The Maid of Maiden Lane

"How soon can this business be accomplished?"

"In about three weeks, I should think. But wait your full time, and do not go without the credentials of your position. This three or four weeks is necessary to bring to perfection the waiting of two years."

"I will take your advice, sir. I thank you for your generosity."

"All that I have is yours, George. And you can write to this dear girl every day in the interim. Go now and tell her what I say. I had other dreams for you as you know—they are over now—I have awakened."

"Dear Annie!" ejaculated George.

"Dear Annie!" replied the Earl with a sigh. "She is one of the daughters of God, I am not worthy to call her mine; but I have sat at her feet, and learned how to love, and how to forgive, and how to bear disappointment. I will tell you, that when Colonel Saye insulted me last year, and I felt for my sword and would have sent him a letter on its point—Annie stepped before him. 'Forget, and go on, dear uncle,' she said; and I did so with a proud, sore heart at first, but quite cheerfully in a week or two; and at the last Hunt dinner he came to me with open hand, and we ate and drank together, and are now firm friends. Yet, but for Annie, one of us might be dead; and the other flying like Cain exiled and miserable. Think of these things, George. The good of being a son, is to be able to profit from your father's mistakes."

They parted with a handclasp that went to both hearts, and as Hyde passed his mother's loom, he went in, and told her all that happened to him, She listened with a smile and a heartache. She knew now that the time had come to say "farewell" to the boy who had made her life for twenty-seven years. "He must marry like the rest of the world, and go away from her," and only mothers know what supreme self-sacrifice a pleasant acquiescence in this event implies. But she bravely put down all the clamouring selfishness of her long sweet care and affection, and said cheerfully—

"Very much to my liking is Cornelia Moran, She is world-like and heaven-like, and her good heart and sweet nature every one knows. A loving wife and a noble mother she will make, and if I must lose thee, my Joris, there is no girl in America that I like better to have thee."

"Never will you lose me, mother."

"Ah then! that is what all sons say. The common lot, I look for nothing better. But see now! I give thee up cheerfully. If God please, I shall see thy sons and daughters; and thy father has been anxious about the Hydes. He would not have a stranger here—nor would I. Our hope is in thee and thy sweet wife, and very glad am I that thy wife is to be Cornelia Moran."

And even after Joris had left her she smiled, though the tears dropped down upon her work. She thought of the presents she would send her daughter, and she told herself that Cornelia was an American, and that she had made for her, with her own hands and brain, a lovely home wherein HER memory must always dwell. Indeed she let her thoughts go far forward to see, and to listen to the happy boys and girls who might run and shout gleefully through the fair large rooms, and the sweet shady gardens her skill and taste had ordered and planted. Thus her generosity made her a partaker of her children's happiness, and whoever partakes of a pleasure has his share of it, and comes into contact—not only with the happiness—but with the other partakers of that happiness—a divine kind of interest for generous deeds, which we may all appropriate.

Nothing is more contagious than joy, and Hyde was now a living joy through all the house. His voice had caught a new tone, his feet a more buoyant step, he carried himself like a man expectant of some glorious heritage. So eager, so ardent, so ready to be happy, he inspired every one with his buoyant gladness of heart. He could at least talk to Cornelia with his pen every day, yes, every hour if he desired; and if it had been possible to transfer in a letter his own light-heartedness, the words he wrote would have shone upon the paper.

The next morning Mary Damer called. She knew that a letter from Cornelia was possible, and she knew also that it would really be as fateful to herself, as to Hyde. If, as she suspected, it was Rem Van Ariens who had detained the misdirected letter, there was only one conceivable result as regarded herself. She, an upright, honourable English girl, loving truth with all her heart, and despising whatever was underhand and disloyal, had but one course to take—she must break off her engagement with a man so far below her standard of simple morality. She could not trust his honour, and what security has love in a heart without honour?

So she looked anxiously at Annie as she entered, and Annie would not keep her in suspense. "There was a letter from Miss Moran last night," she said. "She loves George yet. She re-wrote the unfortunate letter, and this time it found its owner. I think he has it next his heart at this very moment."

"I am glad of that, Annie. But who has the first letter?"

"I think you know, Mary."

"You mean Mr. Van Ariens?"

"Yes."

"Then there is no more to be said. I shall write to him as soon as possible."

"I am sorry—"

"No, no! Be content, Annie. The right must always come right. Neither you nor I could desire any other end, even to our own love story."

"But you must suffer."

"Not much. None of us weep if we lose what is of no value. And I have noticed that the happiness of any one is always conditioned by the unhappiness of some one else. Love usually builds his home out of the wrecks of other homes. Your cousin and Cornelia will be happy, but there are others that must suffer, that they may be so. I will go now, Annie, because until I have written to Mr. Van Ariens, I shall not feel free. And also, I do not wish him to come here, and in his last letter he spoke of such an intention."

So the two letters—that of Hyde to Cornelia, and that of Mary Darner to Van Ariens, left England for America in the same packet; and though Mary Darner undoubtedly had some suffering and disappointment to conquer, the fight was all within her. To her friends at the Manor she was just the same bright, courageous girl; ready for every emergency, and equally ready to make the most of every pleasure.

And the tone of the Manor House was now set to a key of the highest joy and expectation. Hyde unconsciously struck the note, for he was happily busy from morning to night about affairs relating either to his marriage, or to his future as the head of a great household. All his old exigent, extravagant liking for rich clothing returned to him. He had constant visits from his London tailor, a dapper little artist, who brought with him a profusion of rich cloth, silk and satin, and who firmly believed that the tailor made the man. There were also endless interviews with the family lawyer, endless readings of law papers, and endless consultations about rights and successions, which Hyde was glad and grateful to leave very much to his father's wisdom and generosity.

At the beginning of this happy period, Hyde had been sure that the business of his preparations would be arranged in three weeks; a month had appeared to be a quite unreasonable and impossible delay; but the month passed, and it was nearly the middle of November when all things were ready for his voyage. His mother would then have urged a postponement until spring, but she knew that George would brook no further delay; and she was wise enough to accept the inevitable cheerfully. And thus by letting her will lead her, in the very road necessity drove her, she preserved not only her liberty, but her desire.

Some of these last days were occupied in selecting from her jewels presents for Cornelia, with webs of gold and silver tissues, and Spitalfields silks so rich and heavy, that no mortal woman might hope to outwear them. To these Annie added from her own store of lace, many very valuable pieces; and the happy bridegroom was proud to see that love was going to send him away, with both arms full for the beloved.

The best gift however came last, and it was from the Earl. It was not gold or land, though he gave generously of both these; but one which Hyde felt made his way straight before him, and which he knew must have cost his father much self-abnegation. It was the following letter to Dr. John Moran.

MY DEAR SIR:

It seems then, that our dear children love each other so well, that it is beyond our right, even as parents, to forbid their marriage. I ask from you, for my son, who is a humble and ardent suitor for Miss Moran's hand, all the favour his sincere devotion to her deserves, We have both been young, we have both loved, accept then his affection as some atonement for any grievance or injustice you remember against myself. Had we known each other better, we should doubtless have loved each other better; but now that marriage will make us kin, I offer you my hand, with all it implies of regret for the past, and of respect for the future. Your servant to command,

RICHARD HYDE.

"It is the greatest proof of my love I can give you, George," said the Earl, when the letter had been read; "and it is Annie you must thank for it. She dropped the thought into my heart, and if the thought has silently grown to these written words, it is because she had put many other good thoughts there, and that these helped this one to come to perfection."

"Have you noticed, father, how small and fragile-looking she is? Can she really be slowly dying?"

"No, she is not dying; she is only going a little further away—a little further away, every hour. Some hour she will be called, and she will answer, and we shall see her no more—HERE. But I do not call that dying, and if it be dying, Annie will go as calmly and simply, as if she were fulfilling some religious rite or duty. She loves God, and she will go to Him."

The next morning Hyde left his father's home forever. It was impossible that such a parting should be happy. No hopes, no dreams of future joy, could make him forget the wealth of love he was leaving. Nor did he wish to forget. And woe to the man or woman who would buy composure and contentment by forgetting!—by really forfeiting a portion of their existence—by being a suicide of their own moral nature.

The day was a black winter day, with a monotonous rain and a dark sky troubled by a ghostly wind. Inside the house the silence fell on the heart like a weight. The Earl and Countess watched their son's carriage turn from the door, and then looked silently into each other's face. The Earl's lips were firmly set, and his eyes full of tears; the Countess was weeping bitterly. He went with her to her room, and with all his old charm and tenderness comforted her for her great loss.

At that moment Annie was forgotten, yet no one was suffering more than she was. Hyde had knelt by her sofa, and taken her in his arms, and covered her face with tears and kisses, and she had not been able to oppose a parting so heart-breaking and so final. The last tears she was ever to shed dropped from her closed eyes, as she listened to his departing steps; and the roll of the carriage carrying him away forever, seemed to roll over her shrinking heart. She cried out feebly—a pitiful little shrill cry, that she hushed with a sob still more full of anguish. Then she began to cast over her suffering soul the balm of prayer, and prostrate with closed eyes, and hands feebly hanging down, Doctor Roslyn found her. He did not need to ask a question, he had long known the brave self-sacrifice that was consecrating the child-heart suffering so sharply that day; and he said only—

"We are made perfect through suffering, Annie."

"I know, dear father."

"And you have found before this, that the sorrow well borne is full of strange joys—joys, whose long lasting perfumes, show that they were grown in heaven and not on earth."

"This is the last sorrow that can come to me, father."

"And my dear Annie, you would have been a loser without it. Every grief has its meaning, and the web of life could not be better woven, if only love touched it."

"I have been praying, father."

"Nay, but God Himself prayed in you, while your soul waited in deep resignation. God gave you both the resignation and the answer."

"My heart failed me at the last—then I prayed as well as I could."

"And then, visited by the NOT YOURSELF in you, your head was lifted up. Do not be frightened at what you want. Strive for it little by little. All that is bitter in outward things, or in interior things, all that befalls you in the course of a day, is YOUR DAILY BREAD if you will take it from His hand."

Then she was silent and quite still, and he sat and watched the gradual lifting of the spirit's cloud—watched, until the pallor of her face grew luminous with the inner light, and her wide open eyes saw, as in a vision, things, invisible to mortal sight; but open to the spirit on that dazzling line where mortal and immortal verge.

And as he went home, stepping slowly through the misty world, he himself hardly knew whether he was in the body or out of it. He felt not the dripping rain, he was not conscious of the encompassing earthly vapours, he had passed within the veil and was worshipping

"In dazzling temples opened straight to Him,Where One who had great lightnings for His crownWas suddenly made present; vast and dimThrough crowded pinions of the Cherubim."

And his feet stumbled not, nor was he aware of anything around, until the Earl met him at the park gates and touching him said reverently—

"Father, you are close to the highway. Have you seen Annie?"

"I have just left her."

"She is further from us than ever."

"Richard Hyde," he answered, "she is on her way to God, and she can rest nothing short of that."

CHAPTER XIV

"HUSH! LOVE IS HERE!"

On the morning that Hyde sailed for America, Cornelia received the letter he had written her on the discovery of Rem's dishonourable conduct. So much love, so much joy, sent to her in the secret foldings of a sheet of paper! In a hurry of delight and expectation she opened it, and her beaming eyes ran all over the joyful words it brought her—sweet fluttering pages, that his breath had moved, and his face been aware of. How he would have rejoiced to see her pressing them to her bosom, at some word of fonder memory or desire.

There was much in this letter which it was necessary her father and mother should hear—the Earl's message to them—Hyde's own proposition for an immediate marriage, and various necessities referring to this event. But she was proud and happy to read words of such noble, straightforward affection; and the Doctor was especially pleased by the deference expressed for his wishes. When he left the house that day he kissed his daughter with pride and tenderness, and said to Mrs. Moran—

"Ava, there will be much to get, and much to do in a short time, but money manages all things Do not spare where it is necessary." And then what important and interesting consultations followed! what lists of lovely garments became imperative, which an hour before had not been dreamed of! what discussions as to mantua makers and milliners! as to guests and ceremonies! as to all the details of a life unknown, but invested by love and youth, with a delightfully overwhelming importance.

Cornelia was so happy that her ordinary dress of grey camelot did not express her; she felt constrained to add to it some bows of bright scarlet ribbon, and then she looked round about her room, and went through her drawers, to find something else to be a visible witness to the light heart singing within her. And she came across some coral combs that Madame Jacobus had given her, and felt their vivid colouring in the shining masses of her dark hair, to be one of the right ways of saying to herself, and all she loved, "See how happy I am!"

In the afternoon, when the shopping for the day had been accomplished, she went to Captain Jacobus, to play with him the game of backgammon which had become an almost daily duty, and to which the Captain attached a great importance. Indeed, for many weeks it had been the event of every day to him; and if he was no longer dependent on it, he was grateful enough to acknowledge all the good it had done him. "I owe your daughter as much as I owe you, sir," he would say to Doctor Moran, "and I owe both of you a bigger debt than I can clear myself of."

This afternoon he looked at his visitor with a wondering speculation. There was something in her face, and manner, and voice, he had never before seen or heard, and madame—who watched every expression of her husband—was easily led to the same observation. She observed Cornelia closely, and her gay laugh especially revealed some change. It was like the burst of bird song in early spring, and she followed the happy girl to the front door, and called her back when she had gone down the steps, and said, as she looked earnestly in her face—

"You have heard from Joris Hyde? I know you have!" and Cornelia nodded her head, and blushed, and smiled, and ran away from further question.

When she reached home she found Madame Van Heemskirk sitting with her mother, and the sweet old lady rose to meet her, and said before Cornelia could utter a word:

"Come to me, Cornelia. This morning a letter we have had from my Joris, and sorry am I that I did thee so much wrong."

"Madame, I have long ago forgotten it; and there was a mistake all round," answered Cornelia, cheerfully.

"That is so—and thy mistake first of all. Hurry is misfortune; even to be happy, it is not wise to hurry. Listen now! Joris has written to his grandfather, and also to me, and very busy he will keep us both. His grandfather is to look after the stables and the horses, and to buy more horses, and to hire serving men of all kinds. And a long letter also I have had from my daughter Katherine, and she tells me to make her duty to thee my duty. That is my pleasure also, and I have been talking with thy mother about the house. Now I shall go there, and a very pleasant home I shall make it. Many things Joris will bring with him—two new carriages and much fine furniture—and I know not what else beside."

Then Cornelia kissed madame, and afterwards removed her bonnet; and madame looked at her smiling. The vivid coral in her dark hair, the modest grey dress with its knots of colour, and above all the lovely face alight with love and hope, delighted her.

"Very pretty art thou, very pretty indeed!" she said, impulsively; and then she added, "Many other girls are very pretty also, but my Joris loves thee, and I am glad that it is thee, and very welcome art thou to me, and very proud is my husband of thee. And now I must go, because there is much to do, and little time to do it in."

For nearly a week Cornelia was too busy to take Arenta into her consideration. She did not care to tell her about Rem's cruel and dishonourable conduct, and she was afraid the shrewd little Marquise would divine some change, and get the secret out of her. Indeed, Arenta was not long in suspecting something unusual in the Doctor's household—the number of parcels and of work people astonished her; and she was not a little offended at Madame Van Heemskirk spending a whole afternoon so near to her, and "never even," as she said to her father, "turning her head this way." For Arenta had drunk a rather long draught of popular interest, and she could not bear to believe it was declining. Was she not the American heroine of 1793? It was almost a want of patriotism in Madame Van Heemskirk to neglect her.

After a week had elapsed Cornelia went over one morning to see her friend. But by this time Arenta knew everything. Her brother Rem had been with her and confessed all to his sister. It had not been a pleasant meeting by any means. She heard the story with indignation, but contrived to feel that somehow Rem was not so much to blame as Cornelia, and other people.

"You are right served," she said to her brother, "for meddling with foreigners, and especially for mixing your love affairs up with an English girl. Proud, haughty creatures all of them! And you are a very fool to tell any woman such a—crime. Yes, it is a crime. I won't say less. That girl over the way nearly died, and you would have let her die. It was a shame. I don't love Cornelia—but it was a shame."

"The letter was addressed to me, Arenta."

"Fiddlesticks! You knew it was not yours. You knew it was Hyde's. Where is it now?"

She asked the question in her usual dominant way, and Rem did not feel able to resist it. He looked for a moment at the angry woman, and was subdued by her air of authority. He opened his pocketbook and from a receptacle in it, took the fateful letter. She seized and read it, and then without a word, or a moment's hesitation threw it into the fire.

Rem blustered and fumed, and she stood smiling defiantly at him. "You are like all criminals," she said; "you must keep something to accuse yourself with. I love you too well to permit you to carry that bit of paper about you. It has worked you harm enough. What are you going to do? Is Miss Darner's refusal quite final?"

"Quite. It was even scornful."

"Plenty of nice girls in Boston."

"I cannot go back to Boston."

"Why then?"

"Because Mary's cousin has told the whole affair."

"Nonsense!"

"She has. I know it. Men, whom I had been friendly with, got out of my way; women excused themselves at their homes, and did not see me on the streets. I have no doubt all Boston is talking of the affair."

"Then come back to New York. New Yorkers attend strictly to their own love affairs. Father will stand by you; and I will."

"Father will not. He called me a scoundrel, when I told him last night, and advised me to go to the frontier. Joris Van Heemskirk will not talk, but madame will chatter for him, and I could not bear to meet Doctor Moran. As for Captain Jacobus, he would invent new words and oaths to abuse me with, and Aunt Angelica would, of course, say amen to all he says;—and there are others."

"Yes, there is Lord Hyde."

"Curse him! But I intended to give him his letter—now you have burnt it."

"You intended nothing of the kind, Rem. Go away as soon as you can. I don't want to know where you go just yet. New York is impossible, and Boston is impossible. Father says go to the frontier, I say go South. What you have done, you have done; and it cannot be undone; so don't carry it about with you. And I would let women alone—they are beyond you—go in for politics."

That day Rem lingered with his sister, seeing no one else; and in the evening shadows he slipped quietly away. He was very wretched, for he really loved Mary Damer, and his disappointment was bitterly keen and humiliating. Besides which, he felt that his business efforts for two years were forfeited, and that he had the world to begin over again. Without a friend to wish him a Godspeed the wretched man went on board the Southern packet, and in her dim lonely cabin sat silent and despondent, while she fought her way through swaying curtains of rain to the open sea. Its great complaining came up through the darkness to him, and seemed to be the very voice of the miserable circumstances, that had separated and estranged his life from all he loved and desired.

This sudden destruction of all her hopes for her brother distressed Arenta. Her own marriage had been a most unfortunate one, but its misfortunes had the importance of national tragedy. She had even plucked honour to herself from the bloody tumbril and guillotine. But Rem's matrimonial failure had not one redeeming quality; it was altogether a shameful and well-deserved retribution. And she had boasted to her friends not a little of the great marriage her brother was soon to make, and even spoken of Miss Damer, as if a sisterly affection already existed between them. She could anticipate very well the smiles and shrugs, the exclamations and condolences she might have to encounter, and she was not pleased with her brother for putting her in a position likely to make her disagreeable to people.

But the heart of her anger was Cornelia—"but for that girl," Rem would have married Mary Damer, and his home in Boston might have been full of opportunities for her, as well as a desirable change when she wearied of New York. Altogether it was a hard thing for her, as well as a dreadful sorrow for Rem; and she could not think of Cornelia without anger, "Just for her," she kept saying as she dressed herself with an elaborate simplicity, "Just for her! Very much she intruded herself into my affairs; my marriage was her opportunity with Lord Hyde, and now all she can do is to break up poor Rem's marriage."