CHAPTER XXXII.
REACTION.
The light of a dark, cloudy morning shone faintly in at the window of Grandma Nichols’s room, and roused her from her slumber. On the pillow beside her rested no youthful head—there was no kind voice bidding her “good-morrow”—no gentle hand ministering to her comfort—for ’Lena was gone, and on the table lay the note, which at first escaped Mrs. Nichols’s attention. Thinking her granddaughter had arisen early and gone before her, she attempted to make her own toilet, which was nearly completed, when her eye caught the note. It was directed to her, and with a dim foreboding she: took it up, reading that her child was gone—gone from those who should have sustained her in her hour of trial, but who, instead, turned against her, crushing her down, until in a state of desperation she had fled. It was in vain that the breakfast-bell rang out its loud summons. Grandma did not heed it; and when Corinda came up to seek her, she started back in affright at the scene before her. Mrs. Nichols’s cap was not yet on, and her thin gray locks fell around her livid face as she swayed from side to side, moaning at intervals, “God forgive me that I broke her heart.”
The sound of the opening door aroused her, and looking up she said, pointing toward the vacant bed, “’Leny’s gone; I’ve killed her.”
Corinda waited for no more, but darting through the hall and down the stairs, she rushed into the dining-room, announcing the startling news that “old miss had done murdered Miss ’Lena, and hid her under the bed!”
“What will come next!” exclaimed Mrs. Livingstone, following her husband to his mother’s room where a moment sufficed to explain the whole.
’Lena was gone, and the shock had for a time unsettled the poor old lady’s reason. The sight of his mother’s distress aroused all the better nature of Mr. Livingstone, and tenderly soothing her, he told her that ’Lena should be found—he would go for her himself. Carrie, too, was touched, and with unwonted kindness she gathered up the scattered locks, and tying on the muslin cap, placed her hand for an instant on the wrinkled brow.
“Keep it there; it feels soft, like ’Leny’s,” said Mrs. Nichols, the tears gushing out at this little act of sympathy.
Meantime, Mr. Livingstone, after a short consultation with his wife, hurried off to the neighbors, none of whom knew aught of the fugitive, and all of whom offered their assistance in searching. Never once did it occur to Mr. Livingstone that she might have taken the cars, for that he knew would need money, and he supposed she had none in her possession. By a strange coincidence, too, the depot agent who sold her the ticket, left the very next morning for Indiana, where he had been intending to go for some time, and where he remained for more than a week, thus preventing the information which he could otherwise have given concerning her flight. Consequently, Mr. Livingstone returned each night, weary and disheartened, to his home, where all the day long his mother moaned and wept, asking for her ’Lena.
At last, as day after day went by and brought no tidings of the wanderer, she ceased to ask for her, but whenever a stranger came to the house, she would whisper softly to them, “’Leny’s dead. I killed her; did you know it?” at the same time passing to them the crumpled note, which she ever held in her hand.
’Lena was a general favorite in the neighborhood which had so recently denounced her, and when it became known that she was gone, there came a reaction, and those who had been the most bitter against her now changed their opinion, wondering how they could ever have thought her guilty. The stories concerning her visits to Captain Atherton’s were traced back to their source, resulting in exonerating her from all blame, while many things, hitherto kept secret, concerning Anna’s engagement, were brought to light, and ’Lena was universally commended for her efforts to save her cousin from a marriage so wholly unnatural. Severely was the captain censured for the part he had taken in deceiving Anna, a part which he frankly confessed, while he openly espoused the cause of the fugitive.