A Changed Heart: A Novel

"But, Harriet – "

But Harriet was gone, even while she spoke, walking rapidly through the drizzling rain and clammy mud – she, who had had a fastidious horror of mud on her dainty boots – and knowing nothing of either. All that was best in her nature had been roused into life by that dying-bed, but still that utter sense of despair and desolation filled her soul. Her life was done – there was no future for her – in all the wide universe there was not such another miserable woman as herself, she thought – desolate, unloved, and alone.

There were not many people abroad that bad November day; but those who were, and who recognized Mrs. Wyndham through her vail, and bowed ceremoniously, felt themselves outraged at receiving the cut direct. She never saw them – she walked straight forward to that stately home that was hers no longer, as people walk in sleep, with eyes wide open and staring straight before her, but seeing nothing.

Dr. Leach went into the sick-room as the others left it; but he returned presently, frowning again.

"Where is the fellow to be found?" he asked, impatiently; "she will excite herself in spite of all I can say. She must see him, she says, if only for ten minutes."

"Is it Mr. Wyndham?" asked Miss Rose; and the doctor nodded crossly.

It was the first time that the dying girl had spoken of him; and Miss Rose, who knew he was in the house, left the room without a word.

"Oh, he is here, is he?" said Dr. Leach. "I might have known it! Hem! Here he comes!"

Paul Wyndham followed the governess into the parlor, looking so haggard that even the old doctor pitied him.

"Now, Mr. Wyndham," he said, "my patient is not to be unnecessarily excited, remember! I give you just ten minutes, not a second more!"

Mr. Wyndham bowed his head and passed into the chamber; and Dr. Leach, watch in hand, planted himself at the door, and grimly counted the minutes. When the ten had passed, he opened the door.

"Time's up," he said; "say good-bye, Mr. Wyndham, and come out!"

They were all merciful enough not to look at him as he obeyed. Dr. Leach went in and found poor Nathalie lying with her eyes closed, clasping her crucifix, her lips still moving in voiceless prayer. She looked up at him with her poor, pleading eyes.

The old doctor departed, and the two women were left alone with the dying wife of Paul Wyndham. Miss Rose sat by the bedside, reading, in her sweet, low voice, the consoling prayers for the sick, while poor, weak, useless Mrs. Marsh only rocked backward and forward in the rocking-chair, moaning and crying in feeble helplessness. And Paul Wyndham, in the room on the other side of the hall, walking restlessly up and down, or stopping to gaze out of the window, or running to Midge every five minutes to go and inquire how she was – felt and suffered as men only can feel and suffer once in a lifetime.

The leaden hours of the twilight deepened into night – black, somber, starless. With the night came the wind and fell the rain. The storm had been gathering sullenly all day, and broke with the night fast and furious. The rain lashed the windows, and the melancholy autumn winds shrieked and wailed alternately around the cottage, waking a surging roar in the black cedar woods beyond. The feeble hands still fold themselves over the precious crucifix – that "sign of hope to man" – but the power of speech has gone. She cannot move, either; her eyes and lips are all that seem alive, but her sense of hearing remains. She hears the sound of carriage-wheels outside, and hears when Father Lennard, Dr. Leach, and faithful Val enter the drawing-room. The old priest takes Miss Rose's place, to administer the last solemn rites to the dying, and Nathalie smiles faintly up in his face and kisses the cross he holds to her lips. Val Blake goes into the room where he knows Paul Wyndham must be, and finds him lying as Midge found him a quarter of an hour before. He stoops down and finds he is asleep – Ah! when had he slept night or day before? – and his face looks so haggard and heart-broken in repose that Val says "Poor fellow!" and goes softly out.

And so, with death in their midst, the faithful watchers sit and keep vigil, while the stormy night wore on. Ah! Heaven strengthen us all for that dread death-watch, when we sit beside those we love, and watch and wait for the soul to take its fight. No one spoke, except in hushed whispers, and the roaring of the wild storm sounded awfully loud in the stillness. They can hear the voice of the old priest as he reads, or talks, or prays with that fluttering spirit, already in the shadow of the valley of death. As the watch of Val points to eleven, Miss Rose glides softly out, with a face like snow, and tells them to kneel, while Father Lennard reads the prayers for the dying. So they kneel and bow their heads with awe-struck spirits, while the solemn and beautiful prayers of the old church are read, and thrill as they hear that awful adjuration: "Depart, Christian soul, out of this world!" and then, as it is finishing, there is a pause. What does it mean? The service for the dying is not ended. A moment later and they know – Father Lennard goes on, but it is prayers for the dead he renders now, and they know all is over; and Val Blake leans his head on his arm and feels it grow wet, while the sad and solemn voice of the old priest goes on. Then they all arise, Father Lennard reverentially closes the blue eyes, that have looked their last on this mortal life, and there is a wild outbreak of motherly love from poor Mrs. Marsh; and Miss Rose, with her face buried in the pillow, is crying as she has not cried for many a day; and Val and the old doctor go softly in and look on the beautiful dead face, and think of the bright, happy Nathalie Marsh of last year – for whom all the world might have prophesied a long and happy life – and feel that neither youth, nor health, nor beauty, nor all the glory of the world, can save us one hour from death.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

OUT OF THE CROOKED WAYS

And so all was over; and Speckport found out that the poor, miserable creature, Mr. Wyndham's mother, was dead. It must have been a merciful release for her, poor soul! they said; but the fever was infectious, and they sympathized at a respectful distance. But Mr. Wyndham's wife left Redmon and went to the cottage as soon as she heard it, and staid there through all the weary time that intervened between the death and the burial. There had been a consultation about the funeral and the grave, and it was decided that that other grave, marked with the white cross, and bearing the name of Nathalie Marsh, should not be disturbed. By-and-by, Val said, the name can be erased; to disturb it now would involve the telling of the whole story. Let Mr. Wyndham erect what sort of monument he pleases. So the grave was dug in a sunny inclosure, under a tamarack tree, and the funeral-service was held in the cathedral, and a long file of carriages followed the hearse to the cemetery. Paul Wyndham, in his deep mourning, stood bareheaded in the cold November sunlight while the coffin was being lowered and the sods rattled heavily on the lid; and Speckport, as represented by the funeral cortege, whispered that Mr. Wyndham looked ten years older since his mother's death.

So Rosebush Cottage was left once more to the sole care of Midge, and Mr. Wyndham returned to his late quarters at the "Farmer's Hotel." Mrs. Marsh was driven to Cottage Street, and Mr. Blake, having fumigated himself thoroughly, delighted the home of Miss Laura Blair once more with the light of his presence. Poor Laura had led rather a lonely life of late; for her darling Olly, wrapped up in her own troubles, had no time to attend to her, and Val had deserted them altogether. She was sitting, pale and listless, turning over the leaves of a new and popular novel, with an indifference not very flattering to the author, when the opening of the door made her start up, with a flush on her pretty face and a light in her bright eyes, to whose flattering interest even Mr. Blake could not be insensible.

"Yes, I've come back to poor Laura," Mr. Blake said, shaking hands with more warmth than perhaps there was any real necessity for. "I find I can't stay away from you somehow. How's everybody?"

"Pa and ma are well, if you mean them by 'everybody.' So poor Mr. Wyndham's mother has gone?"

Mr. Blake nodded.

"And what is Mr. Wyndham going to do with that love of a cottage now, I wonder?"

"I," said Mr. Blake, imperiously, "am going to purchase that love of a cottage myself!"

"You! Why, Val! What will you ever do with a house?"

"Live in it, Miss Blair, like any other Christian!"

"Oh, yes; of course; I suppose you will send for Miss Jo to keep house for you again?"

"Why, no," said Mr. Blake, thoughtfully. "I think not. Do you know, Laura, what I have been thinking of lately?"

"No; how should I?"

"Well, then," said Val, in a confidential tone, "I have been thinking of getting married! You need not mention it just yet, until I see more about it. In fact, I have not asked the lady yet, and don't know what she may say."

"And who is the happy lady, pray?"

"A particular friend of mine," nodded Val, sagely, "and of yours, too, Laura. The nicest girl in Speckport."

"It is Miss Rose," thought Laura, with a sudden sinking of the heart. "He always admired her, and they have been so much together lately!"

"I'll buy the cottage from Wyndham as it stands," pursued Val, serenely unconscious of the turn Miss Blair's thoughts had taken, "and fetch my wife there, and live in clover all the rest of my life. So hold yourself in readiness, Miss Laura, to dance at the wedding."

Miss Laura might have replied but for a sudden choking sensation in the throat, and the entrance of her portly mamma. Under cover of that lady's entrance, she made her exit, and going up to her room, flung herself, face downward, on the bed, and cried until her eyes were as red as a ferret's. And all the time Mr. Blake was in a state of serene complacency at the artful way in which he had prepared her for what was to come.

"I couldn't speak much plainer," he thought, blandly. "How pretty she looked, blushing and looking down. Of course I'll get married. I wonder I never thought of it before. Dear little Laura! I'll never forget the first time I heard her sing, 'We won't go home till morning!' I thought her the jolliest girl then I ever met."

Mr. Blake was a gentleman in the habit of striking while the iron was hot. He called round at the office, rapped Master Bill Blair over the head with the tongs for standing on his hands instead of his feet, and then started off for the Farmer's Hotel, without more ado, and was ushered by a waiter into Mr. Wyndham's room.

"Blake, I owe you more than I can ever repay," he said; "you have been my true friend through all this miserable time; and believe me, I feel your goodness as much as a man can feel, even though I cannot express it! Please God, this trouble of my life shall make me a better man, if I can never be a happy one."

"Oh, you'll be happy," said Mr. Blake. "Get into the straight path again, Wyndham, and keep there. I don't set up for a preacher, goodness knows! but you may depend there is nothing like it."

"The straight path!" Paul Wyndham repeated, with a weary, regretful sigh; "yes, I have been straying sadly out of the straight path of truth and honor and rectitude into the crooked ways of falsehood and treachery and deceit. Heaven help me, it never was with a contented heart! No one on this earth could ever despise me half so much as I despised myself all the time!"

"All right," cried Val, cheerily, "it's never too late to mend. Keep straight now, and we can all forgive and forget the past. I suppose you will be for leaving us shortly now?"

"Immediately. This is Tuesday – I shall depart in Thursday's boat."

"Will you," said Val, lighting a cigar; "that soon? What are you going to do with Rosebush Cottage?"

"The cottage! Oh, I shall leave it as it is – that is, shut it up. In time – a year or two, perhaps – I may return and sell it, if any one will purchase."

"Don't wait a year or two. Sell it now."

"Who wants it?"

"I do," said Val, with one of his nods.

"You! What do you want of the place, may I ask."

"Well, now, I don't see any just cause or impediment to my possessing a house any more than the rest of mankind, that everybody should be so surprised. I want the house to live in, of course – what else?"

Paul Wyndham looked at him and smiled. The great trouble of his life had changed him to a grave, sad man; but being only human, he could still smile.

"I wish you joy with all my heart! Laura has said yes, then?"

"Why, no, not exactly – that is to say, I haven't asked her out-and-out yet. I wanted to settle about the house first. But I gave her a pretty broad hint, and I guess it's all right. I think I should like to live there particularly, and now what will you take for it as it stands?"

Mr. Wyndham arose, opened a desk, and took out a bundle of papers, which he laid before Val.

"Here is the deed and all the documents connected with the place. You can see what it cost me yourself. Here is the upholsterer's bill, but you must deduct from that, for it is only second-hand furniture now. I leave the matter entirely to yourself."

With such premises, bargaining was no very difficult matter; and half an hour after, Val had the deed in his pocket, and was the happy owner of Rosebush Cottage.

"You stay here, I suppose, until Thursday," he said, rising to go.

"Yes."

"And how about that poor girl at Redmon? What is to become of her?"

Mr. Wyndham laid his hand on Val's shoulder, and looked very gravely up in his face.

"Val, before she died, in that last brief interview, she spoke of Harriet, and I gave her a promise then which I shall faithfully keep. The devotion of a whole life can scarcely atone to her for the wrong I have done her; but if she will accept that atonement, Heaven knows it will make me happier now than anything else on earth. If she does not utterly loathe and hate me – if she will be my wife in reality, as she has hitherto been in name – we will leave this place together; and whether my life be long or short, it shall be entirely devoted to her alone."

Val's face turned radiant. He seized Mr. Wyndham's other hand, and shook it with crushing heartiness.

"My dear Wyndham! My dear old boy! I always knew your heart was in the right place, in spite of all your shortcomings. Oh, you'll be all right now! You've got the stuff in you that men are made of!"

With which Mr. Blake strode off, fairly beaming with delight, and whistling all the way home. He sprang up the outer steps at a bound, rang the bell with emphasis, and shooting past the astonished servant, bolted whirlwind-fashion into the dining-room. At first he thought there was no one there, but, disturbed by the noisy entrance, from a sofa before the fire, and from out a heaving sea of pillows, Laura lifted up her head and looked at him. Poor Laura! That feminine luxury, a "real good cry," had brought on a raging headache, and now her face was flushed, her eyes dim and heavy, and her head throbbing and hot. She dropped that poor but aching head again as she saw who it was, with a rebellious choking in the throat, and a sudden filling of the eyes.

"Oh, I say, Laura," cried Mr. Blake, in considerable consternation, "you're not sick, are you? What's the matter?"

"My head aches," Laura got out, through her tears.

"Poor little head!" Mr. Blake piteously remarked, and Laura sobbed outright; "don't cry, Laura, it will be better before you are twice married. Look, here's a plaster I've brought you for it!"

He put the deed of Rosebush Cottage in her feverish hand. Laura stayed her tears, and looked at it, blankly.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Can't you see? It's the deed of Rosebush Cottage. I've bought it, furniture and all – and the furniture is very pretty, Laura – from Paul Wyndham. I'll let you keep that paper, if you'll promise to take good care of it."

"I don't understand you! Oh, Val!" cried Miss Blair, her heart beginning to flutter wildly again, "what is it you mean?"

"Why, didn't I tell you this morning? I'm going to be married – that is, if you will have me, Laura!"

Happy Laura! Such a rosy tide swept over her fair face, and dyed it radiant red to the roots of her hair.

"Oh, Val! I thought it was Miss Rose."

Val stared.

"Miss Rose! What the dickens put that in your head? I never thought of Miss Rose – I meant you all the time. Is it all right, Laura?"

All right! He need hardly have asked that question, seeing the radiant face before him. Laura laughed and cried, and blushed, and forgot all about her headache, and for the next fifteen minutes was completely and perfectly happy. It was one of those little glimpses of Eden that we poor pilgrims of the desert sometimes catch fleetingly as we wander wearily through long dreary wastes of sand, of sluggish marshes, or briery roads. Transient gleams of perfect joy, when we forget the past, and ask nothing of the future – when we hold the overflowing cup of bliss to our lips and drink to our heart's content.

"Dinner on the table!" Somebody made this announcement in a stentorian voice, and Val insisted on Laura's taking his arm, and accompanying him to the dining-room. Papa and Mamma Blair and Master Bill were waiting there; and Mr. Blake, ever prompt and business-like, led the blushing and shrinking fair one to the parental side, and boldly demanded their blessing. To say that Mr. and Mrs. Blair were astonished, would be doing no sort of justice to the subject; to say they were delighted, would be doing still less; and Miss Laura was formally made over to Mr. Blake before grace was said. Dinner was only a matter of form that day with Miss Blair – her appetite was effectually gone; and even Val – matter-of-fact, unromantic, unsentimental Val – ate considerably less underdone roast-beef than usual, and looked a good deal more across the table at the rosy, smiling face of his vis-a-vis than at the contents of his plate. But dinner was over at last, and an extra bottle of crusty old port drank to the happy event; and then Papa Blair buttoned up his overcoat and set off to business again, and Master Bill started full gallop for the office, to retail the news to Mr. Clowrie; and Mamma Blair went about her domestic concerns, and the lovers were alone together. But Mr. Blake was not at all "up" in the rôle of Romeo, and stood beside Laura at the window, looking at the pale moon rising, and using his toothpick.

"What a lovely night!" Laura said; for all the world, so lately a howling wilderness, was moonlight and couleur de rose to her now, with plain Val Blake standing by her side. "How beautifully the moon is rising over the bay!"

"Yes," said Mr. Blake, eying it with the glance of a connoisseur in moonshine. "It's rather a neat thing in the way of moonrise. What whistle's that?"

"It's the American boat getting in. Suppose we go down, Val, and see who's coming?"

"All right!" said Val. "Run and put your things on, and don't be an hour about it, if you can help it."

Laura ran off, and reappeared in a quarter of the allotted time, turbaned and mantled, and furred, and tripped along through the moonlit and gaslit streets, with her new fiancé down to the wharf. The fine night had, as usual, drawn crowds down there, and the wharf was all bustle, and excitement, and uproar. Miss Blair, clinging confidingly to Mr. Blake's arm, watched the passengers making their way through the tumult to where the cabs were waiting, when all of a sudden she dropped the arm she held, with a little shrill feminine scream, and darting forward, plumped head foremost into the arms of a gentleman coming up the wharf, valise in hand. To say that Mr. Blake stared aghast would be a mild way of putting it; but stare he undoubtedly did, with might and main. The gentleman wore a long, loose overcoat, heavily furred, and his face was partially shaded by a big, black, California hat; but Val saw the handsome, sun-browned face beneath for all that, with its thick, dark mustache and beard. Could it be? surely not, with all those whiskers and that brown skin; and yet – and yet, it did look like: but by this time Laura had got out of the mustached stranger's coat-sleeves, and was back, breathless with excitement, beside the staring editor.

"Oh, Val! it's Charley! – it's Charley Marsh! Charley Marsh!" Charley, sure enough, in spite of the whiskers and the sun-brown. Val was beside him in two strides, shaking both hands as if he meant to wrench the arms from their sockets.

"My dear boy! my dear boy! my dear boy!" was all Mr. Blake could get out, while he spoke, and shook poor Charley's hands; and Laura performed a little jig of ecstasy around them, to the great delight of sundry small boys looking on. As for Charley himself, there were tears in his blue eyes, even while he laughed at Val.

"Dear old Val!" he said, "it is a sight for sair een to look at your honest face again! Dear old boy! there is no place like home!"

"Come along," cried Val, hooking his arm in Charley's. "The people are gaping as if we had two heads on us! Here's a cab; get in, Laura; jump after her, Charley. Now, then, driver, No. 12 Golden Row!"

"Hold on!" exclaimed Charley, laughing at his phlegmatic friend's sudden excitement, "I cannot permit myself to be abducted in this manner. I must go to Cottage Street."

"Come home with us first," said Val, gravely. "I have something to tell you – something you ought to know before you go to Cottage Street."

"My mother!" Charley cried, in sudden alarm; "she is ill – something is wrong."

"No, she's not! Your mother is well, and nothing is wrong. Be patient for ten minutes, and you'll find out what I mean!"

The cab stopped with a jerk in front of Mr. Blair's; and, as they got out, a gentleman galloped past on horseback, and turned round to look at them. Val nodded, and the rider, touching his hat to Laura, rode on.

"Where is Mr. Wyndham going, I wonder?" said Laura.

"To Redmon, I think," Val answered. "Come in, Charley! Won't the old folks stare, though, when they see you?"

Miss Rose – her name is Rose, you know – had gone from Rosebush Cottage to Redmon, at the earnest entreaties of her half-sister. She had wished to return to Mrs. Wheatly's, and let things go on as before; but Harriet Wade – the only name to which she had any right – had opposed it so violently, and pleaded so passionately, that she had to have her way.

"Stay with me, Olive, stay with me while I am here!" had been the vehement cry. "I shall die if I am left alone!"

"Very well, I will stay," her sister said, kissing her; "but, please, Harriet, don't call me Olive, call me Winnie. I like it best, and it is the name by which they know me here."

So Winnie Rose Henderson went to Redmon – her own rightful home, and hers alone – and on the night of Charley Marsh's return, when Paul Wyndham entered the house, her small, light figure crossing the hall was the first object he saw. She came forward with a little womanly cry at sight of him.

"Oh, Mr. Wyndham, I am so glad you have come! I want you to talk to Harriet. She is going away."

"Going away! Where?"

"Back to New York, she says – anywhere out of this. Back to the old life of trouble and toil. Oh, Mr. Wyndham, talk to her. All I say is useless. But you have influence over her, I know."

"Have I?" Mr. Wyndham said, with a sad, incredulous smile. "What is it you want her to do, Miss Henderson?"

"I want you to make her stay here. I want you to persuade her to let everything go on as before. I mean," the governess said, coloring slightly, "as regards myself and her, of course."

Mr. Wyndham took her hand and looked down at her, with that grave, sad smile still on his face.

"My dear Miss Henderson," he said, " – for by that name I must call you – you are the best and noblest woman in the world, and I shall venerate all womankind henceforth for your sake. But we would be as selfish as you are noble did we accept the sacrifice you are so willing to make. I have come to offer the only atonement it is in my power to make for the wrong I have done her. On the result depends what her future life shall be."

The governess understood him, and the color deepened on her face.

"She is in the library," she said, withdrawing her hand and moving away. "You have my best wishes."