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THE EVIL DRAWS NIGHER.
I rose early, and went to my uncle's room. He was awake, but complained
of headache. I took him a cup of tea, and at his request left him.
About noon Martha brought me a letter where I sat alone in the
drawing-room. I carried it to my uncle. He took it with a trembling hand,
read it, and fell back with his eyes closed. I ran for brandy.
"Don't be frightened, little one," he called after me. "I don't want
anything."
"Won't you tell me what is the matter, uncle?" I said, returning. "Is it
necessary I should be kept ignorant?"
"Not at all, my little one."
"Don't you think, uncle," I dared to continue, forgetting in my love all
difference of years, "that, whatever it be that troubles us, it must be
better those who love us should know it? Is there some good in a secret
after all?"
"None, my darling," he answered. "The thing that made me talk to you so
against secrets when you were a child, was, that I had one myself--one
that was, and is, eating the heart out of me. But that woman shall not
know and you be ignorant! I will not have a secret with her!--Leave me
now, please, little one."
I rose at once.
"May I take the letter with me, uncle?" I asked.
He rubbed his forehead with a still trembling hand. The trembling of that
beloved hand filled me with such a divine sense of pity, that for the
first time I seemed to know God, causing in me that consciousness! The
whole human mother was roused in me for my uncle. I would die, I would
kill to save him! The worm was welcome to swallow me! My very being was a
well of loving pity, pouring itself out over that trembling hand.
He took up the letter, gave it to me, and turned his face away with a
groan. I left the room in strange exaltation--the exaltation of merest
love.
I went to the study, and there read the hateful letter.
Here it is. Having transcribed it, I shall destroy it.
"Sir,--For one who persists in coming between a woman and her son, who
will blame the mother if she cast aside forbearance! I would have spared
you as hitherto; I will spare you no longer. You little thought when you
crossed me who I was--the one in the world in whose power you lay! I
would perish ever-lastingly rather than permit one of my blood to marry
one of yours. My words are strong; you are welcome to call them
unladylike; but you shall not doubt what I mean. You know perfectly that,
if I denounce you as a murderer, I can prove what I say; and as to my
silence for so many years, I am able thoroughly to account for it. I
shall give you no further warning. You know where my son is: if he is not
in my house within two days, I shall have you arrested. I have made up
my mind.
"Lucretia Cairnedge.
"Rising-Manor, July 15, 18--."
"Whoever be the father, she's the mother of lies!" I exclaimed.--"My
uncle--the best and gentlest of men, a murderer!"
I laughed aloud in my indignation and wrath.
But, though the woman was a liar, she must have something to say with a
show of truth! How else would she dare intimidation with such a man? How
else could her threat have so wrought upon my uncle? What did she know,
or imagine she knew? What could be the something on which she founded her
lie?--That my uncle was going to tell me, nor did I dread hearing his
story. No revelation would lower him in my eyes! Of that I was confident.
But I little thought how long it would be before it came, or what a
terrible tale it would prove.
I ran down the stair with the vile paper in my hand.
"The wicked woman!" I cried. "If she be John's mother, I don't care:
she's a devil and a liar!"
"Hush, hush, little one!" said my uncle, with a smile in which the
sadness seemed to intensify the sweetness; "you do not know anything
against her! You do not know she is a liar!"
"There are things, uncle, one knows without knowing!"
"What if I said she told no lie?"
"I should say she was a liar although she told no lie. My uncle is not
what she threatens to say he is!"
"But men have repented, and grown so different you would not know them:
how can you tell it has not been so with me? I may have been a bad man
once, and grown better!"
"I know you are trying to prepare me for what you think will be a shock,
uncle!" I answered; "but I want no preparing. Out with your worst! I defy
you!"
Ah me, confident! But I had not to repent of my confidence!
My uncle gave a great sigh. He looked as if there was nothing for him now
but tell all. Evidently he shrank from the task.
He put his hand over his eyes, and said slowly,--
"You belong to a world, little one, of which you know next to nothing.
More than Satan have fallen as lightning from heaven!"
He lay silent so long that I was constrained to speak again.
"Well, uncle dear," I said, "are you not going to tell me?"
"I cannot," he answered.
There was absolute silence for, I should think, about twenty minutes. I
could not and would not urge him to speak. What right had I to rouse a
killing effort! He was not bound to tell me anything! But I mourned the
impossibility of doing my best for him, poor as that best might be.
"Do not think, my darling," he said at last, and laid his hand on my head
as I knelt beside him, "that I have the least difficulty in trusting you;
it is only in telling you. I would trust you with my eternal soul. You
can see well enough there is something terrible to tell, for would I not
otherwise laugh to scorn the threat of that bad woman? No one on the
earth has so little right to say what she knows of me. Yet I do share a
secret with her which feels as if it would burst my heart. I wish it
would. That would open the one way out of all my trouble. Believe me,
little one, if any ever needed God, I need him. I need the pardon that
goes hand in hand with righteous judgment, the pardon of him who alone
can make lawful excuse."
"May God be your judge, uncle, and neither man nor woman!"
"I do not think you would altogether condemn me, little one, much as I
loathe myself--terribly as I deserve condemnation."
"Condemn you, uncle! I want to know all, just to show you that nothing
can make the least difference. If you were as bad as that bad woman says,
you should find there was one of your own blood who knew what love meant.
But I know you are good, uncle, whatever you may have done."
"Little one, you comfort me," sighed my uncle. "I cannot tell you this
thing, for when I had told it, I should want to kill myself more than
ever. But neither can I bear that you should not know it. I will not
have a secret with that woman! I have always intended to tell you
everything. I have the whole fearful story set down for your eyes--and
those of any you may wish to see it: I cannot speak the words into your
ears. The paper I will give you now; but you will not open it until I
give you leave."
"Certainly not, uncle."
"If I should die before you have read it, I permit and desire you to read
it. I know your loyalty so well, that I believe you would not look at it
even after my death, if I had not given you permission. There are those
who treat the dead as if they had no more rights of any kind. 'Get away
to Hades,' they say; 'you are nothing now.' But you will not behave so to
your uncle, little one! When the time comes for you to read my story,
remember that I now, in preparation for the knowledge that will give
you, ask you to pardon me then for all the pain it will cause you and
your husband--John being that husband. I have tried to do my best for
you, Orbie: how much better I might have done had I had a clear
conscience, God only knows. It may be that I was the tenderer uncle that
I could not be a better one."
He hid his face in his hands, and burst into a tempest of weeping.
It was terrible to see the man to whom I had all my life looked with a
reverence that prepared me for knowing the great father, weeping like a
bitterly repentant and self-abhorrent child. It seemed sacrilege to be
present. I felt as if my eyes, only for seeing him thus, deserved the
ravens to pick them out.
I could not contain myself. I rose and threw my arms about him, got close
to him as a child to her mother, and, as soon as the passion of my love
would let me, sobbed out,
"Uncle! darling uncle! I love you more than ever! I did not know before
that I could love so much! I could kill that woman with my own hands! I
wish I had killed her when I pulled her down that day! It is right to
kill poisonous creatures: she is worse than any snake!"
He smiled a sad little smile, and shook his head. Then first I seemed to
understand a little. A dull flash went through me.
I stood up, drew back, and gazed at him. My eyes fixed themselves on his.
I stared into them. He had ceased to weep, and lay regarding me with calm
response.
"You don't mean, uncle,--?"
"Yes, little one, I do. That woman was the cause of the action for which
she threatens to denounce me as a murderer. I do not say she intended to
bring it about; but none the less was she the consciously wicked and
wilful cause of it.--And you will marry her son, and be her daughter!" he
added, with a groan as of one in unutterable despair.
I sprang back from him. My very proximity was a pollution to him while he
believed such a thing of me!
"Never, uncle, never!" I cried. "How can you think so ill of one who
loves you as I do! I will denounce her! She will be hanged, and we
shall be at peace!"
"And John?" said my uncle.
"John must look after himself!" I answered fiercely. "Because he chooses
to have such a mother, am I to bring her a hair's-breadth nearer to my
uncle! Not for any man that ever was born! John must discard his mother,
or he and I are as we were! A mother! She is a hyena, a shark, a monster!
Uncle, she is a devil!--I don't care! It is true; and what is true is
the right thing to say. I will go to her, and tell her to her face what
she is!"
I turned and made for the door. My heart felt as big as the biggest
man's.
"If she kill you, little one," said my uncle quietly, "I shall be left
with nobody to take care of me!"
I burst into fresh tears. I saw that I was a fool, and could do nothing.
"Poor John!--To have such a mother!" I sobbed. Then in a rage of
rebellion I cried, "I don't believe she is his mother! Is it possible
now, uncle--does it stand to reason, that such a pestilence of a woman
should ever have borne such a child as my John? I don't, I can't, I won't
believe it!"
"I am afraid there are mysteries in the world quite as hard to explain!"
replied my uncle.
"I confess, if I had known who was his mother, I should have been far
from ready to yield my consent to your engagement."
"What does it matter?" I said. "Of course I shall not marry him!"
"Not marry him, child!" returned my uncle. "What are you thinking of? Is
the poor fellow to suffer for, as well as by the sins of his mother?"
"If you think, uncle, that I will bring you into any kind of relation
with that horrible woman, if the worst of it were only that you would
have to see her once because she was my husband's mother, you are
mistaken. She to threaten you if you did not send back her son, as if
John were a horse you had stolen! You have been the angel of God about me
all the days of my life, but even to please you, I cannot consent to
despise myself. Besides, you know what she threatens!"
"She shall not hurt me. I will take care of myself for your sakes. Your
life shall not be clouded by scandal about your uncle."
"How are you to prevent it, uncle dear? Fulfil her threat or not, she
would be sure to talk!"
"When she sees it can serve no purpose, she will hardly risk reprisals."
"She will certainly not risk them when she finds we have said good-bye."
"But how would that serve me, little one? What! would you heap on your
uncle's conscience, already overburdened, the misery of keeping two
lovely lovers apart? I will tell you what I have resolved upon. I will
have no more secrets from you, Orba. Oh, how I thank you, dearest, for
not casting me off!"
Again I threw myself on my knees by his bed.
"Uncle," I cried, my heart ready to break with the effort to show itself,
"if I did not now love you more than ever, I should deserve to be cast
out, and trodden under foot!--What do you think of doing?"
"I shall leave the country, not to return while the woman lives."
"I'm ready, uncle," I said, springing to my feet; "--at least I shall be
in a few minutes!"
"But hear me out, little one," he rejoined, with a smile of genuine
pleasure; "you don't know half my plan yet. How am I to live abroad, if
my property go to rack and ruin? Listen, and don't say anything till I
have done; I have no time to lose; I must get up at once.--As soon as I
am on board at Dover for Paris, you and John must get yourselves married
the first possible moment, and settle down here--to make the best of the
farm you can, and send me what you can spare. I shall not want much, and
John will have his own soon. I know you will be good to Martha!"
"John may take the farm if he will. It would be immeasurably better than
living with his mother. For me, I am going with my uncle. Why, uncle, I
should be miserable in John's very arms and you out of the country for
our sakes! Is there to be nobody in the world but husbands, forsooth! I
should love John ever so much more away with you and my duty, than if I
had him with me, and you a wanderer. How happy I shall be, thinking of
John, and taking care of you!"
He let me run on. When I stopped at length--
"In any case," he said with a smile, "we cannot do much till I am
dressed!"
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