A Changed Heart: A Novel

"I beg, my dear young lady, you will not be overcome by this unfortunate affair. It will be kept as close as possible, and you need not be disturbed in the possession of Redmon, since such is Miss Rose's wish. I have done my duty in telling you, though the duty has been a very unpleasant one, good-morning, madam."

She never moved. Val looked at the prostrate figure with a vague uneasiness, and remembered it was just such women as this that swallowed poison, or went down to the river and drowned themselves. He thought of it all the way to Mrs. Marsh's, growing more and more uneasy all the time.

"Oh, hang it," thought Mr. Blake, "I wish Paul Wyndham had been at Jericho before I ever got mixed up in his dirty doings. If that black-eyed young woman goes and does something desperate, I shall feel as if I had a hand in her death. I am always getting into other people's scrapes, somehow! I suppose it's my luck!"

Val knocked at the cottage door, and was admitted to the pleased presence of Mrs. Marsh. And to her, once again, the story of plot and counterplot had to be told; but it was a long time before she could quite comprehend it. She cried a good deal when she fully took in the sense of the thing, said she wondered at Mr. Wyndham, and thought it was dreadful to have Nathalie restored, only to find she was out of her mind. She wanted to go to her at once, she said – poor dear Natty! and so Mr. Blake went for a cab without more ado, and found Mrs. Marsh shawled and bonneted, and all ready, upon his return. They drove up Golden Row and stopped at Mrs. Wheatly's for Miss Rose, whom Val handed in, in a few minutes, and then packed himself up beside the driver.

Midge opened the door of Rosebush Cottage to the visitors, and stared aghast upon seeing who they were.

"Is Mr. Wyndham in?" asked Val.

Midge nodded, and jerked her head toward the room he had been in the preceding night, and, unconscious Val tapped at it, and then walked in, followed by the two ladies.

Paul Wyndham stood up as they entered, pale and quiet as ever. Nathalie, wrapped in a loose white morning-dress, lay on a lounge, a pile of pillows under her head, and a mingled odor of vinegar and cologne and a number of saturated cloths showed he had been bathing her forehead when they came in. Mrs. Marsh never noticed him, but fell down on her knees beside the lounge, in an outburst of motherly grief and joy, raining kisses on the feverish face. Alas! that now-flushed, feverish face! the cheeks crimson, the forehead shining, and burning with raging fever, the golden hair all tossed and disordered over the pillows, and the hot, restless head turning ceaselessly from side to side, vainly trying to cool its fire. The blue eyes shone with fever's luster; but no light of recognition came into them at her mother's passionate words and kisses. Miss Rose, throwing off her hat and mantle, knelt beside her and dipped the cloths in vinegar and water, and laid them on the burning brow of the poor stricken girl. Val looked inquiringly at Mr. Wyndham.

"She must have taken cold last evening in the church," he answered, in a low tone; "she became delirious in the night, and has continued so ever since."

"I'll be off for the doctor at once," said Val, briskly; "she's in a bad way, I know. I'll fetch Dr. Leach, he was their family physician, and won't tell."

Energetic Mr. Blake stalked out of the room without more ado. Paul Wyndham followed him to the door.

"They know?" he inquired, motioning toward the room they had quitted.

"All about it," said Val, "and so does that unhappy young woman at Redmon, and if she doesn't commit suicide before night it will be a mercy. And oh, Wyndham, by the way, you had better not show yourself. It isn't a very creditable affair, you know, to any of the parties concerned, and the best atonement you can make is to keep out of sight."

He strode off, without waiting for a reply, in search of Dr. Leach, and had the good fortune to find that gentleman taking his dinner. Mr. Blake hurried him through that meal with little regard to calm digestion, and on the road had to relate, for the fourth time, the story, of which he was by this time heartily sick.

Dr. Leach listened like a man who cannot believe his own ears.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "is it a story out of the Arabian Nights you are telling me? Nathalie Marsh alive, and Mr. Wyndham's wife! The mother all a hoax, and the young woman at Redmon a – what is she, Blake?"

"Blamed if I know!" replied Mr. Blake; "but, whatever she is, Nathalie was the first wife. It's a very uncommon story, but it is true as preaching for all that, only I am getting tired of telling it so often."

"Well, well, well! Wonders will never cease! Natty returned to life, Cherrie back in Speckport, and Charley coming! Why, Val, we will have the old merry time all over again before long."

"I am afraid not! I am afraid poor Nathalie is beyond even your skill, doctor. She was almost at death's door before, and this fever will finish her."

Mr. Wyndham was not in the room when the doctor and Val returned. Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were still keeping cooling applications to the hot forehead, but nothing could cool the fever that consumed her. Val drew Miss Rose aside as the doctor bent over his patient.

"Where is Wyndham?" he asked.

"I don't know. He has not been here since you left."

"What do you think of her?" nodding toward the fever-stricken girl on the lounge.

The governess, whose experience among the sick poor made her no unskillful leech, looked out of the window through a mist of tears.

"We have found her to lose her again, I fear. Look at Dr. Leach's face! Can you not read his verdict there?"

The old physician certainly was looking seriously grave, and shook his head at Mrs. Marsh's eager questioning.

"We must hope for the best, ma'am, and do what we can. The result is in the hands of Providence."

"Then you think there is danger, doctor?" said Val, coming forward.

"Imminent danger, sir! It is typhoid fever, and a very serious case, too. A strong constitution would stand a chance, but she has no constitution at all. Gone, sir! gone! she is as feeble as an infant."

"Then there is no hope at all?"

"None!" replied Dr. Leach, solemnly; "she will never leave this room alive. And better so, better so than as she was."

"Yes," said Val, sadly; "it is better as it is! My dear Mrs. Marsh, don't distress yourself so. Think that her mind is entirely gone, and never could be restored, I believe, and you will be thankful that her earthly troubles are so nearly ended."

Dr. Leach was giving directions in a low tone to Miss Rose, and Val, at his desire, lifted the slight form of the sufferer in his strong arms, carried her into the inner room, and laid her on the bed.

"I will call in again before night," said the doctor. "Remember my directions, Miss Rose. Come, Blake; you're going, I suppose?"

"Yes; in a moment. I want to see Wyndham."

Paul Wyndham was walking up and down the hall as they came out, his pale face expressive of but one thing – intensest anxiety. Dr. Leach, with a stiff bow, passed on and went out, but Val halted.

"Well?" Mr. Wyndham asked, eagerly.

"No hope," said Val; "no earthly power can save her. It's typhoid – the most malignant kind. She will die, thank God!"

Paul Wyndham leaned against the wall and covered his face, with a bitter groan.

"As to you," pursued Val, sternly, "you must leave this house at once, and enter it no more. Do not forget that we are acting criminally in screening you from the law, and that we can enforce our commands. Go at once, and do not come here again until all is over!"

He left the house as he spoke, and joined the doctor, who had gained the highroad. Some people passing stared to see them coming from Rosebush Cottage, and surmised Mr. Wyndham's mad mother must be worse than ever.

"How long can she last, doctor?" Val asked, before they parted.

"Not over two weeks, I fancy, at the most. This fever will carry her off at once."

Late in the evening Dr. Leach returned, and found Nathalie worse. Mr. Wyndham had left the cottage, after taking one last look at the wife he loved so passionately. The agony in his face had gone to Mrs. Marsh's heart, and she cried now, as she spoke of it to the doctor.

"Yes, I dare say," the old man returned, shortly, "he's very sorry, no doubt, but he's a villain for all that; and, only for poor Natty's sake, I'd have him arrested for bigamy this minute!"

Miss Rose did not go home that night; she would never leave Nathalie now. She sent a note to Mrs. Wheatly by the doctor, explaining that it was a case of typhoid, and that she feared to bring the infection into the family. All further explanation she left to the doctor, only desiring that her clothes might be sent to her. Mrs. Marsh dispatched a similar message to Betsy Ann, and before night everybody knew that Mr. Wyndham's mother was very bad, that Dr. Leach and Val Blake had been there, and that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were staying to take care of her.

And what did Speckport say to all this? Oh, Speckport had a great deal to say, and surmise, and inquire. How was it, Speckport wanted to know, in the first place, that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose should be especially selected as the sick woman's nurses? To which Dr. Leach replied that Miss Rose, being such a capital hand at the business, and so fond of it into the bargain, he thought that there was no one in the town so fitted for the task; and Mrs. Marsh, having nothing else to do, could play propriety and read novels there as well as in Cottage Street. What was Mr. Wyndham's mother like, was she a violent lunatic, and was her present disease infectious? Speckport further inquired. To which Dr. Leach said, Mrs. Wyndham was the wreck of a very handsome woman, that she was not violent, only imbecile, and that her fever was highly infectious, and made it extremely dangerous for any one but the physician and nurses to enter the house; on which account Mr. Wyndham would absent himself from Redmon, and Mrs. Olive from Rosebush Cottage, until all was over. After which ominous phrase the doctor would hurry away, and Speckport was satisfied.

Mr. Blake, to be consistent, took up his quarters elsewhere, and visited the cottage every day to inquire. Paul Wyndham, who was stopping at the Farmer's Hotel, very near the cottage, came two or three times a day to ask, but no one invited him to enter, and a sense of honor forbade his intruding. The answer to all inquiries was continually the same, "No better." No, Nathalie was no better – never would be better in this world! She lay tossing on her feverish bed, raving wildly, consumed with burning heat, never resting night or day. All the scenes of her life were acted over again in that burning chasm. Now she babbled of her schoolgirl-days, her mathematics and her music, or berrying and nutting frolics with Charley. Now she was with Captain Cavendish, loving and trusting and happy; and now she was shrieking out again that she saw the murdered woman, and covering her eyes to shut out the ghastly sight. Now the days of her misery had come; now she was at sea with Captain Locksley, and in the New York lodging-house; now on the stage, making rambling, incoherent speeches, and singing stage-songs. Now she was with Paul Wyndham, his wife; now she was in the cathedral listening to the stern preacher. And here she would shriek out, and toss her arms wildly, and ask them to take her to Redmon, that she must tell her all – she must! she must! And Miss Rose and her mother would have to hold her down by force to prevent her from rising from the bed in her excitement, and soothe her with promises that she should go there – only to wait a little while. And the poor sufferer would fall back exhausted, and perhaps go back to the old days when she played with Charley, a child.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

DIES IRÆ, DIES ILLA

The November day broke bleak and gloomy. The dismal dawn was laden with thick, sodden fog, and wretched, drizzling rain. The wind, full of the wail of coming winter, was cold and raw; and the sky, seen dimly through the fog-bank, was of sullen lead, the earth black and dreary; and the sea and the fog so mixed that you could hardly tell where one began and the other ended.

In the Farmers' Hotel, a rambling wooden building, standing by itself on a quiet country road, all was still as the grave at this early hour of the miserable November morning. Even in the kitchen and halls there was as yet no step, and the servants slept the sleep of the just in their own dormitories. Perhaps of all in the house the man who stood at his chamber window, blurred and smeared with clammy wet, and stared hopelessly out through the full blank of fog and mist, was the only one astir in the house.

In the murky dawn of this bad November morning, Paul Wyndham, with hollow creases under his eyes, and deep plowshares of silent suffering about his mouth and forehead, stood looking out of the stained window, at the flat waste of desolation without. It was hardly two poor weeks, but it seemed a lifetime; and a horrible numbness was coming over him and blunting all sense of pain. Would it always go on like this – this dull, dead blank in life – would it last forever? All things were beginning to look unreal, and lose their significance, nothing seemed palpable or as it used to be. He was conscious that the crisis had come; that in the long, black, sluggish watches of that wet November night a battle had been fought between life and death, in the cottage whose lighted window he could see from his own; but only conscious in a dull, numb sort of way, to which the sharpness of the torture had given force.

The pale, cold dawn crept shining in while he stood there blankly staring out at the hopeless dreariness, and he roused himself from his torpor by a great effort at last. A loud-voiced clock somewhere in the silent house struck six as he put on his overcoat and hat and went down stairs.

Paul Wyndham waded on through the sea of mud, in the cold morning rain, not meeting a soul, until he stood before Rosebush Cottage. The red light in the window burned still; but had that other light, that light of a beloved life, gone out in the night? It had been the crisis of the fever – that low, miserable, burning, delirious fever, in which for so many weary days and endless nights, the poor, unconscious sufferer had tossed. Ah! that dreary time of probation – when the faithful watchers had seen her sink day by day; when they had to force her clenched teeth apart to admit teaspoonfuls of beef-tea; when they had listened with aching hearts to her meaningless babble, or the songs the weak voice sang. But that sad time of waiting had dragged itself out, and the night came which must end all suspense. Does hope ever entirely leave the human heart, until the blank face actually grows rigid and the death-rattle sounds? Those sad and silent watchers in that darkened room hoped against hope through the slow lingering hours of that night. They were all there – Dr. Leach, Val, Mrs. Marsh, Miss Rose, and Midge, all mutely watching the pale shadow of Nathalie lying so still and white on the bed. You might have thought her dead had you entered, and looked at her lying with closed eyes, and no perceptible respiration. But she was only sleeping, and a faint breath still came from the colorless lips – sleeping a sleep from which the doctor, at least, knew she could only awake to die. He had a strong hope she might awake free from fever, and that reason might return before the last hour. He sat by the bedside, holding her wrist in his fingers, never taking his eyes off her face. Mrs. Marsh had fallen asleep quietly in her chair, and Mr. Blake was dozing; so when, as the pale morning broke, and the blue eyes opened to life once more, there was only the doctor and Miss Rose to bend over her.

"Nathalie, darling!" the governess said, with trembling lips, "don't you know me?"

The blue eyes turned upon the sweet face with the clear light of restored reason, and a faint smile dawned on the wasted face.

"Miss Rose," she said, in a voice so faint that it sounded scarcely above a whisper. "You here?"

"I am here, too, Natty," said the physician. "Don't you know the old doctor?"

Yes, she knew him – she knew them all when they came crowding around her, and looked up at them with faint wonder in her fever-dimmed blue eyes.

"I have been ill, haven't I?" she said, feebly, glancing at her poor, transparent, wasted hands. "Have I been ill long?"

"Not very long, Natty dear," her mother answered, kissing her, "only two weeks, and you will be better soon now, won't she, doctor?"

But Dr. Leach did not reply. How could he deceive that dying girl? She looked into his grave, sad face, and a solemn shadow fell on her own, a shadow of the dark truth.

"Oh, doctor!" she cried out, "am I dying?"

He bent over her, and stroked away tenderly the full dark hair off her forehead.

"My poor child! my dear child! God knows I would save you if I could; but the power of life and death lies in higher hands. Has this world been such a pleasant place to you that you should wish to stay in it? Think of that better world, my poor little girl, that lies beyond the grave. It would be cruel in me to deceive you now."

She drew the hand he held out of his suddenly, and turned her face away from them. Mrs. Marsh broke out into strong sobbing, but the doctor sternly hushed her. But the dulled, dying ear caught the sound, and she turned to them again.

"How long have I to live?" she asked.

He could not tell an untruth with those earnest eyes fixed on his face, and his voice was husky as he replied:

"Not long! not long, my poor girl! But long enough to prepare for the world to which you are going."

"Will I die to-day?"

Her mother's sobs broke out again; but Nathalie looked only at the doctor.

"Yes, dear child, you will last to-day, I think; but try and be calm, and not disturb yourself at the shortness of the time."

Her hands dropped in a kind of collapse of despair.

"So soon, so soon!" she said, "and so much to do – so much to atone for!"

"Shall we send for a clergyman?" the doctor asked.

"Shall I fetch you Father Lennard?" inquired Val, stooping over her.

Her face brightened a little. The gray old priest had baptized her, an infant, had confirmed her a young girl, rind she had loved and reverenced him more than any one else on earth.

"Yes, yes," she said, eagerly. "Bring Father Lennard. Oh, how short the time is, and so much to be done."

Mr. Blake found Father Lennard at home, and had to go over again the weary story of wrong-doings and falsehood. He was a very old man; his hair had grown gray in his holy calling, and he was long used to tales of sorrow and sin – sorrow and sin, that go so surely hand in hand. He had learned to listen to such recitals – as a pitiful doctor, who knows all the ailments poor human nature is subject to, does to stories of bodily suffering – tenderly, sadly, but with no surprise. He had known Nathalie Marsh from babyhood; he had had a father's affection for the pretty, gentle, blue-eyed little girl, who had knelt at his confessional so often, lisping out her childish faults; he had moaned for her tragic fate; and he had nothing but pity, and prayer, and sorrow for her now.

Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were in the room with the dying girl when they returned; Mrs. Marsh sitting at the foot of the bed, weeping incessantly, and the pale governess kneeling beside the pillows, holding the cold thin hands in hers, and reading prayers for the sick out of a missal. Both arose when the Father entered, and the dying face lit up with a sudden light of recognition and hope.

"My poor child! my poor baby!" the old man said, tenderly, bending over her. "Is it thus I find my little Natty again? Thank God that reason has returned to you in your last hours."

The mother and friend of the dying girl quitted the room, leaving the old priest alone to prepare the departing soul for its last great journey. Miss Rose knelt in silent, fervent prayer all the time; but Mrs. Marsh – poor weak soul! – could do nothing but sit and cry. Val had found Mr. Wyndham in the kitchen, leaning against the wooden chimney-piece, with a white, despairing face; and, pitying him in spite of his misdoings, turned comforter as best he could. He walked up and down the hall restlessly between whiles, feeling in the solemn hush of the house as if he were in the tomb. His watch, which he was perpetually jerking out, pointed to ten; and he was thinking he would have to run down to the office presently, when, opening the parlor-door to announce that intention, he saw Father Lennard come out of the sick-room.

"Well, Father?" Val said, anxiously.

"All is well, thank God! She is quite resigned now; and if sincere contrition ever atoned for sin, hers will surely be pardoned. Are you in a hurry, Val?"

"I should be very much hurried indeed, Father, if I could not do anything you or she may desire! What is it?"

"Will you go to Redmon, and fetch that unhappy young lady here. The poor child says she cannot die until she has heard her pardon her."

"I'll go," said Val, "but I'm not so sure Mrs. Wyndham will come. You see, she is one of your proud and high-stepping people, and is in such trouble herself that – "

"Let me go with you, Mr. Blake," cried Miss Rose, starting up; "I think she will come with me."

"All right, then! Put your bonnet on while I run round and make Peter get out the buggy."

The buggy came round to the front door, and Val assisted the governess in and drove off.

Father Lennard returned to the sick-room, and sat there holding the hand of the dying, whose sad, sunken blue eyes never left his face, and talking of that merciful Redeemer, who once said to another poor sinful creature, "Neither do I condemn thee!" Nathalie lay, clasping a crucifix to her breast, her pale lips moving in ceaseless inward prayer, while she listened, her face calm and beautiful in its holy hope. The hours that intervened seemed very short, and then the carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, and Nathalie caught her breath with a sort of gasp.

"Oh, Father, do you think she has come?"

"I trust so, dear child! I will go and see."

As he entered the drawing-room, the front door opened. Val stalked in, followed by Miss Rose and – yes, by a figure stately and tall, dressed very plainly, and closely vailed. The priest knew that majestic figure, although the face, seen dimly through the vail, was so changed that he hardly knew it.

"You may go in," he said, in reply to Miss Rose's appealing look; "she is waiting for you."

As the door closed upon the tall vailed form, and the two women, united to the same man, were face to face, Father Lennard took his hat to go.

"I shall return again in the afternoon," he said; "I would stay all day if I could, but it is impossible."

"I will drive you into town," said Val; "Peter can fetch the traps back. Oh, here's the doctor!"

Dr. Leach opened the garden-gate as they came out, and lifted his hat to the clergyman.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Failing fast," said Father Lennard. "I do not think she will wear the night through!"

"You are coming back, I suppose?"

"I shall endeavor to do so. I promised her I would, poor child!"

The doctor went into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Marsh, through her tears, told him who was with her. The old doctor looked dissatisfied.

"They'll agitate her too much – I know they will, with their crying and taking on. If they stay long, I will go and turn them out!"

He waited for a quarter of an hour, watch in hand, frowning impatiently at the dial-plate, and then the chamber-door reopened and the half-sisters came out. The swollen eyes of the governess told how she had been weeping, but the other had dropped her vail once more, and was invisible. Dr. Leach bowed to her, but she passed on without seeming to see him. Miss Rose followed her to the door, and looked wistfully out at the wet, foggy November weather, and the hopeless slough of mud.

"You cannot walk back, Harriet. I will send Peter to Redmon for the carriage. You will get your death of cold to walk there, unused as you are to walking."

"What does it matter?" she said, in a strangely hollow voice, "the sooner I get my death the better. If I could only die like her, I should rejoice however soon it came!"