Chapter XXVIII: The Unwilling Accomplice

Woodworth was now Gillian’s accepted lover. After a generous struggle with himself, Mr. Bentley had given a cordial consent to this engagement, and to the tumult of doubt came the heaven of a confirmed and perfect love. No bird ever seemed more quiet brooding in its nest, than Gillian appeared as she moved about that spacious house, or sat in her luxurious boudoir, wondering how any one could think this world a place of trouble. To her it was bright as paradise. If the sight of Michael Hurst gliding toward her aunt’s room with a soft step and a strange look in the face disturbed her repose for a single moment, it was followed by a proud curve of the lip, and a feeling of disdain that any thing so insignificant could intrude on her great happiness. How dared this man lift his eyes to the woman whom Woodworth had exalted by his love?

These thoughts were arrogant, perhaps, but Gillian was not only proud in her own spirit but imperial in her pride where her love was concerned. There is no equal on earth to the man a woman loves with her whole heart, and thus Gillian, our bright, beautiful Gillian, loved the man to whom her faith was pledged. It was the homage of pure appreciation to genius—the romance and passion of youth crowned this devotion with a glory.

Thus Gillian felt as if some ill-omened bird was flitting through her paradise, when Hurst passed her with his half-sarcastic face and mocking indifference. But what had she to fear from him? Her position was assured. Young, beautiful, and beloved, what had she to dread from Michael Hurst’s presence in her aunt’s room? Surely nothing! Yet Gillian’s heart would recoil at the sound of his footstep, and a thrill of disgust would pass through her frame if his voice reached her. This made her angry; a creature so insignificant had no right to disturb her thus.

On the night of her party, Gillian’s engagement to Woodworth was to be admitted, if not proclaimed; and directly after that it was settled that her marriage should take place.

There was to be no change in the household. Bentley would not give up his daughter, but welcomed a son into his own dwelling—a son that might, in some degree, enliven the solitude which surrounded him; for though in the world, Bentley lived a man apart, and was in reality as little acquainted with the gossip, scandal, and trifles of social life as a hermit. The dignity of character which kept him aloof from these things imposed solitude upon him, for, after all, the interests of social life are made up of trifles which sensitive men like him reject.

Bentley had seen young Hurst more than once, but he was not aware how frequently he visited the house, or that he had presumed to lift his eyes to Gillian. Looking upon him as an acquaintance of Miss Hart’s, he scarcely gave his presence or absence from the house a moment’s thought. Something about the young gentleman he did not like, but the feeling was so vague that he was hardly conscious of it.

After Hurst’s presumption in Mrs. Ransom’s grounds that day, Gillian had made a faint effort to persuade her aunt to exclude him from the house; but Aunt Hetty, usually so shrinking and mild, fired up on the instant, offered to leave the house herself, but absolutely refused to be restricted in her own movements, or the company she might receive.

Gillian was far too proud for explanations which compromised her delicacy, and forbore to press the matter; so Hurst came as usual, but the air which he had assumed then grew haughtier every day, and there was a look of subtle triumph in his eyes which became annoying as it was inexplicable.

On the morning before the great party, Hurst was in Aunt Hetty’s room. The door was closed, and the two sat far apart, looking away from each other like persons who had been talking on a subject which was annoying to one and painful to the other.

Aunt Hetty had not been crying, but there was a white stillness in her face which gave it a deathly look, and through her frame came short, nervous spasms, which, at Hurst’s angry command, she was striving in vain to suppress.

“You are sure that he has consented?”

Aunt Hetty bowed, and from her white lips came a faint, “Yes.”

“And that the engagement will be known to every one to-morrow night?”

“She told me so herself.”

“And the marriage? How soon is that to come off?”

Hurst spoke bitterly and with a sneer.

“I don’t know,” said the old lady; “very soon, I think. Martha can tell: I heard her talking yesterday about being bridesmaid.”

“No matter what their plans are,” said Hurst, fiercely, “I will thwart them long before they are settled.”

The old lady started up and clasped her little hands, that shook and trembled like dead leaves before him.

“Oh, Michael, Michael, give that up—in the name of God give it up. I cannot stand by you—the bare thought is killing me. It is fraud, infamy, wicked, wicked infamy; the judgment of heaven would fall on us both.”

Hurst arose and bent his fierce white face over the trembling creature.

“Woman, would you have me curse you?”

“You! you! No, father of mercies, no—that would be more terrible yet.”

“Hate you?” persisted the fiend, growing hoarse with rage.

“Hate me! you! you! Oh, my God, my God, hear what he says!”

“Abandon you forever?”

The poor woman writhed in her chair, moaning with impotent pain.

“For her sake—oh, Sarah, my sister, that it should have come to this! Can you hear?—do you know——”

Now two great tears came swelling up to her wild eyes, and dropped heavily, as if turned to lead by the pain that sent them forth.

“Once for all,” said the young man, grasping both her hands, and crushing them together till the pain flickered up to her face. “Once for all, let us understand each other. I will go on steadily, resolutely, unrelenting, and you shall help me.”

“I cannot! I cannot!” she cried.

He took no notice of that plaintive wail, but went on.

“Be firm, and I cannot fail—be firm, and I am more than a thousand nephews, more than a thousand sons to you. No angel was ever loved as I will love you. No queen was ever obeyed as I will obey you.”

A look of troubled affection came into that pale face—a wretched, yearning fondness, that would have touched a wild animal.

He saw it, and, dropping to one knee, threw his arms around her neck, and laid his cheek against her shoulder.

“I will be obedient like a little boy—kind, oh, so kind!—there, there, don’t sob, but listen. Remember this is my right—ask yourself if it is not—I but claim what is before God my own. He has had it now almost a quarter of a century—has lived in luxury—pampered that proud girl till she thinks herself a goddess. Besides, I do not mean to dispossess him, nor to force the question into court. Be firm as I will, and all is arranged without trouble. Promise me—promise me!”

He looked at her amid his pleading with a tenderness so real that her tears fell like dew.

“I think if you asked me to kill myself I should do it,” she said, timidly returning his caress.

“But I do not ask that—heaven forbid. I only wish you to remember the years in which I have planned, and worked, and suffered, to earn a decent living, while these persons have been feasting and pampering themselves on the property to which I have a right. Who, except yourself and the Bloomingdale woman over yonder, has ever thought or cared for me?”

“But old Mrs. Frost was good to you. I am sure she ought to have been, for Sarah did every thing for her.”

“Oh, yes! I do not complain. But what was an old woman like that to a child that pined as I did for a father to guide, and a mother to love me? I have suffered enough—more than enough—for any thing they cared I might have been in State’s prison now. But their time is coming. Let them stand cringing on the steps of this great house as I have done; let them meet cold looks as I did not an hour ago, and feel the Bentley blood boiling in their veins as it burns in mine: you know how they have insulted me.”

“Yes, I know that; it was only this week Gillian came with that queenly air of hers, and asked me to forbid your coming here. As if I would.”

“And for these people, who treat you, at best, like an upper servant, you would keep me a beggar.”

“No, no, not a beggar, Michael. You don’t know how poor Sarah saved and pinched for the money Mrs. Frost had for bringing you up. I never could have done it like her. Oh, Michael! if she were only here now with her quick way of seeing things—but—but I should not dare look her in the face. Is not Gillian her daughter?”

“But she is not daughter to the man who owned all this wealth, nor shall she keep it! It never was hers by right. Why can’t you see this as I do?”

“But the law gave it to him!”

“The law is a tyrant. Besides, the question was never contested. How do we know what the courts would have decided, had all the knowledge we possess been laid before them?”

The poor, nervous woman was yielding thought by thought to the strong will that oppressed her. Her heart was always in the right place, but the intellect which should have supported it wavered under the pleadings, and the sophistry which was so much like truth. Her own heart, too, spoke loud in the young man’s behalf; all her ambition—a childish feeling at best—rose up to second his arguments. Sure enough, why should Gillian Bentley have the right to sweep Michael Hurst so disdainfully from her path, as if he were a beggar and she an empress?

With these thoughts undermining the sense of right which was growing weaker and weaker each moment, with his pleading voice in her ears, the lone woman sunk quietly away from her integrity, and promised all that the young man asked of her.

Then he arose to go, like a child who, having taken the first step, fears to walk alone; she followed him, holding out her hands.

“Michael!”

He paused and came back, questioning her with his eyes; for he had no heart to understand the yearning tenderness that spoke in the word.

“Michael!”

His intellect was quick, and he comprehended that there was some weakness which he was expected to humor.

“Well,” he said, smiling, “you see I have come back like a good boy: what is it?”

“Michael, kiss me for the first time on earth before you go.”

The young man was visibly touched. He bent down, and as he kissed her he murmured a single word that sent a bloom into her face, and made every nerve in her frame vibrate. Truly she had bought that one moment of happiness with a great price.

She did not kiss him back, but received the touch of his lips with timid humility, sighing under the full contentment of her wishes.

“You will never speak of cursing me again?” she said wistfully, “the word hurts me like a knife.”

“Never! Only be faithful to your promise, and we have neither of us any thing to fear.”

He went away after this. Aunt Hetty locked the door and drew down the curtain with eager haste. When quite alone, and safe from observation, she sat down and pressed the two hands, which he had clasped, to her lips with fervor, as a devotee kisses the feet of his idol. She took up the cushion he had leaned against and smoothed it with caressing softness, laid her cheek against it, and muttered soft, sweet words over it, as if the embroidered silk knew all that she felt, and would grow brighter from sharing her joy.

Then she heard a step at the door, and a clear, young voice called out:

“Aunt Hetty, are you here? May I come in?”

It was Gillian’s voice. The cushion dropped from Aunt Hetty’s clasp, and, holding her breath with sudden terror, the poor creature sunk with it to the floor, afraid to speak.

Then came a repetition of the words, which broke into snatches of music at the end, and Gillian’s light footstep died away in the hall; but the sound of her voice came back like the song of a nightingale when the rose season is at its full.

The young girl was very, very happy that day; Woodworth had just left her, and, like the bird we speak of, she carried her joy and her song everywhere she went. With her all was sunshine; but darkness had fallen upon the poor woman who sat upon the floor of that closed room, trembling under the light vibrations of her song.

“It is Sarah’s child—it is Sarah’s child,” she muttered, rocking to and fro, with both hands clasped over her knees, “and I have promised to destroy her: better as it was, oh, how much better as it was!”

Thus all that day she sat upon the floor bewailing herself, without the courage to do right or wrong.

The next day Aunt Hetty was ill—so ill that she refused to leave her room; though the house was all in a tumult of preparation, and the gay world in a storm of excitement. This would undoubtedly prove the grand ball of the season: persons would be present who seldom appeared on such occasions; and to the usual crowd which composes a fashionable assemblage, the Bentleys would add many celebrities which no one else could command. In-doors the commotion was intense. Gillian, with her fine artistic taste, was busy as a bee turning the stately mansion into a bower of Eden for that one night.

Clothed in her morning-wrapper, which floated around her like a cloud, Gillian was in fifty places at once, smiling and radiant, giving gleams of new beauty to every thing she touched. While Martha tried on her dress at least half a dozen times; and Dinah, to use her own words, made dem city niggers from de confectionariums stand ’bout, while she gave an opinion of every thing which was brought into the supper rooms.

Now and then Mr. Bentley was called from his books to give an opinion where some statue was to be moved, or a picture lighted up; but of all the household Aunt Hetty never appeared.