"In half an hour I will return with the deed; keep the book till then!"
"No, no, it is here!" cried the General, flushing with shame.
But Harrington had gone, leaving him in a state of humiliation which no self-complacency could soften or conceal. After he had been left a little time, the old man went out upon the balcony, for a brilliant fire made the heat oppressive, cold as the day was; and there was a sensation of shame at his heart, that made his breath come heavily.
He was gone scarcely more than a minute, but that was long enough for the mulatto chambermaid to steal out from the bed-chamber, tear half a dozen pages from Mabel"s journal, and creep back again, grasping the crushed paper in her hand as she glided through the door which opened behind the curtains of General Harrington"s bed. The drapery was yet rustling from her sudden retreat, when the old gentleman returned to the library. He found the book as he had left it, and sat down with something of triumph but more of self-contempt, to await the return of his step-son.
Directly, James came back with the deed in his hand. The General took it, read it carefully section by section, folded it with studied deliberation; and taking up the journal, placed it in Harrington"s hand with a forced smile and a scarcely perceptible bow.
As the book touched his hands, James Harrington grasped it with violence; a trembling fit seized upon him, and he shook like an aspen tree while carrying it to the fire. Opening the covers wide, he laid the fluttering pages down upon the flames, which darted through them like a nest of fiery vipers, and in an instant devoured poor Mabel Harrington"s secret, over which the vellum covers writhed and curled like living things given up to torture.
Till the last fragment was consumed, James Harrington stood looking on, with the light falling upon his pale face, which revealed a depth of mournful tenderness that touched even that selfish old man with reverence. It seemed as if Mabel"s heart had been given to the flames by his own hands. When all was consumed he turned away like one in a painful dream, and without speaking a word, left the room.
Two hours after, he quitted the house.
CHAPTER LXV.
WHO WAS LINA FRENCH?
James Harrington and Lina left the same roof within a few hours of each other, without warning or explanation. Was it strange that Mabel should be tortured with wild doubts, or that her son should believe the step-brother whom he had looked up to with such honest devotion, and the girl he had loved so truly, domestic conspirators who had been deceiving him all the time?
Poor Ralph! these doubts fell with cruel force on his generous nature.
His confidence was all swept away--the best jewel of his life had fallen off. To him, love had no longer the holiness of truth. Household trust--faith in human goodness--all was disturbed. He was wild with indignation, torn with a thousand conflicting feelings; sometimes heart-broken with grief--again, reckless and defiant; then a spirit of bitter retaliation seized upon him. What was Lina, with her gentle affections and pretty reserves, that he should waste a life in regrets for her, while another, ardent, impa.s.sioned, and loving him madly, was pining to death for the affection he had thrown away so lavishly for nothing? What, after all, was there to charm more in one woman than another? Lina was false; why should he remain faithful?
These were wild, rash thoughts; but Ralph was young, tortured in his first love, and tempted by an artful, impa.s.sioned woman, whose perverse will carried the strength of fate with it.
Still, it was only at times that his heart rose hotly against its old nature. There was more of scorn and rage, mingled with the certainty that Agnes Barker loved him, than of real pa.s.sion, but it a.s.suaged the humiliation of Lina"s falsehood, and the consciousness of her attachment diverted the grief that would otherwise have consumed him. Though maddened by all these conflicting pa.s.sions, the young man had sought desperately after the lost girl from the moment her absence was discovered on the morning after the storm, but she seemed to have disappeared like a shadow from the earth; for from the hour when she left Ben Benson"s boat-house, not a trace of her movements could be found.
For the third time, Ralph went down to the boat-house to question the old sailor, whom he found housed up, as he called it, in a fit of sullen grief, which it required some tact to break in upon.
Ben was sitting in his domicile before a rousing fire, which he now and then stooped to feed with hickory logs, till the whole room was filled with a warm glow of light. So many additions and ornaments had been added to the boat-house, that it took the appearance of a ship"s cabin more than anything else. The fire revealed a trap-door in the centre of the room, which answered for a gangway, while coils of rope, carpenters"
tools, cans of pitch, and bits of iron, all in their place and ship-shape, as Ben would have said, gave both a busy and maritime look to the premises.
Everything was very comfortable in the boat-house, but Ben kept piling on wood and raking out the coals with an iron bar, as if the heat and light were still insufficient, when in fact he thought nothing of either, but was making desperate efforts to work off the anxieties that had beset him like so many hounds, ever since his interview with Lina.
"What can a feller do now?" he said, looking wistfully up to the models of gun-boats, brigs, and clippers, that occupied the rude shelves and brackets on the wall, as if taking counsel from them. "I have sarched the woods from hill to hill, and nary a sign of her. She "caint a gone and fell through the ice, for it"s friz two feet thick; and, as for running away, or going for to kill herself, it wasn"t in the gal to do no sich thing. Ben Benson, you was a brute, beast, and two or three sarpents to boot, not to tell the gal all she wanted to know. You obstinate old wretch, you"ve gone and done it now, and no mistake. It"s as much as I can do to keep from knocking you on the head with a marlin-spike, you sneakin" old sea-dog! What if she was dead now, friz stiff agin a tree, or a lyin" in the bottom of the river, what would you think of yourself, I"d like to know?"
Thus half in muttered breath, half in thought, Ben gave forth the burden of his anxieties, till at last self-reproachful beyond endurance, he seized a fragment of pine wood, and opening his jack-knife with superfluous energy, began to whittle, as if his life depended on sharpening the stick to a point.
He was interrupted by the crunching sound of snow beneath footsteps that came in haste toward the boat-house. Ben cut a deep gash into the wood, and sat motionless, with his hand on the knife, listening.
"It"s too heavy--she never trod down the snow-crust like that, poor bird!" and, resuming his work, Ben kicked the shavings he had made into the fire, and flung the mutilated pine after them.
"Is"t you, mister Ralph?" said Ben, rising as the door opened, and seating himself moodily on a bench, that his guest might come to the fire. "You look fl.u.s.tered, and out of sorts, but this isn"t no place to get ship-shape in. It"s awful lonesome here, sin" that night."
"Then, you have heard nothing!"
"No, not a whisper. That fool, Ben Benson, has been sarching and sarching, like an old desarter as he is, but it ain"t no sort o" good; the gal may be dead for what he cares--a toasting hisself before a fire, while she--may be Mr. James has hearn something."
"Mr. James Harrington has gone also," answered Ralph, bitterly. "It"s no use searching further. They have fled together. James Harrington, the man whom I have looked up to all my life, the saint, the angel; he has disappeared as she did. They cheated me from the beginning. He has taken advantage of his wealth, and she--what chance had a poor fellow like me against his millions? It was hardly worth while to deceive me so shamefully though; but craft is natural to the s.e.x, I believe." There was a struggle between grief and rage in the young man"s voice, and while his eye blazed his lips began to quiver.
Ben slowly stooped forward, and resting an elbow on each knee, touched his fore-fingers thoughtfully together, while his eyes, clear and honest as those of a Newfoundland dog, were bent on the young man"s face. At last he burst forth.
"Ralph Harrington, I should say, that next to that mule-headed feller, Ben Benson, as isn"t worth the husks he sleeps on--you was the consarnedest fool that ever sot hisself up with an opinion. You talk agin wimmen afore the moustachoes are black on your upper lip, because there"s something about one on "em, as you can"t make out. Then, there"s Mister James, a man as that ere shark Ben Benson ain"t afeared to swear by through thick and thin, the most gentlemanliest Harrington as ever drawd breath, you set up to speak again him, it"s enough to agrivate a British admiral."
Ralph had scarcely heeded this speech, but stood with one elbow resting upon the rude shelf, that served as a mantelpiece, sullen and thoughtful.
"I was in hopes you would tell me something. Oh! Ben, it seems impossible to believe that fair, young creature so false," he said, at length giving way to the feelings that oppressed him, "what faith can one have in human nature after this?"
"Mister Ralph Harrington, you ain"t no sailor, to talk in that ere way.
There"s many a stout ship as goes down in a storm, with its timbers sound and its masts standing. Then, agin, there"s others as give themselves up to the storm, and lead off hither and yon, but get back to their reckoning, and do good sarvice arter all. Wimmen are like ships--some get unrigged--some founder--some go agin wind and weather, right in the teeth of the world, and some drift like poor little boats, without compa.s.s or rudder, but yet, the generality cast anchor in deep, clear water at last, and for one wreck, thousands and thousands come in with all sails set--only Mister Ralph, remember this. The craft that ales goes steadily and safe, cuts a still wake; but your leaky vessels makes any amount of whirlpools as they go down. It"s only boys,"
continued Ben, taking the tobacco from his mouth, and casting it indignantly into the fire--"It"s only boys as knows nothing, and men as knows too much, that ever speak in this ere wholesale way about wimmen.
Ralph, you"re young, that"s all."
"I am distracted, Ben; Heaven knows how gladly I would believe her blameless, but her manner changed toward me so strangely, she was evidently premeditating this abandonment; but that she should go off--and with him, of all men upon earth. Oh! Ben, what man, not a fool, could persist in his faith, after that."
"I tell you, it wasn"t that as driv the gal away. She wanted to know something as I wouldn"t tell her. Something more"en Ben Benson reckoned on, was in her mind; she got discouraged because he wouldn"t tell her."
"If I"d told her, she"d a been here now." Here Ben covered his face with both hands and cried out, "G.o.d forgive me! G.o.d forgive me!"
CHAPTER LXVI.
THREATS AND PERSUASIONS.
Directly after James Harrington left the General"s room, the waiting-woman Zillah entered cautiously, and with breathless eagerness.
She stood some moments partly behind the General"s chair, before he regarded her. When he did look up, a faint color swept over his face, and he made a gesture of annoyance.
"You are not pleased to find me here so soon," she said quickly, for impatience had for the moment disturbed the wonderful self-control with which her interviews with General Harrington were invariably conducted.
"Is it a sign this woman, who has outraged the name of wife, is to triumph over me always?"
"Zillah!" answered the General, angrily, "my relations with my wife are beyond your interference."
"Your wife!" exclaimed the woman with a fiendish sneer. "You can still call her that!"
"Zillah, be careful. I have permitted you to go in and out of my house in this surrept.i.tious fashion unmolested, from regard to old attachments; but you shall not again interfere in my family arrangements. The charges that you have, I see now, been the means of making against Mrs. Harrington, are groundless. I will not have a word spoken--mark me--against that excellent lady."
"What!" said the woman hoa.r.s.ely; "what does this mean?"
"It means, Zillah, that I am perfectly convinced not only of Mrs.
Harrington"s rect.i.tude, but of her entire attachment to myself. As for Mr. James Harrington, his conduct has been unexceptionable--nay, magnanimous. We are a happy and united family, Zillah."