Our Neighbours in the Corner House CHAPTER 26.
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The newspapers on the next morning brought news of Mr. Congreve's death. He had lived only a few hours after the accident. An undertaker went on to Baltimore, and had the body properly interred in Green Mount Cemetery.
On the third day after his hurried departure, Edgar Holman returned. "It was my enemy!" he said, as he reached out his hand to me. "I looked into his face, and was satisfied."
"He is dead?" I remarked.
"Yes; and gone to his reward. He cursed my life; but I do not think his was any happier in consequence, or will be through the interminable ages. Let him pass now. He is out of my way, and I wish that the memory of him might depart from me forever. But where is Edith? I could learn nothing of her or Aunt Mary. They were not with him. Congreve was on his way to Baltimore from Washington. I went to the last named city, and found his name on one of the hotel registers; but it stood alone, and without his place of residence added."
As there existed no reason why Edgar should not receive all the information about Edith which we had to give, I said:
"We can help you in this!"
"You can!" He became greatly excited, for he saw that I was in earnest.
"Yes," I replied. "The object of your search is in our immediate neighborhood."
"My Edith!"
"Yes, your Edith. Is it not so, Alice?" I looked towards my wife.
"It is as my husband declares," she replied. "I have known her, intimately I might say, for months."
"You, Alice! You know my Edith intimately for months!" He turned to my wife, and catching both her hands, held them tightly. Ripples of joy were playing like sunbeams over his face. "Oh, Alice, Alice!"
"I know her, and love her, Edgar. And even before you came, had from her own lips, all the sad story of her life."
"This is too much happiness!" exclaimed the agitated young man. "I shall lose myself. To think that morning has indeed broken, after such a night! But where is she?"
"You have seen Aunt Mary already?" said I.
"Where? when?"
"You saw her at the window of the corner house."
"And you knew it!" He turned his eyes flashing upon me.
"Yes."
"And led me away from the object for which I was in search?"
He spoke almost indignantly.
"For your own good, and for hers also. The time had not yet come," I said calmly. "You were not in a state to be trusted with that knowledge."
"You were right, no doubt," he answered, as he drew a long, sighing inspiration.
"And she has told you all, Alice?" Turning to my wife he caught her hand again.
"Yes."
"All about our love?"
"Yes."
"Her heart is true to me still?" He bent nearer for the answer.
"True to you still, Edgar," she replied.
"Thank God! thank God! Hope, so long mocked, had lost faith in a day like this. But did Edith know that I was so near her?"
"She did not."
"Does she know of it now?"
"I think not."
"I must see her!" he said. "The joy of our meeting shall be no longer delayed. Oh, Edith! Edith!"
He was losing himself.
"As you were calm in suffering, Edgar," said I, "so be calm in the blessing which is now about to crown your life. The mind of Edith has been greatly shocked. There have been periods when reason wavered. We have had anxious care on her account; but she is in a better state now. Do not disturb that state, by communicating your own disturbance. When you meet her, let it be as a strong man, against whom the waves of her weak feelings may break and be bounded. She will need all your wise, as well as loving care. Think of Edith, and of what will be best for her. It would be a sad thing to lose her now."
"Lose her now!" He grew pale, and asked, huskily, "What do you mean?"
"The shock of excessive joy is sometimes fatal to reason," said I. "Edith must be guarded from all sudden excitement. She does not yet know that Alice is your cousin, and had better first be told of this. Then the rest can be gradually communicated."
How strangely is human prudence, and all its wise forecast, sometimes set at naught! Even as I said this, the door of the room in which we sat conversing, was pushed open, andEdith came in with her almost noiseless step. We had not heard her light ring. She stopped a pace or two in the room, seeing a stranger. I did not utter her name, nor did a word fall from my wife's lips. We were in too much surprise and anxiety to speak.
"Edith, darling!" Edgar did not start forward, nor say these two words in a wild throbbing tone. He only moved towards her with a quiet step; and his voice, though unspeakably tender, was low and calm. She stood still — as still as if life had ceased instantly.
"The night has departed, Edith!" He took her hands, and kissed her, oh, so gently! so placidly! — yet so lovingly!
"We have both prayed for this hour, my love, and it has come at last; and God make us thankful."
He drew his arm around her, still looking into her eyes. We stood apart — silent, motionless, and in tremulous fear. She only gazed into his face.
"Mine!" He said the word softly.
I saw a motion on her lips, and a flash of feeling in her eyes.
"Mine, forever!" His voice was just a little tenderer — not in the least excited.
Now her hands were raised, and she placed them on his shoulders. I saw the dead calm of her face begin to break up; I saw light coming into it.
"Oh, Edgar!" A smile glinted on her lips, as the words came forth.
His lips touched her lips again. I now perceived that he was trembling under the rush of feelings which he was struggling to control.
My wife stepped forward, and with her woman's tact said, looking at Edith —
"Let me introduce you to my cousin."
In the surprise of that intelligence, as a new emotion, she hoped to save her from being borne down by other emotions, which were momentarily gaining power; and she was successful.
Edith looked away from Edgar's charmed gaze, into the face of my wife.
"My cousin," was repeated.
A gleam of pleasure, mingled with the surprise Alice wished to create, lighted up the countenance of Edith.
"My Edgar!" The happy woman laid her face down upon the young man's bosom — not lost, not in wild bewilderment, not in tremulous agitation, but with a strange quietude of manner that I scarcely comprehended.
"Won't you send for Aunt Mary?" she asked.
My wife went for Aunt Mary and prepared her for the interview with Edgar. When she came in, Edith started forward, now for the first time losing herself, and throwing her arms about the neck of her true-hearted relative, wept passionately for several minutes. Then, the sunshine came out after this rain of tears. I saw in the pale cheeks of Edith, already, the faint signs of returning warmth, the promise of summer roses. She had passed through the shock of meeting with Edgar, which we had feared, and was stronger and calmer. Her heart was already gathering up the severed chord, in the rending of which, life had well near perished.
"There's been something going on in that corner house," said our neighbor, Mrs. Watkins, calling over, as she did every now and then, on the evening of this same day, "and for the life of me, I can't make it out."
She had all along taken a lively interest in the strangers at the corner, but as we had good reason for keeping our own counsel, Mrs. Wilkins never found herself any wiser by researches in the direction of our house. We, of course, took a lively interest in what she had to say, because, through her we gained a knowledge of outside impressions, and learned how near the truth of the matter, our neighbors were getting. They were not very much wiser by what they could learn.
"What seems to be going on there?" asked my wife.
"Oh, everything that is mysterious. The people around here are getting very much excited about the matter."
"Indeed!"
"Yes!"
"What is exciting them?"
"I'll tell you, because I think you ought to know. You've been seen going in there a few times, and the two ladies in at the corner house have been seen visiting you. As this is the case, you should be apprised of just what people are saying about them."
"What do they say?" we asked.
"It is said that the white-faced lady, Mr. Congreve's wife, has been guilty of a crime that expelled her from society in the West."
"I don't believe a word of it," said my wife.
"You'd better believe it then," replied Mrs. Wilkins. "I'm sure it's so."
"What else is said?" I inquired.
"It's said, that only a few nights ago, a carriage was seen standing at the door, and that a man came out of the house carrying a woman in his arms, who was thrust into the carriage, he getting in after her. The carriage drove off, no one attempting to stop it."
"Anything more? "I asked.
"Yes. A Mr. Congreve was killed on the railroad between Baltimore and Washington — Congreve is the name of the family at the corner house — and people say it's the corner house man himself. But nobody has been brought there, and there's been no crape on the door. I'm puzzled; I can't make it out. I suppose they were glad to get rid of him, and I shouldn't much wonder, judging him from his face."
Thus Mrs. Wilkins ran on; while we kept silent as to the true facts in the case.
A few days afterwards, the lady came in to relate another story with which her husband had just furnished her. A customer from the West had given Mr. Wilkins nearly the true version of the death of Mr. Congreve, having revived in his mind, the half-forgotten circumstances in the case.
"But I don't believe a word of that," said Mrs. Wilkins, after finishing a pretty accurate narrative of what had really occurred. "It's too improbable."
The truth to her, was stranger than fiction, and she fell back on the first story she had heard, about the killing of a lover.
We encouraged her to believe in the true narrative; but she shook her head in obstinate doubt. It wasn't at all a likely tale, she averred. There were "too many ins and outs in it — too much risk involved. No man would be fool enough to lay such a trap for his own fingers."
So in our neighbor's eyes, the mystery in the corner house continued to be an unsolved problem. The closer intimacy which was now established between our families, and apparent to all — in no way lessened the curious interest that was felt.
"Who is the young man that's been staying at your house for some time?" asked Mrs. Wilkins, two or three months later in the progress of time. She had dropped in to talk with my wife.
"He is my cousin."
"Indeed! I wasn't aware of it."
"Yes."
Mrs. Wilkins looked a little surprised and a little mysterious.
"Do you know," she said, with some hesitation, as if she were making a communication which would not be altogether agreeable, "that he visits the corner house frequently."
"Indeed!" remarked my wife.
"It's true!"
"How frequently?"
"At least once every day, and sometimes twice. Mrs. Cromwell told me that she saw him going in there twice day before yesterday. I don't like to meddle in my neighbors' affairs, but I felt as if you ought to know about this. And now that I find the young man is related, I'm glad I've told you. He ought to be put on his guard."
My wife promised to speak with Edgar on the subject.
"Tell him," said Mrs. Wilkins, "that he'll get himself into trouble as sure as he's born. There's a mystery about those people; and where there's mystery, there's always somethingwrong."
"There's nothing wrong about our neighbor in the corner house," said I, coming in at this point, and speaking positively "There was something wrong, I have good reason to know, about Mr. Congreve. But he is dead, and the wrong is dead with him."
"What was the wrong?" asked Mrs. Wilkins, now all alive with curious interest.
"I can only answer that it was some disreputable, or I might say, criminal acts done years ago, and recently thrown open to light. But, in his death, has come a compensation for the wrong. It all lay with him — and died with him. The ladies are pure and innocent. Be assured of that, Mrs. Wilkins."
"Isn't there a murdered lover in the case?" asked our neighbor.
"Nothing of the kind," I replied.
She looked disappointed, for she had clung to that murdered lover story from the beginning. It was a favorite hypothesis in explanation of the mystery.
"Then there isn't any great mystery after all," said Mrs. Wilkins, with evidently failing interest.
"The matter rests about where I have placed it. Mr. Congreve, in pursuing some desired object, went, as other men often do, beyond right, justice, and humanity; and in his payment of wrong's sure penalty, suffering came to those who were in close connection with him."
"They might have buried him decently," said Mrs. Wilkins, "if only for decency's sake." She grew a little indignant.
"His body lies in Green Mount Cemetery," I replied.
"Why wasn't it brought home? I never heard of anything so unfeeling! I don't think much of any woman who could treat a dead husband after that fashion! Why, there wasn't even death-crape on the door!"
I did not argue this point with Mrs. Wilkins. To defend Mrs. Congreve on the right ground, would be to reveal more than I cared to rumor through the neighborhood.
Mrs. Wilkins went home with less heart in the case. But a month or two later, her interest was quickened into life again by seeing the pale lady, no longer in black, walking out, leaning on the arm of Edgar Holman. She had not been invited to the private wedding which took place a few days before.
The corner house and its inhabitants became once more objects of curious speculation among the neighbors. But as nothing further in the way of mystery showed itself, and the people began to go abroad like other folks, appearing at church, in the street, and occasionally at public places — curiosity died out for lack of fuel to keep the flame alive.
A year has passed, and the neighbors, as they go by the corner house, no longer glance up at it in a mysterious way, or look eagerly towards the door if it happens to stand open. It has become to them an ordinary house, and its inhabitants are regarded as among our common people of the times.
THE END.
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