Chapter XXVII: Jessie’s Letter

It was dated on board the “Sea Gull” and began as follows:

“My husband:—It would be mockery for me to put the word _dear_ before
your honored name. You would not believe I meant it when I have sinned
against you so deeply and wounded your pride so sorely. But oh, if you
knew all which led me to what I am, you would pity me even if you
condemned, for you were always kind, too kind by far to a wicked girl
like me. But I am not so bad as you imagine. I have left you, I know,
and left my darling baby, and _he_ is here with me, but by no consent
of mine. I am not going to Europe. I am going to Charleston, where
Lucy is, and shall mail this letter from there. Every word I write
will be true, and you must believe it and teach Roger to believe it,
too, for I have not sinned as you suppose, and Roger need not blush
for his mother except that she deserted him. I am writing this quite
as much for him as for you, for I want him to know something of his
mother as she was years ago, when she lived among the Schodick hills,
in the dear old house which I have dreamed about so often, and which
even here on the sea comes up so vividly before me, with the orchard
where the mountain shadows fell so early in the afternoon, and the
meadows where the buttercups and clover blossoms grew. Oh, I grow
sick, and faint, and dizzy when I think of those happy days and
contrast myself as I was then with myself as I am now. I was so happy,
though I knew what poverty meant; but that did not matter. Children,
if surrounded by loving friends, do not mind being poor, and I did not
mind it either until I grew old enough to see how it troubled my
father. My mother, as you know, died before I could remember her, and
my aunt Mary, my father’s only sister, and cousin Lucy’s mother, took
her place and cared for me.

“The summer before you came to us, I met _Arthur Grey_. He was among
the visitors who boarded at the hotel. He was said to be very rich,
very aristocratic, very fastidious. You never saw him, and cannot
understand the strange fascination there was about him, or how his
manner, when he chose to be gracious, was calculated to win upon a
simple girl like me. I met him, and, ere I was aware of it, he taught
me how to love him. He became an inmate of our house at last, and thus
our growing fondness for each other was hidden from the public, which
would have said that I was no match for him. I _know_ that he loved
me. I never doubted that for a moment. Deception can assume many
garbs, but never the guise he wore when he won my girlish love. He
asked me to be his wife one autumn night, when the Indian summer haze
was on the hills, and the mountain tops were gorgeous with scarlet and
gold. I had never dreamed that a human being could be as happy as I
was when, with him at my side, I walked back across the fields to our
home. The very air around seemed full of the ecstatic joy I felt as I
thought of a life spent with _him_. He wished me to keep our betrothal
a secret for a time, he said, as he did not care to have his mother
and sisters know of it just then. They were at the hotel for a few
weeks, and I used to see them at church; and their cold, haughty
manner impressed me disagreeably, just as it did every one who came in
contact with them. I should not live with them, Arthur said. I should
have a home of my own on the Hudson. He had just bought a residence
there, and he described it to me until I knew every tree, and shrub,
and winding walk upon the place.

“Then he went away, and the dreary winter came, and his letters, so
frequent at first, began to come irregularly, but were always loving
and tender, and full of excuses for the long delay. Once I heard of
fierce opposition from his mother and sister, and a desire on their
part to persuade him into a more brilliant marriage. But I trusted him
fully until the spring, when after a longer interval of silence than
usual there came a letter from his mother, who wrote at her son’s
request, as he was ill and unable to write himself. I was still very
dear to him, she said, but considering all things he thought it better
for us both that the engagement should be broken. I had been brought
up so differently, that he did not believe I would ever be happy in
the society in which he moved, and it was really doing me a kindness
to leave me where I was; still, if I insisted, he was in honor bound
to adhere to his promise, and should do so.

“I pass over the pain, and bitter disappointment, and dreadful days,
when, in the shadow of the woods where I had walked so often with him,
I laid my face in the grass and wished that I could die. I did not
write him a word, but I sent him back his letters, and the ring, and
every memento of those blissful hours; and the few who knew of my
engagement guessed that it was broken, and said it had ended as they
expected.

“Then _you_ came, just when my heart was so sore, and you were kind to
father, and sought me of him for your wife, and he begged me to
consider your proposal, and save him his home for his old age. Then I
went again into the shadow of those woods, and crept away behind a
rock, under a luxuriant pine, and prayed that I might know what was
right for me to do. My father found me there one day and took me home,
and said I need not marry you. He would rather end his days in the
poor-house than see me so distressed. But the sight of his dear old
face growing so white, and thin, as the time for the foreclosure drew
near, was more than I could bear, and it mattered little what I did in
the future; so I went to you and said ‘I will be your wife, and do the
best I can; but you must be patient with me. I am only a little girl.’

“I ought to have told you of Arthur, but I did not, and so trouble
came of it. We were married in the morning, and went to Boston, and
then back for a few days to Schodick, where there was a letter for
_me_, from _Arthur_. It was all a terrible deception: he had had a
long, long illness, and his mother,—a cruel, artful woman,—took
advantage of it, and wrote me that cruel letter. Then, when my package
reached her, and she found there was no word of protest in it, she
gave it to him, and worked upon him in his weak condition until he
believed me false, and the excitement brought on a relapse which
lasted longer and was more dangerous than his first illness had been.
As soon as he was able to hold his pen, he wrote to me again; but his
mother managed to withhold the letter, and so the time went on until,
by chance, he discovered the deception, but it was too late. _I was
your wife._ I am your wife now, and so I must not tell you of that
terrible hour of anguish in my room at home, when cousin Lucy, who was
then at our house, found me fainting on the floor with the letter in
my hand. I told _her_ everything, for we were to each other as
sisters; but with that exception, no living being has ever heard my
story. I asked her to send him a paper containing the notice of my
marriage, and that was all the answer I returned to his letter.

“Then you took me to Millbank, and I tried to do my duty, even though
my heart was broken. After Roger came, I was happier, and I
appreciated all your kindness, and the pain was not so hard to bear,
till we went to Saratoga that summer, where I met _him_ again.

“He loved me still, and we talked it over together, sometimes when you
were sleeping after dinner, and nights when you were playing
billiards. There is so much of that kind of thing at Saratoga that
one’s sense of right and wrong is easily blunted there, and I was so
young; still this is no excuse. I ought not to have listened for a
moment, especially after he began to talk of _Italy_ and a cottage by
the sea, where no one would know us. I was his in the sight of Heaven,
he said. I was committing sin by living with you. I was more his wife
than yours, and he made me believe that if once I left you, a divorce
could easily be obtained, and then there would be nothing in the way
of our marriage. I caught at that idea and listened to it, and from
that moment my fate was sealed. But I never contemplated anything but
marriage with him, when at last I consented to leave you. I wanted to
take Roger, and went on my knees to him, begging that I might have my
baby, but he would not consent. A child would be in the way, he said,
and I must choose between him and my boy. His influence over me was so
great that I would have walked into the fire with him then, had he
willed it so.

“I left Millbank at night, intending to meet Arthur in New York, and
go at once to the steamer bound for Liverpool, but on the way thoughts
of my baby sleeping in his crib, with that smile on his lips when I
kissed him last, came to save me, and at New Haven I left the train
and took the boat for New York, and went to another hotel than the one
where he was waiting for me. I scarcely knew what I meant to do,
except to avoid him, until, as I sat waiting for a room, I heard some
people talking of the ‘Sea Gull,’ which was to leave the next day for
Charleston. Then, I said, ‘Heaven has opened for me that way of
escape. I dare not go back to Millbank. My husband would not receive
me now. Lucy is in Charleston. She knows my story. I will go to her,’
and so yesterday, when the ‘Sea Gull’ dropped down the harbor, I was
in it, and _he_ was there too; but I did not know it till we had been
hours upon the sea, and it was too late for me to go back. He had
wondered that I did not come according to appointment, and was walking
down Broadway when he saw me leave the hotel, and called a carriage at
once and followed me to the boat, guessing that it was my intention to
avoid him. I have told him of my resolve, and when Charleston is
reached, we shall part forever.

“This is the truth, my husband, and I want you to believe it. I do not
ask you to take me back. You are too proud for that, and I know it can
never be, but I want you to think as kindly of me as you can, and when
you feel that you have forgiven me, show this letter to Roger, if he
is old enough to understand it. Tell him to forgive me, and give him
this lock of his mother’s hair. Heaven bless and keep my little boy,
and grant that he may be a comfort to you and grow up a good and noble
man. Perhaps I may see him sometime. If not, my blessing be with him
always.”

“This is all of mother’s letter, but there is a postscript from _him_. Shall I read that, too?” Roger asked, and Magdalen said yes; and then, as he held the letter near to her, she saw the bold, masculine handwriting of Arthur Grey, who had written:

“SQUIRE IRVING—DEAR SIR—It becomes my painful duty to inform you that
not long after the enclosed letter from your wife was finished, a fire
broke out and spread so fast that all hope of escape except by the
life-boats was cut off. Your wife felt from the first a presentiment
that she should be drowned, and brought the letter to me, asking that
if I escaped, and she did not, I would forward it at once to Millbank.
I took the letter and I tried to save her, when the sea ingulfed us
both, but a tremendous wave carried her beyond my reach, and I saw her
golden hair rise once above the water and then go down forever. I,
with a few others, was saved as by a miracle,—picked up by a vessel
bound for New York, which place I reached yesterday. I have read
Jessie’s letter. She told me to do so, and to add my testimony to the
truth of what she had written. Even if it were not true, it would be
wrong to refuse the request of one so lovely and dear to me as Jessie
was, and I accordingly do as she bade me, and say to you that she has
written you the truth.

“I have the honor, sir, to be
“Your obedient servant,
“ARTHUR GREY.”

Not a word of excuse for himself, or regret for the part he had had in effecting poor Jessie’s death. He could scarcely have written less than he did, and the cold, indifferent wording of his message struck Magdalen just as it did Roger. She had wept over poor Jessie’s story, and pitied the young, desolate creature who had been so cruelly wronged. And she had pitied Arthur Grey at first, and her heart had gone out after him with a strange, inexplicable feeling of sympathy. But when it came to Saratoga and Italy, and all the seductive arts he must have used to tempt Jessie from her husband and child, and when she heard the message he had sent to the outraged husband, her blood boiled with indignation, and she felt that if she were to see him then, she must curse him to his face. While Roger had been reading of him, her mind had, for some cause, gone back to that Saturday afternoon, in the graveyard, when she met the handsome stranger whose courteous manners had so fascinated her, and who had been so interested in everything pertaining to the Irving family. Suddenly it came to her that _this_ was _Arthur Grey_, and, with a start, she exclaimed: “I have seen that man,—I know I have. I saw him at your father’s grave years and years ago.”

Roger looked inquiringly at her as she explained the circumstances of her interview with the stranger, telling of his questions with regard to Mrs. Irving and his apparent interest in her, and when she had finished her story, he said, “Is it your impression that he was ever in Belvidere before?”

“I know he never was,” Magdalen replied. “He told me so himself, and I should have known it without his telling, he seemed so much a stranger to everything and everybody.”

Roger knew that every word his sister had breathed against his mother was a lie, but Magdalen’s involuntary testimony helped to comfort and reassure him as nothing else had done. The clause which read “the boy known as Roger Lennox Irving” did not especially trouble him now, though he could not then forgive the father who had wronged him so, and when he thought of him there came back to his face the same sad, sorry look it had worn when Magdalen first came in, and which while talking to her had gradually passed away. She detected it at once, and connecting it with the will said to him again, “Oh, Mr. Irving, it would have been better if I had never come here. I have only brought sorrow and ruin to you.”

“No, Magda,” Roger replied, “it would not have been better if you had never come here. You have made me very happy, so happy that—” he could not get any further for something in his throat which prevented his utterance.

She _had_ brought him sorrow, and yet he would not for the world have failed of knowing how sweet it was to love her even if she could not be his. If he could have kept her and taken her with him to his home among the hills, he felt that he would have parted willingly with his fortune and beautiful Millbank. But that could not be. She belonged to Frank; everything was Frank’s, and for an instant the whole extent of his calamity swept over him so painfully that he succumbed to it, and laying his face upon the table sobbed just as piteously as he had done in the first moment of surprise and pain when he heard that both fortune and name were gone. Magdalen could not understand all the causes of his distress. She did not dream that every sob and every tear wrung from the strong man was given more to her than to the fortune lost, and she tried to comfort him as best she could, thinking once to tell him how willingly she would toil and slave to make his new home attractive, deeming no self-denial too great if by its means he could be made happier and more comfortable. But she did not dare do this until she knew whether she was wanted in that home among the Schodick hills where he said he was going. Oh, how she wished he would give some hint that he expected her to go with him; but he did not, and he kept his face hidden so long that she came at last to his side, and laid her hand on his shoulder and bent over him with words of sympathy. Then, as he did not look up, she knelt beside him, and her hand found its way to his, and she called him Roger again, and begged him not to feel so badly.

“You will drive me mad with remorse,” she said, “for I know I have done it all. Don’t, Roger, it breaks my heart to see you so distressed. What can I do to prove how sorry I am? Tell me and I will do it, even to the taking of my life.”

It did not seem possible that this girl pleading thus with him could be another’s betrothed, and for a moment Roger lost all self-control, and forgetting Frank and his rights snatched her to his arms and pressing her to his bosom rained kiss after kiss upon her forehead and lips, saying to her, “My darling, my darling, you have been a blessing and a comfort to me all your life, but there’s nothing you can do for me now. Once I hoped—oh, Magda, my little girl, that time is far in the past; I hope for nothing now. I am not angry with you. I could not be so if I would. I bless you for all you have been to me. I hope you will be happy here at Millbank when I am gone; and now go, my darling. You are shivering with cold and the room is very damp. God bless you, Magda.”

He led her out into the hall, then closed the door upon her, and went back again to his solitude and his sorrow, while Magdalen, bewildered and frightened and wearied out, found her way as best she could to her own room, where a few moments later Celine found her fainting upon the floor.