A Changed Heart: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

Mr. Blake spent some two hours in his office, attending to business, and then sallied forth again. His steps were bent in the direction of Cottage Street, where he expected to find his sister. The house looked as if some one were dead within—the blinds all down, the doors all closed—and no one visible within or without. It was Midge who opened the door, in answer to his loud knock. "How are you, Midge?" inquired Mr. Blake, striding in, "and how are Mrs. and Miss Marsh?"

Midge's reply was a prolonged and dismal narrative of the sufferings of both. The elder lady was unable to leave her bed—she had fretted herself into a low, nervous fever, and was so cross, and captious, and quarrelsome, and peevish, that she made the lives of every one in the house a misery to them. She did nothing but sigh, and cry, and moan, and complain from morning till night, and from night till morning. Nothing they did pleased her.

Of Nathalie, Midge had the reverse of this story to tell—she never complained at all. No, Midge wished she would; her mute despair was far harder to bear than the weary complainings of her mother. She sat by that petulant invalid mother's side the livelong day, holding cooling drinks to her poor parched lips, bathing the hot brow and hands, and smoothing the tossed pillow; rarely speaking, save to ask or answer some question; never replying to the endless reproaches of the sick woman; never uttering one complaint or shedding one tear.

Mr. Val Blake was ushered by Midge into the darkened chamber of Mrs. Marsh, and looked at Nathalie sitting by her bedside. In spite of what he had heard, he was shocked at the change which the past week had made in her—shocked at the wasted and shadowy form, the wan, transparent hands, the hollow eyes and haggard cheeks. She was dressed in mourning, and the crape and bombazine made her look quite ghastly by contrast.

Mr. Blake's visit was not a long one. Nathalie scarcely spoke at all, and his sister was not there. Mrs. Marsh, who had been asleep when he entered, awoke presently, and poured her dreary wailings into his ear. Val consoled her as well as he could; but there was no balm in Gilead for her, and he was glad when he could with decency get out of the reach of her querulous voice. Her time, of late, seemed pretty equally divided between dozing and bewailings; and she fretted herself into another slumber shortly after.

Left alone, Nathalie Marsh sat by the window, while the dull afternoon wore away, looking out over the gloomy bay, with a darkly brooding face. Her desolation had never seemed so present to her as on this eerie evening. She had been stunned and stupefied by the rapidly-falling blows, but the after-pain was far more acute and keen than that first dull sense of suffering. "Ruined and disgraced!" they were the two ugly words on which all the changes of her thoughts rang. Ruined and disgraced! Yes, she was that; and she who had once been the belle and boast of the town could never hold up her head there any more. How those who had envied and hated her for her beauty and her prosperity, would exult over her now! What had she done that such misery should fall upon her? What had she done?

The little house in Cottage Street was very still. Mrs. Marsh yet dozed fitfully; Midge had gone out to give herself an airing, and Betsy Ann was standing in the open front door, looking drearily out at the rain, which was beginning to fall with the night. Like Mariana, she was "a-weary,"—though, not being quite so far gone in the blues as that forlorn lady, she did not wish she was dead—and was staring dismally at the slanting rain, when the rustle of a dress on the stairs made her turn round, and become transfixed with amazement at beholding Miss Marsh, in bonnet and shawl, arrayed to go out. Betsy Ann recoiled as if she had seen a ghost, for the white face of the young lady looked awfully corpse-like, in contrast with her sable wrappings.

"Good gracious me! Miss Natty!" she gasped, "you're never going out in this here rain! Ye'll get your death!"

If Nathalie heard her, she did not heed, for she walked steadily out and on through the wet evening, until she was lost to Betsy Ann's shivered view. There were very few abroad that rainy evening, and those few hurried along with bent heads and uplifted umbrellas, and saw not the black figure flitting by them in the gloom. On she steadfastly went, through the soaking rain, heeding it no more than if it were rays of sunshine; on, with one purpose in her face, with her eyes ever turned in one direction—toward the sea.

Cottage Street wound away with a path that led directly to the shore. It had been familiar to her all her life, and there was an old disused wharf at the end, where she and Charley had used to play in the sunny summer days long ago—a hundred years ago, it seemed, at the least. It was a useless old wharf, rotten, and slippery, and dangerous, to which boats were made fast, and where fishermen mended their nets. To this wharf Nathalie made her way in the thickening darkness, the piteous rain beating in her face, the sea-wind fluttering her black vail and soaking dress. Heaven knows what purpose the poor half-delirious girl had in her mind! Perhaps only to stand on the familiar spot, and listen to the familiar voices of the wind and waves dashing against the rotten logs and slimy planks of the old wharf, on which she had spent so many happy hours. No one ever knew how it was; and we must only pity her in her dumb agony of despair, and think as mercifully of the dark and distracted soul as we can. The night was dark, the wharf dangerous and slippery with the rain, and one might easily miss their footing and fall. Who can say how it was? but there was a suppressed cry—the last wail of that despairing soul—a sullen plunge, a struggle in the black and dreadful waters, another smothered cry, and then the wharf was empty, and the devouring waves had closed over the golden head of Nathalie Marsh!