Chapter XXXVII: Mrs. Ransom’s Return

Bentley took his daughter and went into Rockland county, to the old homestead, which no longer belonged to him or to Daniel Hart; but, right or wrong, was henceforth the property of Michael Hurst, or, if we must call him so, William Bentley. The mortgage, though considered a dead letter among themselves, still existed; and the farm like all the other property, was swept out of their possession when Mr. Bentley resolved to abdicate. Thus, wherever they went, the father and daughter carried misfortune with them.

It was night again in the stone farm-house. Dinah was glorifying herself in the kitchen, and began at once to institute a new system of behavior in her department. She was horrified by the two-pronged forks, and went off in spasms of eloquent distress when the farm-hands insisted upon eating with their knives. Liz was deeply impressed by all this, and watched her grandmother with open-mouthed admiration, taken completely off her feet by the gorgeous turban with which Dinah had condescended to astonish the natives.

In the sitting-room, gathered around the hickory-wood fire, were Bentley, Gillian, Daniel Hart and his daughter, in serious consultation.

“This is my opinion,” said Daniel Hart: “as we have all made up our minds to give up, and let the young fellow take possession, we have but one thing to consider—how are we to live, and where, from this time out? If the farm was ours that would be easily settled. But it is not, and we must look up new homes somewhere. How much capital have we got among us?”

Mr. Bentley shook his head.

“Very little, I fancy: we left every thing but bare personal necessaries behind,” he said.

“I have a few jewels, which he could not claim,” said Gillian, eagerly: “they were gifts from dear friends.”

“That is something worth while. Why, a single diamond will build us a log cabin!” said Uncle Daniel, cheerfully.

“A log cabin!” exclaimed Gillian.

“Yes, that’s my idea, niece. Supposing we turn your diamonds into public lands, build a new home away out in the wilderness, and begin life again fair and square?”

“In the wilderness! What could my father do there?” cried Gillian, with a half-frightened look.

“Do! why rest, hunt, read and be an independent man, to be sure. I’ve got a couple of thousand dollars or so, laid up. That, with your pretty gimcracks, Gillian, will buy us a tract of land worth having. Then the log houses are some of ’em pretty as pictures. That sort of life would make a woman of you, right off the reel, niece. Oh, how your mother would have liked it!”

Gillian looked at her father anxiously. He seemed interested in the idea. It had struck him for the first time.

“Oh, Gillian, you would like it, I’m sure!” said Martha. “I’ve heard all about it.”

“You, Matty! why how?” exclaimed Daniel Hart, in surprise. “What can you know about the woods?”

“I! oh, ever so much, father! the wild strawberries—the grape vines tangled from tree to tree, all bending with purple clusters—the deer leaping twenty feet at one bound—ponds full of water-lilies, and _such_ fish—_he_ told me all about them.”

“He! who, darter?”

“Oh, my—nobody in particular: I only heard some of the young people talking about going West for a start in life.”

Matty’s face was crimson. When Gillian smiled, she got back of her father’s chair, and shook her clenched hand with mock ferocity, fearing that the name of John Downs would come out.

But Gillian only laughed, a little roguish laugh, and the conversation went on.

“But what can I do out there?” said Gillian.

“You, niece! why, pick wild fruit, and search in the prairies for flowers,” said Daniel Hart.

“But there will be hard work for us all.”

“Well, then, you must teach school.”

“In a log school-house—well, I can do that; and father?”

“He must shoot our game, catch our fish, and see to the garden, while I chop trees, make stone walls, and get the crops in.”

“Isn’t that splendid?” said Matty.

“We’ll have a double cabin—something grand, with an outhouse for Dinah and Liz,” continued Hart, warming with his subject. “The girls shall take their books.”

“And a guitar; I can take that, papa?” said Gillian.

“We will have fine horses,” continued Hart.

“And such cows!” said Matty.

“With pretty hens and chickens and dove-cotes,” said Gillian. “Papa, I’m sure we shall like it. Then perhaps—perhaps some one else will come out and be charmed with our lodge in the wilderness, and settle down close by, and go back to Washington a Senator or something of that kind.”

Mr. Bentley smiled.

“The West is sometimes a short cut to greatness,” he said, “who knows?”

“Then it is all settled?” said Daniel Hart, rubbing his hard hands with honest satisfaction. “We are to go West?”

“Yes, yes,” answered the other voices, and the little party that had assembled, so downcast and sad in the sitting-room, broke up, quite in a glow of hopefulness.

“Well, now, that we are all agreed, when shall we start?” said Daniel.

“The earlier the better,” answered Bentley. “Let it be next week.”

That night Martha Hart wrote a letter to John Downs, which she put into the post-office with her own hands, while the dew lay thick upon the meadows, exactly as her Aunt Sarah had sent off her heart-breaking missives years since.

Ten days from that family-council in the sitting-room, the homestead was empty. As his father had left old associations in New England long ago, when York State was “out-west,” and helped to plant a Yankee colony in Rockland county, so Daniel Hart set forth to build a new home for his family and that of his benefactor and brother-in-law. Of all that once happy household Aunt Hetty alone remained behind, and she would as soon have made her bed in a sepulchre as cross that sacred threshold again.

Never in the history of litigation, perhaps, had a vast property been so quietly transferred. In less than a month after his first demand, Hurst found himself in possession of that noble mansion in town, with all its costly appurtenances, and an income that one year before would have seemed to him something fabulous. He would gladly have shared this wealth with its real owners, and made more than one desperate effort to win Gillian after his advances had been peremptorily rejected. But that young lady positively refused to see him, and sent back his letters unopened, while Mr. Bentley rejected every overture for a compromise.

“No,” he said, “the estate is yours, or it is mine. I accept nothing which the law does not give, and that I will not evoke. Let God judge between us.”

Aunt Hetty, after her fashion, strove to make some restitution. She had not the courage to seek an interview with her family, but sent anonymous letters containing large sums of money, and when they were returned, wrote a most touching letter in her own name, beseeching her brother not to break her heart, but stay on the homestead and share some of the wealth that was killing her.

Daniel Hart answered this letter only to say that the homestead was now empty, and his family were going with him into the wilderness. He made no reproaches, and said nothing of Mr. Bentley or Gillian. In giving up their place in fashionable life both these persons wished to be forgotten. Gillian was yet very young, and after two years of solitude might return to that same life with the husband of her choice, but those two years she would devote to her father exclusively. The host of butterfly friends she had made might claim her then or not, according to their fancy. She left them almost without regret—all except Mrs. Ransom, and she had gone away without a word of farewell or without leaving a message by which she might hereafter be found.

In his letter to Hetty Hart, Daniel had promised to communicate with her once more; and after a month or two came a letter saying that he and his daughter, with Bentley and Gillian, had settled on a tract of land far west, and were living comfortably together. They had built a double cabin, with out-houses, one of which Dinah and Liz occupied as a kitchen. Every thing was comfortable and neat as wax. Mr. Bentley was growing strong and cheerful. The girls were happy as birds, and as for himself, never in all his life had he been able to put in such a day’s chopping as he could do now.

This letter comforted Hetty in the grand solitude of her new home. It soothed her conscience, and left her, to a certain extent, free to enjoy the society of her son and the wealth which she had secured to him. She gave the letter to Hurst—we cannot change the name—and he treasured it in silence, for it contained Gillian’s address, and hereafter, perhaps, he might make use of it.

Now, young, handsome, wealthy, Hurst flung himself into life with a cool resolve to enjoy it to the utmost. Out of all his resources he was determined to attain the utmost possible gratification. If he squandered money, it was for this purpose only. He bought horses, gave parties, lavished vast sums on the mansion which Bentley had already made perfect. He was the rage at Saratoga, and the fashion at Newport. In fact this young Bentley, with his immense wealth and romantic antecedents, was the great catch of the season. But, with all his splendor, a cold, aching anxiety was at his heart. The foundations of his greatness were unreal. Men like him are seldom troubled with much conscience, till they reach some lonely death-bed; and Hurst was far too prosperous for over-sensitiveness. But he felt unsafe. Once married to Gillian, and he could defy fate. But she had chosen poverty and years of solitude in the western forests, rather than endure his society. The engagement with Woodworth was certain to end in marriage—and then? What if the new husband should determine to investigate his wife’s claims? Woodworth was a sharp, clear-headed lawyer, a man of the world, and understood well all the advantages of wealth.

These fears lay like serpents in the path of the rich man; but the intellect that had accomplished so much must face these dangers and overcome them. With time and resolution much could be done. Half his task was completed. Gillian must yet be his wife. He knew where to find her, and that was a great point gained.

With all his audacity, Hurst had not the courage to seek the persons he had so deeply wronged. His resolve did not fail, but he put off the time, and so more than a year went by and with it a sense of security crept over him. One thing was strange. He heard nothing from Mrs. Ransom. The Bloomingdale cottage was still closed and no letters came. He heard of her once through some European travellers, who had seen her in Greece, and afterwards learned that she had crossed the desert with a party on its way to the Holy Land. There was a mystery about this which he could not fathom; up to that time her protecting arm had always been over him: no matter bow far off caprice or destiny might carry her, he was sure to feel the benefit of her regard in some form; now she was silent as the grave.

This silence could not have arisen from any knowledge of his good fortune, for she had left the country more than a week before that was known of a certainty, even to himself. These conjectures gave him considerable uneasiness at times, for this woman was perhaps the only person on earth whom he thoroughly respected and feared. Could he have been certain that she was dead, he might not have regretted it; but, with all his courage, he shrunk from the thought of encountering her searching questions and clear judgment.

But he was deep into the second year of his possession, and no word or message ever came from her. Mrs. William Bentley, as he called his mother, had presided over his house from the beginning, but she withered in the stately solitude to which he after a while consigned her. As a single man he received but little company at home, and spent his life at hotels, clubs, and watering-places, leaving her with old Mary Nicholson for an humble companion, and a household of servants to control. Such was his method of repaying the wicked sacrifice she had made for him.

This sad state of things withered up the little gleam of hope that had dawned upon her when he first claimed her as a parent, and the poor woman was slowly and quietly dying, exactly as some poor little transplanted evergreen perishes for want of native soil. She had been growing ill for some weeks: now an obstinate cough set in, and, in her anxiety, the old housekeeper sent for the son, who was in the full glory of a Newport season. He came at once, filled with anxious solicitude, which gave the poor mother a fresh hold on life. That day she insisted upon getting up and coming down to breakfast with him, in the little morning-room that opened upon the garden. He always insisted upon her being richly dressed: so she put on a pretty cap fluttering with rose-colored ribbons, and a robe of some rich oriental pattern, hoping to conceal her paleness. But Hurst saw how shadowy she had become at a glance, and his heart smote him. He drew an easy-chair, soft with velvet cushions, to the table, and seated her tenderly in it. The servants were all sent away, and he insisted on pouring out the coffee, for her poor little trembling hands had attempted the task in vain.

The poor mother watched him with looks of yearning fondness, and her eyes filled with tears. When her son was by she could not be very sorry for the falsehood that had gained her the great happiness of these attentions.

“There, mother,” he said, stooping down to kiss her forehead, “I have put in just the right quantity of cream, and here is a delicious French roll; take a mouthful for my sake: they tell me you eat nothing!”

She took the roll and broke off a fragment, forcing herself to eat it with apparent relish.

“That is right,” he said, seating himself; “we will soon have you well now.”

She smiled and said: “Oh, yes, I am well; you see what an appetite I have.”

Just then Mrs. Nicholson came in, looking greatly flurried.

“What is it?” said Hurst; for the serpent which lay coiled under his good fortune was always on the alert.

“A lady,” said Mrs. Nicholson, “who insists on coming in; she wants to see you both!”

Hetty looked wildly around, and began to tremble among her cushions. Hurst, too, was nervous, but he gave no sign.

“Well, let her come in here,” he said; “sit still, mother. If the lady wishes to see us both, this is the best place.”

The door opened, and the lady came in.

“Mrs. Ransom!” cried Hurst, starting up and reaching out his hand.

The lady put his hand gently aside without clasping it. She had evidently come off a journey from foreign parts, for her dress seemed strange and old-fashioned. The soft hair floated down her cheeks in waves, and she wore a large merino shawl, with a deep palm-leaf border, such as had been in fashion when Hetty Hart was a girl.

“Is this lady your mother?” she said, rejecting the hand.

When Hetty heard the voice, she started up from her easy-chair and confronted the stranger. She saw the face, the waving hair, the shawl with its familiar pattern—one just like it lay in her bureau up-stairs. Her eyes widened, the white lips grew cold, she grasped at the table-cloth for support—dragging a cup and saucer of delicate china to the ground.

Hurst went up to his mother, supporting her with his arm.

“Mrs. Ransom, this is unexpected—it is a strange return! You refuse my hand—wherefore?”

Hetty Hart clung to the young man; her eyes distended wildly, her lips apart—she seemed turning into stone.

“Hush!” she said, in a hoarse whisper, “it is my sister Sarah!”

“Michael,” said Mrs. Ransom, quietly, “give me the marriage certificate which you have forged, and the letters you have stolen.”

“Madam!”

“Your mother says the truth. I am her sister Sarah—the wife of that Bentley you have defrauded—the mother of Gillian! Your crime has rendered secrecy of no farther avail. I made a vow to save that poor soul from disgrace, and kept the vow, through what humiliation and pain you will never know. By her own act she has unsealed my lips, and I have come to claim my husband, my child and all that is theirs.”

Hurst had not lost all his courage. He was white as death, and shivered like a dead cedar in the wind, but some portion of his iron nature remained firm.

“Madam, this is a flimsy imposition! You are not my mother’s sister!”

“Ask her!” she answered, pointing to the wretched little woman who had sunk all in a heap among the crimson cushions. “Mehitable Hart, look up and say if I am not your sister!”

“Mother, you know this is an imposition! Don’t look at her; see, I am ready to help you!”

It was in vain. Perhaps if Hurst could have fastened her eyes first, his terrible power over her might have prevailed, but the magnetism of another presence enthralled her, and those wild eyes turned on her sister, fascinated.

“Hetty, my poor Hetty! why are you terrified? Did I ever harm you?” said Mrs. Ransom, in a voice broken with tender emotion.

Hetty Hart began to shiver, and clung close to her son.

“Hetty!”

“Oh, Sarah, don’t—don’t look at me so! He never would have owned me, if I hadn’t taken the shame off. What could I do?”

“I know, Hetty, I know how you must have loved this young man. I, too, loved him for your sake.”

“Oh, he is all the world to me!”

“Poor, poor mother!—be good to her, Michael; treat her tenderly, as if she were a child. She is not one of those who can suffer and be strong; but she is a loving creature. Deal kindly by her, and you shall never want for wealth or any thing else that I can give.”

“It was for her sake—she was pining to death, my poor mother!” said Hurst, with some feeling. “I could not bear it.”

“Well, well, it is over now. Trust me—can you trust me yet, sister Hetty?”

“Trust you! oh, Sarah!”

“Can you be content to live with your son?”

“With my son!—with him!”

The little woman crept close to Hurst, and clung around him, weeping softly, and thanking her sister, in broken sentences, for having saved her and her son from the deep trouble that had already nearly broken her heart.

“We will obey her. Sarah is always right—always kind, Michael. I knew if she could rise from the dead—and it seems as if she had, don’t it?—all would turn out well. When shall we go, sister? I am ready.”

“In a few days—in a few hours, if possible. Find out a quiet home in England or France, and some day I will come and see how you get along.”

“That will be pleasant, son,” said Hetty, with a fond smile; “you and I all alone in the world. Oh, how I have longed for this! and it is Sarah that does it for us—my sister, Sarah, whom we all thought dead years ago. Tell her that we will be ready, son.”

“I have no choice,” answered Hurst, sullenly.

“Oh, Michael!”

“Well, then, Mrs. Ransom, I am willing—I am grateful. Is that enough, mad—mother?”

Hetty kissed his hands, and laid her little, withered cheek softly against his bosom.

Mrs. Ransom took her from his arms, kissed her upon the forehead, as she had done a thousand times in youth, and turned with tears in her eyes.

“Michael, give me that certificate and the letters. I heard all far away in the Holy Land, and came at once, resolved to right the wrong you have done without farther exposure if I could; at all events to perform my duty. Give me the papers, that I may destroy them before they work evil to you.”

Hurst put one hand into his bosom and drew forth a slip of yellow paper and some letters; they rattled in his hands like dead leaves, and his face was ghastly.

“It is well,” she said, tearing the paper into fragments. “Now take my sister—my poor, feeble sister, Hetty—and go away. There is a ship lying now in the stream, ready to sail for England. Here is money. I will send you more. Be kind to her, and you shall have plenty for both, I promise it.”

Hurst took the money, dumbly, as if some statue had been moved by inward mechanism.

“But my husband, my child—first tell me where I can find them,” said Mrs. Ransom.

Hurst shook his head in silence. Mrs. Ransom turned to her sister.

“I don’t know; we had one letter,” cried the little woman. “It was mailed away out-west, but I cannot remember where, and I don’t in the least know what became of the letter.”

Mrs. Ransom looked distressed.

“But Woodworth—the engagement is not broken off; he can tell me,” she said, brightening with fresh hope.

“Woodworth is not in the city,” answered Hurst. “He has gone South.”

“Then what can I do?” she cried, wringing her hands in keen disappointment. “I have spent so much of life away from them; every moment I lose is a pang. Oh Hurst! if I have ever been kind or forbearing to you, help me now!”

“How can I, when you banish me from the country?”

“But you shall not go till they are found. I will stand between you and all harm. This wicked secret is ours yet.”

Hurst walked across the room; his face was white as ever when he came back, but the gleam of a quick idea brightened it with keen intelligence.

“Madam, if any effort of mine to find those you love can atone for the pain I have given, tell me what to do, and I will not fail you.”

“Find my husband and my child,” she cried, passionately. “I will travel to the ends of the earth for them, but every lost moment is a sacrifice, and I do not know what course to take.”

“Trust me; I will find them.”

“You, Michael, and they your enemies!” moaned his mother.

“She demands it, and I will not shrink,” answered the young man. “Be content, mother; I leave you in her care.”

The poor mother drew a deep breath, and turned her eyes in wild pleading on her sister.

“It will be like old times for you and I to be together,” said Mrs. Ransom, kneeling before the frail woman and drawing the pale face caressingly to her shoulder.

“Yes, yes, it will be like old times, when we made dandelion chains in the back meadow,” answered the little woman, with a hysterical laugh.

“Madam, I will start at once; it may be a month or two before I send you intelligence, but it shall come!”

“Ah, Michael, that will redeem every thing. Have no fear of them: they are generous and noble!”

“I am sure of it,” he answered. “Now, mother, farewell! in a few weeks we shall meet again: till then, stay here with your sister.”

The little woman stood up, tottering from weakness. She clung around her son, moaning over him like a wounded dove.

“Good-by, darling! Be good, and come back free of all blame; then, as Sarah says, we will go off and live by ourselves—no club-houses—no watering-places—nothing but a nice, quiet home!”

Hurst smiled a cruel, cold smile, that bespoke some desperate idea; but his mother was raining kisses on his face, and no one saw it.

Then they parted. Hurst left the house in less than one hour after Sarah Bentley entered it, and she bade God bless him as he went. Her faith in human goodness was wonderful, and she did not once doubt that the young man would redeem his faults. So she stood at the window and saw him pass away very hopefully. Hetty had crept to her side and was watching him also; but tears swelled in her eyes, and there was a struggle for breath in her chest—a struggle that left ridges of red foam on her pale lips, which she strove to wipe away unseen.

But Sarah Bentley saw the stain on her delicate handkerchief with a thrill of apprehension.

“Why, Hetty, what is that?”

“Nothing; it’s of no consequence—I’m used to it!”

“Since when, Hetty?”

“Oh, ever since that day when I told him!”

“But you will be better now. Remember what a famous nurse I was!”

“Oh, yes, I shall be better with you! But tell me, Sarah, is he quite gone? I—I cannot see very far, the air is so foggy!”

Poor soul, it was the mist of a broken heart going off in tears!

This was the idea that had started up from the first sense of ruin that fell on Michael Hurst when Sarah Bentley asked after her husband.

“I will find them,” he said—Uncle Daniel’s letter was in his pocket then—“I will find them, and marry the girl with her will or against it, and her father shall not stand in the way! If he hunts in the wilderness, so do I. Men are often taken for deer and shot by accident. If he opposes me, I shall be ready, at any rate. That proud girl shall come back to her mother my wife; and if Julia Ransom finds herself a widow, it will teach her to be less officious. Does she think that, after tasting the pleasures and powers of wealth for one little year, it can be easily wrested from me? Not while I have brains to think, and the courage to strike! No, I will have the girl and keep her money! They have made a desperate man of me! Now, Westward, ho! and every one for himself!”