Forrest House

by Mary Jane Holmes

CHAPTER XLVI.
THE LETTER FROM AUSTRIA.

There had been some trouble with the clerks in the post-office at Rothsay, and two new ones had just been appointed, and one of these had entered upon his duties only the day before. As he came from Dayton, and was a stranger in town, he knew very few people by sight, and was altogether ignorant of the name and antecedents of the beautiful lady, who, after depositing her letter, asked if there was any mail for the Forrest House. Half-bewildered with her beauty and the bright smile she flashed upon him, the clerk started and blushed, and catching only the name Forrest, looked in Everard’s box, where lay a letter not yet called for, as Everard had left town early that morning for a drive into the country, where he had some business with a client. It was a soiled-looking letter, with a foreign post-mark upon it, and had either been mislaid a long time after it had been written, or detained upon the road, for it was worn upon the edges, and had evidently been much crumpled with frequent handling. It was directed to J. Everard Forrest, Esq., Rothsay, Ohio, U. S. A., and in a corner, the two words, “Please forward” were written, as if the writer were in haste and thought thus to expedite matters.

Very mechanically, and even indifferently, Josephine took it in her hand, and glancing at the name saw the clerk had made a mistake and given her what belonged to another. But she saw, too, something else, which turned her white as ashes, and riveted her for a moment to the spot with a feeling that she was either dying or mad, or both. Surely, she knew that writing. She had seen it times enough not to be mistaken. And she had thought the hand which penned it dead long ago, and laid away under the grass and flowers of Austria. “Rossie,” she tried to say, but her white lips would not move, and there was about them a strange prickling sensation which frightened her more than the numbness of her body.

“I must get into the air where I can breathe,” she thought, and with a desperate effort she dragged herself to the street, taking the letter with her, and grasping it with a firm grip as if fearful of losing it, when in fact she had forgotten that she had it at all, until the air blowing on her face revived her somewhat and brought her back to a consciousness of what she was doing.

Then her first impulse was to return the letter to Everard’s box, and she turned to go back when she saw her husband entering the office, and that decided her. She would not let him see the letter, for if there were a great wrong somewhere, he knew it and had contrived it, and the cold sweat broke out from every pore as she began dimly to conjecture the nature of the wrong, and to shudder at its enormity. She was feeling stronger now, and fearful lest her husband should overtake her she hurried across the common toward home, where she went at once to her room, and, locking the door, sat down to read that letter from the dead. She had made up her mind to do that during her rapid walk. She must know its contents, and so she broke the seal and began to read. And as she read she felt the blood curdle in her veins; there was a humming in her ears; a thick feeling in her tongue, and a kind of consciousness that she was somebody else, whose business for the rest of her life was to keep the letter and its contents a secret from the world. But where should she hide it that no one could ever find it, for nobody must see it? Safety, honor, everything dear to her depended upon that. Not even her husband must look upon it or know that it was written; and where should she put it that he would not find it, for he took the liberty to look through her private drawers and boxes just when it pleased him to do so? She could not put the letter in a box or keep it about her person, and she dared not destroy it, though she made the attempt and lighted the gas in which to burn it to ashes. But as she held it to the blaze something seemed to grasp her hand and draw it back. And when she shook off the sensation of fear which had seized her, and again attempted the destruction of the note, the same effect was produced, and an icy chill crept over her as if it were a dead hand clutching hers and holding it fast.

“I can’t destroy it; I dare not!” she whispered; “and what if somebody should find it? What if he should? He told me once that he had been guilty of every sin but murder, and under strong provocation he might be led to do even that;” and a shudder of fear ran through her frame as she cast about in her own mind for a safe hiding-place for the letter which affected her so strangely. Suddenly it came to her that she could loosen a few tacks in the carpet, just where the lace curtains covered the floor in a corner of the bay window, and pushing the letter out of sight, drive the tacks in again, and so the secret would be safe, for a time at least. To do her justice, for once in her life conscience was prompting her to the only right course left her to pursue,—give the letter to Everard and abide the consequences. But she could not make up her mind to do this, knowing that utter poverty and disgrace would be the result, and she had learned by this time that poverty with Dr. Matthewson would be a far different thing from poverty with Everard.

To hide the letter under the carpet was the work of a moment, and, unlocking the door, she was going for a hammer, with which to drive the tacks, when she heard her husband’s voice in the hall below, and knew that he was coming. He must not know that she held his guilty secret, lest he should murder her, as in her nervousness she felt that he might do, and so she retraced her steps to the couch, where she lay half fainting, and as white as marble, when the doctor entered the room and asked her what was the matter.

She did not know, she said; she had been down to the village and walked rather fast, and was very warm, and had drank freely of ice-water, which made her feel as if her head were bursting. She should probably feel better soon.

But she did not get better, and she lay all that day and the next upon the couch, and seemed so strange and nervous that her husband called in Dr. Rider, who, after a few questions, the drift of which she understood, and to which she gave false replies for the purpose of misleading him, assigned a cause for her ailments, and then went away. Thus deceived, and on the whole rather pleased than otherwise, Dr. Matthewson was disposed to be very attentive and indulgent to his wife, with whom he sat a good portion of each day, humoring all her whims and trying to quiet her restless, nervous state of mind.