Reaction came at last! Life is full of bathos as well as pathos. An hour later, we four companions in the rejoicing over this redemption, if chiefly strangers before, were partaking cheerfully together of hot coffee and oysters. The services of Mrs. Jessup had been called in--the doctor"s excellent old Quaker house-keeper--and, amid many "thous" and "thees," she had served us a capital and expeditious supper.
No one enjoyed the festive occasion more than Mr. Burress, who, on the point of stealing lightly away after witnessing from the front study the scene of recognition and meeting, had been arrested on the threshold by Dr. Pemberton himself.
Either to allow a full explanation between two long-parted lovers, or to conceal his own emotion and get back his customary calm, our dear doctor had seen fit to step into the front-study for a few minutes, and he checked Mr. Burress, with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b, with some very natural questions as to the mode and time of our meeting, and ended by requiring his presence at the slight collation he ordered at once.
The part the worthy apothecary had played in my closing adventure; the certainty that to his zeal and promptness I owed my immunity from further captivity--for, had I walked around the square in the usual way, the men at watch from the carriage-windows must have espied and seized me--or, had we loitered in the alley, and arrived a moment later at the central house of Kendrick Row, there is no doubt that they would have been there to await my arrival, nor could Mr. Burress have saved me from their clutches--the whole thing seemed especially providential; but, as the efficient medium of each mercy, Napoleon B. Burress did, indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr.
Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his eyes dimmed with tears, and words that found imperfect utterance, at last compelling him to strange silence.
"I thank you, I bless you," he said, at last. "I do not hope to be able to return such services, but, what I _can do_, command."
"And I to think that she was crazy all the time; escaped from the great asylum a mile away. Sweetest creature, too, I ever saw in my life; and Caleb thought so, too."
The speaker brushed a briny drop or two from his eyes with the back of his hand as he spoke; then, smiling archly, asked:
"Can you forgive me, miss, for belying you so, even in thought? You see, I have made a clean breast of it now; but such a pity!"
"Forgive you?" And I advanced toward him, and put both my hands in one of his large white extremities, and, before I knew what I was doing, I had stooped over and kissed it, and was bathing it with my tears.
"O miss! this is too much; it is, indeed!" said Napoleon B., blushing to the roots of his hair, and withdrawing his hand with a slightly-mortified air; "you nonplus me completely."
"You see she was too much overcome, Mr. Burress, to speak otherwise than this," said Wentworth, drawing me to his bosom. "You must honor this expression of feeling as I do."
"O sir! it is the greatest honor I ever received in my life; and she, poor thing, like Penelope, tangled up in a web so long, and free at last! Well, it is a great joy to me to think I helped a little to cut the ropes."
"Helped! Why, I owe every thing to you. Listen," and then as briefly as I could I recounted the trials in store for me that very night--the compulsory marriage, or the removal to the belfry-tower--one or the other inevitable, and either of which must have made the proposed rescue of the following day, on the part of Captain Wentworth and his friends, in one sense or the other unavailing. As the wife of Gregory, or as the prisoner of the turret, I should in one case have been morally, and in the other physically, dead or lost forever!
Mutely, and tearfully even, was my skill in setting forth the magnitude of the wrong, from which Mr. Burress had been instrumental in saving me, acknowledged by my audience, not excepting Jenny the house-maid, who, arrested on the threshold, stood wiping her eyes with her neat cotton ap.r.o.n in token of sympathy.
"Caleb will be wondering what has become of me, and tired out of watching if I don"t go home at once," said Mr. Burress, after his emotion had subsided, and accepting gracefully the civic crown with which he had been metaphorically rewarded. Mine was in store, but how could he dream of this?
A statue of the Greek Slave, a copy made by a master-hand, soon adorned his window, and his bride wore pearls of price, the joint gift of Miriam and Wardour Wentworth, a twelvemonth later, when a mistress of the emporium was brought home, much to the solace of Caleb, who was remembered by us also, let me not forget to add.
Truly kind and benevolent as he was, Napoleon Burress had a despotic manner, which relaxed beneath the genial smile of Marian March.
"I must go, indeed, my dear sir" (to Dr. Pemberton), "but this night will be memorable in my annals. G.o.d bless you all! Farewell. Afraid of an encounter? Not I Like Horatio c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l of old, I learned to carry pistols constantly about me when I had to pa.s.s the bridge every night as a youngster. My parents lived in Hamilton village. I still keep up the custom, and therefore pay my fine yearly to the council."
When at last we separated, the clock was on the stroke of one, and I went to a clean and quiet chamber above the little study, where a bright fire was burning, but whence the smell of lavender, which always accompanies the fresh sheets of Quakerhood, still prevailed with a summer-like fragrance. The attentive house-maid disrobed me, and bathed my chilled and frosted feet and swollen hands in water tempered with alcohol. Then arraying me in a mob-cap and snowy cotton gown, the property of good Mrs. Jessup, placed me in the soft nest prepared for sojourners beneath that homely but hospitable roof.
"I hope thee is comfortable, Miriam Monfort," said Mrs. Jessup, after I was ensconced in bed, "Why, thy face is the same after all, that I remember when thou wert a very little girl, and used to walk out with Mrs. Austin. She is well, I hope?" settling the bed-cover.
"I cannot tell you, Mrs. Jessup. I must rather ask such questions of you. When did you see her last? and Mabel--do you know my little sister?"
"Oh, yes, I know her perfectly well by sight. Let me see, it was Sabbath before last that, just as I was coming out of Friends" meeting-house, I saw Mabel Monfort, a pretty maiden, truly, walking with her step-sister, I think, and a tall and stately gentleman. But Mrs. Austin I have not seen since last rose-time, and then only in pa.s.sing. She seemed well, but wore a troubled face."
"Yes, yes; she was troubled, no doubt, things were so altered; and, if her heart had not turned to stone, she must have thought of me sometimes regretfully. But all bids fair now, Mrs. Jessup, both for me and her, and for Mabel. For the rest, let them go--they are fiends!"
"Thee has a very flushed and hot cheek, Miriam, now that I see thee closely and touch thy face"--doing so lightly with the back of her hand as she spoke. "A bowl of sage-tea would, no doubt, be of service to thee; shall I--"
"Oh, no, Mrs. Jessup; I never could drink that wise stuff in the world.
I have just had a good supper, and am excited, that is all. Jenny will tell you what she overheard concerning my escape of to-night, and that will account for all."
"Good-night, then, Miriam; may the Lord have thee in his care this night"--and she withdrew, followed by Jenny, eager, no doubt, to commence the recital of my adventure, or to hear what more Captain Wentworth and Dr. Pemberton had to say on the subject.
It was nearly daylight when they parted, one to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours of needful slumber before setting out on his professional tour, the other to go at once to the officers of justice, and, at the very earliest hour possible, obtain the authority to arrest the brace of arch-conspirators, still protected by the shadows of the dawn.
For Justice has its time of sleeping and waking in large cities, and will not be denied its meals, its hours of rest, and even recreation. So it was seven o"clock in the cold November morning before the proper ceremonials could be accomplished which placed it in the power of Wentworth to arraign Basil Bainrothe and Luke Gregory.
He occupied one seat in the hackney-coach, which was otherwise filled by the officers of the law; but, when he rang a sonorous peal on the portal bell of Bainrothe"s residence, it was unanswered, and, though the house had been watched since daylight by an armed police force, who had no connection with McDermot, it was found, when an entrance had been effected, that the only inhabitants of the mansion were a sick woman, an old negress, and a child, apparently, from its puny size, about a twelvemonth old. The woman could not be aroused from the coma in which she seemed to have fallen, either as a crisis of her disease or a precursor of death (medical opinion was divided), until suddenly, about noon, she waked, perfectly clear in mind and comfortable in body, and called loudly for nourishment!
I had slept profoundly until that hour, and my first thought in waking was of Mrs. Clayton and her probable condition; then came the concentrated effort necessary for her release; and she, too, awoke, as I have shown, to consciousness and physical ease.
Her surprise, her indignation, at being thus deserted, surpa.s.sed even her disappointment at my escape, and her involuntary somnolency was a theme of self-reproach and marvel both. But all yielded in turn to terror when she found herself under arrest in her own chamber, in company with her fellow-conspirator Sabra.
The child was brought to me, at my earnest request, and, during the few days of my sojourn under Dr. Pemberton"s roof, managed to make friends of all around him. His deformity soon became a matter of interest and medical examination, and it was decided that it was not beyond the reach of surgical skill.
The process would be very gradual, Dr. Pemberton thought, of straightening the spinal curvature; but, should the health of the child prove good after his tardy and difficult dent.i.tion, much might be hoped from the aid of Nature herself. This was joyous intelligence to me.
The n.o.ble soul of Ernie should still wear a fitting frame, and the stature of his kind be accorded to him! The "picaninny" wicked old Sabra had gloated on as a dainty morsel, on the raft, might live to put Fate itself to shame; for had I not marveled that his mother even should care to preserve a thing so frail and wretched, when we sat hand-in-hand together on the burning ship? And, later, had I not pondered over the wisdom of his preservation? Who, then, shall penetrate the mysteries of divine intention?
Claude Bainrothe had been arrested, but, after close and thorough examination, was dismissed as irresponsible for and ignorant of his father"s acts and designs, a sentence afterward revoked, as far as public opinion was concerned.
Evelyn, Mabel, and Mrs. Austin, were, of course, beyond suspicion--the last two deservedly so; and if, indeed, Evelyn had been guilty of cooperation, I knew it had been through the force of circ.u.mstances alone, too potent for her egotism and vanity. She never wished to destroy, only to govern me, and make my being and interests subordinate to her own. Mrs. Austin and Mabel received me with earnest joy, and Evelyn even manifested a decent sense of sisterly gratulation.
I never saw Claude Bainrothe nor entered my father"s house until after he had left it and forever--accompanied not by his wife, who lingered behind in distress and wretched dependence, most bitter to a spirit like hers, neither loving to give or receive favors--for, gathering up all of his own and his father"s valuables, and drawing from the bank every dollar he could command, this worthy son of an unprincipled sire fled to join his parent, with his minion, Ada Greene. Evelyn had been for some time sensible of his infatuation, and striven vainly to combat it by every means in her power, forbearance having been her first alternative, vivid reproach her last. But experiments had failed. The first only fostered guilt beneath her own roof--the last urged it to its consummation.
Still young and beautiful, she was deserted by the only man she had ever loved--the being for whom she had ruthlessly sacrificed the welfare of her sisters and every sentiment of honor; to whom she had given up her liberty to pander to his and his father"s ignominy, and her home to their desecration.
In her great grief she retired to the solitude of her own chamber, and refused to see any face save that of Mrs. Austin, who from this period became her sole attendant, even after time had somewhat ameliorated the first agony incident to her condition.
For there came to her another phase of being which made this attendance no less a necessity than her present form of bitter and helpless grief.
Hope revived, but in a form that promised no fruition, and which later will be made plainer to the reader. Just now I must continue my _resume_.
Old Martin was dead of paralysis, after praying vainly to be spared to see his master"s child return and take possession of her own, for he had never believed in my suicide, an idea that Bainrothe had taken pains to propagate. Nor did he lend any faith to my demise; knowing what he did, he believed that I had gone to England to get a.s.sistance from my mother"s relatives--and Mrs. Austin had shared his opinion; she had nursed him to the last, faithfully, and Evelyn had been tolerant of his presence. This, at least, was a consolation.
Sabra and Mrs. Clayton were not prosecuted, and I did, perhaps, the most inexorable act of my life when I refused to see either of them again, or a.s.sist them to more than a mere subsistence until health could be restored to the one and her "owners" written to in order that the other might be reclaimed to bondage, in which condition alone she, and such as she, can be restrained from wrongdoing. "For there are devils on the earth," says Swedenborg, "as well as angels, and they both wear human guise--but by this may we know them, that no mortal ties bind them, no sphere confines them. They walk abroad, the one solely to evil for its own sake, the other to universal good for the Father. Such as these die not, but are translated, the one to h.e.l.l, the other to heaven."
Do we not right, then, to confine and enslave devils while they abide with us, or, if we can, to destroy them utterly? And if we discern them, shall we not adore G.o.d"s angels?
These dwell not long among us, and their eyes are fixed always with a far, pure yearning for some sphere in which we have no part. We feel this in our daily intercourse with them, for angels like these dwell often in the lowliest form about us, and our common contact with them thrills and awes us, though we scarcely realize that it is from them we have these sensations, or what renders them so far, though near at hand!
Little children, submissive slaves, sad women, unresisting men, patient physicians, great patriots, persistent preachers, martyr poets--all these forms and phases in turn do our a.s.sociate angels enter into and inform.
But ever the sign is there! They are not ours! Among us, but not of us--set apart, here for a season be it, longer or shorter, ready at any time to spread their wings! My sister was of these--I did not recognize this truth in the time of my great sorrow, when the parting plumes had not revealed themselves to my undiscerning eyes.
A mighty touchstone has been applied to these earthly orbs since then, and the power to discriminate has been given to my soul. As Gregory and Sabra were devils, I verily believe, so was Mabel one of Swedenborg"s angels. Who shall gainsay me? Who knows more than I on this subtle subject? Not the wisest theologian that lives and breathes this earthly air! Only those who never speak to enlighten us, and who have pa.s.sed into infinite light and knowledge through the portals of the grave.
When I knelt beside Wardour Wentworth in the old church of chimes a fortnight after my emanc.i.p.ation from the thraldom of demons, I acquired with this new allegiance of mine a more Christian and forbearing spirit than had ever before possessed me; but the pearl of great price came not yet. Into the deeps of sorrow was my soul first compelled to enter, a diver in the great ocean, whence alone all such precious pearls are borne.