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"I was little more than nineteen years of age when I left Harvard College and went abroad with my only brother, the John or Jack of whom you have so often heard. Both himself and wife were in delicate health, and it was hoped a voyage across the sea would do them good. For nearly a year we were in various parts of England, stopping for two months at Brighton, where, among the visitors, was a widow from the vicinity of Alnwick, and with her an orphan niece whom I often met, and whose dazzling beauty attracted my youthful fancy. She was not happy with her aunt, upon whom she was wholly dependent, and my sympathies were all enlisted, when, with the tears shining in her lustrous eyes, she one day accidentally stumbled upon her trouble and told me how wretched she was, asking if in America there was not something for her to do.
"It was at this time that Jamie was born and Mary, the girl who went out with us, was married to an Englishman, making it necessary for Hatty to find some one to take her place. Hearing of this, Genevra came one day, and to my secret delight offered herself as half companion, half waiting-maid to Hatty. Anything was preferable to the life she led, she said, pleading so hard that Hatty, after an interview with the old aunt—a purse-proud, vulgar woman, who seemed glad to be rid of her charge—consented to receive her, and Genevra became one of our family, an equal rather than a menial, whom Hatty treated with as much consideration as if she had been a sister. I wish I could tell you how beautiful Genevra Lambert was at that period of her life. I have her picture, which I will show you by and by, but it will not convey an adequate idea of her as she was then, with her brilliant English complexion, her eyes so full of poetry and passion, her perfect features, and, more than all, the wondrous smile, which would have made a plain face handsome. She was full of life and spirits, with enough of coquetry about her to fascinate and turn older heads than mine.
"Of course I came to love her, and loved her all the more for the opposition I knew my family would throw in the way of my marrying the daughter of an English apothecary, and one who was voluntarily filling a servant's place. But with my mother across the sea, I could do anything; and when Genevra told me of a base fellow, as she termed him, who, since she was a child, had sought her for his wife, and still pursued her with his letters, my passions all were roused, and I offered myself at once. I do not think she anticipated this when she told me of the letters, as it might seem to you. She was neither designing nor artful, but, on the contrary, wholly open-hearted and truthful, telling me the contents of the letter because I found her weeping over it and insisted upon knowing the cause. Her answer to my offer was a decided refusal. She knew her position, she said, and she knew mine, just as she knew the nature of the feeling which prompted me to act thus toward her. Although just my age, she was older in judgment and experience, and she seemed to understand the difference between our relative positions. I was not indifferent to her, she said, and were she my equal her answer might be otherwise than the decided no.
"Of course this only made me more eager, particularly as during the next two weeks she avoided me as much as possible, never stopping alone with me for a moment or giving me a chance to say a word in private. Madly in love, and fancying I could not live without her, I besieged her with letters, some of which she returned unopened, while on the others she wrote a few hurried lines, calling me a boy, who did not know my own mind, and asking what my friends would say.
"I cared little for friends, urging my suit the more vehemently, as we were about going into Scotland, where our marriage could be celebrated in private at any time. I say in private, for I did not contemplate making the affair public at once. That would take from the interest and romance, while, unknown to myself, there was at heart a fear of my family.
"But not to dwell too long upon those days, which seem to me now so like a dream, we went to Scotland and were married privately, for I won her to this at last. And now comes the part where Jamie is concerned. On the night of our marriage, Genevra, who had obtained permission to be absent on a plea of visiting a friend, had procured some one to take charge of Jamie, a red-faced girl from Edinburgh, who, unused to children, perched the child upon her shoulder, and while in this condition let him fall, injuring his spine and making him a cripple for life. Genevra never forgave herself for that sad accident, which would not have happened had she remained at her post, while to me Jamie has ever since been a sacred thing, his helplessness which he bears so meekly a constant reproach, reminding me of what I would had never been."
"Then you are sorry you married Genevra?" Katy exclaimed, turning partly toward him, and giving the first token she as yet had given that she was listening to the story.
Sometimes Wilford was sorry and sometimes he was not, for there was a world of pleasurable excitement connected with those months of secrecy, those private interviews, those stolen kisses, and little acts of endearment, which so intoxicated and bewildered him that the talking of them now brought something of the olden thrill he had experienced, when for a moment he held Genevra's hand in his or wound his arm around her waist, knowing he had a perfect right to do so. But it was better not to confess this to Katy, and so he evaded the question, and continued:
"My brother's failing health, as well as Hatty's, prevented them from suspecting what was going on, and when at last we went to Italy they had no idea that Genevra was my wife. At Rome her beautiful face attracted much attention from tourists and residents, among whom were a few young men, who, looking upon her as Jamie's nurse, or at most a companion for his mother, made no attempt to disguise their admiration. For this I had no redress except in an open avowal of the relation in which I stood to her, and this I could not then do, for the longer it was deferred the harder I found it to acknowledge her my wife. I loved her devotedly, and that perhaps was one great cause of the jealousy which began to spring up and embitter my life.
"I do not believe that Genevra was at heart a coquette. She was very fond of admiration, but when she saw how much I was disturbed she made an effort to avoid those who flattered her, but her manner was unfortunate, while her voice—the sweetest I ever heard—was calculated to invite rather than repel attention. As the empress of the world, she would have won and kept the homage of mankind, from the humblest beggar in the street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older I should have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was young—a mere boy—and so I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion went swiftly from my sight.
"'It was an old English acquaintance, who was poor and asking charity,' she said, when questioned, but her manner led me to think there was something wrong, particularly as I saw her with him again, and thought she held his hand.
"It was evident that my brother would never see America again, and at his request my mother came to us, in company with a family from Boston, reaching us two weeks before he died. From the first, she disliked Genevra, suspecting the liking between us, but never dreaming of the truth until a week after Jack's death, when in a fit of anger at Genevra for listening to an English artist, who had asked to paint her picture, the story of the marriage came out, and like a child dependent on its mother for advice, I asked, 'What shall I do?'
"You know mother, Katy—that is, you know her pride—and can in part understand how she would scorn a girl who, though born to better things, was still found in the capacity of a waiting maid. I never saw her so moved as she was for a time, after learning that her only living son, from whom she expected so much, had thrown himself away, as she expressed it. Sister Hatty, who loved Genevra, did all she could to heal the growing difference between us, but I trusted mother most. I believed that what she said was right, and so matters grew worse, until one night, the last we spent in Rome, I missed Genevra from our rooms, and starting in quest of her, found her in a little flower garden back of our dwelling. There, under the deep shadow of a tree, and partly concealed from view, she stood with her arm around the neck of the same rough-looking man who had been there before. She did not see me as I stood and watched her while she parted with him, suffering him to kiss her hand and forehead as he said, 'Good-by, my darling.'
"In a tremor of anger and excitement I quitted the spot, my mind wholly made up with regard to my future. That there was something wrong about Genevra I did not doubt, and I would not give her a chance to explain by telling her what I had seen, but sent her back to England, giving her ample means for defraying the expenses of her journey and for living in comfort after her arrival there. From Rome we went to Naples, and then to Switzerland, where Hatty died, leaving us alone with little Jamie. It was here at Berne that I received an anonymous letter from England, the writer stating that Genevra was with her aunt, that the whole had ended as he thought it would, that he could readily guess at the nature of the trouble, and hinting that if a divorce was desirable on my return to England, all necessary proof could be obtained by applying to such a number in London, the writer announcing himself a brother of the man who had once sought Genevra, and saying he had always opposed the match, knowing Genevra's family.
"This was the first time the idea of a divorce had entered my mind. Instead of that the hope that Genevra might in some way be restored to me unspotted, had unconsciously been the daystar of my existence, and I shrank from a final separation. But mother felt differently. It was not a new thought to her, knowing as she did that the validity of a Scotch marriage, such as ours, was frequently contested in the English courts. Once free from Genevra the world this side the water would never know of that mistake, and she set herself steadily to accomplish her purpose. To tell you all that followed our return to England and the steps by which I was brought to sue for a divorce would make my story too long, and so I will only state that, chiefly by the testimony of the anonymous letter writer, whose acquaintance we made, a divorce was at last obtained, Genevra putting in no defense, but as I heard afterward, settling down to an apathy from which nothing had power to rouse her until the news of her freedom from me was carried to her, when, amid a paroxysm of tears and sobs she wrote me a few lines, assuring me of her innocence, refusing to send back her wedding ring, and saying God would not forgive me for the great wrong I had done her. I saw her once after that by appointment and her face haunted me for years. Indeed, I sometimes see it in my dreams as it confronted me then, with a look which I now know was a look of deeply injured innocence, for, Katy, Genevra was innocent, as I found after the time was past when reparation could be made."
Wilford's voice trembled now, and for a moment there was silence in the room while he composed himself to go on with the story:
"She would not live with me again if she could, she said, denouncing bitterly the Cameron pride and saying she was happier to be free. I remember I tried to excuse myself, remember saying that if there had been children or a child I should have paused before taking the decisive step, and there we parted, but not until she had told me that her traducer was the old discarded suitor who had sworn to have revenge, and who, since the divorce, had dared seek her again. A vague suspicion of this had crossed my mind once before, but the die was cast, and even if the man were false, what I saw myself in Rome still stood against her and so my conscience was quieted, while mother was more than glad to be rid of a daughter-in-law of whose family I knew nothing. Rumors I did hear of a cousin whose character was not the best, and of the father who for some crime had fled the country, dying in a foreign land, but as that was nothing to me now, I passed it by, feeling it was best to be relieved from one of so doubtful antecedents.
"In the spring of 185- we came back to New York, where no one had ever heard of the affair, so quietly and well had it been managed. I was a young man still, no one except my mother sharing in the secret. With her I often talked of Genevra, wishing sometimes that I could hear from her, a wish which was finally gratified. One day I received a note requesting an interview at a downtown hotel, the writer signing himself as Thomas Lambert, and adding that I need have no fears as he came to perform an act of justice, not of retribution. Three hours later I was locked in a room with Genevra's father, the same man whom I had seen in Rome. Detected in forgery years before, he had fled from England and had hidden himself in Rome, where he accidentally met his daughter, and so that stain was removed. He had heard of the divorce by a letter which Genevra managed to send him, and braving all difficulties and dangers he had come back to England and found his child, hearing from her the story of her wrongs, and as well as he was able setting himself to discover the author of the calumny. He was not long in tracing it to Le Roy, whom he found in a dying condition, and who with his last breath confessed the falsehood which was imposed upon me, he said, partly from motives of revenge and partly with a hope that free from me Genevra would at the last turn to him. As proof that Mr. Lambert told me the truth, he brought the dying man's confession, written in a cramped, trembling hand, which I recognized at once. The confession ended with the solemn assertion: 'For aught I know or believe, Genevra Lambert is as pure and true as any woman living.'
"I cannot describe the effect this had upon me. I did not love Genevra then. I had outlived that affection, but I felt remorse and pity for having wronged her so, and asked how I could make amends.
"'You cannot,' the old man said, 'except in one way, and that she does not desire. I did not come here with any wish for you to take her for your wife again. It was an unequal match which never should have been; but if you believe her innocent, she will be satisfied. She wanted you to know it, I wanted you to know it, and so I crossed the sea to find you.'
"I sent a letter by him assuring her she stood acquitted in my mind of all I had suspected her, and asked her pardon for the great wrong I had done her. The next I heard of her was in the columns of an English newspaper, which told me she was dead, while in another place a pencil mark was lightly turned around a paragraph, which said that 'a forger, Thomas Lambert, who escaped years ago and was supposed to be dead, had recently reappeared in England, where he was recognized, but not arrested, for the illness proved fatal.' He was attended, the paper said, by his daughter, 'a beautiful young girl whose modest mien and gentle manner had done much toward keeping the officers of justice from her dying father, no one being able to withstand her pleadings that her father might die in peace.'
"I was grateful for this tribute, to Genevra, and I felt that it was deserved; turning again to the notice of her death, which must have occurred within a short time of her father's, and was probably induced by past troubles and recent anxiety for him.
"'Genevra Lambert died at Alnwick, aged twenty-two.' There could be no mistake, and with a tear to the memory of the dead whom I had loved and injured, I burned the paper, feeling that now there was no clew to the secret I was as anxious to preserve as was my mother.
"And so the years wore on till I met and married you, withholding from you that yours was not the first love which had stirred my heart, nor yours the first head which had slept upon my arm. I meant to tell you, Katy, but I could not for the great fear of losing you if you knew all. And then an error concealed so long is hard to be confessed. I took you across the sea to Brighton, where I first met Genevra, and then to Alnwick, seeking out the grave which made assurance doubly sure. It was that one in the far corner of St. Mary's where I went so often and where once you came, sitting upon the very mound whose headstone bore Genevra's name. I drew my breath quickly as if the dead were thus dishonored, but I knew you meant no harm, and as soon as possible I hurried you away. It was natural that I should make some inquiries concerning her last days, but lest it should all come out kept me back, so that I only questioned the old sexton who once was at work nearby. Calling his attention to the name, I said it was an uncommon one and asked if he knew the girl.
"'Not by sight, no,' he said. 'She was only here a few days before she died. I've heard she was very winsome and that there was a scandal of some kind mixed up with her.'
"I would not ask him any more; and without any wrong to you, my wife, I confess that my tears dropped upon the turf under which I knew Genevra lay."
"I am glad they did; I should hate you if you had not cried," Katie exclaimed, her voice more natural than it had been since the great shock came, and her own tears falling fast to the memory of Genevra, whose grave she had sat upon with Wilford standing near.
A buried wife was not so dreadful to contemplate as a wife divorced but living still, and Katy's heart did not beat with quite so heavy throbs of fear and shame as it had at first. But it was very sore with the feeling that to her almost as great a wrong had been done as to Genevra, for had he not deceived her from the very first, he and his mother, who had been the terror of Genevra's life as she was the bane of Katy's.
"Do you forgive me, Katy? Do you love me as well as ever?" Wilford asked, stooping down to kiss her, but Katy drew her face away and did not answer then.
She did not know herself just how she felt toward him. He did not seem just like the husband she had trusted in so blindly. It would take a long time to forget that another head than hers had lain upon his bosom, and it would take longer yet to blot out the memory of the complaining words uttered to his mother. She had never thought he could do that, never dreamed of such a thing, knowing that she would sooner have parted with her right hand than have complained of him. Her idol had fallen in more respects than one, and the heart it had bruised in the fall refused at once to gather the shattered pieces up and call them good as new. She was not obstinate, she was not sulky, as Wilford began to fancy. She was only stunned and could not rally at his bidding. He had confessed the whole, keeping nothing back, and he felt that Katy was unjust not to acknowledge his magnanimity and restore him to her favor. Again he asked forgiveness, again bent down to kiss her, but Katy answered: "Not yet, Wilford, not till I feel all right toward you. A wife's kiss should be sincere."
"As you like," trembled on Wilford's lips, but he beat back the words and walked up and down the room, knowing now that his journey must be deferred till morning, and wondering if Katy would hold out till then.
It was long past midnight, but to retire was impossible, and so for one whole hour he paced through the room, while Katy lay with her eyes closed and her lips moving occasionally in the words of prayer she tried to say, asking God to help her, and praying that she might in future lay her treasures up where they could not so suddenly be swept away. Wearily the hours passed, and the gray dawn was stealing into the room when Wilford again approached his wife and said, "You know I was to have left home last night on business. As I did not go then, it is necessary that I leave this morning. Are you able to stay alone for three days or more? Are you willing?"
"Yes—oh, yes," Katy replied, feeling that to have him gone while she battled with the pain lying so heavy at her heart would be a great relief.
Perhaps he suspected this feeling in part, for he bit his lip impatiently, and without another word called up the servant whose duty it was to prepare his early breakfast. Cold and cheerless seemed the dining-room, to which an hour later he repaired, and tasteless was the breakfast without Katy there to share it. She had been absent many times before, but never just as now, with this wide gulf between them, and as he broke his egg and tried to drink his coffee, Wilford felt like one from whom every support had been swept away, leaving him tottering and giddy. He did not like the look of Katy's face or the sound of her voice, and as he thought upon them, self began to whisper again that she had no right to stand out so long when he had confessed everything, and by the time his breakfast was finished Wilford Cameron was, in his own estimation, an abused an injured man, so that it was with an air of defiance rather than humility that he went again to Katy. She, too, had been thinking, and as the result of her thoughts she lifted up her head as he came in and said, "I can kiss you now, Wilford."
It was human nature, we suppose—at least it was Wilford's nature—which for an instant tempted him to decline the kiss proffered so lovingly; but Katy's face was more than he could withstand, and when again he left that room the kiss of pardon was upon his lips and comparative quiet was in his heart.
"The picture, Wilford—you have forgotten that," Katy called after him, as he was running down the stairs.
Wilford would rather have been with her when she first looked upon Genevra, but there was not time for that, and hastily unlocking his private drawer he carried the case to Katy's room, laying it upon the bureau and saying to her: "I would not mind it now, until it is fully light. Try and sleep a while. You need the rest so much."
Katy knew she had the whole day before her in which to investigate the face of one who once had filled her place, and so she nestled down among her pillows, and soon fell into a quiet sleep, from which Esther, who looked in upon her several times, at last awakened her, asking if she should bring her breakfast to her room.
"Yes, do," Katy replied, adjusting her dress and trying to arrange the matted curls, which were finally confined in a net until Esther's more practiced hands were ready to attack them.
And all this while the picture lay upon the bureau—the square, old-fashioned daguerreotype, which Katy shrank from opening.
"I'll wait till after breakfast," she said; then as the thought came over her that if the face proved as beautiful as Wilford had described, she in her present forlorn condition would feel the contrast deeply, she said, "I'll wait till Esther has fixed my hair; then I will look at Genevra."
Breakfasting did not occupy her long, and Esther soon was busy with her toilet, combing out and looping-back her curls, and bringing a plain dress of rich bombazine, with fresh bands of white crape, as had been worn the previous day. Katy's toilet was complete at last, and as Esther closed the door behind her, Katy, with a trembling hand, took from the drawer, where she had hid it from Esther's eyes, the picture of Genevra Lambert.