His Sombre Rivals Part 41

"Was--was I like that when--when he married me?"

"Yes, an' no, honey. You only look like a picter of a woman den--a berry pearty picter, but nothin' but a picter arter all. Mas'r Graham hab brought yer ter life."

With another lingering, wondering glance at herself, she turned away and said: "Leave me, now, Jinny; I wish to be alone."

The woman hesitated, and was about to speak, but Grace waved her away imperiously, and sat down to the letters Graham had given her. She read and re-read them. They confirmed his words. She was a wife: her husband awaited her but a few feet away--her _husband_, and she had never dreamed of marrying again. The past now stood out luminous to her, and Warren Hilland was its centre. But another husband awaited her--one whom she had never consciously promised "to love, honor, and obey." As a friend she could wors.h.i.+p him, obey him, die for him; but as her _husband_--how could she sustain that mysterious bond which merges one life in another? She was drawn toward him by every impulse of grat.i.tude. She saw that, whether misled or not, he had been governed by the best of motives--nay, more, by the spirit of self-sacrifice in its extreme manifestation--that he had been made to believe that it was her only chance for health and life. Still, in her deepest consciousness he was but Alford Graham, the friend most loved and trusted, whom she had known in her far distant home, yet not her husband. How could she go to him, what could she say to him, in their new relations that seemed so unreal?

She trembled to leave him longer in the agony of suspense; but her limbs refused to support her, and her woman's heart shrank with a strange and hitherto unknown fear.

There was a timid knock at the door.

"Come in, Alford," she said, tremblingly.

He stood before her haggard, pale, and expectant.

"Alford," she said, sadly, "why did you not let me die?"

"I could not," he replied, desperately. "As I told you, there is a limit to every man's strength. I see it all in your face and manner--what I feared, what I warned Dr. Markham against. Listen to me.

I shall take you home at once. You are well. You will not require my further care, and you need never see my face again."

"And you, Alford?" she faltered.

"Do not ask about me. Beyond the hour when I place you in your father's arms I know nothing. I have reached my limit. I have made the last sacrifice of which I am capable. If you go back as you are now, you are saved from a fate which it seemed to me you would most shrink from could you know it--the coa.r.s.e, unfeeling touch and care of strangers who could have treated you in your helplessness as they chose. You might have regained your reason years hence, only to find that those who loved you were broken-hearted, lost, gone. They are now well and waiting for you. Here are their letters, written from week to week and breathing hope and cheer. Here is the last one from your father, written in immediate response to mine. In it he says, 'My hand trembles, but it is more from joy than age.' You were gaining steadily, although only as a child's intelligence develops. He writes, 'I shall have my little Grace once more, and see her mind grow up into her beautiful form.'"

She bent her head low to hide the tears that were falling fast as she faltered: "Was it wholly self-sacrifice when you married me?"

"Yes--in the fear of this hour, the bitterest of my life--yes. It has followed me like a spectre through every waking and sleeping hour.

Please make the wide distinction. My care for you, the giving up of my life for you, is nothing. That I should have done in any case, as far as I could. But with my knowledge of your nature and your past, I could not seem to take advantage of your helplessness without an unspeakable dread. When shown by the best human skill that I could thus save you, or at least ensure that you would ever have gentle, sympathetic care, I resolved to risk the last extremity of evil to myself for your sake.

Now you have the whole truth."

She rose and came swiftly to him--for he had scarcely entered the room in his wish to show her respect--and putting her arm around his neck, while she laid her head upon his breast, said gently and firmly: "The sacrifice shall not be all on your side. I have never consciously promised to be your wife, but now, as far as my poor broken spirit will permit, I do promise it. But be patient with me, Alford. Do not expect what I have not the power to give. I can only promise that all there is left of poor Grace Hilland's heart--if aught--shall be yours."

Then for the first time in his life the strong man gave way. He disengaged her so hastily as to seem almost rough, and fell forward on the couch unconscious. The long strain of years had culminated in the hour he so dreaded, and in the sudden revulsion caused by her words nature gave way.

Almost frantic with terror, Grace summoned her servant, and help from the people of the inn. Fortunately an excellent English physician was stopping at the same house, and he was speedily at work. Graham recovered, only to pa.s.s into muttering delirium, and the burden of his one sad refrain was: "If she should never forgive me!"

"Great heavens, madam! what _has_ he done?" asked the matter-of-fact Englishman.

What a keen probe that question was to the wife as she sat watching through the long, weary night! In an agony of self-reproach she recalled all that he had done for her and hers in all the years, and now in her turn she entreated _him_ to live; but he was as unconscious as she had been in the blank past. No wooing, no pleading, could have been so potent as his unconscious form, his strength broken at last in her service.

"O G.o.d!" she cried--forgetting in her anguish that she had no G.o.d--"have I been more cruel than all the war? Have I given him the wound that shall prove fatal--him who saved Warren's life, my own, my reason, and everything that a woman holds dear?"

Graham's powerful and unvitiated nature soon rallied, however, and under the skilful treatment the fever within a few days gave place to the first deep happiness he had ever known. Grace was tender, considerate, her own former self, and with something sweeter to him than self-sacrifice in her eyes; and he gave himself up to an unspeakable content.

It was she who wrote the home letters that week, and a wondrous tale they told to the two old people, who subsisted on foreign news even more than on Aunt Sheba's delicate cookery.

Graham was soon out again, but he looked older and more broken than his wife, who seemingly had pa.s.sed by age into a bloom that could not fade.

She decided that for his sake they would pa.s.s the winter in Italy, and that he should show her again as a woman what he had tried to interest her in as a child. Her happiness, although often deeply shadowed, grew in its quiet depths. Graham had too much tact to be an ardent lover. He was rather her stanch friend, her genial but most considerate companion. His powerful human love at last kindled a quiet flame on the hearth of her own heart that had so long been cold, and her life was warmed and revived by it. He also proved in picture galleries and cathedrals that he had seen much when he was abroad beyond wild mountain regions and wilder people, and her mind, seemingly strengthened by its long sleep, followed his vigorous criticism with daily increasing zest.

The soft, sun-lighted air of Italy appeared to have a healing balm for both, and even to poor Grace there came a serenity which she had not known since the "cloud in the South" first cast its shadow over her distant hearth.

To Graham at last there had come a respite from pain and fear, a deep content. His inner life had been too impoverished, and his nature too chastened by stern and bitter experience, for him to crave gayety and exuberant sentiment in his wife. Her quiet face, in which now was the serenity of rest, and not the tranquillity of death in life, grew daily more lovely to him; and he was not without his human pride as he saw the beauty-loving Italians look wonderingly at her. She in turn was pleased to observe how he impressed cultivated people with his quiet power, with a presence that such varied experiences had combined to create. Among fine minds, men and women are more truly felt than seen.

We meet people of the plainest appearance and most unostentatious manner, and yet without effort they compel us to recognize their superiority, while those who seek to impress others with their importance are known at once to be weak and insignificant.

It was also a source of deep gratification to Grace that now, since her husband had obtained rest of mind, he turned naturally to healthful business interests. Her own affairs, of which he had charge in connection with Hilland's lawyer, were looked after and explained fully to her; and his solicitude for Henry Anderson's success led to an exchange of letters with increasing frequency. Much business relating to the Virginia plantation was transacted on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean.

Grace sought to quiet her compunctions at leaving her father and Mrs.

Mayburn so long by frequent letters written in her dear old style, by cases of Italian wines, delicate and rare; exquisite fabrics of the loom, and articles of _vertu_; and between the letters and the gifts the old people held high carnival after their quaint fas.h.i.+on all that winter.

The soft Italian days lapsed one after another, like bright smiles on the face of nature; but at last there came one on which Grace leaned her head upon her husband's shoulder and whispered, "Alford, take me home, please."

Had he cared for her before, when she was as helpless as a little child? Jinny, in recalling that journey and in dilating on the wonders of her experience abroad, by which she invariably struck awe into the souls of Aunt Sheba and Iss, would roll up her eyes, and turn outward the palms of her hands, as she exclaimed, "Good Lor', you n.i.g.g.e.rs, how I make you 'prehen' Mas'r Graham's goin's on from de night he sez, sez he ter me, 'Pack up, Jinny; we'se a-gwine straight home.' Iss 'clares dat Mas'r Graham's a ter'ble soger wid his long, straight sword and pistol, an' dat he's laid out more 'Federates dan he can shake a stick at. Well, you'd nebber b'lieve he'd a done wuss dan say, 'How d'ye' to a 'Federate ef yer'd seen how he 'volved roun' Missy Grace. He wouldn't let de sun s.h.i.+ne on her, nor de win' blow near her, and eberybody had ter git right up an' git ef she eben wanted ter sneeze. On de s.h.i.+p he had eberybody, from de cap'n to de cabin-boys, a waitin' on her. Dey all said we hab a mighty quiet v'yage, but Lor' bress yer! it was all 'long ob Mas'r Graham. He wouldn't let no wabes run ter pitch his darlin' roun'. Missy Grace, she used ter sit an' larf an' larf at 'im--bress her dear heart, how much good it do me to hear de honey larf like her ole dear self! Her moder used ter be mighty keerful on her, but 'twan't nothin' 'pared ter Mas'r Graham's goin's on."

Jinny had never heard of Baron Munchausen, but her accounts of foreign experiences and scenes were much after the type of that famous _raconteur_; and by each repet.i.tion her stories seemed to make a portentous growth. There was, however, a residuum of truth in all her marvels. The event which she so vaguely foreshadowed by ever-increasing clouds of words took place. In June, when the nests around the cottage were full of little birds, there was also, in a downy, nest-like cradle, a miniature of sweet Grace Graham; and Jinny thenceforth was the oracle of the kitchen.

CHAPTER XL

RITA ANDERSON

The belief of children that babies are brought from heaven seems often verified by the experiences that follow their advent. And truly the baby at the St. John cottage was a heavenly gift, even to the crotchety old major, whom it kept awake at night by its unseasonable complaints of the evils which it encountered in spite of Grandma Mayburn, faithful old Aunt Sheba, who pleaded to be its nurse, and the gentle mother, who bent over it with a tenderness new and strange even to her heart.

She could laugh now, and laugh she would, when Graham, with a trepidation never felt in battle, took the tiny morsel of humanity, and paraded up and down the library. Lying back on the sofa in one of her dainty wrappers, she would cry, "Look at him, papa; look at that grim cavalryman, and think of his leading a charge!"

"Well, Gracie, dear," the old major would reply, chuckling at his well-worn joke, "the colonel was _only_ a cavalryman, you know. He's not up in infantry tactics."

One morning Grandma Mayburn opened a high conclave in regard to the baby's name, and sought to settle the question in advance by saying, "Of course it should be Grace."

"Indeed, madam," differed the major, gallantly, "I think it should be named after its grandmother."

Grace lifted her eyes inquiringly to her husband, who stood regarding what to him was the Madonna and child.

"I have already named her," he said, quietly.

"You, you!" cried his aunt, brusquely. "I'd have you know that this is an affair for grave and general deliberation."

"Alford shall have his way," said the mother, with quiet emphasis, looking down at the child, while pride and tenderness blended sweetly in her face.

"Her name is Hilda, in memory of the n.o.blest man and dearest friend I have ever known."

Instantly she raised her eyes, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, to his, and faltered, "Thank you, Alford"; and she clasped the child almost convulsively to her breast, proving that there was one love which no other could obliterate.

"That's right, dear Grace. Link her name with the memory of Warren. She will thus make you happier, and it's my wish."

The conclave ended at once. The old major took off his spectacles to wipe his eyes, and Mrs. Mayburn stole away.

From that hour little Hilda pushed sorrow from Grace's heart with her baby hands, as nothing had ever done before, and the memory of the lost husband ceased to be a shadow in the background. The innocent young life was a.s.sociated with his, and loved the more intensely.