“Dead! Drowned!” she exclaimed. “How did it happen? What was the reason? Dreadful, isn’t it?” and going over to where Mr. Raymond stood, she looked him in the face, with an expression she meant should say, “I am sorry for you,” but which really did say something quite the contrary.
“I cannot tell you why she went away,” Frederic answered, “but there was a reason for it, and it has cast a shadow over my whole life.”
“Marian was a mere child, I had always supposed,” suggested Isabel, anxious to get at the reason why he had so soon forgotten herself.
“Did you get my last letter—the one written to you?” asked Frederic, and upon Isabel’s replying that she did not, he briefly stated a few facts concerning his marriage, saying it was his father’s dying request, and he could not well avoid doing as he had done, even if he disliked Marian. “But I didn’t dislike her,” he continued, and the hot blood rushed into his face. “She was a gentle, generous hearted girl, and had she lived, I would have made her happy.”
If by this speech Frederic Raymond thought to deceive Isabel Huntington, he was mistaken, for, looking into his eyes she read a portion of the truth and knew there was something back of all—a something between himself and his father which had driven him to the marriage. What it was she did not care then to know. She was satisfied that the bride was gone—and when Frederic narrated more minutely the particulars of her going, the artful girl said to herself, “She is dead beyond a doubt, and when I leave Redstone Hall, I shall know it, and mother, too!”
It was strange how rapidly Isabel changed from a hard, defiant woman, to a soft, sparkling, beautiful creature, and when, in her plaid silk dress of crimson and brown, with her magnificent hair bound in heavy braids about her head, she came down to dinner, Aunt Dinah involuntarily dropped another courtesy, and whispered under her teeth, “The Lord, if she ain’t quality after all.” Old Hetty, too, who from a side door looked curiously in at their guests, received a like impression, pronouncing her more like Miss Beatrice than any body she had ever seen. To Alice, Isabel was all gentleness, for she readily saw that the child was a pet; so she called her darling and dearest, smoothing her fair hair and kissing her once when Frederic was looking on. All this, however, did not deceive the little blind girl, or erase from her mind the angry words which had been spoken to her, and that evening, when she went to Frederic to bid him good night, she climbed into his lap and said: “Is that Miss Isabel going to stay here always?”
“Why, no,” he answered. “Did you think she was?”
“I did not know,” returned Alice, “but I hoped not, for I don’t like her at all. She’s very grand and beautiful, Dinah says, but I think she must look like a snake, and I want her to go away, don’t you?”
Frederic would not say yes to this question, and he remained silent. Had he been consulted, he would rather that she had never come to Redstone Hall, but now that she was there, he did not wish her away. It would be inhospitable, he said, and when next morning she came down to breakfast, bright, fresh and elegant in her tasteful wrapper, he felt a pang, as he thought, “had I done right, she might have been the mistress of Redstone Hall,” but it could not be now, he said, even if Marian were dead, and all that day he struggled manfully between his duty and his inclination, while Isabel dealt out her highest card, ingrafting herself into the good graces of the Smitherses by speaking to them pleasant, familiar words, exalting herself in the estimation of the Higginses by her lofty, graceful bearing, and winning Dinah’s friendship by praising Victoria Eugenia, and asking if that fine looking man who drove the carriage was her husband. Then, in the evening, when the lamps were lighted in the parlor, she opened the piano and filled the house with the rich melody of her cultivated voice, singing a sad, plaintive strain, which reminded Alice of poor, lost Marian, and carried Frederic back to other days, when, with a feeling of pride, he had watched her snowy fingers as they gracefully swept the keys. He could not look at them now—he dared not look at her, in her ripe glowing beauty, and he left the room, going out upon the piazza, where he wiped great drops of sweat from his face, and almost cursed the fate which had made it a sin for him to love the dark-haired Isabel. She knew that he was gone, and rightly divining the cause, she dashed off into a stirring dancing tune, which brought the negroes to the door, where they stood admiring her playing and praising her queenly form.
“That’s somethin’ like it,” whispered Hetty, beating time to the lively strain. “That sounds like Miss Beatrice did when she done played the pianner. I ’clare for’t, I eenamost wish Marster Frederic had done chose her. ’Case you know t’other one done drowned herself the fust night,” she added quickly, as she met Dinah’s rebuking glance.