Joshua Marvel

She said a strange thing to me this morning. "Father, do you think I should make a good actress?" The question startled me, for it brought back to me some memories of my past life. Minnie, when a little child, was often in her mother's arms in the theatre where I happened to be playing; her mother would be waiting for me perhaps, and would not leave our little darling alone in the room. Minnie has no definite remembrance of those times and circumstances, I think; but shadowy impressions of the scenes she then almost unconsciously witnessed are stamped upon her mind. Upon this theme I questioned her somewhat curiously this morning, and found that these experiences had had their effect upon her, and that she has vague remembrances of beautiful creatures beautifully dressed, walking in gardens in the midst of light. Ah, if she were aware of the reality! If she knew what poor struggling men and women these beautiful creatures were, and what a mockery were the beautiful dresses and the lovely gardens in which they lived their artificial lives! But I did not disenchant her. Life is bitter enough; if a gleam of brightness can be thrown upon it by the indulgence of a harmless fancy, it is good. In the midst of our conversation, Minnie suddenly left the room, and in about half an hour returned completely metamorphosed. She went out of the room a fair lovely girl, she returned a dark tawny woman, looking at least half a dozen years older; but still beautiful, very beautiful. I gazed at her in wonder. By what means had she effected such a marvellous change in herself? She explained, first asking me if I knew her again. Knew her again? Could she by any disguise hide herself from my knowledge? But suppose I had only seen her once in my life, she asked, then did I think I should have known her again? I did not exactly know how to answer that, and although she pressed me to give her an answer, I could not. I was delighted to see her in the new light in which she presented herself to me; it was almost an assurance that some portion of my fears was groundless. She explained to me that in the box containing her clothes were some remnants of the wherewithals I once used in my profession, such as colors and a few wigs. I had forgotten them, not having had occasion for them for so long a time. And she confessed that she had often amused herself with these things. Indeed, in the middle of her explanation she stooped and hid herself from my sight, and rose in the wig I used to wear when I played "Hamlet." She had tucked up her beautiful hair with the skill of an actress, so that it was completely hidden by the wig; and as she stood before me, I saw in her some shadowy resemblance of myself as I was in days gone by. I could not but be delighted with her light humor; it almost entirely dispelled my fears. Then she took off the wig, and washed the color out of her face, and sat by my bedside quietly. I am used to her variable moods, and therefore, although I was sorry to see that her sportiveness had fled, and that a more serious mood took its place, I was not surprised. Never in all her life has she shown me such tenderness as she exhibited towards me this day. "I shall always love you, father," she said to me, more than once. Dear child! Darling treasure of my heart! All good angels guard you.

The cup of happiness is dashed from my lips. Something so strange, so unexpected, has happened, that, simple as it is, I scarcely know how to set it down, or what to augur from it.

Minnie has gone!

Where-for how long for what purpose-I do not know. She has gone from her home, from me.

Early this morning, while I was waiting to see her dear face, I was thinking of something strange that occurred in the night, wondering whether it formed part of my dreaming fancies or had actually occurred. It was this: -

The house was very quiet. It was the most solemn part of the night, when troubled life is most like peaceful death. The healthfulness of dreamless sleep is denied me, as it is denied to all men whose minds are harassed. For many weeks I have not enjoyed an hour's repose, and so confused are the images that pass through my mind when I am alone, that I am often in doubt whether the scenes in which I am taking part are real or fanciful. I was in this condition last night at the time of which I am writing. While I was thinking or dreaming of Minnie and her mother, I heard a soft footfall in the room. The impression that some one was in the room was strong upon me, and when I felt a kiss upon my face, and my pillow being smoothed by a gentle hand, I was almost convinced that it was Minnie. The presence remained with me for I know not what length of time; I do not know when I lost it, or when it departed, but when I called "Minnie!" no voice answered me. When daylight came, I determined to ask Minnie if it was she who had entered my room in the night. I waited impatiently for her appearance, but she did not come. Susan came, and I asked her if Minnie was down yet; Susan had not seen her. I bade her go and tell Minnie to come to me; she returned and said that Minnie was not in bed, nor in any part of the house. As Susan told me this, she came to my bedside, and, stooping, picked up a paper which must have fallen from beneath my pillow. There was writing on it-Minnie's writing. It was addressed to me, and it told me that Minnie had left me, not from any want of love, but because she was miserable and unhappy. She said said she knew that she had been watched; that a feeling she could not control had compelled her to leave for a time; that she would write again or see me in a few days; and she begged me to believe that no one but herself was to blame for what she had done. She asked me, too, not to be anxious as to how she would live, for she had provided for that.

The first thing I did was to desire Susan to lock the door, and on no account to allow a person to enter the room. For the thought flashed upon me, that if it were known that Minnie had left her home clandestinely, her good name would suffer. She had done a foolish thing-ay, it was a cruel thing to leave me thus; but it was done in all innocence, I am sure, and in ignorance of the world's judgment upon such an act. I, her father, must protect her good name; no breath of slander must be allowed to touch her. Therefore I judged it imperative that the secret of her departure should be known only to Susan and me. I gave Susan the letter to read, and when her tears were dried, my plan was formed. It is well for me that I have such an attached and faithful friend as Susan. Without her, I should be helpless indeed. I explained my wishes to her, and she promised to obey them implicitly-and she will. The Marvels and Dan and Ellen are to be told that Minnie cannot leave me; that my illness has increased, and I require her constant attendance. And on no pretence whatever is any one of them to be allowed to come into the room. The door is to be always locked, and when Susan goes out of the room, she is to lock the door and take the key with her. I am afraid that Susan judges Joshua even more harshly than I do; for she suggested that she should watch his movements, in the expectation that some clew might be gained. Her evidence of to-day is all in his favor. She ascertained that he went this morning direct from home to his ship; that he worked there for six hours, and that he came home direct to Ellen. No, I cannot associate him with Minnie's disappearance. I have been thinking as coherently as I could as to what is most likely the cause of her leaving home, and the most hopeful conclusion I can arrive at is this: That Minnie has an attachment for Joshua, which, in the face of his engagement with Ellen, she feels it is her duty to subdue; that it is painful to her to be a witness of Ellen's happiness; and that, fearful lest she should betray her attachment, she has left the neighborhood until Joshua has gone upon his voyage.

I am re-assured. This conclusion is reasonable as well as hopeful. I must bear with the misery of her absence-ah, how I miss her beloved face! – in the hope that my darling will return to me when he is gone, and that she will regain her peace of mind, and be to me as she has hitherto been; chastened perhaps, but not entirely unhappy.

Are you thinking of me, Minnie? Can you realize the depth of my love for you, my dearest? If such a thing exists in the flesh as spiritual communion with those we love, you will know, darling treasure of my heart! that my thoughts, my blessings, my prayers are with you now.

In two days Joshua's ship will sail, and then my darling will come home. The secret of her departure has been well kept. No one knows or suspects. There is a rare faithfulness in Susan's nature. If she possessed all the graces of womanhood, she could not be nobler than she is.

I need all my strength to enable me to bear with Minnie's absence; so constantly do my thoughts dwell upon her, that at certain times I lose consciousness of what has taken place, and detect myself listening for her footstep. At other times I am engrossed by the idea that many years have passed since I last saw Minnie. When this impression is upon me, Minnie appears to me not as a woman, but as a child.

Joshua Marvel has gone. Thank God! Now I may expect Minnie to return. Any moment may bring her to my loving arms again. I am haunted by the ghosts of footsteps on the stairs. I know afterwards that my fancy has conjured them up; but if they were real, I could not hear them more plainly. They are Minnie's footsteps always. I hear them first in the passage leading from the street-I stop and listen. Softly yet swiftly they come nearer and nearer to me, till they are outside my door. Then I say to myself, "She is lingering for a while, thinking of the happiness I shall feel when she opens the door and runs to my side." But the long silence that follows tells me that the steps I heard were created by my fancy, and that I have still to wait for the accomplishment of my dearest hope.

Before Joshua left, he came to the door, and asked to see me and Minnie to bid us good-by. His desire to see Minnie was assuring, for it convinced me that the reasons I assigned for her leaving are correct, But I would not see him-I could not; for if he came into the room, he would discover Minnie's absence.

I am thankful to think that may forced seclusion will soon be at an end. How the minutes lag! Come, Minnie! Come, my darling child!

How shall I be able to endure this agony? It is night; yesterday morning Joshua Marvel left to go on his voyage, and there is no sign of Minnie. What can I think? Has any calamity befallen her? Is she lying sick, helpless anywhere, and must I remain here, gnawing my heart away with the knowledge that I am powerless to help her? O God, who only witnesseth my sufferings, send my darling home to me to-night! If in my life I have erred, and deserve punishment-if the injunction I laid upon the woman who loved me, and whom I loved with all my strength, was a crime, and if I am to suffer for the misery of her wedded life, being the cause of it-deal with me as thou wilt; but let me look once more upon the face of my darling!

The third day. My life is being tortured away. I believe that I shall die before seeing Minnie. The prescience of death is upon me. Every few minutes Susan runs into the street to see if Minnie is coming; but there is no sign of her. The slightest sound in the house causes my heart to beat so violently that I am afraid. I try to think, but I cannot; I can only fear. These few words have taken me long to write. I cannot read what I have previously written. I have tried to do so, but the words swim before my eyes. I can write no more to-day.

With a despairing mind I trace these words slowly and painfully. They are powerless to express my feelings.

Death is near. I know it. Not by physical pain am I warned, but I know it. I saw my wife last night. She stood by my side for full an hour. It is a sign that my hour is come.

Susan is below, looking for Minnie, perhaps-looking for Minnie, who will never, never come..

I take up my pen again. What lies before me? A letter. Susan brought it up a while ago, and gave it to me. But when I saw the writing on the cover, I had not courage to open it, so I placed it in the desk. It is addressed to me in Minnie's writing. And on the cover are these words: "The 'Merry Andrew;' John Steele, pilot." The letter, then, comes from the "Merry Andrew," and is in Minnie's writing. What follows? That Minnie is on board the "Merry Andrew" with Joshua Marvel! I must read it-I must, if it strike me dead!

That was all that was written. Dan read every word of the manuscript aloud, but was compelled by emotion to pause many times. During the silence that followed, one thought rose uppermost in their minds. Ellen thought, "How will Dan bear this?" And Dan had the same thought with respect to Ellen. Is such noble unselfishness rare? Let us hope not. For the first and only time in the course of this narrative, the writer pauses to speak of a personal experience of devotion and unselfishness. It was before him during his boyhood in the person of his mother; and it is to her, and to the patient, unmurmuring gentleness with which she bore the trials of her life, that her children owe whatever little of good there may be in their nature. It is from his experience of his mother's life of goodness and self-sacrifice that he knows that the noble unselfishness of Dan and Ellen is not, thank God, a creation of his fancy. And as he writes these words in the midst of a great city, with all the whirl of its busy life around him, he is glad to think that in it-in great mansions and mean houses, in sight of gardens where Nature makes holiday, and of dirty streets and courts where bright leaf never grows-flowers of human life which the world shall never see are blossoming tenderly and holily, and living gentle lives for others' good.

For a long time no word was spoken by Ellen and Dan. Then Dan turned and looked in Ellen's face. She met his gaze pityingly, almost appealingly. He answered her with a sad smile, in which there was much sweetness.

"You were the first to guess my love for Minnie," he said; "and only to Jo did I ever confess it. But do not fret for me, my dear; she can never be to me what I was daring enough to hope she would be one day. My love for her is not less strong, but my hope is buried now."

She could say nothing but "Oh, my poor Dan! Oh, my poor Dan!"

"Nay, why?" he answered in his gentle voice; "what could I have offered her? What right had I, a cripple, to entertain the hope? I dared to hope that she, bright, strong, and full of healthful life, would tie herself to a weak, sickly thing like me. I dared to hope that she would love me. I fed my heart upon delusions; I can see it now, But I can love her still-can believe in her still-shall have faith in her purity as long as my heart shall beat, and after that-ay, who knows?" He paused for a little while before he resumed: "What you and I have in our thoughts, my dear, we must speak of; in that lies our only consolation. And we must not shrink from it; for our duty, no less than our love, demands it."

And yet she did shrink, fearing what was coming.

"What wonder that she should love Joshua?" continued Dan, unflinchingly determined to look the truth in the face, and not to spare himself; although as he spoke his quivering lips and tremulous voice betrayed his agitation. "We who know how good and brave he is are able to understand that she could not help loving him. But he-no, he played no false part by her." He placed his hand upon the Bible, and the action gave a deeper solemnity to the declaration. "Some suspicion he may have entertained that her feelings towards him were warmer than they ought to have been; and I well know the grief such suspicion brought to him. But he could not mention it-he dared not speak of it for Minnie's sake-for mine. I can trace a meaning now in the last words he said to me. 'You do not doubt me, Dan?' he asked. I answered, 'No, nor never could.' And then he said he should not have asked, but that certain things had distressed him lately. Poor Jo! Yes, he must have guessed Minnie's secret, and, knowing my love for her, trembled lest I should turn against him. Turn against him! my best, my dearest friend! When I do, it will be time for me to die. Believe that I never wavered in my love or my truth, and that to the last I held you in my heart as I hold you now, gentlest, dearest, best of friends!"

Unconsciously he had uttered the very words which Joshua addressed to him, and he spoke them as if Joshua were standing before him.

"As for what we have read to-night, we, and we alone, can rightly understand it. He who wrote it in his agony knows now that Joshua's heart is as pure as Minnie's honor."

"Those strange letters poor Minnie's father received," whispered Ellen; "who wrote them?"

"Who stabbed Jo when he came home?" asked Dan in reply. "Whoever did that wrote the letters. Jo has an enemy." Then, with a sudden remembrance of Joshua's warning against Solomon Fewster, he cried in a louder tone than he had hitherto used, "Mr. Fewster!" With eager impatience he turned over the pages of Basil Kindred's diary, and lighted upon the original letters. They were pinned on blank pages at the end of the diary, and were written on soiled sheets of blue letter-paper. "No," said Dan, examining them; "the writing is strange to me. We must wait until Jo comes back; all will be explained then."

The candle had burnt low in the socket by this time, and Dan had just said, "I think we had better try to sleep for a little while, Ellen," when they heard sounds of some one walking softly about the house.

"There is no one here but Susan," said Ellen in a tone of quiet surprise.

"No one but" – said Dan, and then paused, awestruck by the thought of that only other one in the house, who lay stark and dead in the room above.

They listened to Susan's footsteps, and a new fear entered their hearts. There was a soft stealthiness in the footfall, as if Susan were hunting for some one who was hiding from her.

"Shall I go and see?" asked Ellen.

"Hush!" whispered Dan.

Susan's footsteps, soft and stealthy as those of a cat, were in the passage. Presently the door was opened cautiously, and Susan entered, and softly closed the door behind her. She did not notice either Dan or Ellen, but looked about the room inquiringly, then went to the window and pulled up the blind. The moon was high in the heavens, and the light streamed down upon her face, making it ghastly.

"Susan!" cried Dan.

But she did not heed him; she peered anxiously through the window into the street, shading her eyes with her hand.

"Is she asleep?" whispered Ellen.

"I don't know," said Dan in a troubled voice; "it is dreadful to see her with that expression on her face."

It was an expression of suppressed watchfulness; that her firmly-compressed lips and wandering eyes were at variance might have been due to the peculiar circumstances of her life; but in the cunning and revengeful determination in her face there was no sign of indecision. It was as though she had staked her life on the accomplishment of a task.

As she turned from the window and approached Dan, he seized her hand. "Susan," he said, gently, "speak to me, my dear. What is the meaning of this?"

She laid her hand upon his head, and said, "Poor Dan! And you loved her, and she is lost to you."

"Not lost, Susey," he said, detaining her hand and humoring her, for he was afraid that her reason was gone; "not lost. She will come back."

"She will never come back-never, never! When she hears that he is dead-he is lying dead up stairs, Dan-she will never come back; she will drown herself first; for she loved him, and me too; and would have loved you, Dan, but for that false-hearted friend.

"You must not say that, Susey," said Dan, pointing to Ellen, who had turned aside weeping. "Look at Ellen. He is her husband, and he is not false-hearted. For her sake you must have kinder, juster thoughts towards Jo."

But Susan did not catch the sense of his words. All that she understood was, that he was speaking in defence of Joshua.

"All in his favor," she muttered. "If any one is to blame, it is Minnie-that's what all of you will say. But I know better; I know better. Didn't I watch them? Didn't I see him making love to her on the ship? Didn't I see the poor dear that's lying dead up stairs tortured slowly to death? And don't I know who killed him?"

"Who, Susan, who?" asked Dan, holding his breath.

"Joshua Marvel," said Susan, between her set teeth, with no change upon her face. "And as God's my judge, I will bring him to justice! You are his friends-I know that: you'll try to hide him from me; but I'll do what I've made up my mind to, if I drop down dead the minute after."

She twisted her hand from Dan's grasp, and crept slowly into the passage, and thence into the street. And there she stood for many minutes, with the same expression of implacable animosity on her face, waiting for the return of Basil Kindred's murderer.

CHAPTER XXVII

WHAT THE NEIGHBORS THINK OF IT

The events that have been described, proved to be something more than a nine-days' wonder. The neighborhood was remarkably bare of exciting incidents, and nothing so stirring as the sudden death of Basil Kindred and the flight of Minnie had happened within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Besides that, there was one element in the occurrences which, above all others, added zest and flavor to them-this was the element of mystery. Here was a family, which might be looked upon as the most respected family in the neighborhood; for there was no question about the position held by the Marvels. Every one of the neighbors liked them, and every one of the neighbors had a good word for them. They had lived in the neighborhood-they and their fathers and grandfathers before them-for many scores of years, and no shadow of reproach had ever rested upon a single member of the family. They had always been steady, industrious, and sober, and had been held up as examples, time out of mind, by wives to their husbands, and parents to their children. They were homely, hospitable, and sociable, and, although they might very well have done it, had never held their heads above their fellows. If any male acquaintance wanted a word of advice, he went to Mr. Marvel for it; and the advice received was generally found to be sound, and was always admitted to be good. If any one was sick, Mrs. Marvel always came forward to help and assist, in her small way, and was always ready to sit up of a night if it were necessary, and to do some portion of the household work if it were needed. And what she did was done so unostentatiously and quietly that it never left a sting behind it, and never-strange as it may sound-elicited any thing but gratitude. Joshua was a model of a son, and the neighbors had been proud of him. Take them for all in all, the Marvels were a credit to the locality. And yet, as you shall presently see, notwithstanding their irreproachable character, notwithstanding the credit in which they were held, notwithstanding that they were famous for all the virtues under the sun, a very remarkable change was to take place in the estimation in which they were held.

Then as to the Taylors. There had been many transitions of feeling regarding them when the parents were alive. They had not been a credit to the neighborhood. The meek uncomplaining life which Mrs. Taylor had led had been entirely lost sight of in the drunken dissolute habits of the head of the family. Perhaps it was because of this bad conduct on the part of Mr. Taylor that the virtues of the good wife had not been taken into account; and the fact remained, that it was not until after Mr. Taylor's death-the manner of which was disgraceful, and left a blot upon the family name-that any strong affection was mingled with the pity with which Dan and Ellen were regarded. There were so many singular circumstances connected with the family history. First, there was Susan letting Dan fall out of the window when he was a baby and breaking his legs. Many of the neighbors, with young families of their own, remembered the time when they were boys and girls, and when Susan was twitted and jeered at for being Dan's murderer. Then Susan's strange manner and slovenly dress-not it must be admitted, that her slovenliness had very much to do with the feeling, – had not rendered her a favorite; and she was often spoken of as being soft and not quite right in her mind.