw,—that the answer which he gave her then and there would determine once and forever her future happiness or misery, and it might be his.
jacob regarded the anxious face before him with the triumph that a low mind always feels when it has by any means gained an ascendency over a stronger one. the nature of margaret was superior to his, and he knew it. it was the uneasy feeling of inferiority produced by this circumstance, that led to a mean jealousy on his part which found its gratification in any humiliation to which it was in his power to subject her.
“i do not understand,” he said, deliberately, “why my words should stand in need of explanation. i endeavored to make them sufficiently intelligible.”
“you do not remember what you said, jacob. i am sure that you cannot, or you would not speak thus,” she said, earnestly.
“perhaps your memory is better,” said the scrivener, sneeringly. “possibly you will do me the favor to repeat it.”
“repeat it!”
224“yes, i said so,” triumphing as he spoke over her evident distress; “come, i am listening.”
he drew his chair round so as to face margaret, and fixed his eyes cruelly upon her. margaret was a creature of impulse. hers was no calm, equable temperament. her features could express trustful, confiding affection, or the intensity of scorn and hatred. she had come to make a last appeal to jacob wynne. he did not deserve it, but it is hard for a woman to resolve to injure a man who has been to her an object of affection. jacob had often treated her with harshness. this she could bear, but the revelation of his perfidy, which she had heard from his own lips at staten island, came upon her with the force of a sudden blow, which at once prostrated her. this was an insult which she could not forgive, if his words were indeed true. in the hope, slight as it was, that it might prove to have been merely an outburst of jacob’s irritability, she had determined upon this interview that her doubts might be set at rest. had jacob known the purpose which was in her heart, and the precise character of the motive which had brought her to him, he would have been more cautious in exasperating a woman who had his ruin in her power. this, however, he did not know. he underrated margaret’s strength of mind; he regarded her as one whom he might ill-treat with impunity, who might annoy him, to be sure, but was incapable of doing him any serious injury; whom he could shake off at any time, as he had resolved to do now.
when margaret saw the triumphant smile upon his face, she felt that her worst fears were likely to be realized. still she resolved not to forego her purpose. dropping the pleading tone which she had hitherto employed, she said, with an outward calmness which surprised jacob, and which she only assumed by a determined effort,—
“be it so. since you desire it, i will force myself to 225repeat those words. you remember, jacob, the occasion of my presenting myself before you. without my knowledge you had invited a young woman to accompany you to staten island.”
“and did you think i was responsible to you? would you have had me ask your gracious permission?” asked jacob, with a sneer.
“you can tell best,” said margaret, steadily, “whether this excursion was made accidentally or purposely, without my knowledge; if the latter, it betrayed a consciousness on your part that i had a right to object.”
“but i told you——”
“wait,” said margaret, commandingly, “i will come to that by and by. i learned your plan, it matters not in what manner, and followed you; i marked your devoted attentions to your companion, and it deepened in me the sense of wrong and neglect which i had noticed for a long time. you believed me safe at home all this time.”
“i wish to heaven you had been,” muttered jacob.
unheeding the interruption, margaret continued,—
“you will not be surprised that this should have excited some uneasiness on my part. i followed you constantly, watching for an opportunity to speak to you alone. at length you left your companion for a brief period, and then i found the opportunity i had been seeking. i ventured to expostulate with you on conduct which i considered inconsistent with your duty as a husband. then it was, jacob, that in your anger, you told me that i, who had lived with you for ten years as your wife, and had never for a moment forfeited or doubted my full claim to the title, that i was mistaken; that at the altar an infamous deception had been practised upon me, and the office of the clergyman was usurped by one of your own unprincipled associates, who 226had no legal right to perform the marriage ceremony. have i represented all this correctly?”
“you have a most accurate memory,” said jacob. “i have no exceptions to take to your account, except on the score of its length, and the use of certain adjectives.”
“then i am to understand that this was no fabrication on your part, jacob wynne, but the plain truth?”
“most unquestionably.”
“you further gave me to understand,” continued margaret, in the same strangely calm tone, “and to-day you have repeated the intimation, that my company is unwelcome; in short, that you are weary of my society, and wish to be rid of me.”
“you would have made a capital judge, madam,” said jacob; “you are admirable at summing up. you express my meaning better than i could do it myself. i congratulate you the possession of such a talent. it will save me further trouble. have you anything more to say?”
jacob expected that margaret would burst into a passion of tears and reproaches, as she had done before, and he was already gloating over her distress in anticipation. already with cowardly malignity, he was coining in his brain some new and clever taunts with which he might add to her distress, and touch her to the quick. it was, therefore, with some degree of disappointment as well as surprise, that he was able to detect no change in her calm expression.
“very well,” she said, “i wished this matter understood between us.”
then, seeming to notice for the first time the gold upon the table, she added, indicating it with her finger, “your affairs appear to be in a more flourishing condition than when i saw you last.”
“eh! what?” said jacob, changing color and looking embarrassed.
227“you are richer than you were,” said margaret, in the same tone. “it must have been an important service which has been so liberally rewarded.”
“what do you mean?” demanded jacob, with the apprehension of guilt, regarding her uneasily.
“mean!” repeated margaret, as if surprised at the question, “what should i mean? i merely expressed my surprise at your having so large a sum by you. i should judge,” she continued, carelessly, “that there might be a thousand dollars there.”
jacob’s agitation increased with every word that margaret uttered. conscious that he had committed a crime which made him liable to severe legal penalties, the significant words of the woman he had wronged excited in his mind a fear that, in some manner unknown to him, she had become cognizant of it.
so does “conscience make cowards of us all.”
how much more so in the case of the scrivener, who was cowardly at the best.
“i must insist upon knowing what you mean by these insinuations,” he said, with ill-concealed anxiety.
“insinuations, jacob wynne! what have i insinuated?”
“why, then, do you speak in this manner?” said he, hesitatingly; “this money—belongs to a friend.”
“indeed!” said margaret, looking at him steadily; “and i suppose you merely offered to count it over for him.”
“well, and if i did,” said the scrivener, plucking up a little courage; “have you any objections to offer?”
“i! what objection could i possibly have? you know i have no longer a right to object to anything which you may see fit to do. by the way, you spoke of removing. when do you go?”
this cool self-possession and absence of emotion on margaret’s 228part puzzled jacob, and alarmed him more than threats of vengeance would have done. he found it impossible to understand her.
“i don’t know,” he said, evasively, “i can’t tell. why do you ask?”
“because,” she answered, with a meaning look, “i may wish to call upon you again. there is nothing strange in my desiring occasionally to call upon an old acquaintance; is there, jacob?”
he muttered something which was inaudible.
“but i fear i am taking up too much of your time. you know i have no further claim upon you. farewell, jacob, i shall not lose sight of you.”
“stay,” said jacob, who had been considerably alarmed, and who was still apprehensive that she might know more than he desired, “have you any money?”
“yes,” said margaret, “i have this.”
she displayed the half dollar, or rather what remained of it, after discharging her fare in the omnibus.
“that is very little. take this.”
he took a gold piece from the pile that lay on the table, and handed it to her. “come, let us part friends.”
“you forget, jacob, that this gold is not yours. it belongs to a friend.”
“never mind,” he muttered, “i can replace it.”
“no,” said she, decidedly, “i will not take it. i have no claim upon you.”
she rose and passed out of the room, jacob looking after her with an air of mingled doubt, apprehension, and perplexity.
“i wish i knew,” he said to himself, “whether she has discovered anything. but it can’t be possible. she appears strangely enough. perhaps her mind is unhinged by what i have told her. but i never could have got on with her 229weighing me down. we must not meet again if it can be avoided.”
jacob resolved to remove on the very next day to the more comfortable room, which he considered suited to the improvement in his circumstances.
