A Changed Heart: A Novel

"You are generous, Miss Marsh," he said – cold and cruel words, and even he felt them so to be, "and I thank you for that generosity. Loss of fortune would be nothing to me – that is to say, I could overlook it – though I am not rich myself, but this other matter is different. As you say, I could hardly marry into a family stained with – unjustly let us hope – the brand of murder. I shall ever esteem and respect you, Miss Marsh, as the best and bravest of women, and I trust that you will yet make happy some one worthier of you than I am."

Is murder, the murder of the body, when a man plunges a knife into his fellow-man's breast, and leaves him stark and dead, the greatest of all earthly crimes? Earthly tribunals consider it so, and inflict death on the perpetrator. But is there not another murder – a murder of the heart – committed every day, of which we hear nothing, and which man has never made a law to punish. There are wounds which leave little outward trace; but the patient bleeds inwardly, yet bleeds to death for all that, and it is the same ultimatum, death, by a different means. But there is a higher tribunal; and perhaps before that, the sins over-looked by man shall be judged and condemned.

Captain Cavendish took his hat and turned to depart. He felt exceedingly uncomfortable, to say the least of it. He wished that black figure would not sit so petrified and stone-like, he wished that white face gazing out into the night would look a little less like the face of a corpse. He wished she would flame up in some wrathful outburst of womanly fury and insulted pride, and order him to depart, and never show her his false face again. He wished she would do anything but sit there, in that frozen rigidity, as if slowly turning to stone.

"Nathalie!" he said, venturing to take her icy fingers again, "will you not speak one word to me before I go?"

She withdrew her fingers, not hastily or in anger, but never looked at him.

"I have nothing to say," her unnatural voice replied.

"Then good-bye, Nathalie!"

"Good-bye!"

He opened and closed the parlor door, opened and closed the front door, and was gone. He looked at the window of that dark room as he strode by, and fancied he saw the white face gleaming on him menacingly through the gloom. The white face was there, but not menacing. Whatever she might feel in the time to come, when the first terrible shock of all this was over, she could feel nothing so petty as resentment now. Her anguish was too supreme in this first dreadful hour. The world to her stood still, and the blackness of desolation filled the earth. "All for love, and the world well lost!" had been her motto. It was for his sake she had risked everything, and verily, she had her reward!

CHAPTER XIX.

THE FLIGHT

Mrs. Major Wheatly was a very fine lady, and lived in a very fine house two or three miles out of town. Having secured a traveling companion and a governess for her daughter, in the person of Miss Rose, the little Speckport school-mistress, she had desired that young person to come out to their place immediately, and assist in the packing and other arrangements, preparatory to starting. Miss Rose had obeyed, and being out of town had heard nothing of the inquest and the verdict until that night, when the major drove in, after dusk, with the news. Mrs. Major Wheatly, like any other fine lady, was greatly addicted to news, and received a severe shock in her nervous system by the manner in which her paid companion received the intelligence. They were all sitting at tea when the major blurted out the story, and his conviction that "the young scamp would be hung, and serve him right," and Miss Rose had fallen suddenly back in her chair in a violent tremor and faintness. All the next day she had gone about so pale and subdued that it gave Mrs. Wheatly the fidgets to look at her; but whatever she felt, she had wisely kept to herself, and made her moan inwardly, as dependents who know their places always should. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" – that day brought its own evil tidings. The major returning at his usual hour of the evening from town, announced the astounding intelligence that Miss Nathalie Marsh was disinherited, and the broad lands of Redmon given to another. Mrs. Major Wheatly sipped her tea and ate her buttered toast, and was deeply sympathetic. She had met the pretty, golden-haired, violet-eyed heiress often in society, and had admired and liked her, as most people did, and was as sorry for her as was consistent with the dignity of so great a lady.

"Of course Captain Cavendish must recede now," she said: "he paid her very marked attentions, but of course he will not marry a penniless bride. Were they engaged, I wonder?"

"Cavendish is a fortune-hunter," said the major. "Miss Marsh is a very nice girl, and a very pretty one, and altogether too good for him. No fear of his marrying her, my dear; he wouldn't marry the Venus Celestis herself, without a handsome dowry."

"Mrs. Wheatly," Miss Rose said, "I must go into town to-morrow morning, to see my friends and say good-bye."

She was so pale and tremulous saying this, that the lady hastened to assent, nervously, lest she should make another scene.

"I am going in about nine o'clock," the major said, "and will drive you. Harris will take you back."

"And you must not stay long, Miss Rose," his lady languidly said; "remember we start at half-past two, and there is so much to be done."

The clock on the sitting-room mantel of that silent house on Cottage Street was pointing to half-past nine, when Betsy Ann, with fuzzy hair and sleepy face, hastened to answer a knock at the front door. She stared sleepily at her visitor, who came hurriedly in.

"Is she here, Betsy Ann? – Miss Marsh?"

"Yes'm," Betsy Ann said, "she's up in your room, and Miss Laura Blair and Midge, they've been and sot up with her all night, and me and Miss Jo Blake we've been sitting up with Mrs. Marsh. Midge, she's gone to bed now, and you'd better go up-stairs."

Miss Rose ascended the stairs, and tapped at the door that had been her own. It was opened by Laura Blair, looking pale and fagged.

"Is it you, Miss Rose?" she said, in a low voice, kissing her. "I was afraid you were not coming to say good-bye."

"I could not come sooner, and can stay only an hour now. How is she?"

"There is no change. She has lain all night as she lying now."

Miss Rose looked at the bed, tears slowly swelling up and filling her soft brown eyes. Nathalie lay among the white pillows, her amber tresses trailing and falling loose all about, her hands clasped over her head, her haggard face turned to the window overlooking the bay, her wide-open blue eyes staring blankly at the dim gray sea melting away into the low gray sky.

"She lies like that," Laura softly said, "all the time. We sat up with her all night, but she never slept, she hardly moved; whenever we went near the bed, we found her eyes wide open and vacant, as they are now. If she could only talk or cry, she would be better, but it makes one's heart ache to look at her."

"Does she not talk?"

"She will answer you if you speak to her, but that is all. She is quite conscious, but she seems to be in a sort of torpor. I will leave you with her, and lie down for half an hour. She was very fond of you, and perhaps you can do more with her than I could."

Laura departed; and Miss Rose, going over to the bed, stooped down and kissed the cold, white face, leaving two bright tears upon it.

"Nathalie, dearest," she said, "do you know me?"

Her large, melancholy eyes turned upon her sweet, tender face.

"Yes," she said, in that voice so unlike her own, that it startled her hearer. She seemed so unlike herself every way, that Miss Rose's tears rained down far faster than they would have done at any outbreak of grief.

"You are ill, my darling," Miss Rose faltered through her tears. "I wish I could stay and nurse you back to health, but I am going away to-day – going, perhaps, never to come back."

"Going away? Oh, yes. I remember!"

She turned wearily on the pillow, still gazing out over the wide sea, as if her thoughts were far away.

"I am very sorry for you, dear, dear Nathalie! Very, very sorry for you! It seems to me, sometimes, there is nothing in all this world but suffering, and sorrow, and death."

"Death!" Nathalie echoed, catching with sudden and startling vehemence at the word. "Miss Rose, are you afraid to die?"

The question was so sudden and so strange, that Miss Rose could not for a moment answer. A wild gleam of light had leaped into the sick girl's eyes, and irradiated her face so unnaturally, that it struck her companion with terror.

"Afraid to die?" she faltered. "To die, Nathalie?"

"Yes," Nathalie repeated, that abrupt energy yet in her voice; "you are good and charitable, better than any other girl I know, and you ought not to be afraid to die. Tell me, are you?"

She laid hold of Miss Rose's wrist, and looked wildly into her frightened face. The girl tried to still her beating heart and answer.

"I am not good, Nathalie. I am an erring and sinful creature; but, trusting in the great mercy of God, I think I shall not be afraid to die when it shall please him to call me. We must rely on his mercy, Nathalie, on that infinite compassion for our misery that made him die for us. If we thought of his justice, we might all despair."

Nathalie turned away, and looked out again over the dark, tossing bay. The sweet voice of Miss Rose broke the stillness.

"To the just, Nathalie, there is no such word as death! To quit this world, to them, is only passing from earth to Heaven in the arms of angels. Why should we ever grow to love this world, when day after day it is only passing from one new trouble and sorrow to another?"

"Sorrow!" Nathalie repeated, in a voice sadder than any tears. "Yes, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow! There is nothing left now but that."

"Heaven is left, my darling," Miss Rose whispered, her fair face radiant. "Oh, look up, Nathalie! When all the world deserts us, there is One left who will never turn away when we cry out to him. We may turn our backs upon him and forget him in the hour of our happiness and prosperity, but when the world darkens around us, and all earthly love fails, he will never leave us or forsake us, but will lead us lovingly back to a better and purer bliss. Remember, Nathalie, the way to heaven is the way of the Cross. It is a hard and thorny one, perhaps; but think of the divine feet that have trodden it before us."

"Stop, stop, stop!" Nathalie impatiently cried out, "why do you talk to me like this! I am not good – I am only miserable and despairing, and I want to die, only I am afraid!"

She moved away her face; but Miss Rose, bending over her still, kissed once more the averted face.

"There was a time, Nathalie," she said softly, "when I was almost as miserable as you are now, when, God forgive me, I prayed in my passionate and wicked rebellion to die too. There was a time, Nathalie, when I was rich and flattered, and beloved and happy – as happy as we can ever be with the blind happiness of a lotus-eater when we never think or thank the good God from whom that happiness comes. I thought myself an heiress as you did, Nathalie; my father was looked upon as a rich and honorable man, and his only daughter the most enviable girl in all the city of Montreal. It was balls and parties, and the theater and the opera, every night; and riding and driving, and dressing and shopping all day long. I had my carriage to ride in, a fine house to live in, servants to wait on me, and rich dresses and jewels to wear; and I thought life was one long holiday, made for dancing and music, and sunshine and joy. I had a lover, too, whom I thought loved me, and to whom I had given my whole heart, and we were on the verge of being married. Are you listening to me, Nathalie?"

"Yes," Nathalie said. She had been listening intently, forgetting for the first time her own sorrows, to hearken to the story, so like her own.

"Well, Nathalie, in one day, almost as you have done, I lost all – father, lover, fortune, honor. My father went out from breakfast, hale and well, and was carried home two hours afterward, struck dead. Congestion of the brain they said it was. I was so frantic at first, I could realize nothing but his death, but I was soon sternly compelled to listen to other bitter facts. Instead of being an heiress, I was a beggar. I was far poorer than you, for I was motherless and without a home to shelter me. The creditors seized everything – house, furniture, carriages, horses, plate, pictures – and turned me, in point of fact, into the street. I had been educated in a convent, and the good nuns gave me a home; but for that, I might have gone to the almshouse, for the friends of prosperity are but frail reeds to lean upon in adversity. He whom I was to have wedded, Nathalie, cast me off; he could never disgrace his English friends by bringing to them as his wife the daughter of a wretched defaulter. Dearest Nathalie, I need not tell you what I suffered – you are feeling the same anguish now – and I was rebellious and despairing, and wished impiously for nothing but death. The nuns, with the sweetness and patience of angels, as they are, used to sit by me for hours, telling me that blessed are they who mourn and are chastened; but I could not listen. Oh! it was a miserable, miserable time! and there seemed no light for me either in earth or heaven. If I had been 'cursed with the curse of an accomplished evil prayer,' and died then in my wicked despair, I shudder to think of what would have been my fate. But that merciful and loving Father had pity on me in spite of myself, and it is all over now, and I am happy. Yes, Nathalie, happy, with a far better and more rational happiness than I ever felt in the most joyous days of my prosperity; and I have learned to thank God daily, now, for what I then thought the greatest misery that could ever befall me. I wished to take the vail; but the nuns knew the wish proceeded from no real vocation, but from that weary heart-sickness that made me so disgusted with the world, and would not consent, at least not then. I was to go out into the world again, and mingle in its ceaseless strife once more; and if at the end of a year the desire was as strong as ever, I was to go back to that peaceful haven, like the dove to the ark, and be sheltered from the storms of life forever. So I came here, Nathalie; and I am happy, as I say – happy, as with Heaven's help you will one day be. I labor for a sacred cause, and until that is accomplished, I shall enter no convent – it is to pay my father's debts. They are not so very large now; and in three or four years, if life and health be granted me, I hope to accomplish my task.

"And now, Nathalie, you have heard my story; it is not a very romantic one, but in many ways it is similar to your own. This fever of wretchedness will pass, as mine has done, if you only pray. All the secret lies there, pray; and he who has said 'Seek and ye shall find,' will not refuse you peace."

Her face was like the face of an angel. Nathalie looked into the inspired eyes, and felt how sinful and lost she was beside this heroic girl – this simple, womanly martyr, kissing meekly the rod which struck her – this patient, humble soul, rebelling not, but thanking God alike for the joy and suffering it pleased him to send. She felt, through all the dull torpor of suffering, how unworthy she was beside her; but she could not, in that first bitter hour, imitate her. She could not; she only turned away again in gloomy silence.

"You will think of all this, dearest Nathalie," the soft, tender voice went on; "for all this pain, like every other earthly pain, must pass away. The great lesson of life is endurance; and all, from the king to the beggar, must learn it."

She rose, as she spoke, to go, for more than an hour had passed, and kissed the cold and averted face again.

"I must leave you, Nathalie," she said, her tears falling on that colorless face. "Good-bye, and God bless and comfort you."

"Good-bye," was the only response; and Miss Rose left the room. Laura Blair met her in the lower hall.

"Are you going?" she asked; "the gig is waiting for you."

"Yes; but I think I should like to see Mrs. Marsh, to say good-bye."

"She is asleep, and so is Miss Blake. I will say it to both of them for you. I am very sorry you are going, Miss Rose. Do you think you will ever come back?"

"Oh, yes, I hope so! If I send you my address, Miss Blair, will you write and tell me how – how all my friends get on?"

"Yes, with pleasure."

Betsy Ann came out to bid farewell, and Laura kissed her, and watched her as she entered her gig and was driven away. Miss Rose had no time to bid good-bye to any one else; but when she reached the station early in the afternoon, in the carriage, with Major and Mrs. and Miss Wheatly, she found all her pupils assembled, in Sunday attire, waiting to say farewell. Mrs. Wheatly shrugged her shoulders at the scene, and stared through her eye-glass, and was relieved when they were all seated in the car and the scene was over. As they took their place, a gentleman on the platform leaned his elbow on the window, and lifted his hat in salutation to the ladies.

"Hallo, Blake!" said the major, nodding familiarly, "come to see us off?"

"No," said Val; "I've come to see myself off. I'm going to take a couple of holidays and look at the country. Keep a place for me, Miss Rose; I want to talk to you. I'll be in in a brace of shakes."

It is probable a brace of shakes meant fifteen minutes, for at the expiration of that period of time, and just as the train was in motion, Mr. Blake lounged in, laden with oranges, peaches, and newspapers, which he distributed promiscuously, and then took a seat beside Miss Rose. It was pleasant to have Val for a traveling companion, for he knew every inch of the country, and was so full of stories and anecdotes as to be perfectly fascinating. He talked of the murder, asserted his belief in Charley's innocence, in spite of any amount of circumstantial evidence, and his firm conviction that the mystery would be speedily cleared up; his present journey, he hinted, being taken to bring about that desirable result. The fact was, Mr. Blake had of his own choice turned amateur detective, and was on the track of Miss Cherrie Nettleby, and positively resolved never to stop until he had hunted that young lady down. A telegram had been dispatched to Greentown the day before, and the answer Val had expected returned; Cherrie had never been near her relations in Greentown at all. The reply threw the family at the cottage into consternation, but Val reassured them by expressing his resolution to find her, if she was above ground. From his inquiries at the station, he had found out from the clerk, who knew her (who did not know Cherrie?) that she had taken a through ticket to the terminus, thirty miles beyond Greentown. The conductor remembered very well the pretty girl with the dark eyes and curls, and rosy cheeks; had found her dozing every time through the night he had passed in that car; remembered her ticket was for S – , the terminus, but was positive she had got out before they reached the final station. Where or when she had left, he could not say; it was after night, and passengers were getting out and coming in at every station, and she could easily depart among them unnoticed. He did not know whether she had gone as far as Greentown; but he did not remember seeing her after they passed that place. Val got out at nearly every station where they made any stop, and inquired for the pretty girl with the dark eyes and curls, but without success. At Greentown, he bade Miss Rose farewell; told her to take care of herself and not be sea-sick, and not to go and marry an Englishman before she returned to them; and, carpet-bag in hand, and the address of Cousin Ellen in his pocket, strolled along through the gray twilight to pursue his inquiries. He found the farmhouse easily enough, but not Cherrie. She had never been seen there, and no one who had been at the station that night had seen any young lady whatever alight.

Val remained in Greentown that night, and went on pursuing his inquiries next day, but with the like result. He went on to S – ; it was just possible she had gone on there, and taken the steamer for Quebec. He inquired at all the hotels, but no one answering to her description had stopped at any of them, and her name was not on the list of passengers by the last steamer.

Mr. Blake spent three days in the search, and was then compelled by business to return to town. Short as had been his absence, Speckport had received a new shock – no less than the escape of the prisoner from jail. Charley Marsh had broken prison and fled! How, could not very clearly be ascertained, though the bars had been wrenched from his window and the casement found wide open, his quilts torn into strips, and dangling from it. But the window was high, and there was a wall to be got over afterward, and how he had accomplished that last feat, puzzled Speckport. He had accomplished it, however, and was flown; and the police were after him, scouring the woods. Rewards were offered for his capture. Mr. Blake put his hands in his pockets and whistled, when he heard it. The recollection of a certain fact, not known to all Speckport as it was to him, rushed upon his memory. In the days gone by, when the late Mr. Marsh had been a wealthy man, and the jailer of the prison (not jailer then) sued for a debt he could not pay, Mr. Marsh had come to his relief, paid the debt, and freed him. It was hardly probable the man had forgotten this obligation, and the bread cast then upon the waters had returned after many days. But the jailer was not suspected, and he and Val kept their own counsel.

"I hope he'll get clear off," thought Val; "for if ever he's caught now, unless the real criminal turns up, there will be nothing to save him. This flight of his is enough to hang him, in itself."

CHAPTER XX.

"ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE."

The first person to tell Val Blake of Charley's flight was Captain Cavendish. He found that officer killing time by lounging on the platform, and staring at the passengers, as he alighted. Speckport, from time immemorial, had had a great fancy for crowding steamboat wharves and railway-platforms, to look at new arrivals; and strangers in the place fell into the habits of the natives, unconsciously.

"Poor devil!" said the captain, swinging his cane airily about, and linking his arm in Val's; "I hope he'll dodge them, and escape Jack Ketch. I never like to see any one I've been on friendly terms with once, coming to that."

"Are your friends in the habit of coming to it?" Mr. Blake asked, innocently.

"Bah! How did you enjoy your trip up the country?"

"As well as I expected."

"And did you find Cherrie?"

"What?"

"Did you find Cherrie?" serenely repeated Captain Cavendish.

"No," said Val. "Do you know where she is!"

The question might have disconcerted any other man, but it only made the young officer stare.

"I! My dear fellow, I don't understand you!"

"Oh, yes, you do," said Mr. Blake. "I think you are about as apt to know the hiding-place of little Cherrie as any other man in this province. That she is in hiding I am positive; and I'll ferret her out yet, as sure as my name's Blake."

There was a certain determination in Mr. Blake's voice that the captain by no means liked, but he only laughed indifferently.

"Success to you! No one will be more rejoiced to see the little dear back in Speckport than I! The place is a desert without her; but I give you my word of honor, Blake, she might be in the moon for all I know to the contrary."

And in saying this, Captain Cavendish spoke the truth, for Cherrie had not yet written.

The notion had been vaguely floating through Val's mind, ever since the robbery and murder and Cherrie's flight, that the English officer was in some way connected with the affair. He might even have mentally suspected him of the crime, but for one circumstance. It was at precisely eleven o'clock Midge had first been alarmed by the flying footsteps of the assassin; and at precisely eleven the Princess Royal had left Speckport, with the captain on board. It was clear he could not be in two places at once; so Val had acquitted him of the murder, but not of knowing Cherrie's whereabouts. Even now, he was anything but ready to take him at his word, but it was useless to press the question.