"Yon did not hear, then, that he was court-martialed, and--sentenced to death!"
"No, no--good heaven, no!"
"He was tried for mutiny or rebellion--I know not which--but it was for raising arms against his superior officers while here in America--the occasion was--but you know the occasion better than I do."
"Yes, yes, it was when he rescued Edith from the violence of Thorg and his men. But oh! heaven, how horrible! that he should have been condemned to death for a n.o.ble act! It is incredible--impossible--how could it have happened? He never expected such a fate--none of us did, or we would never have consented to his return. There seemed no prospect of such a thing. How could it have been?"
"There was treachery, and perhaps perjury, too. He had an insidious and unscrupulous enemy, who a.s.sumed the guise of repentance, and candor, and friendship, the better to lure him into his toils--it was the infamous Colonel Thorg, who received the command of the regiment, in reward for his great services in America. And Michael"s only powerful friend, who could and would have saved him--was dead. General Ross, you are aware, was killed in the battle of Baltimore."
"G.o.d have mercy on poor Edith! How long has it been since, this happened, my dear girl?"
"When they reached Toronto, in Canada West, the regiment commanded by Thorg was about to sail for England. On its arrival at York, in England, a court-martial was formed, and Michael was brought to trial. There was a great deal of personal prejudice, distortion of facts, and even perjury--in short, he was condemned and sentenced one day and led out and shot the next!"
There was silence between them then. Henrietta sat in pale and speechless horror.
"But how long is it since my poor Edith has been so awfully widowed?" at length inquired Mrs. Waugh.
"Nearly four months," replied Marian, in a tremulous voice. "For six weeks succeeding his death, she was not able to rise from her bed. I came from school to nurse her. I found her completely prostrated under the blow. I wonder she had not died. What power of living on some delicate frames seem to have. As soon as she was able to sit up, I began to think that it would be better to remove her from the strange country, the theatre of her dreadful sufferings, and to bring her to her own native land, among her own friends and relatives, where she might resume the life and habits of her girlhood, and where, with nothing to remind her of her loss, she might gradually come to look upon the few wretched months of her marriage, pa.s.sed in England, as a dark dream. Therefore I have brought her back."
"And you, my dear child," she said, "you were Michael Shields" sister?"
"No, madam, no kin to him--and yet more than kin--for he loved me, and I loved him more than any one else in the world, as I now love his poor young widow. This was the way of it, Mrs. Waugh: Michael"s father and my mother had both been married before, and we were children of the first marriages; when Michael was fourteen years old, and I was seven, our parents were united, and we grew up together. About two years ago, Michael"s father died. My mother survived him only five months, and departed, leaving me in charge of her stepson. We had no friends but each other. Our parents, since their union, had been isolated beings, for this reason--his father was a Jew--my mother a Christian--therefore the friends and relatives on either side were everlastingly offended by their marriage. Therefore we had no one but each other. The little property that was left was sold, and the proceeds enabled Michael to purchase a commission in the regiment about to sail for America, and also to place me at a good boarding school, where I remained until his return, and the catastrophe that followed it.
"Lady, all pa.s.sed so suddenly, that I knew no word of his return, much less of his trial or execution, until I received a visit from the chaplain who had attended his last moments, and who brought me his farewell letter, and his last informal will, in which the poor fellow consigned me to the care of his wife, soon to be a widow, and enjoined me to leave school and seek her at once, and inclosed a check for the little balance he had in bank. I went immediately, found her insensible through grief, as I said--and, lady, I told you the rest."
Henrietta was weeping softly behind the handkerchief she held at her eyes. At last she repeated:
"You say he left you in his widow"s charge?"
"Yes, madam."
"Left his widow in yours, rather, you good and faithful sister."
"It was the same thing, lady; we were to live together, and to support each other."
"But what was your thought, my dear girl, in bringing her here?"
"I told you, lady, that in her own native land, among her own kinsfolk, she might be comforted, and might resume her girlhood"s thoughts and habits, and learn to forget the strange, dark pa.s.sages of her short married life, pa.s.sed in a foreign country."
"But, my dear girl, did you not know, had you never heard that her uncle disowned her for marrying against his will?"
"Something of that I certainly heard from Edith, lady, when I first proposed to her to come home. But she was very weak, and her thoughts very rambling, poor thing--she could not stick to a point long, and I overruled and guided her--I could not believe but that her friends would take her poor widowed heart to their homes again. But if it should be otherwise, still--"
"Well?--still?"
"Why, I cannot regret having brought her to her native soil--for, if we find no friends in America, we have left none in England--a place besides full of the most harrowing recollections, from which this place is happily free. America also offers a wider field for labor than England does, and if her friends behave badly, why I will work for her, and--for her child if it should live."
"Dear Marian, you must not think by what I said just now, that I am not a friend of Edith. I am, indeed. I love her almost as if she were my own daughter. I incurred my husband"s anger by remaining with her after her marriage until she sailed. I will not fail her now, be sure. Personally, I will do my utmost for her. I will also try to influence her uncle in her favor. And now, my dear, it is getting very late, and there is a long ride, and a dreadful road before me. The commodore is already anxious for me, I know, and if I keep him waiting much longer, he will be in no mood to be persuaded by me. So I must go. To-morrow, my dear, a better home shall be found for you and Edith. That I promise upon my own responsibility. And, now, my dear, excellent girl, good-by. I will see you again in the morning."
And Mrs. Waugh took leave.
"No," thundered Commodore Waugh, thrusting his head forward and bringing his stick down heavily upon the floor. "No, I say! I will not be bothered with her or her troubles. Don"t talk to me! I care nothing about them! What should her trials be to me? The precious affair has turned out just as I expected it would! Only what I did not expect was that we should have her back upon our hands! I wonder at Edith! I thought she had more pride than to come back to me for comfort after leaving as she did!"
This was all the satisfaction Mrs. Waugh got from Old Nick, when she had related to him the sorrowful story of Edith"s widowhood and return, and had appealed to his generosity in her behalf. But he unbent so far as to allow Edith and Marian to be installed at Mrs. L"Oiseau"s cottage, and even grudgingly permitted Henrietta to settle a pension upon her.
CHAPTER VII.
WANDERING f.a.n.n.y.
It was a jocund morning in early summer--some five years after the events related in the last chapter.
Old Field Cottage was a perfect gem of rural beauty. The Old Fields themselves no longer deserved the name--the repose of years had restored them to fertility, and now they were blooming in pristine youth--far as the eye could reach between the cottage and the forest, and the cottage and the sea-beach, the fields were covered with a fine growth of sweet clover, whose verdure was most refreshing to the sight. The young trees planted by Marian, had grown up, forming a pleasant grove around the house. The sweet honeysuckle and fragrant white jasmine, and the rich, aromatic, climbing rose, had run all over the walls and windows of the house, embowering it in verdure, bloom and perfume.
While Marian stood enjoying for a few moments the morning hour, she was startled by the sound of rapid footsteps, and then by the sight of a young woman in wild attire, issuing from the grove at the right of the cottage, and flying like a hunted hare toward the house.
Marian impulsively opened the gate, and the creature fled in, frantically clapped to the gate, and stood leaning with her back against it, and panting with haste and terror.
She was a young and pretty woman--pretty, notwithstanding the wildness of her staring black eyes and the disorder of her long black hair that hung in tangled tresses to her waist. Her head and feet were bare, and her white gown was spotted with green stains of the gra.s.s, and torn by briars, as were also her bleeding feet and arms. Marian felt for her the deepest compa.s.sion; a mere glance had a.s.sured her that the poor, panting, pretty creature was insane. Marian took her hand and gently pressing it, said:
"You look very tired and faint--come in and rest yourself and take breakfast with us."
The stranger drew away her hand and looked at Marian from head to foot.
But in the midst of her scrutiny, she suddenly sprang, glanced around, and trembling violently, grasped the gate for support. It was but the tramping of a colt through the clover that had startled her.
"Do not be frightened; there is nothing that can hurt you; you are safe here."
"And won"t he come?"
"Who, poor girl?"
"The Destroyer!"
"No, poor one, no destroyer comes near us here; see how quiet and peaceable everything is here!"
The wanderer slowly shook her head with a cunning, bitter smile, that looked stranger on her fair face than the madness itself had looked, and:
"So it was there," she said, "but the Destroyer was at hand, and the thunder of terror and destruction burst upon our quiet--but I forgot--the fair spirit said I was not to think of that--such thoughts would invoke the fiend again," added the poor creature, smoothing her forehead with both hands, and then flinging them wide, as if to dispel and cast away some painful concentration there.
"But now come in and lie down on the sofa, and rest, while I make you a cup of coffee," said Marian.
But the same expression of cunning came again into the poor creature"s face, as she said:
"In the house? No, no--no, no! f.a.n.n.y has learned something. f.a.n.n.y knows better than to go under roofs--they are traps to catch rabbits! "Twas in the house the Destroyer found us, and we couldn"t get out! No, no! a fair field and no favor and f.a.n.n.y will outfly the fleetest of them! But not in a house, not in a house!"
"Well, then I will bring an easy chair out here for you to rest in--you can sit under the shade, and have a little stand by your side, to eat your breakfast. Come; come nearer to the house," said Marian, taking poor f.a.n.n.y"s hand, and leading her up the walk.