CHAPTER XVIII.
MR. HASTINGS IN INDIA.
It was night again in Calcutta, and in the same room where we first found him was Nathaniel Deane—not alone this time, for standing before him was a stranger—"an American," he called himself, and the old East Indiaman, when he heard that word, grasped again the hand of his unknown guest, whose face he curiously scanned to see if before he had looked upon it. But he had not, and pointing him to a chair, he too sat down to hear his errand. Wishing to know something of the character of the individual he had come so far to see, Mr. Hastings, for he it was, conversed awhile upon a variety of subjects, until, feeling sure that 'twas a noble, upright man, with whom he had to deal, he said, "I told you, sir, that I came from New York, and so I did; but my home is in Dunwood."
One year ago, and Uncle Nat would have started with delight at the mention of a place so fraught with remembrances of Dora, but Eugenia's last cruel letter had chilled his love, and now, when he thought of Dora, it was as one incapable of either affection or gratitude. So, for a moment he was silent, and Mr. Hastings, thinking he had not been understood, was about to repeat his remark, when Uncle Nat replied, "My brother's widow lives in Dunwood—Mrs. Richard Deane—possibly you may have seen her!" And with a slight degree of awakened interest, the little keen black eyes looked out from under their thick shaggy eyebrows at Mr. Hastings, who answered, "I know the family well. Dora is not now at home, but is living with my sister."
Many and many a time had Uncle Nat repeated to himself the name of Dora, but never before had he heard it from other lips, and the sound thrilled him strangely, bringing back in a moment all his olden love for one whose mother had been so dear. In the jet black eyes there was a dewy softness now, and in the tones of his voice a deep tenderness, as, drawing nearer to his guest, he said in a half whisper,
"Tell me of her—of Dora—for though I never saw her, I knew her mother."
"And loved her too," rejoined Mr. Hastings, on purpose to rouse up the old man, who, starting to his feet exclaimed, "How knew you that? You, whom I never saw until to-night! Who told you that I loved Fannie Deane? Yes, it is true, young man—true, though love does not express what I felt for her; she was my all—my very life, and when I lost her the world was a dreary blank. But go on—tell me of the child, and if she is like her mother. Though how should you know? You, who never saw my Fannie?"
"I have seen her," returned Mr. Hastings, "but death was there before me, and had marred the beauty of a face which once must have been lovely. Five years ago last January I found her dead, and at her side was Dora, sweetly sleeping with her arms around her mother's neck."
"You—you," gasped the old man, drawing near to Mr. Hastings—"you found them thus! I could kneel at your feet, whoever you may be, and bless you for coming here to tell me this; I never knew before how Fannie died. They never wrote me that, but go on and tell me all you know. Did Fannie freeze to death while in India I counted my gold by hundreds of thousands?"
Briefly Mr. Hastings told what he knew of Mrs. Deane's sad death, while the broad chest of Uncle Nat heaved with broken sobs, and the big tears rolled down his sunken cheeks.
"Heaven forgive me for tarrying here, while she was suffering so much!" he cried; "but what of Dora She did not die. I have written to her, and sent her many messages, but never a word has she replied, save once"—here Uncle Nat's voice grew tremulous as he added, "and then she sent me this—look—'twas Fannie's hair," and he held to view a silken tress much like the one which lay next Howard Hastings's heart! "Oh, what a child it made of me, the first sight of this soft hair," he continued, carefully returning it to its hiding-place, without a word of the generous manner in which it had been paid for.
"Shall I tell him now?" thought Mr. Hastings, but Uncle Nathaniel spoke before him, and as if talking with himself, said softly, "Oh, how I loved her, and what a wreck that love has made of me. But I might have known it. Twenty-one years' difference in our ages was too great a disparity, even had my face been fair as John's. She was seventeen, and I was almost forty; I am sixty now, and with every year added to my useless life, my love for her has strengthened."
"Could you not transfer that love to her daughter? It might make you happier," suggested Mr. Hastings, and mournfully shaking his head, Uncle Nat replied, "No, no, I've tried to win her love so hard. Have even thought of going home, and taking her to my bosom as my own darling child—but to all my advances, she has turned a deaf ear. I could not make the mother love me—I cannot make the child. It isn't in me, the way how, and I must live here all alone. I wouldn't mind that so much, for I'm used to it now, but when I come to die, there will be nobody to hold my head, or to speak to me a word of comfort, unless God sends Fannie back to me in the dark hour, and who knows but He will?"
Covering his face with his hands, Uncle Nathaniel cried aloud, while Mr. Hastings, touched by his grief, and growing each moment more and more indignant, at the deception practised upon the lonesome old man, said slowly and distinctly: "Dora Deane never received your letter—never dreamed how much you loved her—never knew that you had sent her money, She has been duped—abused—and you most treacherously cheated by a base, designing woman! To tell you this, sir, I have come over land and sea! I might have written it, but I would rather meet you face to face—would know if you were worthy to be the uncle of Dora Deane!"
Every tear was dried, and bolt upright, his keen eyes flashing gleams of fire, and his glittering teeth ground firmly together, Nathaniel Deane sat, rigid and immovable, listening to the foul story of Dora's wrongs, till Mr. Hastings came to the withholding of the letter, and the money paid for Fannie's hair. Then, indeed, his clenched fists struck fiercely at the empty air, as if Eugenia had been there, and springing half way across the room, he exclaimed, "The wretch! The fiend! The beast! The Devil! What shall I call her? Help me to some name which will be appropriate."
"You are doing very well, I think," said Mr. Hastings, smiling in spite of himself at this new phase in the character of the excited man, who, foaming with rage, continued to stalk up and down the room, setting his feet upon the floor with vengeance, and with every breath denouncing Eugenia's perfidy.
"Curse her!" he muttered, "for daring thus to maltreat Fannie's child, and for making me to believe her so ungrateful and unkind. And she once cut off her hair to buy a party dress with, you say," he continued, stopping in front of Mr. Hastings, who nodded in the affirmative, while Uncle Nat, as if fancying that the few thin locks, which grew upon his own bald head, were Eugenia's long, black tresses, clutched at them savagely, exclaiming, "The selfish jade! But I will be avenged, and Madam Eugenia shall rue the day that she dared thus deceive me. That mother, too, had not, it seems, been wholly guiltless. She was jealous of my Fannie—she has been cruel to my child. I'll remember that, too!" and a bitter laugh echoed through the room, as the wrathful old man thought of revenge.
But as the wildest storm expends its fury, so Uncle Nat at last grew calm, though on his dark face there were still traces of the fierce passion which had swept over it. Resuming his seat and looking across the table at Mr. Hastings, he said, "It is not often that old Nat Deane is moved as you have seen him moved to-night; but the story you told me set me on fire, and for a moment, I felt that I was going mad. But I am now myself again, and would hear how you learned all this."
In a few words, Mr. Hastings told of his foolish fancy for Eugenia, and related the circumstance of his having overheard her conversation at the hotel in Rochester.
"And Dora, you say, is beautiful and good," said Uncle Nat; "and I shall one day know her and see if there is in her aught like her angel mother, whose features are as perfect to me now as when last I looked upon them beneath the locust trees."
Bending low his head, he seemed to be thinking of the past, while Mr. Hastings, kissing fondly the picture of Dora Deane, laid it softly upon the table, and then anxiously awaited the result. Uncle Nathaniel did not see it at first, but his eye ere long fell upon it, and, with a cry like that which broke from his lips when first he looked on his dead Fannie's hair, he caught it up, exclaiming, "'Tis her—'tis Fannie—my long-lost darling, come back to me from the other world. Oh, Fannie, Fannie!" he cried, as if his reason were indeed unsettled, "I've been so lonesome here without you. Why didn't you come before?"
Again, for a time, he was silent, and Mr. Hastings could see the tears dropping upon the face of Dora Deane, who little dreamed of the part she was acting, far off in Hindostan. Slowly the reality dawned upon Uncle Nat, and speaking to Mr. Hastings, he said, "Who are you that moves me thus from one extreme to another, making me first a fury and then a child?"
"I have told you I am Howard Hastings," answered the young man, adding that the picture was not that of Fannie, but her child.
"I know—I know it," returned Uncle Nat, "but the first sight of it drove me from my senses, it is so like her. The same open brow, the same blue eyes, the same ripe lips, and more than all, the same sweet smile which shone on me so often 'mid the granite hills of New Hampshire. And it is mine," he continued, making a movement to put it away. "You brought it to me, and in return, if you have need for gold, name the sum, and it shall be yours, even to half a million."
Money could not buy that picture from Howard Hastings, and though it grieved him to do so, he said, very gently, "I cannot part with the likeness, Mr. Deane, but we will share it together until the original is gained."
Leaning upon his elbows and looking steadily at his visitor, Uncle
Nathaniel said, "You have been married once?"
"Yes, sir," answered Mr. Hastings, while his countenance flushed, for he readily understood the nature of the questioning to which he was to be subjected.
"What was the name of your wife?" was the next query, and Mr. Hastings replied, "Ella Grey."
"Will you describe her?" said Uncle Nat, and almost as vividly as the features of Dora Deane were delineated by the artist's power, did Mr. Hastings portray by word the laughing blue eyes, the pale, childish face, the golden curls, and little airy form of her who had once slept upon his bosom as his wife.
"And did you love her, this Ella Grey?" asked Uncle Nat.
"Love her? Yes. But she is dead," answered Mr. Hastings, while Uncle
Nat continued:
"And now if I mistake not, you love Dora Deane?"
"Yes, better than my life," said Mr. Hastings, firmly. "Have you any objections?"
"None whatever," answered Uncle Nat, "for, though you are a stranger to me, there is that in your face which tells me you would make my darling happy. But it puzzles me to know how, loving one as you say you did, you can forget and love another."
"I have not forgotten," said Mr. Hastings, sadly; "God forbid that I should e'er forget my Ella; but, Mr. Deane, though she was good and gentle, she was not suited to me. Our minds were wholly unlike; for what I most appreciated, was utterly distasteful to her. She was a fair, beautiful little creature, but she did not satisfy the higher, nobler feelings of my heart; and she, too, knew it. She told me so before she died, and spoke of a coming time when I would love another. She did not mention Dora, who then seemed like a child, but could she now come back to me, she would approve my choice, for she, too, loved Dora Deane."
"Have you told her this?" asked Uncle Nat—"told Dora how much you loved her?"
"I have not," was Mr. Hastings reply. "My sister would not suffer it until my return, when Dora will be more mature. At first I would not listen to this; but I yielded at last, consenting the more willingly to the long separation, when I considered that with Louise she was at least safe from Eugenia, and I hope, safe from any who might seek either to harm her, or win her from me."
"You spoke of having stopped in Europe on your way hither," said Uncle
Nat. "How long is it since you left New York?"
"I sailed from there the latter part of June, almost ten months ago," was Mr. Hastings's answer, adding that, as he wished to visit some parts of Europe, and left home with the ostensible purpose of doing so, he had thought it advisable to stop there on his way, for he well knew that Mr. Deane, after learning why he had come, would be impatient to return immediately.
"Yes, yes; you are right," answered the old man. "I would go to-morrow if possible; but I shall probably never return to India, and I must make some arrangements for leaving my business in the hands of others. Were Dora still in Eugenia's power, I would not tarry a moment, I would sacrifice everything to save her, but as you say she is safe with your sister, and a few weeks' delay, though annoying to me, will make no difference with her. Do they know aught of this—those wretches in Dunwood?" he continued, beginning to grow excited.
"They suppose me to be in Europe, for to no one save my mother and sister, did I breathe a word of India," Mr. Hastings replied; and Uncle Nat rejoined, "Let them continue to think so, then. I would rather they should not suspect my presence in America until I meet them face to face and taunt them with their treachery. It shall not be long, either, before I do it. In less than a month, we are homeward bound—and then, Miss Eugenia Deane—we'll see!" and his hard fist came down upon the table, as he thought of her dismay when told that he stood before her.
But alas for Uncle Nat! The time was farther in the distance than he anticipated. The excitement of what he had heard, told upon a frame already weakened by constant toil and exposure in the sultry climate of India, and one week from the night of Mr. Hastings's arrival, the old man lay burning with fever, which was greatly augmented by the constant chafing at the delay this unexpected illness would cause. Equally impatient, Mr. Hastings watched over him, while his heart grew faint with hope deferred, as weeks, and even months, glided by; while vessel after vessel sailed away, leaving Uncle Nat prostrate and powerless to move. He had never been sick before in all his life, and his shattered frame was long in rallying, so that the summer, and the autumn and a part of the winter passed away, ere, leaning heavily on Mr. Hastings's arm, he went on board the ship which was to take him home—take him to Dora Deane, who had listened wonderingly to the story of her wrongs, told her by Mrs. Elliott at Mr. Hastings's request.
Indignant as she was at Eugenia, she felt more than repaid for all she had suffered, by the knowledge that Uncle Nat had always loved her; and many a cheering letter from her found its way to the bedside of the invalid, who laid each one beneath his pillow, beside the picture which Mr. Hastings suffered him to keep. More than once, too, had Dora written to Mr. Hastings kind, sisterly notes, with which he tried to be satisfied, for he saw that she was the same frank, ingenuous girl he had left, and from one or two things which she wrote, he fancied he was not indifferent to her. "She did not, at least, care for another," so Louise assured him. There was comfort in that, and during the weary days when their floating home lay, sometimes becalmed and sometimes tossed by adverse winds, he and Uncle Nat whiled away the tedious hours, by talking of the happiness which awaited them when home was reached at last.
During Mr. Deane's illness, Mr. Hastings had suggested that the annual remittance be sent to Dunwood, as usual, lest they should suspect that something was wrong, if it were withheld, and to this Uncle Nat reluctantly consented saying, as he did so, "It's the last dime they'll ever receive from me. I'll see her starve before my eyes, that girl Eugenia."
Still, as the distance between himself and the young lady diminished, he felt a degree of satisfaction in knowing that the draft had as usual been sent, thus lulling her into a state of security with regard to himself. Rapturously he talked of the meeting with Dora, but his eye was fiery in its expression when he spoke of that other meeting, when Eugenia would be the accused and he the wrathful accuser. The invigorating sea breeze did him good, and when at last the Cape was doubled and he knew that the waves which clashed against the ship, bore the same name with those which kissed the shores of America, he stood forth upon the deck, tall and erect as ever, with an eager, expectant look in his eye, which increased as he each day felt that he drew nearer and Bearer to his home—and Dora Deane.