Mrs. Dennison went on with her crafty work, still playing with the knots of ribbon, and pausing now and then to blow them about, till they fluttered like b.u.t.terflies under her concentrated breath.
"If we only had sweet Jessie entirely to ourselves now to join our pleasant morning readings, wouldn"t it be charming? But that is hopeless, so long as she gives herself entirely to one person, you know."
Mrs. Lee lifted her slender hand, pa.s.sing it with troubled haste repeatedly across her forehead.
"But Miss Hyde has been such a true friend, so faithful, so every way worthy and agreeable, it seems as if Jessie could not love her too much.
Then she is such a favorite with Mr. Lee."
"Is she?" was the dry question which followed these remarks.
"Oh, yes! Besides, I never can forget her kindness to myself when Mr.
Lee was absent. You know that my husband has a great many duties, and it is only of late that it has been in his power to stay with me so much."
"But his heart--his heart is always with you, dear friend; I noticed that from the first day of my entrance to your house. In conversation, your name is always on his lips, and it is easy to see that you are never for a moment out of his thoughts."
Mrs. Lee leaned back in her chair, and her fine eyes filled with the brightest drops that ever sprung from a loving heart.
"I ought to be more grateful," she murmured, sweetly; "the blessed Lord has been so good to me. Oh! if all this should lead me to think less of Him, and more--sinfully more of my--my family."
"But this will never be; your nature is too well regulated."
"Ah! but Mrs. Dennison, you cannot imagine--you can form no idea how I have worshipped--how I do worship my husband. From the first hour I saw him to this, when we have sunk into mid-life together, it has been one struggle to keep him from overshadowing the love of G.o.d in this heart."
A heavenly expression came over that pale face, as the n.o.ble woman spoke words that the reticence of her nature had kept back even from me, her tried friend up to that hour; and now they were poured forth to the greedy ear of that woman like an overflow of wine upon the sandvile sand, which a thousand repulsive things had trodden over.
I could scarcely keep from crying out under the pressure of disgust that seized upon me when the creature lifted her eyes to the heaven of that face. In my whole life I had never seen an expression like that--so quick, so unutterably vicious. That instant some evil idea was born in the woman"s brain; I saw it clearly, as if the map of her bad heart had been laid out before me. This idea, gendered from the loving goodness of Mrs. Lee"s speech, broke into her eyes as the serpent bursts the mother-egg when hot sunshine is upon it.
This expression revelled in her eyes a moment, and then crept away as if a reptile had left her eyes and coiled itself in the depths of her soul.
I could detect a tone of exultation in her voice when she spoke again; but it was low still, and vibrated with strange fascination on the ear.
"And you love him so much?"
"I thought in my youth that it was impossible to love him better--that it was wrong to love any human being so much. Night and morning I prayed G.o.d to keep me clear of man-worship; but how can one pray against love to a G.o.d who is love itself? When I saw how completely my whole being gave itself to my husband, how impossible it was to weaken one throb of the joy which filled me at his approach, I gave up the struggle, and soon rendered double grat.i.tude to the Divine Being for giving him to me.
It was all I could do."
"And did he love you so much?"
With what insidious craft the question was put! How quietly the new-born serpent coiled itself in her eyes as the lashes drooped over them!
"So much? That is impossible! No man--no woman ever gave so great worship to a fellow-being! He was not even aware of it, I think; for this love was a treasure that I kept closely locked. It must have been tender questioning, indeed, that could have drawn such feelings into expression."
"But still he loved you?"
"Loved me? Oh, yes; I never doubted it, even then; but after I became so helpless, so dependent on him for my very life--for if he had failed me I must have died--the beautiful affection of his nature manifested itself. He became my support, my very being. Oh! G.o.d has been exceedingly good to me!"
"And in all this devotion, this excess of love--for so I must think it--has no distrust ever arisen between you?"
"Distrust? Who could distrust him?"
Mrs. Dennison did not seem to hear--she was musing, with her eyes on the floor. At last she murmured, vaguely,
"But jealousy is the natural growth of inordinate affection. I wonder it never sprung up between you. What if he had loved another person?"
"Loved another person, and I know it? That would have been death!"
Again the woman"s eyes gleamed so brightly that I could see the flash through her thick lashes. She arose and walked hurriedly up and down the room.
Mrs. Lee looked at her wonderingly.
"You think it wrong--you condemn me, as I have condemned myself a thousand times," she said, with meek pathos.
The woman returned to her seat, smiling.
"No, no. How can one woman condemn another for a fault so angelic? I only envied you the delicacy that could deem it wrong to give one"s whole being up to the first element of a woman"s nature--entire love."
Mrs. Lee drew a heavy breath and lay back in her chair, smiling.
"You have seen him," she said, at last. "How grand, how magnanimous he is, never forgetting me, never feeling the solitude of this room irksome, but loving it more and more; giving me hours out of each day till, of late, he almost lives in my apartment and never finds it tiresome!"
A strange smile stole over Mrs. Dennison"s lips; but she did not look up, and it pa.s.sed unnoticed by its object.
As the two ladies sat together, Jessie came into the room. Mrs. Dennison did not move, but, on the contrary, leaned nearer to Mrs. Lee. Jessie paused by the door and seemed about to retire; but Mrs. Lee spoke to her, holding out a hand.
The daughter saw this and came close to her mother"s chair, leaning over it; while the widow kept her place, so that every word which pa.s.sed between the mother and child was subject to her vigilance. Thus the conversation was constrained, and Jessie went away with a sad look, which went to my heart.
Then Mr. Lee came into the chamber, and all was bright as sunshine again. Mrs. Dennison kept her position, and Mr. Lee bent over his wife"s chair. It was a beautiful group--I have never seen three more distinguished-looking people in one tableau.
They fell into conversation, in which Mrs. Lee took her gentle part. I listened, with a strange feeling of pain, to the graceful dialogue, and ceased to wonder that the invalid had grown more cheerful under the influence of scenes like this. Perhaps my jealous thoughts invested all they said with unreal attractiveness; for jealousy, like love, creates qualities which do not exist, and I acknowledged now that the feeling which burned at my heart had many a jealous pang in it. How could this be otherwise? For years I had been the closest friend that lady possessed; and, within the hour, had I not heard a woman, who should have been a stranger, decrying me to her as if I had been a servant she wished to see discharged?
In this way I excused the bitterness that filled my heart as the cruel scene pa.s.sed before me. It was hard to bear when that woman"s sweet laugh came ringing through the chamber after some witty saying which brought a thousand animated expressions into the faces of the two persons I prized above all others, but from whom she had separated me.
All the morning they spent in Mrs. Lee"s room. Lottie informed me afterward that this had been their habit during my sickness. Why, she could not tell, unless it was that Babylon was hoping to find another chance to finish her work.
I could not sleep that night, and for many a long night after that. The fever had left me very low and nervous; I could not bear to meet the annoyances which were sure to beset me if I went into the family, and seldom left my room. I think Mrs. Lee hardly missed me. Indeed, it is doubtful if my absence was a matter of regret to any one; for Jessie came to my room as a sort of shelter from the scenes that I had witnessed, and thus our family became more and more a divided one.
CHAPTER LI.
THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
I had soon cause to regret my rashness in having opened my heart to Jessie. The dear girl was too frank and high-minded for a secret of that kind to rest safely with her. She believed all that I suspected, and with this conviction came a perfect loathing of the woman, who was now her forced guest. I saw that this subject was preying upon her, and repented keenly having given up the bitter fruit of knowledge before it was an absolute necessity; Lottie was wiser in the rude kindness of her attempt to put me down.
I did not grow strong; the hara.s.sing trouble at my heart kept me nervous and irritable. If a person entered my room suddenly, I would start and cry out; if I met any of the family in the grounds, my first impulse was to hide away, or pretend to be occupied till they pa.s.sed. Lottie scolded me, not in her old way, but with a sort of tearful authority. The humor and drollery of her rare character was changed into quaint sarcasm. The serpent creeping through our house had bitten her most severely of all.
To Mrs. Lee the girl was more humble and heedful than ever; to us she was abrupt.