The house of five gables

by Mary Johnson Holmes

“There is one thing you have not mentioned,” she said at last. “You have not told me of Dora’s husband.”

James Vale winced. “He was not her husband,” he said sadly. “He had another wife living when he married Dora, although at the time, of course, she was ignorant of it. He was an artist or pretended to be. He met Dora at a country house where she had gone to visit a school friend, and when she returned after an absence of a few weeks, he followed close after, and asked me for her hand. I did not like him. I told him I could not give my only child to a stranger. He must not ask it. Dora was but a child. He left me, apparently satisfied, but I found out, when too late, that he filled Dora’s head with chimeral stories, and finally she came to me, and laying her bright head on my shoulder said she could not live if her lover was sent away, and that she would follow him; and she reminded me of the time when her mother and I were both young; and against my better judgment I consented, but when I saw her so happy, and when she blessed me for acceding to her wishes, I could not regret what I had done, though I knew it might bring her sorrow. We would not consent to her leaving us, so they married, and Dora was like a bird singing from morning till night. They had been married little more than a year, and I was becoming reconciled to my son-in-law although he had done but little toward keeping the house. He puttered a little at his painting, with Dora hanging about him, but I never saw a completed picture of his. Many were begun but none were ever finished. One day he said he must go away on business, and he wanted to take Dora with him, but her mother would not allow her to travel, for she was in very delicate health. He went away alone and he never came back. He said he would be gone a week. The week came and passed, still he was absent. Dora began to fret, and begged me to go after him, for she knew he must be either sick or dead, but as I knew not where he had gone, I could not very well go after him. Two weeks dragged by and Dora was wild. She had confided to me that he had asked her for some money, and she had drawn nearly all of her marriage dower which was the one hundred pounds which her uncle Arthur had sent me at her birth. I had immediately placed it in bank for her, and on her marriage it had accumulated to quite a sum. When she told me what she had done I made up my mind that we would never see the scoundrel again. At last, after Dora had taken to her bed with a slow fever, there came a letter from him couched in the tenderest terms for her, but calling himself all the vile names ever heard of. ‘He was a married man, with children. Dora was not his legal wife. He had loved her so dearly that he had sinned to get her, but now he had wakened to his folly, and she must forgive and forget him. The name under which he had married her, David Griswold, was not his true name. That she would never know.’”

“Dora never rallied from that blow. She lived three years, but she took no interest in anything going on around her. Not even the advent of little Dora could break the apathy which bound her.”

“Have you ever heard from him since?” asked Victoria.

“Never,” replied the old man. “If I knew where he could be found I would go to him, and slay him as I would a dog.”

Victoria clasped the child to her bosom as if she would shield her from all harm. “That man never loved Dora,” she said, “or he could not have left her. Poor girl. What a heritage of sorrow she leaves to this little innocent. Mr. Vale, if you will let me, I will care for her as if she were indeed my own. Who has a better right than I, for am I not her kinsman? Was not my father your brother?”

James Vale did not comprehend her meaning for a moment, as she sat smiling at him. He repeated her words slowly, and then he could not believe them. “I only had one brother,” he said. Then the truth burst upon him. He clasped the hands held out to him, and carried them to his lips. “You are Victoria?” he asked.

“I am Victoria,” she answered, smiling at his evident pleasure. “Your father disowned you because you married to please yourself. My mother disowned me for the same reason. I have never seen her since then, until to-day I passed her. She recognized me. I knew her at once, although she is much changed. Uncle James, for so I may call you, I hope?” He nodded assentingly. “I am so glad to have found you, for I need advice, good sound advice. I am all alone here in England, except for an imbecile invalid husband, and I must have help in my trouble. What I have to tell must be held sacred by you. It is a terrible secret, and the keeping of it has well nigh killed me.”

James Vale pressed Victoria’s hand in sympathy. “Rest assured my dear niece that whatever you choose to impart to me concerning you and yours will be held strictly inviolate.”

“I knew it,” she replied. “Your noble face inspired me with confidence ere I knew that you were of my blood.”