Wives and Widows; or, The Broken Life

by Ann S. Stephens

Of this woman we heard nothing, and her name was seldom mentioned, even by Lottie. We all shrunk in terror from the reminiscences connected with her. Still our lives were more endurable than they had been for many a month; and but for the aching pain which sprung out of that scene in the library, we might have been tranquil,—sad with the great loss which had fallen upon the house, but hopeful for the future.

But with that gentle woman, lying in her last sleep down in the valley, and the power of our house gone from us, we could only wait and hope that God, in his infinite justice, would yet unfold the truth to Mr. Lee, and give him back to his home.

Sometimes Jessie and I would talk over these matters when quite alone in her room; but the whole chain of events was too inexplicable and full of pain for frequent mention. Jessie hardly yet comprehended the enormity of the charge brought against her. What was in the letter which her dying mother had grasped so tightly to the last moment? Who had written it? Was the handwriting like hers—did I think? Her head had been so dizzy that she could not make out a line of it.

These were the questions she would now and then put to me. I told her what the anonymous letter to Mrs. Dennison contained, but I had no heart to enlighten her with regard to my conjectures about the other. Nor could I for one moment guess what its import might have been, except from Mr. Lee's words, and the terrible effect it had produced upon him. Never for an instant did I doubt Jessie's innocence in the matter, whatever it might prove. She was truth itself.

Sometimes I wondered if Lottie had not written those fatal missives. The girl was bright and sharp as steel. She was not without education; and I remembered, in confirmation of these doubts, that of late I had often found her writing something which she endeavored to conceal. Had she not, in her practice, copied Jessie's handwriting, and taken this method of warning her mistress? Nothing was more natural. The girl might thus unconsciously have cast suspicion on her young lady.

That Lottie was capable of writing the letters, I had no doubt—not with malice, but from an ardent desire to drive the woman who had wounded us so deeply from the house. With her crude ideas, and intense devotion to us all, she might have settled on this method of ridding the house of its torment.

I questioned Lottie on this subject, so far as I could venture, without informing her of what had passed in the library, of which she was entirely ignorant; but she declared that she knew nothing of the letter, which had been given to her mistress, till it was placed in her own hands by the man who brought our mails from the town. As for Mrs. Dennison, she would as soon touch a copperhead as write a word to that she-Babylon.

All this might be true. At any rate, Lottie looked truthful when she said it; but in her sayings and doings, the girl was not altogether as clear as crystal, and, spite of her protestations, I had some doubt left.

No person except Jessie and myself, either in the house or neighborhood, knew the reason of Mr. Lee's sudden departure. It was understood that, broken down by the death of his wife, he had sought distraction from grief in travelling. So the secret, growing more and more bitter every day—for we received no letters—rested between us two. As the time wore on, we became miserably anxious.

Had Mr. Lee utterly abandoned his daughter? Would he never return to his home and prove how true and loving she had always been? His cruel anger had thrown her almost upon a bed of death, yet he could go from his home without a word of inquiry or comfort.