Chapter LXXXVIII: The Torn Newspaper

Clara Anderson had resolved to return to her friends at Richmond as soon as Egbert Fletcher could be removed from the island. Bertha was safe under the protection of Mrs. Forbes, and, in her new-born happiness, had no need of her. In fact, it seemed as if she really had no place in the world. The past had, to her, been full of bitterness; the present offered nothing but a hopeless monotony, without love and devoid of interest. Like Bertha, she felt only dull, cold loathing for the man who had, in sheer vanity, taken the first bloom from her heart. If this was mingled with some degree of self-contempt, it only proved that her cure was complete.

Sometimes she thought of Edward Lane, of his chivalrous devotion, the manliness with which he had turned from that downward path and exerted the energies of a noble character. She remembered that day of bitter misery when he had come, in the very depths of her humiliation, and offered to sacrifice everything—brave everything for her sake. Now, when her brain was clear from fever, and her heart was free to feel, these memories came back upon her with tender force.

But all was over now. The man she had loved as a god had sunk beneath her scorn. The man who loved her had, doubtless, shaken off his passion, and, in doing this, redeemed himself before the world.

Yes, Bertha was happy in the chivalrous and most faithful love of a brave, good man. Alice Forbes had no need of help from any one. What, then, should detain her at the island? These thoughts had oppressed Clara that morning with unusual persistence. There was no need of her in the house, and a short time before the appearance of Mrs. Forbes and Edward Lane, she had gone down into a remote part of the second island to indulge in thoughts that might cast a shadow over the happiness of her friends.

While Clara was lingering around the spring, listening dreamily to the soft whispers of its waves among the grass, she saw Lydia coming across the bridge with something grasped tightly in her hand. There was a keen look in the girl’s face, a nervous spring in her walk, that drew Clara’s attention.

The girl came down to the clump of trees that had sheltered the tent that day of the picnic, and, seating herself at the foot of an old forest oak, unfolded a mutilated paper on her lap, and carefully laid the torn edges together.

Then she seemed to read diligently.

It was indeed Lydia reading that poem in which Waldon had written his greatest infamy, from end to end.

Clara could see her face grow hard and stern, like that of an old woman, as she laid it down in her lap and pondered over it.

What the girl thought, during the half hour that she sat on the earth, so silent and immovable, no human being ever knew; but, after a time, she folded the paper carefully, and put it in her pocket again.

There was something so strange in this proceeding that Clara left the spring and was close to the girl before she became aware of her presence.

“What is it, Lydia?” she said. “Something in that paper troubles you; may I look at it?”

Lydia clapped her hand against her pocket, and shot a volley of defiant glances up at the intruder’s face.

“If it is anything that interests our friends up yonder you can safely trust it with me,” said Clara.

“No, I can’t—no, I won’t. ‘Burn it,’ he said, and burn it is. Only this, Miss Clara, don’t you think of going back to Richmond just yet. You’ll be wanted here, I tell you; so don’t go!”

“How came you to think I intended going, Lydia?”

“As if I didn’t know! What’s the use of eyes, Miss Clara—double shooters, too—if one don’t see? Of course you meant to go; but it’s of no use; you’d have to come back again, sure. Now just go on and take your walk out, for I’m a going.”

On her way to the house, Lydia met the doctor, and spoke to him, as she had frequently done when Fletcher’s illness made her anxious about his life.

“Doctor,” she said, “can’t you tell by a person’s face when anything’s the matter with them?”

“Sometimes, Lydia; and just now I should say that your face is not quite natural—something about the eyes.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, doctor! I always was a cross-eyed little witch, looking two ways for Sunday. It is worse than that. I believe there’s some trouble here about my heart.”

Lydia laid one hand on the right side of her chest, with a rueful look of inquiry at the doctor, who began to laugh.

“Why, that would be your liver, child. Your heart is on the other side, lying a little crosswise; this fashion.”

“What! there? Almost under your vest pocket? Why, I can almost see it stir. How strange! Could one feel it now?”

“Lay your hand here and try,” answered the doctor, putting the lappel of his coat back, greatly amused by her curiosity.

Lydia pressed her hand on the white vest thus laid bare.

“How it beats—mine don’t stir like that, or I should know it. Well, my pain is on the other side; so it can’t, in reason, be my heart.”

“Well, Lydia, I have told you where to find yours, when you are old enough to have one, so don’t let any of the young fellows run away with it.”

The doctor broke off short. He was astonished to see tears gathering thick and fast into the girl’s eyes.

“Why, Lydia, child, are you really ill?”

“Yes, doctor. I shall never live to have any one want my heart!”

The girl spoke with inexpressible mournfulness, and scanning her face closely, he saw that she was pale, and looking really ill.

“Come back with me to the house, child, and I’ll see what can be done for you,” he said.

“Not to-day, doctor; I can wait. This is a pain that has been on me a good many months now—some other time will do just as well.”

“As you please, only do not fail to remind me when I come again. By-the-way, Lydia, there is to be a splendid barbecue down here, some time next week, I think. All the darkies from Willow Bend and the near plantations are coming down to celebrate Miss Noel’s wedding. The bride and groom, with their white friends, are coming to show themselves. That will be something worth seeing for you. Dear me, child, how pale you are! Take care of yourself, or we shall have trouble.”

Lydia was indeed pale. She sat down on a log near the bridge, and remained some minutes gazing down on the grass at her feet.

“Why, Lydia, what are you doing here?”

The girl jumped up in sharp haste.

“Oh, Mr. Lane! Oh, my! but won’t somebody be glad!”

“I have seen them all, Lydia, and am going home now.”

“Not now! Oh, Mr. Lane, not just yet!”

“But I must. We intend to remove my brother early in the morning, and things must be got ready at the plantation.”

Lydia seemed to reflect a minute, then she brightened with some new thought.

“But you needn’t go just yet, you know; a lot of people are coming down here for a barbecue, and after that no gentleman, as is a gentleman, will ever want to come over here again. Now there is a spring back of them trees, that is worth looking at. You’ll find it down in a holler, choked up with brakes and swamp lilies. Such a spring; it does one good to drink of it!”

There was something in the girl’s manner that aroused Lane’s curiosity. He was in no great haste to leave the island, and this description of the spring interested him. Scarcely conscious that he was acting from the suggestion of another, he crossed the bridge and sauntered down toward the spring.

Then Lydia dropped back to her seat again.

“He’s read them verses. I can see ’em in his eyes. He’ll be the next one sure. Oh, my! how dreadful close it comes!”

These were the only words Lydia spoke for half an hour, during which she sat vacantly gazing on the earth. All at once she started.

“There they come, arm-in-arm. Light in her face, joy in his. It’ll be hard for him to risk his life now, and the other is not well enough yet.”

A few minutes later, Lane and Clara passed the spot where Lydia had been sitting so long, but she was gone.