But from all this unsought world-worship he turned away a weary, sickened, sorrowing man.
There was but one thing in all "the world outside" that strongly interested him--it was a "still small voice," a low-toned, sweet music, keeping near the dear mother earth and her humble children, yet echoed and re-echoed from sphere to sphere--it was the name of a lady, young, lovely, accomplished and wealthy, who devoted herself, her time, her talents and her fortune, to the cause of suffering humanity.
This young lady, whose beauty, goodness, wisdom, eloquence and powers of persuasion were rumored to be almost miraculous, had founded schools and asylums, and had collected by subscription a large amount of money, with which she was coming to America, to select and purchase a tract of land to settle a colony of the London poor. This angel girl"s name and fame was a low, sweet echo, as I said before--never noisy, never rising high--keeping near the ground. People spoke of her in quiet places, and dropped their voices to gentle tones in mentioning her and her works.
Such was the spell it exercised over them. This lady"s name possessed the strangest fascination for Thurston Willc.o.xen; he read eagerly whatever was written of her; he listened with interest to whatever was spoken of her. Her name! it was that of his loved and lost Marian!--that in itself was a spell, but that was not the greatest charm--her character resembled that of his Marian!
"How like my Marian?" would often be the language of his heart, when hearing of her deeds. "Even so would my Marian have done--had she been born to fortune, as this lady was."
The name was certainly common enough, yet the similarity of both names and natures inclined him to the opinion that this angel-woman must be some distant and more fortunate relative of his own lost Marian. He felt drawn toward the unknown lady by a strong and almost irresistible attraction; and he secretly resolved to see and know her, and pondered in his heart ways and means by which he might, with propriety, seek her acquaintance.
While thus he lived two lives--the outer life of work and usefulness, and the inner life of thought and suffering--the young people of his party, hoping and believing him to be enjoying the honors heaped upon him, yielded themselves up to the attractions of society.
Miriam spent much of her time with her friend, Alice Murray.
One morning, when she called on Alice, the latter invited her visitor up into her own chamber, and seating her there, said, with a mysterious air:
"Do you know, Miriam, that I have something--the strangest thing that ever was--that I have been wanting to tell you for three or four days, only I never got an opportunity to do so, because Olly or some one was always present? But now Olly has gone to court, and mother has gone to market, and you and I can have a cozy chat to ourselves."
She stopped to stir the fire, and Miriam quietly waited for her to proceed.
"Now, why in the world don"t you ask me for my secret? I declare you take so little interest, and show so little curiosity, that it is not a bit of fun to hint a mystery to you. Do you want to hear, or don"t you?
I a.s.sure you it is a tremendous revelation, and it concerns you, too!"
"What is it, then? I am anxious to hear?"
"Oh! you do begin to show a little interest; and now, to punish you, I have a great mind not to tell you; however, I will take pity upon your suspense; but first, you must promise never, never, n-e-v-e-r to mention it again--will you promise?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, listen. Stop! get a good place to faint first, and then listen. Are you ready? One, two, three, fire. The Rev. Thurston Willc.o.xen is a married man!"
"What!"
"Mr. Thurston Willc.o.xen has been married for eight years past."
"Pshaw!"
"Mr. Willc.o.xen was married eight years ago this spring at a little Methodist chapel near the navy yard of this city, and by an old Methodist preacher, of the name of John Berry."
"You are certainly mad!"
"I am not mad, most n.o.ble "doubter," but speak the words of truth and soberness. Mr. Willc.o.xen was married privately, when and where I said, to a beautiful, fair-haired lady, whose name heard in the ritual was Marian. And my husband, Olly Murray, was the secret witness of that private marriage."
A wild scream, that seemed to split the heart from whence it arose, broke from the lips of Miriam; springing forward, she grasped the wrist of Alice, and with her wild eyes starting, straining from their sockets, gazed into he face, crying:
"Tell me! tell me! that you have jested! tell me that you have lied?
Speak! speak!"
"I told you the Lord"s blessed truth, and Oily knows it. But Miriam, for goodness sake don"t look that way--you scare me almost to death! And, whatever you do, never let anybody know that I told you this; because, if you did, Olly would be very much grieved at me; for he confided it to me as a dead secret, and bound me up to secrecy, too; but I thought as it concerned you so much, it would be no harm to tell you, if you would not tell it again; and so when I was promising, I made a mental reservation in favor of yourself. And so I have told you; and now you mustn"t betray me, Miriam."
"It is false! all that you have told me is false! say that It is false!
tell me so! speak! speak!" cried Miriam, wildly.
"It is not false--it is true as Gospel, every word of it--nor is it any mistake. Because Olly saw the whole thing, and told me all about it. The way of it was, that Olly overheard them in the Congressional Library arranging the marriage--the gentleman was going to depart for Europe, and wished to secure the lady"s hand before he went--and at the same time, for some reason or other, he wished the marriage to be kept secret. Olly owns that it was none of his business, but that curiosity got the upper hand of him, so he listened, and he heard them call each other "Thurston" and "Marian"--and when they left the library, he followed them--and so, unseen, he witnessed the private marriage ceremony, at which they still answered to the names of "Thurston" and "Marian." He did not hear their surnames. He never saw the bride again; and he never saw the bridegroom until he saw Mr. Willc.o.xen at our wedding. The moment Olly saw him he knew that he had seen him before, but could not call to mind when or where; and the oftener he looked at him, the more convinced he became that he had seen him first under some very singular circ.u.mstances. And when at last lie heard his first name called "Thurston," the whole truth flashed on him at once. He remembered everything connected with the mysterious marriage. I wonder what Mr.
Willc.o.xen has done with his Marian? or whether she died or whether she lives? or where he hides her? Well, some men are a mystery--don"t you think so, Miriam?"
But only deep and shuddering groans, upheaving from the poor girl"s bosom, answered her.
"Miriam! Oh, don"t go on so! what do you mean? Indeed you alarm me! oh, don"t take it so to heart! indeed, I wouldn"t, if I were you! I should think it the funniest kind of fun? Miriam, I say!"
She answered not--she had sunk down on the floor, utterly crushed by the weight of misery that had fallen upon her.
"Miriam! now what in the world do you mean by this? Why do you yield so?
I would not do it. I know it is bad to be disappointed of an expected inheritance, and to find out that some one else has a greater claim, but, indeed, I would not take it to heart so, if I were you. Why, if he is married, he may not have a family, and even if he has, he may not utterly disinherit you, and even if he should, I would not grieve myself to death about it if I were you! Miriam, look up, I say!"
But the hapless girl replied not, heard not, heeded not; deaf, blind, insensible was she to all--everything but to that sharp, mental grief, that seemed so like physical pain; that fierce anguish of the breast, that, like an iron band, seemed to clutch and close upon her heart, tighter, tighter, tighter, until it stopped the current of her blood, and arrested her breath, and threw her into convulsions.
Alice sprang to raise her, then ran down-stairs to procure restoratives and a.s.sistance. In the front hall she met Dr. Dougla.s.s, who had just been admitted by the waiter. To his pleasant greeting, she replied hastily, breathlessly:
"Oh, Paul! come--come quickly up stairs! Miriam has fallen into convulsions, and I am frightened out of my senses!"
"What caused her illness?" asked Paul, in alarm and anxiety, as he ran up stairs, preceded by Alice.
"Oh, I don"t know!" answered Alice, but thought to herself: "It could not have been what I said to her, and if it was, I must not tell."
The details of sickness are never interesting. I shall not dwell upon Miriam"s illness of several weeks; the doctors p.r.o.nounced it to be _angina pectoris_--a fearful and often fatal complaint, brought on in those const.i.tutionally predisposed to it, by any sudden shock to mind or body. What could have caused its attack upon Miriam, they could not imagine. And Alice Murray, in fear and doubt, held her tongue and kept her own counsel. In all her illness, Miriam"s reason was not for a moment clouded--it seemed preternaturally awake; but she spoke not, and it was observed that if Mr. Willc.o.xen, who was overwhelmed with distress by her dreadful illness, approached her bedside and touched her person, she instantly fell into spasms. In grief and dismay, Thurston"s eyes asked of all around an explanation of this strange and painful phenomenon; but none could tell him, except the doctor, who p.r.o.nounced it the natural effect of the excessive nervous irritability attending her disease, and urged Mr. Willc.o.xen to keep away from her chamber. And Thurston sadly complied.
Youth, and an elastic const.i.tution, prevailed over disease, and Miriam was raised from the bed of death; but so changed in person and in manner, that you would scarcely have recognized her. She was thinner, but not paler--an intense consuming fire burned in and out upon her cheek, and smouldered and flashed from her eye. Self-concentrated and reserved, she replied not at all, or only in monosyllables, to the words addressed to her, and withdrew more into herself.
At length, Dr. Dougla.s.s advised their return home. And therefore they set out, and upon the last of March, approached Dell-Delight.
The sky was overcast, the ground was covered with snow, the weather was damp, and very cold for the last of March. As evening drew on, and the leaden sky lowered, and the chill damp penetrated the comfortable carriage in which they traveled, Mr. Willc.o.xen redoubled his attentions to Miriam, carefully wrapping her cloak and furs about her, and letting down the leathern blinds and the damask hangings, to exclude the cold; but Miriam shrank from his touch, and shivered more than before, and drew closely into her own corner.
"Poor child, the cold nips and shrivels her as it does a tropical flower," said Thurston, desisting from his efforts after he had tucked a woolen shawl around her feet.
"It is really very unseasonable weather--there is snow in the atmosphere. I don"t wonder it pinches Miriam," said Paul Dougla.s.s.
Ah! they did not either of them know that it was a spiritual fever and ague alternately burning and freezing her very heart"s blood--hope and fear, love and loathing, pity and horror, that striving together made a pandemonium of her young bosom. Like a flight of fiery arrows came the coincidences of the tale she had heard, and the facts she knew. That spring, eight years before, Mr. Murray said he had, unseen, witnessed the marriage of Thurston Willc.o.xen and Marian. That spring, eight years before, she knew Mr. Willc.o.xen and Miss Mayfield had been together on a visit to the capital. Thurston had gone to Europe, Marian had returned home, but had never seemed the same since her visit to the city. The very evening of the house-warming at Luckenough, where Marian had betrayed so much emotion, Thurston had suddenly returned, and presented himself at that mansion. Yet in all the months that followed she had never seen Thurston and Marian together, Thurston was paying marked and constant attention to Miss Le Roy, while Marian"s heart was consuming with a secret sorrow and anxiety that she refused to communicate even to Edith. How distinctly came back to her mind those nights when, lying by Marian"s side, she had put her hand over upon her face and felt the tears on her cheeks. Those tears! The recollection of them now, and in this connection, filled her heart with indescribable emotion. Her mother, too, had died in the belief that Marian had fallen by the hands of her lover or her husband. Lastly, upon the same night of Marian"s murder, Thurston Willc.o.xen had been unaccountably absent, during the whole night, from the deathbed of his grandfather. And then his incurable melancholy from that day to this--his melancholy augmented to anguish at the annual return of this season.
And then rising, in refutation of all this evidence, was his own irreproachable life and elevated character.
Ah! but she had, young, as she was, heard of such cases before--how in some insanity of selfishness or frenzy of pa.s.sion, a crime had been perpetrated by one previously and afterward irreproachable in conduct.
Piercing wound after wound smote these thoughts like swift coming arrows.
A young, immature woman, a girl of seventeen, in whose warm nature pa.s.sion and imagination so largely predominated over intellect, was but too liable to have her reason shaken from its seat by the ordeal through which she was forced to go.
As night descended, and they drew near Dell-Delight, the storm that had been lowering all the afternoon came upon them. The wind, the hail, and the snow, and the snow-drifts continually forming, rendered the roads, that were never very good, now nearly impa.s.sable.
More and more obstructed, difficult and unrecognizable became their way, until at last, when within an eighth of a mile from the house, the horses stepped off the road into a covered gully, and the carriage was over-turned and broken.