“And as you have made me happy, so may you be happy and prospered all the days of your life,” returned the father, laying his clammy hand upon the brown hair of his son. “Tell Marian that dying I blessed her with more than a father’s blessing, for she is very dear to me. And the little helpless Alice—she has money of her own, but she must still live with you and Marian. Be kind to the servants, Frederic. Don’t part with a single one—and—and—can you hear me, boy? Keep your promise as you hope for heaven hereafter.”
They were the last words the old man ever spoke—and when at last Frederic raised his head he knew by the white face lying motionless upon the pillow, that he was with the dead. The household was aroused, and crowding round the door the negroes came, their noisy outcries grating harshly on the ear of the young man, who felt unequal to the task of stopping them. But when Marian came, a few low spoken words from her quieted the tumult, and those whose services were not needed dispersed to the kitchen, where, forgetful of their recent demonstrations of grief, they speculated upon the probable result of their “old marster’s death,” and wondered if with the new one they should lead as easy a life as they had done heretofore.
The next morning the news spread rapidly, not only that Colonel Raymond was dead, but also that he had died without a will—this last piece of information being given by Lawyer Gibson, who, a little disappointed in the result of his late visit to Redstone Hall, had several times in public expressed his opinion that it was all the work of Frederic, who wanted everything himself, and feared his father would leave something to Marian Lindsey. This seemed very probable; and in the same breath, with which they deplored the loss of Colonel Raymond, the neighbors denounced his son as selfish and avaricious. Still he was now the richest man in the county, and it would not be politic to treat him with disrespect—so they came about him with words of sympathy and offers of assistance, all of which he listened to abstractedly, and when they asked for some directions as to the arrangements for the burial, he answered, “I do not know—I am not myself to-day—but go to Marian. I will abide by her decision.”
So to Marian they went; and hushing her own great grief—for she mourned for the departed as for a well loved father—Marian told them what she thought her guardian would wish that they should do. It is not customary in Kentucky to keep the dead as long as at the North, and ere the sun of the first day was low in the west a grave was made within an enclosure near the river side, where the cedar and the fir were growing, and when the sun was setting, a long procession wound slowly down the terraced walk, bearing with them one who when they returned came not with them, but was resting quietly where the light from the windows of his former home could fall upon his peaceful grave.
CHAPTER IV.
KEEPING THE PROMISE.
Four weeks had passed away since Colonel Raymond was laid to rest. The negroes, having finished their mourning at the grave and at church on the Sabbath succeeding the funeral, had gone back to their old lighthearted way of living, and outwardly there were no particular signs of grief at Redstone Hall. But two there were who suffered keenly, and suffered all the more that neither could speak to the other a word of sympathy. With Alice Marian wept bitterly, feeling that she was indeed homeless and friendless in the wide world. From Dinah she had heard the story of the Will, and remembering the events of that morning when Lawyer Gibson, as she supposed, had come to draw it, she thought it very probable. Still this did not trouble her one half so much as the studied reserve which Frederic manifested toward her. At the funeral he had offered her his arm, walking with her to the grave and back; but since that night he had kept aloof, seeing her only at the table, or when he wished to ask some question which she alone could answer.
In the first days of her sorrow she had forgotten the letter which her guardian had left for her, and when she did remember it and go to the private drawer where he said it was, she found the drawer locked.—Frederic had the key, of course, and thinking that if a wrong had indeed been done to her, he knew it, too, she waited in hopes that he would speak of it, and perhaps bring her the letter. But Frederic Raymond had sworn to keep that letter from her yet awhile, and he dared not break his vow. On the night after the burial he, too, had gone to the private drawer, and, taking the undirected missive in his hand, had felt strongly tempted to break its seal and read. But he had no right to do that, he said; all that was required of him was to keep it from Marian until such time as he was at liberty to let her read it. So, with a benumbed sensation at his heart, he locked the drawer and left the room, feeling that his own destiny was fixed, and that it was worse than useless to struggle against it. He could not write to Isabel yet, but he wrote to her mother, telling her of his father’s death, and saying he did not know how long it would be ere they saw him again at New Haven. This done, he sat down in a kind of torpor, and waited for circumstances to shape themselves.—Marian would seek for her letter, he thought, and missing the key, would come to him, and then—oh, how he hoped it would be weeks and months before she came, for when she did he knew he must tell her why it was withheld.
Meantime, Marian waited day after day vainly wishing that he would speak to her upon the subject; but he did not, and at last, four weeks after her guardian’s death, she sought the library again, but found the drawer locked as usual.
“It is unjust to treat me so,” she said. “The letter is mine, and I have a right to read it.”
Then, as she recalled the conversation which had passed between herself and Colonel Raymond on that night when he first hinted of a wrong, she wondered if he had said aught to Frederic of her. Most earnestly she hoped not—and yet she was almost certain that he had, and this was why Frederic treated her so strangely. “He hates me,” she said bitterly, “because he thinks I want him—but he needn’t, for I wouldn’t have him now, even if he knelt at my feet, and begged of me to be his wife; I’ll tell him so, too, the first chance I get,” and sinking into the large arm chair Marian laid her head upon the writing desk and wept.