An American Story of Real Life CHAPTER 18.
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About one month from the day Bell wrote to her husband, she received the following answer:
"Dear Bell--Your last letter has been received, and I at once respond to your desire and say, 'Come!' Since I wrote to you, my business has improved a little, and I feel encouraged to hope for success. I cannot, however, leave New Orleans for the purpose of meeting you at Baltimore, or any intermediate place. You will have to come alone. Can you venture to do so? I think you may. Go to Baltimore, and there take passage for Wheeling. At that place, you can go on board of some boat bound for Louisville, from whence you will come directly here by the same mode of conveyance. Write me from Louisville, a day or two before you leave there, and mention the boat in which you intend taking passage, so that I can meet you on your arrival. I feel very anxious to see you. Many happy days, I trust, are in store for us. In the hope of soon looking upon your dear face, I now say farewell. Come quickly! Truly and affectionately yours, Henry."
Bell read this letter over and over again, lingering upon each passage in which she could find a tender allusion to herself, and treasuring up the words as precious. While still holding it in her hand, two little children came bounding playfully into the room, and ran up to her side. One, the eldest, was a bright boy, over whom six summers had passed pleasantly; the other was a girl, with mild, pleasant eyes, and a sweet young face, on which smiles played as often as ripples over the yielding surface of a quiet lake. As they stood by her, looking up into her countenance, their eyes sparkling with filial confidence and affection--the thought of leaving them made her waver in her purpose.
"Why not take them with me?" she asked herself, almost involuntarily.
"No--no--no!" was the instant reply to this. "I have no right to remove them from a happy home, for one all untried, and which may prove, even to me, a place of privation and wretchedness. No--no--no! Here they must and shall remain. And I must go alone. Duty and affection call me, and I cannot disregard the summons, nor linger in dread of the violent pangs that must attend my separation from these dearly beloved and treasured ones."
Stooping down, and kissing each of her children with fervent tenderness, and dropping, in spite of herself, a tear upon each fair young cheek--she bade them return to their play, when they bounded off, as light and mirthful as birds in the pleasant sunshine.
"Happy creatures!" she murmured, as they vanished from her presence. "Once I was like you--Heaven grant that you may never be like me!"
For nearly an hour after the children had gone out, did Bell sit, in deep and anxious thought. At the end of that period she arose, with a hurried movement, as if the decision on a long debated course of action had been made, and putting oh her bonnet and shawl, left the house without mentioning to anyone her intention of going out. In half an hour, she entered the house of Mary Lane.
"I am very glad to see you, Bell," was Mary's affectionate greeting, kissing, as she spoke, the cheek of her afflicted friend. For years, their fellowship had been as equals and friends--or, rather, as sisters, who loved each other tenderly.
"I have an especial favor to ask of you, Mary," said Bell, after she was seated. "A favor such as I have never asked of you before, and shall never ask again. If in your power, you must not refuse it, Mary."
"I can refuse you nothing, Bell. Speak your request freely," was Mary's reply.
An embarrassing pause of a moment or two followed, and then Bell said--
"Of late, my father has refused to let me have any money to use myself. If I ask for it, he tells me to go and buy whatever I want, and have the bills sent to him."
"You know the reason of this, Bell, and cannot blame him."
"I do not blame him, Mary; nor can I expect him under all the circumstances, to act differently. But what I wish to say is this. I want, and must have, one hundred dollars. If I ask him for it, he will, I know, refuse me, under the belief that I wish to send it to my husband. Now, Mary, can I get this sum from you?"
For the first time in her life, Mary felt embarrassed by a request from Bell. She had the money, and she knew that Bell was aware that she had then in the house, in gold, double the sum asked, which had been given to her at various times by her husband. Not that she valued the money more than she regarded Bell's necessity. But she did not feel that it would be right for her to give it for the use of a man like Henry Ware, to whom she very naturally concluded, that Bell wished to send the money she asked. While the struggle between a sense of duty and her desire to meet Bell's wishes was going on in her mind, Bell sat looking her steadily in the face.
"And so you are not willing to grant my earnest request?" she said, breaking in upon Mary's silent indecision of mind.
"I will grant you anything in my power, which it is right that I should grant," replied Mary. "But this I cannot do, unless you assure me that you will not send the money to Mr. Ware."
"That such a disposition will not be made of it, I can most solemnly assure you. I want the money for my own use."
"Then you shall have it for sure," was the cheerful, smiling reply of Mary.
In a little while she left the room, and returned in a few minutes with ten gold eagles which she placed in the hands of Bell, saying, as she did so,
"Take them in welcome. But from much more gladly would I give them--if they had the power to restore to you the happy heart that once beat in your bosom."
"That, they can never do--nor can any other earthly means. Still the sum you have so generously placed in my hands, Mary, will, I trust, do a great deal toward accomplishing that which you and I so much desire," said Bell, in a tone somewhat cheerful.
"What do you mean, Bell?" asked Mary, in surprise.
"Can I trust you with a secret?"
"You have never had cause to think otherwise."
"True. But mine is a secret which I do not know that even you would feel bound to keep."
There was something in the words, manner, and expression of Bell, which inspired Mary with a feeling of sudden alarm. For a moment or two, the thought that her mind was wandering, startled her feelings with a sudden shock. But the steady eye and calm countenance of Bell, soon dispelled the impression.
"Do not," she said, as her thoughts rallied, and she became assured that Bell contemplated some act of which all would disapprove, "let me entreat you, act in any important matter, without full consultation with your friends."
"Why should I consult friends, Mary, when I have resolved to do a thing which no one, not even you, will approve?"
"O, Bell! Surely you do not intend taking any important step with such injudicious rashness."
"I have fully made up my mind to do the thing to which I have alluded," was the firm response.
"What is it. Bell?" asked Mary, imploringly.
"I will tell you--but upon one condition."
"What is that?"
"Secrecy!"
"Not knowing what you intend, I would not like to bind myself to secrecy."
"Then I cannot tell you."
"Do not act with such deliberate rashness, Bell," urged Mary, drawing her arm tenderly about her neck, and looking her earnestly in the face, her own eyes suffused with tears.
"I have calmly counted the cost, Mary."
"Will you not confide in me?"
"Not unless you pledge yourself to secrecy."
"Then, as there is no other course, I pledge myself!"
"I am glad you have done so, Mary," said Bell, in a steady voice, "for I desire most earnestly to open my heart to you, as the only one who can now truly feel for me. I have made up my mind to join Mr. Ware in New Orleans. He has--"
"Join Mr. Ware in New Orleans!" ejaculated Mary, starting back in surprise and alarm, her face growing pale. "Bell, your mind is wandering!"
"I am perfectly sane, Mary," replied Bell with a feeble smile, "and have calmly and rationally weighed the whole matter. My husband is in business in New Orleans, and has written me many kind and affectionate letters, and now asks me to join him there."
"And your children?"
"I shall leave them where they are, at least for the present. I would not think it right to take them away from the comfortable home they now have."
"You do not contemplate going at once?"
"Yes--I shall start in a day or two. There are but few preparations necessary for me to make."
"Who will accompany you?"
"I shall go alone."
"Alone! Surely, Bell, you cannot be in your right mind!"
"Perhaps not!" was the low, mournful response, made after a pause. "Would it be any wonder, if I were to lose my senses?"
"Then why act so rashly, Bell? Why deliberately do a thing that you know all your friends will disapprove! Trouble has obscured your mind, so that you are hardly capable of rightly deciding such a question as is now presented to you. Hesitate, then--and let those in whom you can confide, determine the matter for you. Do not your father and mother love you? Have they not ever sought your happiness with wise and careful solicitude? Still repose confidence in them. Go to them, and tell them your earnest desire to join your husband, and, if such really is your resolution, tell them, that if they will not give their consent for you to do so, you will have to go without their consent. Then you will secure protection from your father, and put it in his power, if you should go, to shield you from suffering and privation while among strangers."
"I do not expect suffering and privation. My husband has greatly changed, and is now in a good business."
"So he tells you."
"Mary," replied Bell, in a changed and somewhat offended tone. "I am not prepared to hear any question of my absent husband's sincerity and truth. I am the party most concerned, and I am perfectly willing to confide in him!"
"But, granting that. Bell, you cannot be safe from all contingencies. How much better that your father's care should still be over you."
"As I said before, Mary, I have fully counted the cost, and am prepared for the worst. I cannot be more wretched with my husband, than I am away from him. My father will never give his consent for me to leave Philadelphia, and therefore I wish, above all things, to shun the pain of in interview with him and my mother. Do not, then, let me beg of you, urge me further on this subject! I have fully settled the matter in my own mind, and, therefore, nothing that you can possibly say, will have any influence with me."
"I must allude to your children, Bell," urged the anxious Mary. "How can you leave dear Henry and Fanny?"
"Do not speak of them, Mary! Do not speak of them!" replied Bell, quickly, and in a low, husky whisper. "I have counted that cost, too. You urge me in vain."
As she said this, Bell arose and moved toward the door, but paused, with an irresolute air, as she placed her hand upon it, looking, as she did so, toward Mary with an expression of deep tenderness, while her eyes grew dim. She remained thus for a moment or two, and then returning to where Mary still stood, she threw her arms suddenly around her neck, and let her head droop upon her bosom. A gush of tears, and a fit of wild, uncontrollable sobbing, followed. It was many minutes before this subsided. When she at last grew calm, Bell drew her arms around the friend and companion of her childhood and the earnest sympathizer in the sorrows of her maturer years--and held her in a long, strained embrace. At last she looked up, with a feeble smile, murmured "God bless you, Mary!" kissed her lips, cheeks and forehead, earnestly, and then turning away, hurriedly left the house.
As for Mary, her heart was burdened with a double weight. Grief for the rash step which Bell was about to take, and regret that she had, unwittingly, furnished her with the means of taking that step. And to make it worse, was the pledge of secrecy which had been extorted from her, and which she was unable to decide whether she should violate or keep.
"It was late in the evening before her husband returned, to whom she at once related the substance of her interview with Bell.
"It will never do to let her put her determination into practice!" was Mr. Lane's prompt remark.
"But I am pledged to secrecy!"
"Under all the circumstances, Mary, you should not consider your promise as binding."
"I wish I could think so. Most gladly would I avail myself of any just plea for breaking it."
"It will fall upon me, I suppose, to relieve you from all doubt and responsibility in this matter," said Mr. Lane, after some moments of inaction.
"How so?"
"I feel it to be my duty to inform Mr. Martin of Bell's intention, as soon as he comes to the store, tomorrow morning. Have you any objection to my doing so?"
"None in the world," was Mary's reply.
But Mr. Lane's good resolution was put into practice too late. Before Mr. Martin came down to the store the next morning, Bell had been missed, and, on looking into her room, a letter was found upon her table, announcing to her father and mother, the distressing news that she had left them to follow her husband. Before they had time to recover from this shock, or to determine what course to pursue, a letter from Fanny's husband, in New York, brought the melancholy tidings of her dangerous illness, and a request that her father, mother and sister would come on immediately if they hoped to see her alive. Whether to go in pursuit of Bell, or to repair to New York, was a question which agitated Mr. Martin's mind only for a short time, when he determined on the latter course, resolving, however, that as soon as he could return, to proceed at once to New Orleans, and bring his daughter home!
On his arrival, with Mrs. Martin, in New York, he found that Fanny was lingering on the brink of the grave. Five days did they hover around her bed, but all their anxious hopes were in vain. She passed away at the end of that period--to be no more seen on earth.
On returning to Philadelphia, other matters of serious import demanded the attention of Mr. Martin, who was, in consequence, prevented from proceeding at once to the South for Bell, as he had determined.
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