“I wasted that paper and ink for nothing,” was his mental comment when he heard from her own lips that Isabel was going; for, presuming upon his former acquaintance, he finally ventured to call upon her, demeaning himself so well that, like her mother, Isabel began to think he had reformed.
Still there was an expression in his eye which she did not like, and when at last he left her, she experienced a feeling of relief, as if a spell had been removed. After her recent interview with Frederic she would not go to his house, so her mother went to New Haven, staying with her daughter a week and then returning to Riverside, while Isabel started for Kentucky, where, as she had expected, she met with Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, and was soon on her way to Florida.
When sure that Isabel was gone, and that Sarah Green’s letter had indeed been written in vain, Rudolph, who cared nothing now whether Marian were ever discovered to her husband or not, went to New York and embarked on a whaling voyage, as he had long thought of doing, fancying that the roving life of a seaman would suit his restless nature.
And now, with Rudolph on the sea, with Isabel in Florida, with Marian at school, and Frederic at Riverside, we draw a vail over the different characters of our story, nor lift it again until three years have passed away, bringing changes to all, but to none a greater change than to the so-called Marian Grey.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE GOVERNESS.
It was a bright September afternoon, and the dense foliage of the trees looked as fresh and green as when watered by the Summer showers, save here and there a faded leaf came rustling to the ground, whispering to those at whose feet it fell of the Winter which was hastening on, and whose breath even now was on the northern seas. Softly the Autumnal sunlight fell upon the earth, and the birds sang as gayly in the trees as if there were no hearts bereaved—no small, low rooms where all was darkness and gloom—no humble procession winding slowly through the crowded streets and out into the country, where, in a new-made grave, a mother’s love was buried, while the mourners, two in number, a young man and a girl, held each other’s hand in token that they were bound together by a common sorrow. Not a word was said by either; and when the solemn burial rite was over, they returned as silently to the carriage, then were driven back to their desolate home—the tenement where Frederic Raymond had watched the curtained window and the geranium growing there.
For many days that window had been darkened, just as it was when Marian Grey lay there with the fever in her veins; but it was open now, and the west wind came stealing in, purifying the room from the faint sickening smell of coffins and of death, for the Destroyer had been there. And when the mourners came back from the grave in the country, one threw himself upon the lounge, and burying his face in the cushions, sobbed aloud:
“Oh, Marian, it’s terrible to be an orphan and have no mother.”
“Yes, Ben, ’tis terrible,” and Marian’s tears dropped on the hair of the honest-hearted Ben.
Up to this hour he had restrained his grief, but now that he was alone with Marian, he wept on until the sun went down and the night shadows were creeping into the room. Then lifting up his head, he said, “It is so dark—so dismal now—and the hardest of all is the givin’ up our dear old home where mother lived so long, and the thinkin’ maybe you’ll forget me when you live with that grand lady.”