A Speckled Bird

by Augusta J. Evans

"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y—— was placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and then she asked me to be sure—after she was safe in her coffin—to take off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin Temple—the priest—and look at an altar she had given him. I waited outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible date—probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once."

"She saw me! When?"

Mr. Herriott had grown very pale.

"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every nerve has been strained to get away."

Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside her.

"To what portion of Europe are you going?"

"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has seen you safe and well—yet no word of remembrance has been sent to her—wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y——, anxious to get away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even you could wish."

He shook his head and swept his hand across his face.

"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as signally as I certainly did."

Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears.